Preparation
Do the following prior to the next class meeting (in the recommended order).
No reading this weekend! Consider engaging with this audio and video while taking a walk or working out.
Maurice A. Finocchiaro on Galileo’s Legacy
[Below are excerpts from pages 1-5 of Maurice A. Finocchiaro’s book On Trial for Reason; Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo affair. The headings and emphasized phrases are mine.]
Galileo was right about both the Earth’s motion and biblical interpretation
In 1633, at the conclusion of one of history’s most famous trials, the Roman Inquisition found Galileo Galilei guilty of “vehement suspicion of heresy” … [Galileo] had committed this alleged crime by defending the idea that the Earth is a planet rotating daily around its own axis and revolving yearly around the Sun…. The problem stemmed chiefly from the fact that Galileo was implicitly denying the Catholic Church’s beliefs that the Earth’s motion contradicted Scripture and Scripture was a scientific authority. [Ironically, the Catholic Church eventually] came to recognize that Galileo was right not only about the Earth’s motion, but also about the limited authority of Scripture.
This recognition came in 1893 when Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical entitled Providentissismus Deus [The Most Provident God], propounding the Galilean principle that Scripture is not a scientific authority, but only one on questions of faith and morals. Moreover, another acknowledgement came in the period 1979-92, when Pope Saint John Paul II undertook a highly publicized and highly controversial “rehabilitation” of Galileo. John Paul made it clear and explicit that Galileo had been theologically right about biblical hermeneutics, as against his ecclesiastical opponents; moreover, the pope credited Galileo with having preached, practiced, and embodied the very important principle that religion and science are really in harmony, and not incompatible.
In short, the world’s oldest religious institution, which continues to be one of the world’s great religions, has found ways and reasons to try to appropriate Galileo’s legacy with regard to two basic principles, involving the limited authority of Scripture and the harmonious relationship between science and religion.
Finocchiaro, On Trial for Reason
Galileo – the Father of Modern Science – made contributions to physics, astronomy, and scientific method
Galileo was one of the founders of modern science, [which] emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thanks to the discoveries, inventions, ideas and activities of a group of people like Galileo that also included Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Christiaan Huygens, and Isaac Newton. Frequently, Galileo is singled out and called the Father of Modern Science.
Galileo’s most important contributions involved physics, astronomy, and scientific method.
In physics, Galileo pioneered the experimental investigation of motion. … He also discovered the laws of falling bodies, including free fall, descent ion inclined planes, pendulums, and projectiles.
In astronomy, Galileo introduced the telescope as an instrument for systematic observation. He made a number of crucial observational discoveries, such as mountains of the Moon, satellites of Jupiter, phases of Venus, and sunspots. And he understood the cosmological significance of these observational facts and gave essentially correct interpretations of many of them … that the Earth moves, daily around its own axis and yearly around the Sun.
With regard to scientific method, Galileo pioneered several important practices. For example, he was a leader in the use of artificial instruments (like the telescope) to learn new facts about the world…. Moreover, he pioneered the active intervention into and exploratory manipulation of physical phenomena in order to gain access to aspects of nature that are not detectable without such experimentation; this is the essence of the experimental method, as distinct from a merely observational approach.
Finocchiaro, On Trial for Reason
Galileo was an accidental philosopher of the nature of truth
Galileo’s contributions to scientific knowledge were so radical that he constantly had to discuss with his opponents (scientific as well as ecclesiastic) not only what were the observational facts and what was their best theoretical interpretation, but also what were the proper rules for establishing the facts and for interpreting them.
With scientific opponents he had to discuss questions such as whether artificial instruments like the telescope have a legitimate role in learning new truths about reality; whether scientific authorities, such as Aristotle (384-322 BC), should be relied on to the exclusion of one’s own independent judgement; whether mathematics has an important, and perhaps essential, role to play in the study of natural phenomena, and so on.
With ecclesiastical opponents, Galieo had to discuss whether Scripture should be treated as a source of scientific information about physical reality; whether scientific theories that contradict the literal meaning of Scripture should be summarily rejected or treated as hypotheses, whether hypotheses are potentially true descriptions of reality or merely convenient instruments of calculation and prediction, and so on.
[All this to say that] historical circumstances and his personal inclinations made Galileo into a kind of philosopher of the principles and procedures that are useful in the acquisition of knowledge, which, for academic philosophers of today, is a branch of epistemology known as methodology. In the eloquent words of Owen Gingerich, for Galileo “what was at issue was both the truth of nature and the nature of truth.”
Finocchiaro, On Trial for Reason
The Cultural Legacy of Galileo
One does not have to look far to find examples of the cultural legacy of Galileo.
King of Night Vision
The lyrics of a well-known song by the Indigo Girls call on the resting soul of Galileo // King of night vision // King of insight.
A scene from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are childhood friends of Hamlet.
Galileo on Stage and Screen
Few scientists have the opportunity to look at the universe at both large and small scales, nor to do work that strong affects society and religion. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the world has turned its lenses on Galileo and his science by examining him in works for theatre, film, video and television. (Perkowitz, 2011)
Perkowitz 2011
Further Reading
Finocchiaro, M. A. (2019). On Trial For Reason: Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo Affair. Oxford University Press. [SWEM] [Amazon]
Perkowitz, S. (2011). Galileo Through a Lens: Views of His Life and Work on Stage and Screen. In The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena VI (Vol. 441, p. 85).
Just for fun
`Life in a Box’ scene from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
The Indigo Girls sing Galileo live at the Fillmore
APSC 453 Science & Authority 