GALILEO AND THE ART OF REASONING BOSTON STUDIES IN THE OF

EDITED BY ROBERT S. COHEN AND MARX W. WARTOFSKY

VOLUME 61 MAURICE A. FINOCCHIARO Dept. of Philosophy, University ofNevada, Las Vegas, U.S.A.

GALILEO AND THE ART OF REASONING

Rhetorical Foundations of and

D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY

DORDRECHT: HOLLAND I BOSTON: U.S.A. LONDON: ENGLAND Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Finocchiaro, Maurice A. 1942- Galileo and the art of reasoning.

(Boston studies in the ; v. 61) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Galilei, Galileo, 1564-1642-Logic. 2. Logic, Modern• . 3. Reasoning. 4. Science-Methodology-History. 5. Galilei, Galileo, 1564-1642. Dialogo ... dove ... si discorre sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo. 6. Solar system-Early works to 1800. 7. Astronomy-Early works to 1800. I. Title. II. Series. B785.G24F56 160 80-15232 ISBN-I3: 978-90-277-1095-6 e-ISBN-I3: 978-94-009-9017-3 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-9017-3

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All Rights Reserved Copyright © 1980 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1980 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITORIAL PREFACE vii

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

INTRODUCTION / Galileo's Dialogue and Western Culture xv

PART I: GALILEO'S DIALOGUE

l. Faith Versus Reason: The Rhetorical Form and Content of Galileo's Dialogue 3 2. and Reasoning: The Logical Structure of Galileo's 27 3. Emotion, Aesthetics, and : The Rhetorical Force of Galileo's Argument 46 4. and Method: The Scientific Content of Galileo'sDialogue 67 5. Theory and Practice: The Methodological Content of Galileo's Science 103

PART II: LOGICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL CRITIQUES

6. Concreteness and Judgment: The Dialectical of Galileo's Methodology 145 7. The Primacy of Reasoning: The Logical Character of Galileo's Methodology 167 8. The Rationality of Science and the Science of Rationality: Critique of Subjectivism 180 9. The and the Science of History: Critique of Apriorism 202 10. The Erudition of Logic and the Logic of Erudition: Critique of Galileo Scholarship 224 11. The Psychology of Logic and the Logic of Psychology: Critique of the Psychology of Reasoning 256 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

12. The of Logic and the Logic of Rhetoric: Critique of the New Rhetoric 273 13. The Logic of Science and the Science of Logic: Toward a Science of Reasoning 293

PART III: THEORY OF REASONING 14. Propositional Structure: The Understanding of Reasoning 311 15. Active Involvement: The Evaluation of Reasoning 332 16. Galileo as a Logician: A Model and a Data Basis 343 17. Criticism, Complexity, and Invalidities: Theoretical Considera- tions 413

CONCLUDING REMARKS / Toward a Galilean Theory of Ration- ality 432

APPENDIX / Page Concordance of Dialogue Editions 440

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 454

INDEX 464 EDITORIAL PREFACE

The work of Galileo has long been important not only as a foundation of modern physics but also as a model - and perhaps the paradigmatic model - of scientific method, and therefore as a leading example of scientific rationality. However, as we know, the matter is not so simple. The range of Galileo readings is so varied that one may be led to the conclusion that it is a case of chacun a son Galileo; that here, as with the Bible, or or Kant or Freud or Finnegan's Wake, the texts themselves underdetermine just what moral is to be pointed. But if there is no canonical reading, how can the texts be taken as evidence or example of a canonical view of scientific rationality, as in Galileo? Or is it the case, instead, that we decide a priori what the norms of rationality are and then pick through texts to fmd those which satisfy these norms? Specifically, how and on what grounds are we to accept or reject scientific theories, or scientific reasoning? If we are to do this on the basis of historical analysis of how, in fact, theories came to be accepted or rejected, how shall we distinguish 'is' from 'ought'? What follows (if anything does) from such analysis or reconstruction about how theories ought to be accepted or rejected? Maurice Finocchiaro's study of Galileo brings an important and original approach to the question of scientific rationality by way of a systematic read• ing and reconstruction of Galileo's project and of the modes of his reasoning. In effect, Finocchiaro suggests that the standard picture of the scientific revo• lution may be fundamentally mistaken. Where, on older views, the was seen as a radical in method as well as in content, and even as marginal to the dominant cultural themes of the Renaissance - largely literary, political, aesthetic, rhetorical - Finocchiaro proposes that the scientific revolution, in one of its major figures, was characterized fundamen• tally by the same emphases on dialectic and rhetoric which marked the dominant themes of Renaissance humanism. Thus, the scientific revolution was as much a matter of persuasion as of discovery, its success as science crucially a matter of the triumphs of practical reasoning and persuasion in other modes beyond the usually acknowledged one of mathematical rational• ity in terms of proofs and demonstrations. If this is correct, not mathematical rationality alone but scientific judgment, the instruments of persuasion and vii viii EDITORIAL PREFACE of practical argument, the alogical components of , played a major role in the novel mode of scientific reasoning. Finocchiaro argues that "rhetoric is sometimes crucial in science; and hence rhetoric has an important role to play in scientific rationality and the rhetorical aspects of science should not be neglected". His argument is based on a detailed and careful examination of the text of the Dialogues .... What Finocchiaro argues will, we are sure, become a basic proposal for enlargement and revision in the canonical program of logical reconstruction which has so strongly marked and nearly dominated modern philosophy of science. He offers an alternative rational reconstruction of ·Galileo's scientific thought. Logic is also included, of course, but in a wider sense: "I am advocating", he writes, "a practice oriented logic or theory of reasoning, and thus it is logical principles that are to be tested by and derived from appropriately selected actual reasoning and not the other way around" (291, fn. 8). And so "a general logic seems possible, if we concentrate on the critical understanding of actual reasoning, which concentration carries along with it an empirical, historical, concrete or contextual, practical and critical appreciation" (305). In this book, Finocchiaro not only offers us a sustained analysis of the Dialogues in terms of the structure of the work, Galileo's reasoning, his uses of rhetoric. Beyond this, which is the heart of his work, he develops a critical and appreciative discussion in depth of the principal Galileo studies: those of Koyre, Feyerabend, Drake, Clave lin , Kuhn, Shapere. Further, Finocchiaro gives us a series of sustained studies of topics in the 'science of rhetoric' as an initial sketch of a theory or reasoning which enlarges scientific rationality beyond the limits of formal or deductive reason. We may say that Finocchiaro rounds out the traditional approaches to the 'logical syntax' and semantics of scientific discourse with a serious construction of the (long neglected) pragmatics of this discourse as an instrument of argument and persuasion. In a sense, his work is an interesting and promising supplement to the syntactic and semantic reconstruction of the classic achievement. Nor has Finocchiaro merely appended 'externalist' factors to the 'internalist' logical ; rather, for him the normative is embodied within the actual and practical reasoning of science, internal to what we could call 'scientific culture'. Understanding scientific reasoning must include, then, practical scientific judgment as part of the 'science of rhetoric,' not just the rhetoric of science.

Center for the Philosophy and History ofScience ROBERT S. COHEN Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKY May 1980 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The investigations in this book are interdisciplinary in the sense that different parts are likely to appeal primarily to individuals in different fields. A layman will fmd in the Introduction reasons why he ought to be interested in 's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, and in Chapters 1-5 discussions of the aspects of the book most relevant to him. These chapters are also addressed to scientists, who of course will fmd greater mean• ing therein. Rhetorical scholars will fmd Chapters 1-3,8-9, and 12-17 of some interest; cognitive psychologists may appreciate Chapters 11 and 16, linguists Chapters 13 and 16. Religious historians will fmd here the most exhaustive study ever published of the book that caused "the greatest scandal in Christendom" , Chapters 1-5, 6 and 16 being of greatest relevance to them. These Chapters may also interest cultural historians. Logicians will appreciate Chapters 11-17 the most, while philosophers of science can read Chapters 8-9 first and then Chapters 4-7. For historians of science the critique of Koyre in Chapter 9, and of Strauss, Favaro, Drake, and Clavelin in Chapter 10 can serve as the introduction to Chapters 1-5 and 16. Accordingly this fact multiplies the number of potential misunderstandings and objections on the part of readers, but this is a risk well worth taking, not only because of the interdisciplinary nature of Galileo's own work, but also because I agree with that a perfect division of labor in scholar• ship and scientific would soon stop progress. I was also encouraged to pursue these interdisciplinary investigations by the success achieved by my earlier History of Science as Explanation (l973), which also deals with prob• lems at the interface of science, philosophy, and history. If the modesty of that success is due to the specialism of that subject matter (the historiography of SCience), then one may hope that the universal appeal of the present one (Galileo's Dialogue and the art of reasoning) will lead to a success commen• surate with it. Be that as it may, it will be a useful guide to the reader to elaborate several themes with respect to which these may be read. From a general cultural point of view, this work constitutes a study of a book that may be listed among the classics and of a number of human activ• ities of general interest and relevance, namely the arts of logical reasoning, rhetorical persuasion, philosophical reflection, and scientific investigation. ix x PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

These four arts are discussed both in their relation to one another, and in their relation to Galileo'sDialogue. From this point of view, the Introduction is a discussion of the general cultural relevance of Galileo's book, by reference to which all succeeding chapters concretely study those four activities. Chapter 8 is a general introduction to the four activities, by means of a dis• cussion of the role of reasoning, of rhetoric, and of methodological reflection in science. Chapter 9 distinguishes reasoning from one of the things with which it is often confused, namely a priori . Chapter 1 is a discus• sion of the difference between reasoning and relying on religious authority, and of the problems engendered by this difference in the practice of rhetorical persuasion. Chapter 2 discusses the role of the logical structure of reasoning and of the presentation of sci~ntific evidence in the art of rhetorical persua• sion. Chapter 3 studies the role of artistic expression and of emotions in reasoning and in persuasion. Chapter 4 relates several different conceptions of science to the Dialogue. Chapter 5 discusses the interplay between scientific practice and methodological reflection. Chapter 6 examines some similarities and some differences between methodology and philosophy. Chapter 7 studies the connections between methodology and logic by interpreting re• flections on and method in general as aspects of reflection upon reasoning. Chapter 10 illustrates some problems that the science of reasoning encounters when it studies the historical material in which human reasoning leaves a record. Chapters 11-13 discuss various ways of studying reasoning, namely the science of formal logic, psychology, linguistics, inductive logic, and rhetoric, as well as the informal involvement in reasoning. Chapter 14 elaborates a number of principles useful for the understanding of reasoning, the central idea being that reasoning involves the inter-relating of ideas in accordance with a defmite structure. Chapter 15 discusses the problem of determining how good or bad reasoning is, and it suggests that practical in• volvement in and development of the reasoning under consideration is needed. Chapter 16 is a detailed analysis of many instructive found in the Dialogue. Chapter 17 discusses the importance in reasoning of criticism, evaluation, interlocking steps, and several varieties of invalidities. From the point of view of rhetorical scholarship, these investigations con• stitute an attempt to develop concretely a rhetoric of science and a science of rhetoric. Our example of science consists of Galileo's Dialogue, and the concreteness derives from the fact that all discussions refer to it. The rhetoric of science refers to the rhetorical dimension of science, and the science of rhetoric refers to the systematic study of rhetorical activities. Chapter 1 then deals both with the rhetorical dimension of the Dialogue, in the sense of PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi rhetoric that refers to external appearance and pretended effects of verbal discourse, and also with another important distinction for rhetorical science, namely the difference between relying on authority and engaging in rational argument. Chapter 2 deals with the book's rhetoric, in the sense of the term that refers to argumentation, and also with the importance of the of argument structure in a science of rhetoric. Chapter 3 studies directly the book's rhetoric, in the sense of the term that refers to emotional appeals and beautiful-sounding expressions, and indirectly the role of these in rhetorical science. Chapters 4-7 deal directly with various aspects of the scientific methodology of Galileo's book and indirectly lay the foundations for determining what it would be for rhetorical phenomena to be studied scientifically. Chapter 8 discusses in a general way the role of rhetoric in scientific rationality. Chapter 9 is both a concrete analysis of one rhetorical aspect of Galileo's book, in the general sense of rhetoric that refers to argu• mentative techniques, and also a concrete analysis of an important feature of one of the most fundamental concepts in the science of rhetoric, namely reasoning and how it differs from rationalism. Chapters 10-17 develop a number of fundamental topics in the science of rhetoric. Chapter 10 is a critique of a number of scholars, suggesting that the historical record of reasoning cannot be left entirely in the hands of mere historians. Chapters 11-13 examine the nature of and inter-relationships among the rhetorical and the psychological, logical, linguistic, and informal study of reasoning. Chapter 14 is a formulation and illustration of a number of basic principles for the understanding of reasoning. Chapter 15 is a critique of the fallacy approach to the evaluation of reasoning and suggests an alternative practical• oriented approach. Chapter 16 is a detailed analysis of the logical and the rhetorical features of about half of all the arguments in Galileo's book. Chap• ter 17 draws a number of theoretical conclusions from the data of the pre• vious chapter. From the point of view of philosophy, these investigations constitute concrete studies in the logic of science and the science of logic. Here the logic of science may be taken to refer to a distinctive approach to the philosophy of science, which emphasizes reasoning as opposed to other concepts such as knowledge, explanation, theory, and progress; while the science oflogic refers to the scientific study of reasoning. The mutual inter-dependence of the two is obvious: in order to study the nature of science from the point of view of reasoning, the logic of science must sooner or later give an adequate articula• tion of the concept and activity of reasoning; and in order to study reasoning scientifically, the science of logic must use or develop an adequate view of xii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS what science is and of what it is to be scientific. Chapter 8 argues that a change of emphasis from (e.g., theory and ) to logic (reasoning) is the most fruitful move for contemporary philosophy of science; the argument is grounded on an elaboration and correction of Paul Feyera• bend's main doctrines. Chapter 9 shows that the study of actual scientific reasoning has not been neglected by the best historians of science (e.g., Koyre), but that important corrections need to be made if their work is to become useful and acceptable. Chapters 1-7 develop a concrete logic of science, around the case study of Galileo's Dialogue. Chapter 1 argues that this book is a complex multi-dimensional argument in support of Copernican• ism. Chapter 2 elaborates one aspect of this argument, namely the one relating to the presentation of the available evidence and the organization of one's claims by means of an inferential structure. Chapter 3 discusses the emotive and aesthetic aspects of Galileo's argument. Chapters 4-7 discuss its methodological aspect: first its content for present-day scientists (Chapter 4), then the methodology inherent in this scientific content (Chapter 5), then the philosophical significance of this methodology (Chapter 6), and fmally the logical significance of this methodology, that is, its significance for the clarifi• cation of the concept of reasoning (Chapter 7). Chapters 10-17 are a series of studies in the science of logic. Chapter 10 argues that the historical ap• proach needed in the science of reasoning requires better scholarship than that found even among the best historians. Chapter 11 explores the value and the limitations of formal logic and of experimentation in the study of reason• ing; this is done by a detailed discussion of recent work in the psychology of reasoning. Chapter 12 discusses the importance of logical analysis in relation to rhetorical analysis, and it clarifies the concept of question-begging; this is done by a critical elaboration of Perelman's 'new rhetoric' and by using Galileo's tower argument as an example. Chapter 13 brings into focus the problem of a theory of scientific reasoning and of a of reasoning by discussing certain problems at the foundations of inductive logic; by discussing some methodological questions in the linguistics of rea• soning and elaborating certain suggestions made by Y. Bar-Hillel; by exploring the possibility of a 'practical' approach to the study of reasoning and elab• orating certain suggestions by Michael Scriven; and by a critical analysis of 's views on logic. Chapter 14 formulates and illustrates a number of basic principles for understanding the structure of reasoning, in accordance with our approach to logic. Chapter 15 makes a specific sugges• tion for the study of the other main dimension of reasoning, namely its worth or goodness, in accordance with the same approach. Chapter 16 constructs a PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii data basis by giving detailed reconstructions, analyses, and evaluations of sixteen complex arguments (consisting of more than 200 simple arguments) in Galileo's book. Chapter 17 draws a number of theoretical conclusions from this data basis, suggesting that the two main types of arguments are critical and constructive; that several different types of invalidities can be defmed; and that reasoning normally consists of complex rather than of simple arguments. From the point of view of historical scholarship and erudition, these in• vestigations constitute a commentary to a crucially important work. Each chapter may then be viewed as studying a particular aspect of Galileo's book: the Introduction may be viewed as a discussion of the general cultural signifi• cance and impact of the Dialogue; Chapter 1 as an analysis of the book's religious and theological rhetoric; Chapter 2 as an elaboration of the book's logical structure; Chapter 3 as an analysis of its emotive, aesthetic, and liter• ary content; Chapter 4 as an examination of its content relevant to scientists; Chapter 5 as a study of its methodological, epistemological, and philosophical content; Chapter 6 as a discussion of its significance for philosophers; Chapter 7 as an examination of its logical content and significance, in the sense of the theory and practice of reasoning in general; Chapter 8 as a discussion of how the book is a fruitful example of scientific rationality; Chapters 9-10 as a critique of certain aspects of the book's historiography; Chapters 11-13 as an argument for its relevance to formal logicians and other students of rea• soning, such as linguists, psychologists, rhetorical scholars, inductive logicians, and scholars who stress informal logic; Chapter 14 as a discussion of the book's value for the illustration of a number of basic principles for the under• standing of reasoning; Chapter 15 as a suggestion of its value for the illustra• tion and formulation of principles for the evaluation of reasoning; Chapter 16 as a detailed analysis of about half of all the arguments in the book; Chapter 17 as a number of theoretical conclusions that can be drawn from the previous chapter's study of the book's logical content. The Appendix is an analysis of the pagination in several important editions of the book. Finally, from the editorial-literary point of view, these investigations group themselves into three somewhat autonomous parts, each of which may per• haps be appreciated independently of the others. The frrst part consists of Chapters 1-5 and deals with various aspects of Galileo's Dialogue, the second consists of Chapters 6-13 and deals with logical and methodological critiques of various scholars, the third consists of Chapters 14-17 and is a sketch of various aspects of the theory of reasoning. My investigations received the support, encouragement, comments, or xiv PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS constructive criticism of a number of people and institutions, to whom I should like to express my gratitude: the National Science Foundation for a research grant (SOC76-10220), and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas for a sabbatical leave, in the academic year 1976-77, during which most of this book was written; and Joseph Agassi (Boston, Bielefeld, and Tel-Aviv), Harold I. Brown (Northern Illinois), Stillman Drake (Toronto), Paul Feyera• bend (Berkeley), Mary Hesse (Cambridge), P. N. Johnson-Laird (Sussex), Henry W. Johnstone, Jr. (pennsylvania State), (Pittsburgh), Marvin Loflin (Alaska), Arthur Millman (Colorado), Michael Scriven (San Francisco), William A. Wallace (Catholic University), Craig Walton (Nevada, Las Vegas), and Robert S. Westman (UCLA). As for claiming responsibility for my own errors, I shall refrain from being redundant and insulting the reader's intelligence by· paying lip service to the ritualism that authors usually engage in on such occasions; instead I shall refer him to what Michael Dummett says on the matter in Frege: Philosophy of Language. The book was conceived and written as a single sustained argument, but publication delays made it inevitable for various parts to find their way separately into journals and conference proceedings. Thus acknowledgments are hereby made to the editors and publishers of the journals and books where those parts first appeared, as follows: the nucleus of Chapter 2, in Logique et Analyse 22 (1979), 159-80; parts of Chapter 4, in Journal of College Science Teaching, Sept. 1980; the bulk of Chapter 5, in Scientia 112 (1977), 95-118, and 371-85; the third section of Chapter 6, in PSA 1976, Vol. 1 ,edited by F. Suppe and P. D. Asquith (East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, 1976), pp. 130-39; substantial parts of Chapter 8, in PSA 1978, Vol. 1, edited by P. D. Asquith and I. Hacking (East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, 1978), pp. 235-46; the core of Chapter 9, in Physis 19 (1977), 5-27; the first three sections of Chapter 10, in Synthese 40 (1979); the nucleus of Chapter 11, in Philosophy of the Social 9 (1979), 277-91; the last three parts of Chapter 12, in Physis 16 (1974), 129~48; the first section of Chapter 15, in American Philosophical Quarterly, Library of Philosophy volume on Studies in Epistemology. Acknowledgments are also due to the publishers for permission to quote from the following books: G. Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967; R. P. Feynman et al., The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 1, Reading, Mass.: Addison• Wesley Publishing Company, © 1963, California Institute of ; B. Croce, History: Its Theory and Practice, 1920; New York: Russell and Russell, 1960; and A. Koyre, Etudes Galileennes, Paris: Hermann, 1966. INTRODUCTION

GALlLEO'S DIALOGUE AND WESTERN CULTURE

Certain individuals and certain books perform a unique role in human civiliza• tion. In world history in general, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus may be regarded as four paradigmatic individuals of incomparable significance, as has argued.' Restricting ourselves to Western history and to liter• ary culture, the works of such men as Plato, Augustine, Galileo, and Marx emerge as having unique significance and value. This is especially true for certain particular books of theirs, which have become classics. Thus one does not have to be a professional philosopher to be able to enjoy, and profit from Plato's Socratic dialogues; one does not have to be a Christian in order to ap• preciate Augustine's Confessions; one does not have to be a scientist in order to understand Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems; nor does one need to be a communist in order to value Marx's Capital. We may say that the universal relevance of such books derives partly from their self-contained readibility, and partly from historical circumstances; paradoxi• cally, it also derives partly from their individuality, that is, from the fact that each one of these books plays a unique role in a specific, but fundamental and primary human endeavor: morality and education, religion, science, and social theory and practice, respectively. Moreover, it is interesting to reflect on the pattern of their influence. From the chronological point of view Socrates' influence is of course the most firmly established since it has been operative the longest - twenty four centuries; Augustine's influence makes up in intensity what it lacks in age, insofar as his effect on Christianity has been deeper than Socrates' effect on any comparable group, culture, or tradi• tion; Galileo's makes up in universality what it lacks in age vis-it-vis Socrates and what it lacks in intensity vis-it-vis Augustine, insofar as Galileo may be regarded as the father of modern science and insofar as modern science has become the most widespread cultural force that the world has ever known and the only one to have penetrated all other subcultures of the earth; finally, though Marx's influence is barely a century old, though Marxism has not (yet) prevailed the world over, and though in countries where Marxism has prevailed its influence has not generally reached the depths of the human soul, neverthe• less the success and diffusion of Marxism has been the most spectacular, so that Marx's influence has made up in rapidity what it lacks in other respects. xv xvi INTRODUCTION

Next, restricting our attention to Galileo, I want to argue that, though his specialty is science, from a more general point of view his work can be taken as exemplary for the fundamental human desire of the search for truth. Generalizing in the same manner, Socrates would be a model in the search for the good and the right; Augustine in the search of the holy and the super• natural; Marx in the search for the practica1.2 The paradigmatic value of Galileo's work among scientists is, of course, well known and will be elaborated later. What needs discussion now is the attitude of other groups, for example, laymen and professional thinkers. Regarding Galileo's influence on laymen, here the effect probably works by means of the image of Galileo being persecuted and tried by the Catholic Church. The image was portrayed with classic incisiveness by John Milton, when in his Areopagitica he recalls his visit to Florence by saying, "There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition for thinking in Astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers of thought". 3 To be sure, in 1968 Pope Paul VI announced a revision of Galileo's 1633 trial by the Inquisition. This is a very interesting cultural-historical fact not only because it reflects a liberalizing trend within the contemporary Catholic Church, but also because of the fact that such an announcement strikes us generally as telling, or promising to tell, more about the Church than about Galileo. This reaction - typical of layman, scholar, and scientist alike - in turn is an indication that Western culture has come a long way in the last three and one-half centuries. We may agree, as Ortega y Gasset aptly expressed it, that the trial origi• nated "more in the small intrigues of private groups than in any dogmatic reservations of the Church".4 Nevertheless, the historical Significance of an event depends on the magnitude of its effects, rather than of its causes, and this is why the whole Galileo affair came to be perceived as "the greatest scandal in Christendom". Since the occasion for the trial was Galileo's publication of his Dialogue in 1632, this book would seem to deserve both inspirational reading for the truth-seekers, and careful scholarly study. The former it certainly has re• ceived, but it is one of the greatest scandals of modern scholarship that no exhaustive, systematic study of the book in all of its aspects and implications has ever been made. This is not meant to deny the existence of countless partial studies, which are very informative, insightful, and helpful: the Galileo literature is so immense, and the Dialogue and the trial so crucial in Galileo's life, that it could hardly be otherwise. Nevertheless, it is equally undeniable GALILEO'S DIALOGUE AND WESTERN CULTURE xvii that there is no study of Galileo's book in all of its aspects, scientific, meth• odological, philosophical, logical, rhetorical, theological, religious, literary. Such a study is undertaken below. Before doing so, let us look at some general cultural influences on people other than scientists and laymen. 's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a classic discussion of arguments about the existence and nature of God. The first arguments it discusses are arguments based on experience: for example, that the universe must have an intelligent Maker because the universe is like a machine and we know that machines are made by human beings who have intelligence; or the universe is an ordered arrangement, and all ordered arrangements can be observed to derive from human intelligence, and therefore the universe must have an intelligent cause. Here then the problem arises of whether it is at all possible to prove the existence or attributes of God with arguments based on experience, since in order to check such reasoning we would have to have experience of the origin of universes. To help solve this problem Hume asks whether to prove by experience the origin of the universe is any different from proving the earth's motion by experience. He answers that there is a difference because we do have observational knowledge of the motion of other 'earths', namely the moon and planets, and these bodies are similar to the earth. In making this last point Hume adds a discussion about the struc• ture of Galileo's argument in the Dialogue, namely that he first tries to estab• lish an analogy between the earth and the heavenly bodies in his attempt to prove the earth's motion.s I am not saying either that Hume's reference to Galileo is absolutely ac• curate, nor that the mere reference to Galileo completely proves his own critique of the possibility of proving the existence of God by experience. It suffices that Hume's reference to Galileo is there, that it is correct to some extent, and that the reference strengthens Hume's case. This in turn shows how Hume used Galileo as a model on one important occasion. A second example is . In the Preface to the Second Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason he gives a sketch of the main achievement in his book. He claims to have brought about a revolution in the field of meta• physics "in accordance with the example set by geometers and physicists". 6 No geometers are named, but concerning the latter he expresses himself with words that are so explicit and eloquent as to deserve extended quotation: When Galileo caused balls, the weights of which he had himself previously determined, to roll down an inclined plane; when Torricelli ... ; when Stahl ... a light broke upon all students of nature. They learned that reason has insight only into that which it xviii INTRODUCTION produces after a plan of its own, and that it must not allow itself to be kept, as it were, in nature's leading-strings, but must itself show the way with principles of judgment based upon fixed laws, constraining nature to give answers to questions ofreason's own determining. . .. Their success should incline us, at least by way of experiment, to imi- tate their procedure, so far as the analogy ...... to may permit. Hitherto it has been assumed that all knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of concepts, have on this assumption ended in failure. We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge.7 As in the case of Hume, Kant's reference to Galileo need be neither com• pletely accurate nor completely decisive in order to have its intended effect.s Third, in Man and Crisis Jose Ortega y Gasset pays to Galileo a double homage, so to speak. First, since Ortega's subject matter is cultural history, he takes Galileo as the example of a thinker of the modern age, thus giving his own book a Galilean dimension in a substantive sense. Second, Ortega feels that his approach in his historical investigation must be patterned after Galileo's, thus making his own book Galilean in a methodological sense. Ortega's statement of his rust point can hardly be excelled:

The greatest crisis through which the European destiny has ever passed ends with Galileo and Descartes - a crisis which began at the end of the fourteenth century and did not taper off until the early years of the seventeenth century. The figure of Galileo appears at the end of this crisis like a peak between two ages, like "a divide that parts the water. With him modern man enters into the modern age. It is therefore a matter of supreme interest for us to take this crisis and this entrance into a new period under very close consideration. Every act of entering into any place, every coming out from any corner has about it a bit of the dramatic; at times it has a great deal - hence the rites of the doorway and the lintel. The Romans believed in spe• cial gods who presided at that condensation of enigmatic destiny which is the act of going out or of coming in. The god of going out they called Abeona; the god of coming in, Adeona. If, in place of a pagan god, we speak in Christian terms of a patron saint, nothing would seem more justifiable than to make of Galileo both the Abeona, patron saint of our departure from modernity, and the Adeona, patron saint of our emergence into a future still palpitant with mystery.9 After an analysis of Galileo's principle of inertia,10 Ortega applies his con• ception of Galileo's method to his own , which he calls history, the science of human lives:

Every science which is concerned with reality, whether of the body or of the spirit, must be not merely a mirror of the , but a genuine construction. Because the science of physics in the time of Galileo was thus developed, it has endured as a model science and a norm of knowledge for the whole of the modern age. GALlLEO'S DIALOGUE AND WESTERN CULTURE xix

History must adopt a similar decision and prepare itself to . It goes without saying that this comparison between physics as it is and history as it is and as it ought to be is only valid, for the moment, at this single point - the element of construction as such. The other characteristics of physics are not such as to be desirable for history. Take exactitude, for example ... 11

Then by using Galileo's method in the subject matter of human lives Ortega arrives at two principles which he takes to be the historical analogues of the concept of inertia: "first that every man's life starts with certain basic convic• tions about what the world is and what man's place in it is - it starts from there and moves within them; second, every life finds itself in surroundings which include more or less technical skill or control over the material environ• ment".12 For Ortega, this means that life both has a structure and is a drama: "human life always has a structure - that is to say, it consists in man's having to cope with a predetermined world of which we can sketch the profile. The world presents certain problems which, relatively speaking, are solved, and raises others, thus giving a definite aspect to man's struggle for his own fate"Y Moreover, "life is not solely man, that is to say, the subject which lives. It is also the drama which arises when that subject finds himself obliged to fling his arms about, to swim shipwrecked in that sea which is the world" .14 Then Ortega goes on to apply these ideas to the details of Western cultural history. As before, one need not agree with Ortega's reading of Galileo, though the interpretation is not implausible; still less need one accept his view of "man and crisis". Nevertheless,Man and Crisis is perhaps the best example of the kind of influence and relevance that I am here trying to articulate.

NOTES

1 The Great Philosophers, Vol. I. 2 Benedetto Croce's elaboration of the universal category of the 'useful' may be taken as such a generalization of Marx's work. C[. Croce's Historical Materialism and the of Karl Marx and his Philosophy of the Practical, Antoni's Commento a Croce, and my review of Gentile's Filosofia di Marx. 3 Quoted in S. Drake, 'Galileo in English Literature of the Seventeenth Century', p. 423. 4 J. Ortega y Gasset, Man and Crisis,.p. 9. 5 D. Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, pp. 141-152, especially pp. 150- 152. 6 I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, p. 25 (Bxxii). 7 Ibid., pp. 20-22 (Bxii-Bxvi). 8 Kant complicates his discussion by referring to Copernicus and the Copernican revolu• tion of changing the point of view from attributing motion to the heavenly bodies to attributing it to the spectator. This presents no problem for my argument not only xx INTRODUCTION because I need not claim exclusive reference to Galileo in this context, but also for the following reason. Kant uses the reference to Copernicus in two ways, first in order to elucidate the content of his own metaphysical revolution, insofar as the change from knowledge conforming to objects, to objects conforming to our knowledge, is analogous to the change from motion subsisting in heavenly bodies to motion subsisting in the observer; hence this Copernican reference does not play the role of a methodological justification in Kant's discussion. Kant recognizes that Copernicus' achievement was to have "dared, in a manner contradictory of the senses, but yet true, to seek the observed movements not in the heavenly bodies, but in the spectator". (Ibid., p. 25, footnote a; Bxxii); hence Kant goes on to explain that the proper methodological similarity between his own situation and Copernicus' is insofar as, in the Preface, Kant is conjecturing a revolutionary metaphysical thesis, which he will then establish in the course of the book (Ibid.). In short, I would say that Kant refers to Copernicus for an elucidation of his thesis, and to Galileo for a justification of his approach and consequently for a partial justification of his thesis. 9 Ortega,op. cit., p. 11. 10 Ibid., pp. 11-19. 11 Ibid., p. 20. 12 Ibid., p. 27. 13 Ibid., pp. 27 -28. 14 Ibid., p. 28.