History - Resources http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/ Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:38:23 +0000 43200 Attempting to understand the past. These essays include discussions of Galileo and his work. Hermeticism http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/hermeticism-r80 Paul Newall (2004)

The Hermetica—or the collection of mystical teachings that form the basis of Hermeticism—was traditionally attributed to Hermes Trismegistus: "thrice-greatest Hermes", the Egyptian god Thoth, who was known as Mercury by the Romans and as Hermes from the time of Herodotus onwards. A distinction was made between the Greek Hermes and this earlier and quite different god by adding Trismegistus to the latter. In fact, many appellations were used by writers: "great-great" on the Rosetta Stone and other Egyptian texts and "five times great" in Ptolemaic times. At some stage the Greeks settled on "thrice greatest", possibly as a translation of "very great-great".

Also called the "scribe of the gods", Hermes was taken to be the inventor of writing. Texts that covered religion and philosophy were said to be due to him, as well as those on magic, alchemy and astrology. It is the former that make up Hermeticism, however; the latter have nothing more in common with them than their being credited to Hermes. Nevertheless, it was common practice to ascribe a text to Trismegistus in order to give it more credibility.

It was thought by Renaissance translators that Hermeticism could be traced back to the Egyptian mystery schools, through the Neoplatonists and Kabbalists, but some of the texts have been shown to be contemporaneous with early Christianity. There are four classes of extant Hermetica:

  • The Corpus Hermeticum;
  • The Asclepius;
  • Excerpts in Stobaeus' Anthologium;
  • Fragments found in Cyril, Lactantius and others, collectively called the Testimonia.
We shall consider each of these in turn.

The Corpus Hermeticum

The first is a collection of approximately seventeen MSS (Scott counts nineteen; others twenty (Scott, 1993)) in Greek, reckoned to be by different writers. It is often (incorrectly) called the Poimandre (or Divine Poimandre), this being but the first part. It was brought to prominence by Ficino's translation of 1471, in which he claimed of Hermes "eo tempore quo Moyses natus est". As a Neoplatonist, Ficino had concluded that the similarities between the philosophy of the Hermetica and the dialogues of Plato implied that Hermes had lived at the time of Moses; but this reverses the direction of any historical connection.

The study of the Corpus was recommended by Patrizzi to Pope Gregory XIV as containing "more philosophy than all the works of Aristotle taken together". Casaubon realised that it was of a later date, putting it around the first to second century CE. He thought that the treatment of subjects also found in early Christian literature meant an influence there from, but instead there was a similarity of thought in Christian and Pagan Platonists of that time. The unfortunate result of Casaubon's scholarship was that, shorn of the esteem due to ancient texts, the early C.E. Corpus largely fell from consideration.

In the early part of the twentieth century the Corpus again came to prominence with Reitzenstein's Poimandres and G.R.S. Mead's translation and sympathetic study. Even Flinders Petrie contributed a theory on the dating of the collection, although his suggestion that the period between 500 and 200 B.C.E. is likely was not taken seriously. Scott made the important point that the texts do not represent a joint body of doctrine but only "a certain general similarity". They treat of many religious and philosophical topics, with even a cursory reading confirming Scott's observation.

The Asclepius

The Greek original of the Asclepius was lost, but not before its translation into Latin. It takes the form of a dialogue attributed to Apuleius and is the combination of several MSS, most dating to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Textual analysis reveals corrections by many different hands, and also that the dialogue is composed of three separate sources that do not overlap.

The first concerns the relationships between God, Earth and Man, aimed at the practical goal of exhorting men to live according to divine order. In particular, the corruption of philosophy is held to be due to the coveting of worldly goods and the wise man is called upon to renounce them. It echoes much of Plato in its cosmology but shows no Christian influence, which, along with other textual clues, places its (Greek) authorship between 100 B.C.E. and 300 C.E.. The place of man is analysed:

Quote

[Man] is linked to the gods, inasmuch as there is in him a divinity akin to theirs; he scorns that part of his own being which makes him a thing of earth; and all else with which he finds himself connected by heaven's ordering, he binds to himself by the tie of his affection. He raises reverent eyes to heaven above; he tends the earth below. Blest in his intermediate station, he is so placed that he loves all below him and is loved by all above him. (Scott, 1991)

We will return to this idea of man's place later.

The second part concerns evil, trying to account for its existence and origin. It is very brief, but an interesting excerpt addresses the problem of evil:

Quote

You must not then, my pupils, speak as many do, who say that God ought by all means to have freed the world from evil. To those who speak thus, not a word should be said in answer; but for your sake I will pursue my argument, and therewith explain this. It was beyond God's power to put a stop to evil, and expel it from the universe; for evil is present in the world in such sort that it is manifestly an inseparable part thereof. But the supreme God provided and guarded against evil as far as he reasonably could, by deigning to endow the minds of men with intellect, knowledge and intuition. It is in virtue of these gifts that we stand higher than the beasts; and by these, and these alone, are we enabled to shun the traps and deceptions and corruptions of evil. (Scott, op cit.)

The third text of the Asclepius is a muddled concatenation of fragments heavily reliant on Plato, particularly the Timaeus. There are also clear Stoic and Hellenistic Egyptian influences. The hostility to Christianity, along with the powerful prophecy of the fate awaiting Egyptians and their religion with its rise, strongly indicate a dating in the region of 300 C.E.. Scott convincingly narrowed this estimate to 268—273 by comparing the details in the text with the Palmyrene occupation of Egypt (Scott, ibid). On this evidence, the attribution to Apuleius is taken to be in error. Part of this famous prophecy runs thus:

Quote

... this land, which once was holy, a land which loved the gods, and wherein alone, in reward for her devotion, the gods deigned to sojourn upon earth, a land which was the teacher of mankind in holiness and piety—this land will go beyond all in cruel deeds. The dead will far outnumber the living; and the survivors will be known for Egyptians by their tongue alone, but in their actions they will seem to be men of another race. O Egypt, Egypt, of thy religion nothing will remain but an empty tale, which thine own children in time to come will not believe; nothing will be left but graven words, and only the stones will tell of thy piety. And in that day men will be weary of life, and they will cease to think the universe worthy of reverent wonder and of worship. And so religion, the greatest of all blessings—for there is nothing, nor has been, nor ever shall be, that can be deemed a greater boon—will be threatened with destruction; men will think it a burden, and will come to scorn it. They will no longer love this world around them, this incomparable work of God, this glorious structure which he has built, this sum of good made up of things of many diverse forms, this instrument whereby the will of God operates in that which he has made, ungrudgingly favouring man's welfare, this combination and accumulation of all the manifold things that can call forth the veneration, praise, and love of the beholder. Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good. As to the soul, and the belief that it is immortal by nature, or may hope to attain immortality, as I have taught you—all this they will mock at, and will even persuade themselves that it is false. No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven and of the gods of heaven, will be heard or believed. (Scott, op cit.)

The Anthologium and Testimonia

Stobaeus' made his collection of pagan writings in four books at approximately 500 C.E., taken from works he had seen and arranged by subject. All take the form of dialogues, either lessons from Hermes to another or between Isis and Horus. From 300 C.E. onwards the Hermetic writings were familiar to many scholars and are mentioned in their writings—from Lactantius through to the Muslims and beyond. The collection of these excerpts is known as the Testimonia. Interestingly, perhaps, the early Pagan Neoplatonists paid little attention to them.

Hermeticism from the Renaissance

Hermetic texts and philosophy came to prominence during the Renaissance when Ficino began translating manuscripts that his patron Cosimo de Medici had obtained from the East. Opinion of that time, supported by Ficino's analysis of the texts, held that they were prophetic of the eventual triumph of Christianity. Such was the resulting importance attached to this assumption of antiquity that, near to death, Cosimo ordered Ficino to set aside his translation of Plato to work on the Hermetica.

Already a blend of Egyptian and Greek philosophies and theology, Renaissance scholars added elements of natural magic and Kabbalah, particular with the work of Pico della Mirandolla, one of Ficino's students at his Florentine Academy. From the seventeenth century and the advent of Rosicrucianism, together with Freemasonry in the eighteenth and alchemy from its beginnings, Hermeticism became suffused with the Western esoteric tradition as a whole.

Texts that were collected and studied intensely over this period include the famous Emerald Tablet of Hermes, the Hermetic Museum drawn up by A.E. Waite, the anonymous Hermetic Arcanum and many works in alchemy that built upon the Hermetic ideas found in the Emerald Tablet. This was analysed by a continuous stream of Hermeticists, alchemists, philosophers, Kabbalists and magicians, including Newton as part of his voluminous studies of alchemy and related subjects, all of them attempting to divine its meaning. Although there are many extant translations, one reads thus:

Quote

1) This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth:-
2) As below, so above; and as above so below. With this knowledge alone you may work miracles.
3) And since all things exist in and eminate from the ONE Who is the ultimate Cause, so all things are born after their kind from this ONE.
4) The Sun is the father, the Moon the mother;
5) the wind carried it in his belly. Earth is its nurse and its guardian.
6) It is the Father of all things,
6a) the eternal Will is contained in it.
7) Here, on earth, its strength, its power remain one and undivided.
7a) Earth must be separated from fire, the subtle from the dense, gently with unremitting care.
8) It arises from the earth and descends from heaven; it gathers to itself the strength of things above and things below.
9) By means of this one thing all the glory of the world shall be yours and all obscurity flee from you.
10) It is power, strong with the strength of all power, for it will penetrate all mysteries and dispel all ignorance.
11) By it the world was created.
12) From it are born manifold wonders, the means to achieving which are here given.
13) It is for this reason that I am called Hermes Trismegistus; for I possess the three essentials of the philosophy of the universe.
14) This is is the sum total of the work of the Sun.

Some consider the Emerald Tablet to be the earliest known alchemical work, with Needham placing its origin in China. Whatever the case, it gives an example of the dictum that would come to characterize Hermeticism: "as above, so below".

Hermeticism as a system

In spite of the existence and study of the texts discussed above, Hermeticism has no sacred books and no doctrine. Hermeticists have historically disagreed with one another and were never encouraged to defer to the opinion of specific authorities. Much like some philosophers of religion today when trying to come to terms with the plurality of religions and their competing truth claims, Hermeticists believe that Hermeticism represents the common centre of all forms of religion. The general idea is that the esoteric core of religions are the same; the exoteric shells, however, differ due to the regional, environmental, historical and other factors at work at the time of their creation or development.

Hermetic groups exist today, both openly and in relative secrecy, within religions and without. As a rule they do not make themselves known, although academic treatments (such as Frances Yates' studies or Copenhaver's criticisms) are becoming more frequent. The significance of Hermeticism in the histories of science, natural philosophy and magic is becoming familiar, although its syncretism and incorporation of so many disparate philosophies, religions and traditions means that it remains difficult to determine the direction of influence. In particular, the famous Rosicrucian Manifestos (the Fama Fraternitatis of 1614, Confessio Fraternitatis of 1615 and the Chemical Wedding of 1616) represented a continuation of Hermetic ideas and were seized upon by scholars across Europe in a general wave of excitement at the workings of hidden or occult ideas made public (McLean, 1991). The effect of the Hermetica on Ramon Lull and Giordano Bruno, with the manifestos adding to the intellectual climate of a world ready to open up and reveal its secrets. Kepler studied the Poimander at length, suggesting that either Pythagoras was a Hermeticist or Hermes was a Pythagorean but disagreeing with the latter on most points (Field, 1988). The Picatrix or Ghayat al-Hakim linked Hermeticism with Arabic occult ideas, echoes being found in Agrippa, Rabelais and even the Venetian Inquisition in explaining the arrest of Casanova (Kiesel, 2000) The writings of Newton on alchemy and related subjects are well known (cf. Westfall's biography and similar), and he summed up the spirit of the age when he wrote in his notes to the Principia that:

Quote

... the Philosophers loved so to mitigate their mystical discourses that in the presence of the vulgar they foolishly propounded vulgar matters from the sake of ridicule, and hid the truth...(Newton, c. 1690)

Thus it is that Hermeticism has traditionally been thought to represents the so-called perennial philosophy (a term first used by Liebniz and adopted by Huxley), passed down through the ages by word of mouth or in writings that require a lifetime of effort to understand fully. In his discussion of it, Huxley identified four "fundamental doctrines":

  • "First: the phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness—the world of things and animals and men and even gods—is the manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their being, and apart from which they would be non-existent.
  • "Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition, superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower with that which is known.
  • "Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit.
  • "Fourth: man's life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self and so to come to unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground." (Huxley, 1990)
As explained in the caveat previously, these may have been believed by Hermeticists but they did not take the character of doctrine. The first tells us that plurality is only apparent: reality is ultimately a unity, which manifests itself through a hierarchy symbolised by the Sephiroth of Kaballah and similar systems in other religions. The second says that this ultimate reality may be known, not by thought and reason but instead through a direct intuition. This assumption is thought to be common to all religions and it was often claimed that by forcing reality into conceptual categories we cut off the possibility of understanding it as a whole. The third is also well known, while the fourth speaks of the spiritual evolution of Man. In particular, this last was the goal of all alchemists: although many maintained working laboratories, talked of practical benefits and there exist documented claims of the transmutation of base metals to gold (for example, the 1942 demonstration by Sarma in Delhi, witnessed by national leaders and attested to by an inscribed plaque in the Laksmi Narayana temple. A previous incident in 1941 is similarly recorded, including a description of the processes involved. (Mukherji, 1998 ), the accepted interpretation of alchemical texts, from the ancient through to Fulcanelli and the contemporary, is of alchemy as a spiritual quest.

Huxley called these the "highest common factor" of religions. An additional aspect is the injunction already introduced: "as above, so below". The importance of this dictum, which has a distinguished pedigree, has been emphasised by those scholars who see Hermeticism as a significant current in the rise of science. For the Hermeticist, it implied that the microcosm and macrocosm are linked such that order in one reflects order in the other. Harmony in the heavens, then, would suggest that the Hermeticist look for a similar harmony on Earth; likewise, it is proposed that the belief in a unity of (God-given) purpose for men on Earth could have inspired Copernicus and others to seek simplicity in place of complexity in the heavens. With the role of natural laws as a necessary condition in the development of science well established, it is easy to see why Hermeticism should be deemed worthy of further study. Another way in which it was understood was to see man as embodying the universe on a smaller scale—man as symbolic of all mysteries or the "measure of all things". Rudolf Steiner wrote at length on this issue.

Examples of the application of Hermeticism are quite easy to find: in the Tarot, Masonic engraving, and interpretations of tales such as the Golden Fleece. It is also straightforward to find criticism: Hermeticism is ad hoc, or unfalsifiable, since its very syncretism and fundamental tenets mean that it can survive difficulties by ascribing them to exoteric differences while maintaining the esoteric core unchallenged. Similarly, these same tenets are exclusively metaphysical and hence not subject to any kind of verification. By claiming parts of existing religious traditions, Hermeticists leave themselves open to the charge that they add nothing significant to them and are hence rendered irrelevant. More importantly, they also make it almost impossible to point to the impact of Hermeticism over history. In general, Hermeticists do not concern themselves with responses to these objections and go—quietly—about their business. It is hoped that further textual, comparative and philosophical analysis of religious documents will give scholars more to go on, but is seems that the nature of Hermeticism is such that the ultimate truth remains so whether agreed upon or not.


---

Selected References:

  • Casaubon, Exercitationes XVI (London, 1614)
  • Copenhaver, Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
  • Ficino, Mercurii Trismegisti Liber de Potestate et Sapientia Dei (Treviso, 1471)
  • Godwin (trans.) and McLean (intr.), The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz (Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1991)
  • Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (Perennial, 1990)
  • Kiesel (ed.), Picatrix (Seattle: Ouroboros Press, 2000)
  • Mukherji, The Wealth of Indian Alchemy (Delhi: Indian Books Centre, 1998 )
  • Newton, Gregory MS 247, Royal Society
  • Patritius, Nova de universis philosophia... (Venice, 1593)
  • Reitzenstein, Poimandres. Studien zur griechisch-aegyptischen und fruh-christlichen literature (Lepizig, 1904)
  • Scott, Hermetica (Boston: Shambhala, 1993)
  • The Dictionary of the History of Ideas (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1973-74)
  • Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964)
]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:12:45 +0000 069d3bb002acd8d7dd095917f9efe4cb Minimalism and the rhetoric of misrepresentation http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/minimalism-and-the-rhetoric-of-misrepresentation-r79 Paul Newall (2004)

Keith Whitelam's paper Representing Minimalism: The Rhetoric and Reality of Revisionism is found in a festschrift for Robert Carroll, Sense and Sensitivity. In the early parts of his essay, Whitelam attempts to show that the rhetoric of those like William Dever and Gary Rendsburg does not match the reality of what minimalists (or revisionists, variously) are either engaged in or suggesting. It is perhaps worth giving some examples for the benefit of those not aware of what can sometimes pass for scholarship in Biblical Studies and use them to illustrate a more general point, which will be the goal of this piece.

Whitelam's point of departure is an article by Rendsburg, in which the latter explains to us "the consensus" before moving on to "the crisis". Notwithstanding this basic attempt to "control the rhetorical space" (as Whitelam characterised similar tactics here), Rendsburg states that

Quote

The positive historicism of Albright and the others gave way, not only in biblical studies, but in the humanities in general, to the relativism, skepticism, and indeed nihilism which now dominates.

This is not the first time that an allusion will be made to wider problems in the humanities, which are laid at the door of "postmodernism" (Dever) or relativists and - inexplicably - nihilists by Rendsburg. Nevertheless, Rendsburg provides a useful description of minimalism and maximalism:

Quote

In short, the paradigm has shifted from a maximalist stance to a minimalist one. A few definitions of these terms. The maximalist holds that since so much of the biblical record has been confirmed by archaeological work and by other sources from the ancient Near East, for example, the aforementioned Mesha Stele, that even when there is no corroborating evidence, we can assume that the Bible reflects true history, unless it can be proved otherwise. The minimalist approach is exactly the opposite. Because so much of the biblical record is contradicted by archaeological work and by other sources from the ancient Near East, for example, the lack of any conquest at Jericho and Ai, we must assume that the Bible is literary fiction, unless it can be proved otherwise.

It should be immediately apparent that this is a false dichotomy, which Whitelam shows by quoting examples of those who fit into neither camp - including, quite brutally, Dever himself, who regards "the historicity of the Exodus as a dead issue". In spite of the failure of his simplistic attempt at definition, Rendsburg asks "who are these people, these minimalists?" and goes on to tell us:

Quote

To give you the names of the four best known among them, they are Thomas Thompson, Philip Davies, Niels Lemche, and Keith Whitelam. Some of them are driven, as I indicated above, by Marxism and leftist politics. Some of them are former evangelical Christians who now see the evils of their former ways. Some of them are counterculture people, left over from the 60s and 70s, whose personality includes the questioning of authority in all aspects of their lives.

None of the information in this rather poor ad hominem is relevant to the credibility or otherwise of minimalism, of course, but Rendsburg goes on to identify two important factors in the portrait of a minimalist:

Quote

First, almost without exception, these individuals have no expertise in the larger world of ancient Near Eastern studies. [...] In short, the academy has created an intellectual environment which permits the untrained to operate on an equal par with the trained.


Whitelam points out that since he was himself "trained" by F.F. Bruce and A.A. Anderson, these scholars have (by implication) failed to adequately prepare their students. Rendsburg provides no argument as to why an "untrained" person should be ignored a priori, leaving his complaint another ad hominem. However, the second charge is perhaps more serious:

Quote

Second, as you may have gathered, almost without exception, the scholars of this group are not Jewish. [...] Now, at first glance, one might think that one's religious or ideological identification would have no effect on one's scholarship, and I too once naively thought this to be true. [...] But with the current group of revisionists, as I intimated earlier, ideology, not objective scholarship, governs. If it is not actual Marxism, it is leftist politics in general. If it is not revolution against the sins of one's youth, the sin being once having identified as an evangelical Christian, then the issue is anti-authority culture in general. Furthermore, and I do not hesitate to use the terms, these scholars are driven by anti-Zionism approaching anti-Semitism.

Again, this is a straightforward ad hominem, but the accusation is a serious one. Moving to the supporting footnote, we find that Rendsburg relies on Dever, who opines that "several of Whitelam's statements border dangerously on anti-Semitism; they are certainly anti-Jewish and anti-Israel." Following the citation, Whitelam found no page reference: this is just Dever's assertion, which Whitelam calls "the most extreme form of a rhetoric of misrepresentation which has been designed to marginalize and discredit." Whitelam links it to a reported comment by Jerome Berman, linking minimalists to Holocaust deniers - a tactic with echoes of that also employed by historians opposed to contemporary historiography (the idea being to imply that disbelief in the past wie es eigentlich gewesen is tantamount to an insistence that the Holocaust never happened, which is an emotive argument of no substance and never supported by reference to �postmodern� historiographers writing any such thing). It seems the best we can say in response to this behaviour is that it is disappointing.

Rendsburg moves on to pose and answer the question "why not simply ignore this bunch?" Admitting that he considered this the preferable course of action previously, he tells us that it failed because the "minimalists dominate both in the noise that they make and in the quantity of their books. Volume after volume appears from their pens, all of it recycling the same views, all of it suspended on nothingness, to quote Job 26:7." Repeating implicitly the empty charge of anti-Semitism, Rendsburg suggests that Jewish scholars avoided the issue because of the alleged politics of the minimalists.

We can move on to Dever to test whether indeed the minimalist programme is "suspended on nothingness". Whitelam blockquotes him as saying that the revisionists (i.e. Rendsburg's nihilists) "caricature the history of traditional scholarship [and] demonize any remaining opponents", which is an interesting irony, given the "anti-Semitism" above. In spite of providing no justification for his own charge, Dever himself lectures us on "not pretending to an expertise one does not possess [and] resisting the temptation to indulge in personal polemics that stem from a sense of inadequacy, either in oneself or in the evidence at hand [and] refusing on principle to distort the evidence or another scholar's view". Having digested this advice, Whitelam offers a selection of commentary from Dever on minimalist arguments, variously described as "'credulous', 'facile', 'fashionable', 'a passing fad' [...] part of 'trendy academic fashions' [...] 'politically correct' [...] or 'circle of dillentantes'".

This last reminds us of an identical complaint made against so-called "postmodernists", often by Dever but also by a vocal group of philosophers who would have us treat "nihilists", "relativists" and "postmodernists" as Rendsburg advises for minimalists; that is, never seriously and with an appropriate measure of disdain and contempt. The approach of historians like Evans in historiography is much the same, up to and including identical rhetorical strategies. This, I submit, is where the importance of Whitelam's paper lies: these tactics of demonising the opposition or questioning the integrity of those who refuse to dismiss them outright without further consideration are part of a wider phenomenon not limited to Biblical Studies. Occasionally a book-length study arrives, laying out in painful detail just how far the misrepresentation has gone, or a paper such as Whitelam's attempts to do likewise on a smaller scale, but in general rhetoric seems to hold sway, even at the lofty heights of academia.

Although studies of the influence of rhetoric are increasingly common, the so-called criticisms we have been considering fail on another level, too: they do not understand the concepts they reject as invalid. Whitelam refers to Dever's claim that minimalists are engaged in a project of deconstruction, but it is difficult to find any indication that he (or those analogously hostile in other disciplines) appreciates that to deconstruct is not to "knock down" at all, as we have seen. Indeed, Dever's conception of the minimalists' goal goes well beyond misunderstanding to a plan which

Quote

... if it could be carried out, would in my opinion see not the advent of a secular Utopian "Brave New World" but rather anarchy, chaos, and ultimately those conditions of despair that have often historically led to Fascism.

Notwithstanding the unargued allusion here to historical laws, again we see the same tactic and the same attempt to give the reader the impression of closet Nazis endeavouring to bring about a fourth Reich as we find in the suggestion that antirepresentationalist historiographers are Holocaust deniers. Even so, if Dever comprehended deconstruction then he could not say that minimalists "are social engineers manipulating the biblical text for their own goals", since if il ny a pas hors du texte then everyone is engaged in the same game, including maximalists. Likewise, there is no reason to suspect that Rendsburg knows what nihilism implies, not least since he is not a philosopher and thus - by Dever's criterion above - should not pretend to expertise he does not have. This is the point, however: concepts like relativism are complex and not amenable (meaningfully, at least) to being mangled for the sake of a cheap rhetorical point. At the very least, a reader passing Dever's test would recognise the mischaracterisation immediately.

Rendsburg laments the unfortunate fact that "serious scholars must take the time away from their own productive scholarship to respond to the baseless twaddle of the minimalist camp", much as this sentiment surfaced in the wake of Derrida's death. The problem for Rendsburg is that it is difficult to find a representative minimalist or minimalist work to hold up as indicative of the kind of scholarship that should be rejected. This, of course, is a consequence of his false dichotomy in defintion, but it surfaces just as readily in the opposition to "postmodernism". The question "what is postmodernism?" is as impossible to answer as "what is minimalism?", given that supposed "postmodernists" disagree with one another as readily as do "minimalists". To get around this problem of an ill-fitting straw man, Dever employs another rhetorical strategy and asserts that the minimalist believes there was "no 'early Israel'". Shanks, similarly, declares that Whitelam would have us accept that ancient Israel "never existed" - just as the past is supposed to not exist for the historiographer who dares to question historical representationalism. However, to recognise (either implicitly or explicitly) that wie es eigentlich gewesen is beyond our epistemologies is not to make a metaphysical claim (which, in any case, is unargued by those who would suggest that holding the past to not exist is absurd), nor is it to suggest that we must let go the reins and accept all readings as equally valid.

In summarising his article, Whitelam makes an obvious point:

Quote

Biblical minimalism will not die because it does not exist as a coherent, self-conscious, closely articulated movement.

The failure of the frequently vigorous attempts to combat the ostensibly similarly dangerous doctrines of the "postmodernists" and "antirepresentationalists" in historiography and philosophy respectively may be attributed to the same, apparently lamentable circumstance that the targets of all this collective and righteous indignation simply do not exist. These relativists and nihilists appear to keep coming back for more, in spite of the best efforts of Rendsburg, Dever and others, because they are not there to be hit in the first place. By employing criticism that misunderstands the methodology of its opponents, fails to identify them meaningfully or to demarcate between degrees of supposed folly and relies wholly on a "rhetoric of misrepresentation", it is little wonder that minimalism still haunts the dreams of those who would presume to dictate the direction of learning while demonstrating their own unwillingness to do so.]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:10:56 +0000 258be18e31c8188555c2ff05b4d542c3 Philosophy and the New Archaeology http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/philosophy-and-the-new-archaeology-r78 Paul Newall (2005)

Philosophy has always been involved in archaeology. This is an argument we will develop by considering the so-called New Archaeology and the debates surrounding it that have taken place over the past thirty years or so.

Archaeology is generally taken to have become established in the nineteenth century with Jacques Boucher de Perthes' discovery of chipped stones in Somme river gravel quarries, alongside the bones of now-extinct animals. He interpreted the former as human artifacts (such as hand axes) and hence claimed that humans had existed for much longer than Biblical accounts apparently allowed (due to the inference that they appeared much older than anything mentioned in the Bible). Although there was some skepticism to begin with, the antiquity of humanity was accepted soon thereafter. Notice, of course, the inevitable speculative dimensions to this early conclusion: how do we know when we have a genuine artifact and when a mere product of nature? How do we date them?

One of the reasons for the relative ease with which archaeology took root was its association with two other intellectual currents. Firstly, James Hutton and later Charles Lyell had investigated rock formations and used stratification to support a principle of uniformitarianism, according to which conditions in the past were the same as (hence uniform with) our own, enabling us to infer things about the past from current geological arrangements. It was also argued that the processes that could account for stratification are still in operation today, such that the Earth had to be far more ancient than was otherwise believed.

Secondly, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published in 1859 and also implied a lengthy process by which modern humans evolved, giving archaeologists the chance to look for signs of this in the material remains. Evolution hinted, too, that perhaps cultures developed in a fashion similar to plants and animals, with this possibility influencing anthropology and (later) social theory. The confluence of these three strands helped archaeology move from speculation (as it was denigrated by some) to the firmer foundation of the assumption of antiquity and the principles of uniformity and evolution. Moreover, as the world became smaller with travel over long distances the new peoples discovered were beginning to be investigated by curious scholars, especially given the (widespread) assumption that so-called "primitive" cultures could provide us with insights into how our own culture had changed over time. The idea that progress from savagery to civilisation was possible and had occurred in the past again informed social theories and suggested that we could come to understand the way we are today by searching for our origins in the archaeological record. The discoveries made in Egypt by Napoleon's teams and the increasing excavations in Mesopotamia also provided archaeologists with plenty of new data on which to test their ideas, their efforts motivated in large part by Biblical accounts and the Ancient Greek poets.

If early archaeologists had been content to classify the remains they found and attempt to build a chronology from them, the influence of V. Gordon Childe meant that questions were being asked about why collections of artifacts were located in one place and not another, or what it meant to assume that such a collection implied a group had existed there previously. In short, archaeologists began to realise that a chronological ordering - even if "correct" (whatever that means and however we would determine it) - would tell us nothing about the past unless an interpretive step was added. In 1949 radiocarbon dating (C14) was invented by William Libby and suddenly archaeology seemingly had a scientific basis to back up the placing of finds in historical order, although it took some time for the consequences to become clear. Now archaeologists apparently had an independent means to determine the age of a site without needing to resort to written records (that may not exist) or comparisons with other cultures, removing speculation altogether and providing a firmer footing for chronologies. Other scientific techniques were employed, including chemical analyses, and soon the number of methods involved exploded. Unfortunately for this spirit of optimism, however, the surety of radiocarbon dating soon gave way to arguments over its application, validity and the approach as a whole. We will return to this controversy in due course.

As a result of these scientific aids, some archaeologists claimed that the discipline was no longer plagued by quesitons of dating and began to be dissatisfied with the conclusions that were drawn by their colleagues. After all, providing a timeframe for a site was one thing but it became more important to explain what had happened. Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips suggested a processual approach, wherein the archaeologist should look at the processes involved in the histories of cultures. This is where a major turning point in the philosophy of archaeology occurred: impressed with the superior epistemological model that science appeared to provide, some sought to set archaeology on a surer footing by reproducing the supposed "scientific method".

Following the lead of Lewis Binford, several archaeologists in the late 1960s began to argue for what came to be called the New Archaeology. Inspired by developments within the philosophy of science, they wanted to do more than just describe and believed that genuine explanations could be achieved by changing direction in archaeology. In the past, they claimed, archaeologists had made inductive inferences, collecting pieces of evidence and try to infer conclusions from them. There was (and is) a significant problem with this, however: given that the archaeological record is incomplete, how can inferences be accurate? One possible response is to wait until all the evidence is in, but this is impractical (or rather impossible, if we accept that the record must inevitably be incomplete); another is to give up making inferences at all, yet this leaves archaeology as solely as descriptive enterprise. In general, this was the well known problem of induction in action once again.

Nevertheless, according to the New Archaeologists the alternative was to adopt the methodology of science and formulate hypotheses, deriving their consequences deductively and - most importantly - testing them. This model, based largely on Hempelian deductivism, was a form of logical positivism (explained here). The New Archaeology also included functional approaches, wherein generalisations are made about changes in political, social and economic systems and how these cultural processes can aid in explanation - hence Processual Archaeology, another term often used in discussion.

Whatever the merits of the New Archaeology, one thing at least was clear: archaeology could never go back to what has since been called its "state of innocence". In order to practice archaeology it would be necessary to question presuppositions that had previously been implicit and reject them if required, as well as to consider the impact that the philosophy of science would have as debates therein changed the image of archaeology that had been crafted to date. This did not mean that philosophy came to archaeology from without, but rather that it had always been involved (although previously with little or no appreciation of the impact of assumptions). As Alison Wylie put it, "[w]hat you find, archaeologically, has everything to do with what you look for, with the questions you ask and the conceptual resources you bring to bear in attempting to answer them." This was a familiar point in science, especially in physics thanks to the philosophical investigations of Einstein and others following the advent of quantum theory, but now it would affect archaeology, too.

Although the New Archaeology introduced several currents, including the realisation that perhaps the best way to arrive at explanations would be to study societies of today, hence the advent of ethnoarchaeology with the adding of an archaeological aspect to ethnography. Even so, no sooner had archaeology seen an influx of positivistic thinking than criticisms in the philosophy of science began to chip away at the influence of the Vienna Circle thinkers and the earlier confidence began to look jaded. The most famous work of this period is probably Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, but others can justifiably said to have played an even greater role. Then, as now, there were some archaeologists who paid little attention to theoretical debates and believed (along with some physicists and biologists) that it is possible to do science without worrying about the tortured timewasting of philosophers. This seemed especially so for field archaeologists, apparently far removed from debates in academia. We will see, however, that this separation becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.

Criticisms were made of the New Archaeology from several directions. Firstly, the philosophers of science N.R. Hanson and Paul Feyerabend discussed the supposed objectivity of science, one of its greatest assumed virtues, via the concept of theory-ladenness. They stressed that there can be no neutral observation statements; in archaeological terms, this is to say that data recovered from sites do not form a class of "facts" independent of the observer (or archaeologist) but are already filtered by us. Indeed, this insight was later developed by Paul Churchland in neurological terms such that this inevitable layer (there might be several) of interpretation is what makes our perception cognitive in the first place. The earlier example of Jacques Boucher de Perthes' is a case in point: he did not unearth human artifacts but some stones he understood in this way. Through this reading of the ostensibly objective data, they became evidence for the claim that humans had existed for far longer than had previously been thought. There was nothing about the stones themselves that made this conclusion a certainty, however; on the assumption that a natural process could occasion the same results, say, he might have scarcely given them a second glance. On the contrary, though, he came upon the stones with many preconceptions, not all of them explicit, including that stones cannot be weathered in this fashion; and so on. Today we might consider this a commonplace but the point is that we do not just arrive at virgin archaeological data but unavoidably bring our other ideas with us, without which we could not make sense of anything in the first place. This seemed catastrophic for the goal of objectivity.

Secondly, and again via the philosophy of science, Ian Hodder and others emphasised that interpretations of archaeological date are underdetermined; that is, many readings are possible (some would say an infinity of them) for the same set of data and hence our choices between them must rely on extra-empirical factors. This is to say that appealing to the evidence alone is inadequate to account for our decisions (hence the death of the more naive forms of empiricism - see here for more detail) and so we inevitably go beyond it in arguing for our conclusions. Much like theory-ladenness, this may seem obvious with the benefit of hindsight but it is important to remember that at the time some philosophers of science and New Archaeologists with them were contending that the sciences could avoid the arbitrary and in particular solve the demarcation problem, or how to separate science and non-science. There were and is no shortage of people claiming that this task can be done, in spite of the difficulties with the criteria proposed. What theory-ladenness and underdetermination did not mean was that archaeology - along with science as a whole - would have to descend into relativism, that poorly understood bugbear and the stuff of rationalist nightmares, even if drawing a boundary between archaeology (and history, too) and mere stories became somewhat troublesome.

If objectivity was problematic, that did not mean that it could not serve as a rhetorical trope. More importantly, though, its apparent demise led other archaeologists to consider what else had been lying hidden in their discipline, unexamined. This helped bring about what came to be known as postprocessual archaeology, in spite of there being much debate over whether the critiques of the New Archaeology could properly be said to have superseded it or rather complemented it. Nevertheless, neo-Marxists and others emphasised that the responsibility of the archaeologist should not just be to describe or explain the past but to use whatever they gained from both to make positive contributions to the present, striving to make the contemporary world a better place. For them it was not enough to promote archaeology as an objective science going about its business while politicians worried about poverty and power structures. In a manner similar in some aspects to Feyerabend previously, archaeologists such as Christopher Tilley went further and suggested that science is itself part of a system of economic and social hegemony, set up as an ideal without sufficient inquiry into whether or not its benefits would outweigh the costs to the individual or whether scientific (and thence archaeological) work actually aided power structures throughout the world. Once again, this was a criticism of the supposed objectivity of science by pointing to its (potential or actual) consequences, especially for the poor and disadvantaged. At the very least, archaeology led to some difficult questions that continue to be asked today. What happens, for example, when some remains are found on land ostensibly "belonging" to native inhabitants of a country? Do archaeologists have the right to investigate? What if the tribal group, say, forbids unearthing anything? That instances of just this issue have occurred recently (such as Kennewick man) show that archaeology is not able to pursue a neutral path, avoiding political and cultural conflicts, particularly when its results may impact on the wider world and social debates.

At any event, one of the results of the debates in the philosophy of science and in postprocessual archaeology was widespread agreement that there is no such thing as the "scientific method". Just as physicists do not behave as biologists or geologists do, with significant differences within these disciplines, too (compare organismic and molecular biology, say, or condensed matter and particle physics), so do archaeologists employ a range of methods. This does not mean that "anything goes", possibly the least understood argument in the philosophy of science, but only that the myth of science as a unified epistemology has had to be discarded in favour of a far more nuanced appreciation of what scientists actually do - aided, in a nice irony, by sociological investigations of their actual behaviour. It has also not stopped the so-called scientific method being used rhetorically to deny credibility to some ideas, in legal as well as public discourse, but it is interesting to consider how these issues impact upon archaeology.

We have looked at some of the philosophical difficulties faced by the New Archaeology and now we will expand on them in turn, considering the problems confronting archaeology and how the New Archaeologists proposed to solve them. In so doing we will again come to appreciate that philosophy was not a distraction from the business of archaeology proper but an inevitable part of the discipline that could not be ignored.

As we have seen, developments in the philosophy of science had led some archaeologists by the 1960s and 70s to question what archaeology is and how its practice should be understood. Note, however, that the clean break with the past suggested by the very name for this so-called movement – the New Archaeology – has been subject to skepticism itself. In 1955 B.J. Meggars had written of "the coming of age of American Archaeology" and raised many of the same philosophical issues that were discussed at length in the following decades, while criticism of the supposed foundations of archaeology was already well advanced in the late 1930s and the 40s in the writings of Kluckhohn and Bennett, amongst others. (See Wylie's How New is the New Archaeology? for an extended analysis.) Indeed, it may be that the view of the New Archaeology as a revolutionary break with archaeology thus far was (and is) itself influenced by currents in the philosophy of science, particularly Thomas S. Kuhn's famous The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The most forceful objection to Kuhn's ideas (due to Lakatos, Feyerabend and others) was that the periods of "normal science" – in which scientists working within a paradigm are resistant to anomalies until it is finally toppled after the fashion of a revolution – never really existed in the first place. In archaeological terms, this is to say that there was no period of philosophical naivety wherein archaeologists ploughed ahead with scant concern for wider intellectual debates, but rather a continual internal dialogue and questioning of assumptions.

In any case, the problems with what was called traditional archaeology were threefold: two philosophical (specifically epistemological) and one methodological. Firstly, the New Archaeologists complained that the traditional version relied on a form of empiricism that was hopelessly outdated, which involved only the observable (i.e. archaeological data) and systematising it. This had been shown to be untenable. Secondly, and resulting from this, the study of cultures had to be restricted to inferring motivating beliefs from material remains. After all, people of the past are unobservable, too, and hence if archaeology were limited to the narrow empiricism the New Archaeologists opposed then it would be impossible to set anthropology on an archaeological basis. Lastly, and perhaps most significantly, the belief that these were methodological restrictions meant that archaeologists could not go beyond the resulting form of archaeology, whether that was considered to be antiquarian cataloguing or unbridled speculation. Where a method is assumed to be fixed, of course, it is not long before its advocates claim that their investigations are therefore neutral and use their "method" as a rhetorical tool to deny recognition and support to alternative ideas not following it.

It is worth dwelling on these concerns because it was not that empiricism was the problem, or philosophy on general, but bad philosophy. No one lamented the intrusion of philosophy but rather that concepts that had been shown to be flawed by the philosophers were still alive in the social sciences. As Kluckhohn wrote in 1939, it was not a case of choosing

Quote

… between theory and no theory or a minimum of theory, but between adequate and inadequate theories, and, even more important, between theories, the postulates and propositions of which are conscious and hence lend themselves to systematic criticism, and theories the premises of which have not been examined even by their formulators.

This indispensability of theory combined with the necessity of continually challenging and reassessing the concepts we employ in the sciences was also recommended by Einstein. When archaeologists or scientists at large proceed as though philosophical issues are irrelevant to their work, then, they do so not because they have examined their method at length and found it to be neutral but through ignorance and without realising that the assumptions we bring to inquiry can influence what we find. This insight was formalised as the problem of theory-ladenness: when the clear distinction between facts and theories failed, the New Archaeologists insisted that their discipline could no longer be viewed as the collections of "facts" and that the presuppositions that implicitly guide research should be stated openly and questioned forcefully at every available opportunity. Moreover, archaeologists would have to recognise that they are involved in their investigations rather than passive collectors of these "facts". Indeed, from the 1930s an increasing number of critics were noting that the huge volume of data accumulated was not matched by a richness of interpretation.

A nice example of a debate entered into by the New Archaeologists (although it was being addressed well beforehand) was that surrounding classification. Are the categories used by archaeologists to sort material – systematising it – inherent in the remains or just instruments to help us make sense of it? This is a particular instance of the problem of universals, an issue in metaphysics that has been discussed for thousands of years. When archaeologists develop taxonomies by which data are sorted, are they arbitrary or are they to some extent forced by a "natural order", so to speak? For the New Archaeologists the claim that classifications could exist with or without archaeologists to employ them was just another instance of the idea that archaeology was a neutral science with the preconceptions of its practitioners not affecting the conclusions reached, as opposed to facts unavoidably being theory-laden.

For the New Archaeologists, then, traditional archaeology was crippled by philosophical problems. In order to avoid the complaint (often levelled at them) that the discipline was thus entirely subjective, they sought to replace na�ve empiricism with a far stronger theoretical basis. This could be achieved, they thought, by accepting that interpretations of the archaeological data are underdetermined but that nevertheless a form of empiricism can be used because the evidence can be appealed to when judging between different hypotheses. Data could then be admitted to be theory-laden but still used to test claims – or so they hoped. In addition to their criticisms of traditional archaeology there was also an effort to develop alternatives, including an argument that archaeology should move away from descriptive accounts and provide explanatory ones. It was here that the New Archaeologists appealed to the work of the logical positivists, especially C.G. Hempel, insisting that an archaeological explanation must be governed by laws. For Binford, this meant going beyond the particular to the general, aiming ultimately at understanding "the total range of physical and cultural similarities and differences characteristic of the entire span of man's existence".

As we have noted, however, this was occurring just as positivist ideas in the philosophy of science were beginning to crumble. When he appealed to a Hempelian form of explanation, in which an observed event is said to be explained if it fits an already established regularity such that we should have expected it to happen, Binford did not realise that he was invoking exactly the restrictions of na�ve empiricism by relying on observed regularities. In short, his version of positivism was as bad as the philosophical approach he had objected to. Moreover, Binford advocated Hempel's hypothetico-deductive model – that is, offering an explanatory hypothesis, deducing its consequences and testing for them – even though it was quickly shown to be flawed. The most common example used in this context is a proposed law such as "all swans are white"; if true, it would follow straightforwardly that all swans are white, but in order to confirm this we would have to check all swans – so it can never be confirmed deductively. In archaeological terms, this would be much like explaining the collapse of civilisations by a specific set of circumstances: in order to confirm that we have a law, we would have to check all civilisations anywhere and at any time. The hypothetico-deductive model can thus only apply in restricted (usually trivial) domains. Perhaps even more significantly, though, even if it were possible to arrive at laws explaining present conditions and behaviour, to infer anything about past cultures from the (relatively scant) material data available to us requires inductive steps – precisely what the New Archaeologists were supposed to be moving away from.

There is a rhetorical dimension to the New Archaeology that is worth considering, too. It has been suggested that moves toward positivism in archaeology was but an extension of a larger endeavour on the part of naturalists to make the social sciences harder, invoking models that might apply to physics, traditionally the "hardest" science of all (hence the conceit that its methods are the ideals to be aimed at everywhere else). This was a reaction to a widespread concern that Enlightenment ideals of reason and civilisation were under threat from relativists and subjectivists, and particularly philosophers of science who claimed that science was irrational and no better than astrology or voodoo. These charges were – and are – empty but it is rare to lose money betting on how zealously people will defend simplistic models of science if civilisation itself is alleged to be under attack and losing ground. (Indeed, it is not difficult to find instances of this behaviour today in several contexts.) Nevertheless, by placing the social sciences on a positivistic base it was hoped that they could be saved from degeneration and contrasted with so-called pseudoscience and groundless speculation. The great irony was – and again, still is – that those who so desperately wanted to improve on a naive and untenable empiricism in order to counter a crude version of archaeology (and science in general) and to oppose "cranks" resorted to a positivism that was just as unsophisticated and relied on just the same uncritical empirical foundations. The problem was that too many archaeologists were caught up in a (false) dilemma that defined the rhetorical backdrop to the debate: either archaeology had to follow the other sciences and be rigorously recast along positivist lines or the entire game was lost and would unravel into skepticism. This is a tactic that – once more – is still employed today for much the same reasons, but a bad idea does not become a good one just because the only alternative provided is supposed to be even worse.

Meanwhile, the insistence that archaeologists should seek explanations rather than descriptions led to a great deal of discussion concerning what form such explanations should take. While New Archaeologists were advocating a Hempelian theory of covering laws, critics like Merrilee Salmon came up with counterexamples in the form of generalisations that would cover a phenomenon but not explain it. For instance, men who take birth control pills do not get pregnant, but this is an explanation we would not consider. Likewise, prisoners who are deprived of writing materials do not reproduce verbatim the works of Shakespeare. Why not? There are (implicit) generalisations here that cover and yet we do not accept them as explanations. We thus see that covering is not enough; it is necessary, we might say, but not sufficient and on its own gives us no guidance as to whether or not the true explanation has been found. Some theorists responded by appealing to higher-level regularities, but this led to a regress problem because resorting to a presumed regularity of a different order to explain which of several possible regularities was the correct one led to the same question on the new level, and so on. Indeed, whenever we can explain a phenomenon because we have good (empirical) reasons to suppose the existence of the causes invoked by the explanation, we can always ask where these causes came from and how they operate – requiring explanation all over again.

Perhaps the most important aspect of traditional and New Archaeology and the criticisms of both is that everyone involved (along with others in the philosophy of science) was directly or otherwise addressing the questions of what science is and what it aims at. Some opponents of positivism advocated a realist perspective, which they thought could improve on the philosophical dead ends, and hence we come full circle to having to understand the role of philosophy and the part it invariably plays in the discussion and practice of archaeology.


---

Selected References:

  • Binford, L.R., In Pursuit of the Past: Decoding the Archaeological Record (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).
  • Feyerabend, P.K., Against Method (London: Verso, 1975).
  • Hodder, I., Archaeological Theory Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001).
  • Kuhn, T.S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).
  • Renfrew, C. and Bahn, P., Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practices (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004).
  • Wylie, A., Thinking From Things: essays in the philosophy of archaeology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).
]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:07:46 +0000 a8849b052492b5106526b2331e526138 The Complexity of Newton http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/the-complexity-of-newton-r77 Steve Nakoneshny (2007)

In the most simplistic of terms, religion is an attempt to discuss the nature of the universe with thoughts of a Deity being central. Science is an attempt to describe the nature of the universe simply as the physical, expressed characteristics of brute matter. As different as these two belief structures may appear to be, they are both essentially nothing more than alternative assays at explaining the ‘true’ nature of the universe. The works of “so important a scientific luminary as [Sir] Isaac Newton,”[1] which encompasses a diverse variety of topics such as science, theology, and alchemy, were all written with the same design in mind: to explain the ‘true’ nature of the universe as it was created by God.

This viewpoint is challenging to the modern day skeptic scientist, to say the least, but it is a common thread that pervades all aspects of Newton’s work. In fact, he himself has stated that “the primary goal of scientific investigation is to reveal the ultimate cause of creation.”[2] Logically, the ultimate cause of anything can only be the First Cause. For Newton (and his contemporaries), the First Cause is equivalent to God. Therefore, all science is an attempt to better understand God. This is consistent with the Natural Philosophy view that the study of the Book of God’s works is as much an act of worship as the study of the Book of God’s word.[3] For these people, little distinction could be made between theology and science as one would frequently lead to the other and both would lead to God.

Scholarly endeavors into this realm of late appear to have accepted this inter-relationship as fact, for in “having divided up the scholarly work of studying Newton into areas congruent with modern academic interests, we had inadvertently divided up Newton.”[4] Westfall understood that “the relationship within Newton’s own mind between his scientific work and his religious work was a complex network of mutual influence.”[5] Thus, it is necessary to study all aspects of Newton’s works in order to (hopefully) be able to best understand the underlying theme that pervades it all. This writer is of the firm opinion that the underlying theme is none other than God.

The main problem when studying the body of Newton’s work is to mistakenly view it through a modern bias. He was a seventeenth century natural philosopher who was a deeply devout man to whom questions of religion and theology truly mattered in the most profound of ways. In as much as we are all products of our environment, it is necessary to recognize Newton’s indigenous environment lest we expect to understand his intentions. Very little mainstream knowledge of Newton’s theological works exists. “That he would not publish these writings in his own time, because they showed that his thoughts were sometimes different from those which are commonly received, which would engage him in dispute.”[6] In fact, when sent for posthumous publication, the vast majority of his manuscripts were deemed unfit for printing. Otherwise, we may have ended up with a distinctly different conception of the man that was Newton.

Much of his theological investigations focused upon a search for the ‘true’ religion. His research in this endeavor lead him to read many ancient texts including alchemical manuscripts. The latter he read mainly “for the purpose of drawing out its religious content and thereby obtaining insights into ancient religion or into primitive Christianity.”[7] He sought out these ancient insights in order to be better able to comprehend man’s relationship to God, and by extension, his own relationship with God. Possibly, he even sought them out I order too determine if they held the key to a less corrupted version of the ‘true’ religion.

Whether it was his research that led to his unorthodox views or if his unorthodox views fueled his need to search for the ‘true’ religion is not the purpose of this paper.[8] Suffice it to say that the conclusions that Newton reaches are the result of meticulous and arduous study of both scripture and texts of antiquity. In his manuscript entitled “A Short Scheme of the True Religion,”[9] Newton declares that the true religion is based upon the adherence to two basic tenets: (1) our duty to God; we must love him, fear him, honour him, trust in him, pray to him, give him thanks, praise him, hallow his name, obey his commandments, and set times apart for his service, as we are directed in the third and fourth commandments.[10] (2) our duty to man; “we must be righteous, and do to all men as we would that they should do to us.”[11] Of this religion, he suggests that it is corrupted by man over time, and that the prophets are sent to us from God in order to remove the corruption and restore us to the original, true faith. Influenced by this belief in the importance of prophets and prophecy (which is central to Christian theology), Newton penned a substantial (also unpublished) manuscript entitled “The First Book Concerning the Language of the Prophets.”[12] In it, he discusses the results of his study of prophetic writings, which is a more arduous task than I care to contemplate. Without delving into the minutiae of that manuscript, it is readily apparent that this subject was of great concern to Newton. This concern likely formed out of the standard Christian view that the first coming of Christ was actualized by the fulfillment of prophecy by Jesus and that the second coming of Christ has been prophesized as well. By studying prophecy, an adept may better be able to interpret the signs that foretell the second coming of Christ. Unfortunately, the second coming also heralds Armageddon, but I guess that you can’t have it all.

In a line of thinking tangentially related to his interest in prophecy, is his interest in Christ and his denial of the Trinity. For in his manuscript entitled “Twelve Articles,” he states that there is “one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.”[13] Implicit in this statement is the belief that Christ Jesus is distinct from both man and God. Jesus was “a true man born of a woman”[14] and “Christ [who] came not to diminish the worship of his Father.”[15] Newton felt that Jesus was an intermediary between man and God and that “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, and Jesus is the Word or prophet of God.”[16] This and his other anti-trinitarian views arise from his study of the works of church fathers. In the two manuscripts, “Queries regarding the Word Homoousios” and “Paradoxical Questions,”[17] Newton discusses the source of corruption to the true religion and the cause of its introduction. His argument is long and tedious, and I will content myself to say that he proved to himself (if no one else) that the corrupt doctrine was the doctrine of the Trinity. His argument is more forceful because of its thoroughness; the same attention to the slightest detail, and rigorous methodology that is so characteristic of his scientific endeavors is equally visible here. Thus, by no means can his theological works be dismissed as anything less than a serious scholarly body of work. They are integral (no pun intended) to an understanding of Newton beyond the scope of preeminent scientist.

The crown jewel of Isaac Newton’s academic career was the publication of The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. The Principia was a mechanistic philosophy of nature by which all objects within the universe are subject to certain immutable laws. This much is known to all whom have studied classical physics. For us, a self-perpetuating universe is acceptable, unfortunately, that was not Newton’s intention. His correspondence with Richard Bentley upon the subject begins with the sentence: "When I wrote my Treatise about our System, I had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering Men, for the belief of a Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose."[18] It is this part of Newton’s science that is frequently overlooked; he had written it with one eye upon the earth and the other to the heavens. It should be noted that he admitted that he did not have the answers to all of the workings of the world. He attributes the cause of these phenomena to God: the idea of reducing the world to “meer natural Causes”[19] is clearly abhorrent to him.[20] According to Newton, planetary motion and the motion of comets through the universe can only have been derived by “the Effect of Counsel.”[21] His argument to this effect is not so much deriving the conclusion from the evidence presented, as it is deriving the evidence that supports the conclusion. For Newton though, the workings of God as creator of the universe is a fait accompli; he sees no need to debate about the verity of a subject that is, to him, patently obvious.

Central to his theory of the universe is the concept of gravity. The inverse square law of gravity revolutionized the manner in which people perceived how the world operated. He waffles a bit on the subject though, for while he says that “the Cause of Gravity is what I do not pretend to know, and therefore would take more time to consider of it,”[22] he does not hesitate to speculate that the Cause is none other than God. He denies that gravity is an inherent property of matter. If it were an inherent quality, then there would be no need for an externally imposed Cause. It would self-regulate itself irrespective of a God. But since there necessarily needs be a God ordering the actions of the universe, He cannot do so with a universe populated with autonomous matter. Therefore, gravity is not inherent to matter, it has an external cause, and that cause can be none other than God. This is a perfect example of how Newton’s theological suppositions guide the direction and strength of his scientific inquiries.

In the Scholium Generale of the Principia, Newton attempts to explain the interaction of God and the universe: "This Being rules all things not as the soul of the world (for he has no body). . . He is Eternal and infinite. He endures for ever and is everywhere present: for what is never and nowhere is nothing. Can God be nowhere when the moment of time is everywhere? Certainly. He is omnipresent not only virtually but substantially, for virtue cannot subsist without substance, the substance is already imagined. In him are all things contained and moved, yet God and matter do not interfere. God suffers nothing from the motions of bodies, and these suffer no resistance from the omnipresence of God."[23] For Newton, the existence of God does not interfere with the workings of the universe, and the existence of the universe in no way interferes with the workings of God. Certainly he believed that matter could be affected by God directly, if He so chose, but matter was not affected simply by the existence of God. In this manner, Newton allows for both the existence of a mechanically ordered universe and for the means by which Divine Providence can operate within the world (for who are we to tell God what He may or may not do?).

With respect to miracles, Newton says that they "… are not so called because they are the works of God, but because they happen seldom, and for that reason create wonder. If they should happen constantly according to certain laws impressed upon the nature of things, they would be no longer wonders or miracles, but might be considered in philosophy as a part of the phenomena of nature notwithstanding that the cause of their causes might be unknown to us."[24] It appears as though Newton is hedging his bets. Miracles come not from God and aren’t natural in origin, but at the same time we know not their cause. It seems as though he is taking an intermediary position here. Miracles are infrequent, but may be affected by natural laws exclusive to themselves and it may also be possible that their occurrence is affected by the will of God (albeit indirectly). Certainly unorthodox, and somewhat cryptic, this statement nevertheless supports Newton’s desire to explain all things in the world with respect to either his natural philosophy or to God.

Finally, there are the Queries with which Newton concludes the Opticks. For the most part, they deal with the physics associated with Newton’s discoveries in the field of optics. However, towards the end, they begin to show his interest in chemistry, and also contain some reflections upon God and the creation of the universe. He claims that "it is unphilosophical to seek for any other origin of the world or to pretend that it might arise out of a chaos by the mere laws of nature, though being once formed it may continue by those laws for many ages."[25] For Newton, the elegance with which the universe presents itself is argument enough for the existence of a Deity. For him, the formation of the universe must have been guided by the hand of an omnipotent God, else it would not have formed in the manner that it had. This argument derives its conclusions through circular reasoning, and is thereby flawed, but it is not so in Newton’s mind. He believed that by expanding the boundaries of natural philosophy, “the bounds of moral philosophy will be also enlarged.”[26] In so doing, mankind will be able to ascend to a greater religious truth than what has ever existed. This in turn will result in a more accurate representation of the ‘true’ religion, and therefore render our worship of God greater. Ultimately, all of Newton’s works aim to create a closer relationship between mankind and their God.

- By Steve Nakoneshny (2007)

Footnotes

[1] Lindberg, D.C. The Beginnings of Western Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. p.4
[2] Westfall, R.S. science and Religion in Seventeenth Century England. David Horne, ed. Miscellany 67; New Haven: Yale University Press. 1968.,p.194
[3] Brooke, J.H. Science and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. p.22
[4] Dobbs, B.J.T. the Janus Face of Genius. Cambridge University Press.,1991. p.251
[5] Westfall , p.194
[6] McLaughlan, H. Sir Isaac Newton’s Theological Manuscripts. Liverpool: University Press, 1950. p. 2. The above quote is from Newton’s friend John Craig shortly after his death.
[7] Dobbs, B.J.T. The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy, or “The Hunting of the Greene Lyon”. Cambridge University Press, 1975. The context of this full statement is an interpretation and refutation of the opinions of one Mary S. Churchill. A position which Dobbs repudiates in the Epilogue of “Janus Face of Genius.”
[8] This particular line of questioning is further developed in the introduction of McLaughlan’s “Sir Isaac Newton’s Theological Manuscripts” and in McGuire and Tamny’s “Certain Philosophical Questions: Newton’s Trinity Notebook.”
[9] McLaughlan, p.48-53. This same argument takes form in the “Irenicum”, p.28-35.
[10] Ibid. p.51.
[11] Ibid. p.52.
[12] Ibid. p.119.
[13] Ibid. p. 56.
[14] Ibid. “our religion to Jesus Christ,” p.54.
[15] Ibid. “Articles,” p.56.
[16] Ibid. p.56.
[17] Ibid. former, p.44-47; latter, p.61-118.
[18] Cohen, I.B. Isaac Newton’s Papers & Letters on Natural Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978. p.280. Also, for a ‘modern’ English translation of these same letters, see Thayer’s Newton’s Philosophy of Nature. p.46-58.
[19] Ibid. p.282.
[20] McLaughlan, “A Short Scheme of the True Religion,” p.48.
[21] Cohen, p.282.
[22] Ibid. p. 298.
[23] Hall, A.R. & Hall, M.B., Eds. Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: University Press, 1962. p.359-360. This quote was taken from one of the unpublished manuscript versions of the Scholium (ms. C, to be precise).
[24] McLaughlan, p. 17-18.
[25] Thayer, p. 177.
[26] Ibid. p. 179.


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Bibliography and Works Cited

  • Brooke, J.H. Science and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
  • Cohen, I.B. Isaac Newton’s Papers & Letters on Natural Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.
  • Dobbs, B.J.T. The Foundation of Newton’s Alchemy, or The Hunting of the Greene Lyon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
  • Dobbs, B.J.T. The Janus Face of Genius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
  • Hall, A.R. & Hall, M.B., eds. Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.
  • Lindberg, D.C. The Beginnings of Western Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
  • McGuire, J.E. & Tamny, M. Certain Philosophical Questions: Newton’s Trinity Notebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
  • McLaughlan, H. Sir Isaac Newton’s Theological Manuscripts. Liverpool: University Press, 1950.
  • Thayer, H. S. Newton’s Philosophy of Nature: Selections from his Writings. New York: Hafner Press, 1953.
  • Westfall, R.S. Science and Religion in Seventeenth Century England. David Horne, ed. Miscellany 67; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958.
]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:53:53 +0000 fde9264cf376fffe2ee4ddf4a988880d Galileo and the Bible http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/galileo-and-the-bible-r71 Paul Newall (2005)

The so-called Galileo Affair occurred within a variety of contexts, some – like the invention of the telescope – recent and some with an ancient pedigree. This paper looks at examples of the latter, centring on the issue of interpreting the Bible.

The Council of Trent

The immediate context for the events surrounding Galileo's eventual abjuration was provided by the Reformation, beginning in 1517 with Luther's famous nailing of his ninety-five theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. There followed the Catholic Counter-Reformation, from the pontificate of Pius IV in 1560 to the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648 – roughly the period in which Galileo (1564 - 1642) lived. In 1523 (and later in 1524) a request had been made at the Imperial Diet in Nuernberg for a "free Christian Council" to discuss the issues that were then splitting the Church. This was delayed for so long (cf. Jedin, 1957) that when the Council was finally convened at Trent in 1545, its aims were to clarify Catholicism as a system and no longer to deal with a schism that had already gone too far to stop. The Council itself lasted for eighteen years, interrupted twice between 1547 and 1551 and later for a decade from 1552.

The Fourth Session, held in 1546, covered the important question of the status to be granted to Scripture and tradition. The issues at hand were to decide which books should be considered authentic and thus included in the Bible, and how to intepret the result. In addition, there was the matter of Catholic tradition, in the form of the writings of the Fathers of the Church – from Basil through to Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria. On these, the Session approved two Decrees. The first concerned tradition and stated the following:

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The Council … maintains that these truths and rules [of the Gospel] are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ Himself or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Spirit dictating, have come down to us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand. Following then the examples of the orthodox fathers, it receives and venerates with a feeling of equal piety and reverence both all the books of the Old and New Testaments, since one God is author of both, and also the traditions themselves, whether they relate to faith or to morals, as having been dictated either orally by Christ or by the Holy Spirit, and preserved in the Catholic Church in unbroken succession. (Decree on Tradition and the Canon of Sacred Scripture in Blackwell, 1991)

The main (but not sole) intent of this passage was to counter the Lutheran doctrine of Sola Scriptura; that is, that salvation comes from Scripture alone (thereby rejecting the indulgences and worldly extravagances that Luther decried in the Church). Notice, though, the use of "and" when asserting that the Gospel truths "are contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions…" This was the result of a great (and unresolved to this day) debate within the Church concerning the revelation and its transmission through Scripture and/or tradition. The question was: which part of the revelation is contained in each? The two possibilities discussed were that the whole was to be found in both, or that a part was in each (Partim in libris scriptis partim sine scripto traditionibus). (The notion that the whole was in one but only partly in the other was seemingly not covered – cf. Jedin, op cit.)

The consequences of each were significant: if the whole revelation lies in Scripture then tradition tells us nothing additional, which is not far from Sola Scriptura in effect except insofar as it does not reject that tradition includes truths. On the other hand, the alternative suggests that there are truths in tradition that cannot be found in Scripture (the converse holding, too), leading to the placing of an increased importance on the writings of the Church Fathers. What the Council did, however, was dodge the issue by not really asking the question and by simply resorting to this "and".

More importantly for Galileo subsequently, a second Decree covered Scriptural interpretation:

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… the Council decrees that, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, no one, relying on his own judgement and distorting the Sacred Scriptures according to his own conceptions, shall dare to interpret them contrary to that sense which Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and meaning, has held and does hold, or even contrary to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers, even though such interpretations should never at any time be published. Those who do otherwise shall be identified by the ordinaries and punished in accordance with the penalties prescribed by the law. (op cit)

A variant of this appeared in the Papal Bull Iniunctum nobis of 1564, including the line "I also accept Sacred Scripture in the sense in which is has been held, and is held, by Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge the true sense and interpretation of the Sacred Scripture."

A commentary on the appeal to the authority of the Church Fathers was given by the Dominican Melchior Cano in his De locis theologicis, published in 1563 two years after his death. He gave six degrees of authority to be used in determining the accuracy of any such appeal, of which two are of interest here. The first stated:

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When the authority of the saints, be they few or many, pertains to the faculties contained within the natural light of reason, it does not provide certain arguments but only arguments as strong as reason itself when in agreement with nature… (Cano, Opera, VII, 3)

This is the principle that Galileo would later appeal to, as we shall see below, and it is quoted verbatim by the Carmelite father Paolo Antonio Foscarini in his defence of his own letter Concerning the Opinion of the Pythagoreans and Copernicus About the Mobility of the Earth and the Stability of the Sun and the New Pythagorean System of the World of 1615, also discussed below. In his fifth degree, however, Cano wrote that

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In regard to the exposition of the Sacred Scriptures, the common interpretation of all the old saints provides the theologian with a most certain argument for the corroboration of theological assertions; for indeed the meaning of the Holy Spirit is the same as the meaning of all the saints… (ibid)

This was the understanding relied upon by Bellarmine.

Another writer of influence who considered these problems was Benito Pereyra, a Jesuit who authored a lengthy commentary on the book of Genesis in which he gave four rules for judging the truth of conflicting Scriptural interpretations. In particular, the last reads as follows:

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Fourth Rule: … in dealing with the teachings of Moses, do not think or say anything affirmatively and assertively which is contrary to the manifest evidence and arguments of philosophy or the other disciplines. For since every truth agrees with every other truth, the truth of Sacred Scripture cannot be contrary to the true arguments and evidence of the human sciences. (Commentarium et disputationum in Genesim tomi quatuor, I, 13)

This passage was quoted – again verbatim – by Galileo in his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of 1615 and influenced his thought on Biblical hermeneutics considerably. (Indeed, it is in Pereyra that we find the references to Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram that would later appear in Galileo's Letter, in support of the very same interpretive principle.)

This, then, is the context provided by the Council of Trent. An unresolved problem and an injunction on who could meaningfully interpret the Bible left an air of inevitability that a challenge would soon arrive to test the Church. Before we come to this, however, it is necessary to take two short detours.

The Context of Demonstration

It is well known that Galileo was not able to prove the Copernican system definitively. Some have subsequently asserted that in fact it was the Church that acted "scientifically" by taking a fallibilist stance, but this myth is mere anachronism – applying current ideas to the past when Galileo was working within a different context of demonstration. In this section we examine the understanding of proof that was employed by Galileo at the time and its consequences.

Proof and Rhetoric

Recent work on Galileo's early manuscripts has discerned considerable continuity between his thought and that of his contemporaries, as well as the Aristotelianism prevalent at the time. In particular, three early Latin works – MS 27 consisting in questions on logic and based on Jesuit commentaries on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics; MS 46 being some notes on motion; and MS 71 comprising in tentative versions of his later De Motu – provide a window into how Galileo thought about what we now call science and the justification of scientific theories.

In the first part of his Posterior Analytics, Aristotle described science as follows:

Quote

We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which the sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and, further, that the fact could not be other than it is. Now that scientific knowing is something of this sort is evident - witness both those who falsely claim it and those who actually possess it, since the former merely imagine themselves to be, while the latter are also actually, in the condition described. Consequently the proper object of unqualified scientific knowledge is something which cannot be other than it is.

Note that this view is considerably distant from the modern fallibilist notion of science, wherein all theories are held provisionally as subject to possible revision or refutation. For Aristotle, the province of science is that "which cannot be other than it is"; i.e. certain knowledge. Wallace has shown (in Coyne et al., 1985) that Galileo was “seriously studying Jesuit course materials on logic and natural philosophy” (op cit, 16) while authoring MS 27, which contains his adaptations of their remarks on Aristotle's treatise.

His overall concern was to develop demonstrative arguments by which to provide scientific proof of a theory (in particular, the Copernican system). He did this by appealing to the concept of causality and by making a series of distinctions between types of cause. He contrasted true causes (vera causae) with improper ones; the universal with the particular; genuine with accidental; internal with external; instrinsic with extrinsic; and so on. His method, as explained in MS 27 and later explicated in the Sidereus nuncios and the Discourse on Floating Bodies, was that causes could be determined via a regressus demonstrativa. This meant working backwards from effects to causes, only to then attempt to minimise or eliminate those that - although present - would not have an effect on the object of study. An ultimate cause, then, would be something that when present allows us to see the effect but when absent takes it away.

In addition to this, Galileo made use of suppositions; that is, by making hypothetical suppositions and reasoning from them to a logical demonstration, in accordance with the causal principles discussed above. If these suppositions are not false, he argued, then the theory so demonstrated could be held to be certain (Opere: 5, 357-359). In this way he could combine causes already discovered to achieve conclusive demonstrations elsewhere.

The question, then, is to what extent Galileo had – or believed he had – necessary demonstrations of the Copernican system. It seems that late in 1615 he thought his argument from the tides was (or rather could be) a conclusive argument (Opere: 5, 377), and wrote his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina with it in mind. However, in his later Dialogue he places the argument on the fourth day and quite clearly notes that it is not certain proof by allowing Simplicius to critique it as an example of begging the question, to which Salviati provides no rejoinder. This being so, the considerable rhetorical skill with which Galileo advanced Copernicanism (Moss, 1993) must have been intended to serve another purpose.

Dominicans and Jesuits

Before we can understand what this aim was, it is helpful to consider still another context in which Galileo lived. In 1607, Pope Paul V had issued a moratorium finally putting an end to a controversy between the Dominicans and Jesuits that had lasted for two decades concerning the reconciliation of Divine Grace with the freedom of the will. In the latter half of the sixteenth century the Domincans had become increasingly conservative in outlook, promulgating a series of Acta (Reichert, 1901) dealing with the necessity of persecuting heretics and taking a dim view of any form of compromise (cf. Feldhay, 1995 – particularly ch. 5-6). This was in marked contrast to the Jesuit approach, which emphasised tolerance and sought to find a middle ground with Protestants, minimising or removing altogether the use of pejoratives terms like heretic.

Jesuit Obedience

Following his election as General of the Society of Jesus in 1581, however, Claudio Aquaviva became increasingly concerned that the Jesuits' role after the Council of Trent as defenders of Church orthodoxy was being diluted. Mindful of violating the conditions of the Papal order, moreover, he issued two letters in 1611 and 1613 in which he sought to provide the Jesuits with a greater degree of uniformity of thought (Epistolae, 1911). In the second, he made explicit reference to the forty-first decree of the Fifth General Congregation of the Jesuits, which read in part as follows:

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In matters of any importance philosophy professors should not deviate from the views of Aristotle, unless his view happens to be contrary to a teaching which is accepted everywhere in the schools, or especially if his view is contrary to orthodox faith. In accordance with the Lateran Council, they should strenuously try to refute any arguments of Aristotle, or of any other philosopher, which are contrary to the faith. (Decreta, 1830)

This had an immediate effect: in 1614, Christopher Grienberger, who had taken over as Professor of Mathematics at the Collegio Romano in Clavius' chair, arranged for Giovanni Bardi to present a lecture and accompanying demonstrations in support of Galileo’s 1612 Discourse on Floating Bodies. Bardi, a friend of Galileo, wrote a letter to the latter giving his account of how well he had been received (Opere: XII, 76), remarking in particular on Grienberger's opinion:

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Fr. Grienberger told me that if the topic had not been treated by Aristotle (with whom, by order of the General, the Jesuits cannot disagree in any way but rather are obliged always to defend), he would have spoken more positively about the experiments because he was very favourably impressed by them.

Bardi also said that Grienberger had added (ibid) that it was no surprise that Bardi’s demonstration should disagree with Aristotle, since Galileo had already shown him to be in error with regard to the rates at which bodies of differing mass fall (the famous experiment at the Leaning Tower of Pisa). Clavius himself had sounded a similar note in 1611 when revising the final edition of his In sphaerum, wherein he reviewed the results Galileo had obtained from telescopic observations (which he had verified for himself) and stated that "[s]ince these things are so, astronomers should consider how the celestial orbs are constituted so that these phenomena can be saved" (Opera mathematica, III, 75). Nevertheless, his suggestion (and the principle behind it) was not heeded and the Jesuits moved in a direction of obedience and fidelity to Aristotelianism (and Thomism) rather than continue with their open-minded approach to Galileo and his work.

This is no more clearly shown than in the case of Guiseppe Biancani, a Jesuit who in 1614 authored his Aristotelis loca mathematica in which he treated of Aristotle's thought on floating bodies. While undergoing peer review, a custom of the Jesuits, this work was censored and a recommendation made that the discussion of floating bodies, due to Galileo, be replaced with a note pointing to the Florentine's work. (The reviewer, Giovanni Camerota, opined that "It does not seem to be either proper or useful for the books of our members to contain the ideas of Galileo, especially when they are contrary to Aristotle" – cf. Baldini, 1984.) In the revised edition of another work, the Sphaera mundi, seu cosmographia, first written in 1615 but only published in 1619 after the Decree of the Congregation of the Index in 1616, Biancani concluded his discussion of Copernicus and Kepler by saying:

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But that this opinion [heliocentrism] is false and should be rejected (even though it is established by better proofs and arguments) has nevertheless become much more certain in our day when it has been condemned by the authority of the Church as contrary to Sacred Scripture. (Sphaera, IV, 37)

In his report on this work, Grienberger had lamented the restrictions placed on Biancani, noting that "he was not allowed to think freely about what is required" (Baldini, op cit). Much later, in 1633, Niccolo di Peiresc reported to Pietro Gassendi that in Athanasius Kircher’s opinion, even Christopher Scheiner, Galileo's bitter opponent on the question of sunspots, had been Copernican in outlook, only defending Aristotle because of his obligation as a Jesuit to do so:

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[Kircher]… could not keep from admitting to us … that Fr. Malapert and Fr. Clavius himself did not disapprove of the opinion of Copernicus, and were not very far from it, but they had been pressured and obliged to write in favour of the common views of Aristotle, which even Fr. Scheiner himself supported only because of force and obedience. (Opere: XV, 254)

It is important to understand what apparently occurred here: the Jesuits were not bound to oppose Galileo because of what he wrote per se, but because their order had determined to follow Aristotle in philosophy. This, in turn, they had opted to enforce due to their (intellectual) battle with the Dominicans and the Counter-Reformation consequences of the Council of Trent, which had itself laid down the standards that could be accepted on Scriptural interpretation. Thus we come full circle to the Bible and how Galileo would be allowed to read it.

Reading the Bible and the Book of Nature

In order to avoid simplistic accounts of Galileo's differences with Bellarmine in interpreting Scripture, it is necessary to first understand the subtlety present in the latter’s views. In particular, we need to look beyond the almost exclusive focus on the last decade of his life when he came to know and interact with Galileo.

Bellarmine and Astronomy

An important observation arising from the study of Bellarmine's early works (most notably the Louvain Lectures of 1570-72) is that he held to a non-Aristotelian cosmology from at least the age of 28, if not earlier, and that this did not change significantly throughout the course of his life (cf. his letter to Cesi of 1618 in Blackwell, 1991, and his Letter to Foscarini of 1615) The hermeneutic principle he held to was that since there was disagreement among astronomers as to the make-up of the heavens, we should follow the interpretation that best accords with the Scriptures. This is to take the Bible as a boundary condition, limiting interpretations (this is Feyerabend’s argument in Coyne, et al., 1985, before he lapses into myth).

Bellarmine's personal opinion remained constant in supposing that the heavens consisted in three parts, the second (the "starry") neither being composed of an Aristotelian quintessence nor incorruptible, but likely composed of fire and stationary. He further explained the motion of the Sun from North to South by its true path being a spiral, while he believed that the fixed stars actually moved independently of one another. (cf. Baldini, 1984 for more details.) Although he was aware of (and struggled with) the weaknesses of this account, which he based on his reading of relevant Biblical passages, it is therefore wholly incorrect to suppose that his opposition to Galileo and Copernicanism was due to his allegiance to Aristotelianism or the Jesuit injunctions of 1581.

Biblical Hermeneutics

In 1615, Foscarini published his Letter. This brought matters to a head very quickly. For his part, Foscarini was clear on his reasons for undertaking to show that Scripture could be adapted to Copernicanism:

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... if the Pythagorean opinion is true, then without doubt God has dictated the words of Scripture in such a way that they can be given a meaning which agrees with, and is reconciled with, that opinion. This is the motive which has led me … to look and search for ways to accommodate many passages of Sacred Scripture with it, and to interpret these passages, with the aid of theological and physical principles, in such a way that they are not openly contradictory. As a result, if by chance this opinion should in the future become explicitly established as a certain truth (although now it is only taken as probable), no obstacles would arise which would worry or hinder anyone, and thus unfortunately deprive the world of that venerable and sacred association with truth which is desired by all good people. (in Blackwell, 1991, 222-223)

The principle that Foscarini was relying on here was that there could not be two truths; that is, the Book of Nature must ultimately agree with the Bible or else two contradictory truths would hold at the same time. Judging that Copernicanism was quite probable, Foscarini therefore set himself the task of showing that Scripture could be interpreted in a manner that agreed with heliocentrism. In doing so, he was following Pereyra's Fourth Rule and the very same advice of Augustine that Galileo would appeal to; namely, that if the Church should fix physical truths on the basis of Scriptural passages and the former should one day be demonstrated to be incorrect, the faith would thereby be grievously injured.

Bellarmine's response was his carefully considered Letter to Foscarini. After noting that Copernicanism cannot be held to have been demonstrated, and therefore can only be held ex suppositione, Bellarmine hints that Foscarini has not been able to explain all Scriptural passages on the basis of heliocentrism being true. His second point is of paramount importance, however:

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Now consider whether in all prudence the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators. Nor may it be answered that this is not a matter of faith, for if it is not a matter of faith from the point of view of the subject matter [ex parte objecti], it is still on the part of the ones who have spoken [ex parte dicentis]. It would be just as heretical to deny that Abraham had two sons and Jacob twelve, as it would be to deny the virgin birth of Christ, for both are declared by the Holy Ghost through the mouths of the prophets and apostles.

Here Bellarmine insisted on a principle that meant the end of all debate, and indeed neither Foscarini nor Galileo published anything on Biblical hermeneutics subsequently. Since everything in the Scriptures has been authored by the Holy Spirit, it becomes a matter of faith by default. Although Foscarini had anticipated the appeal to the Decree of the Council of Trent, then, by saying that only matters of faith and morals come under the restriction on interpretation, Bellarmine had cut the ground from under him (and anyone else) by rendering the entirety of Scripture under the province of Trent. This also makes the Ptolemaic system "a matter of faith" and hence brought an end to any possibility of debate. (Although Tommaso Campanella published an attempted reconciliation of Copernicanism and Scripture in 1622, there is considerable dispute as to its actual date of creation. Even if we push it back to 1615, the year when he was asked for his opinion by Cardinal Gaetani (the man charged with correcting Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium celestium), it does not seem to have impacted on the debate between Galileo and Bellarmine (although it is more likely to have had an effect on the trial of 1616). Campanella was not a popular man due to his having been imprisoned in 1599 for heresy and political conspiracy, even though his defence of Galileo’s freedom of inquiry was Scripturally more sound than Bellarmine's thought. cf. Blackwell, 1994 and Langford, 1998)

Galileo's Reductio

We will return to Bellarmine’s third point below, but Galileo was able to obtain a copy of the Letter and in due course made his own notes on it. Although he did not – and could not – publish these, he nevertheless developed a simple yet devastating reductio ad absurdum of Bellarmine’s principle that is worth considering.

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It would be much more a "matter of faith" to hold that Abraham had sons, and that Tobias had a dog, because the Scriptures say so, than to hold that the earth does not move, granting that the latter is found in the Scriptures themselves. The reason why the denial of the former, but not the latter, would be a heresy is the following. Since there are always men in the world who have two, four, six, or even no sons, and likewise since someone might or might not have dogs, it would be equally credible that someone has sons or dogs and that someone else does not. Hence there would be no reason or cause for the Holy Spirit to state in such propositions anything other than the truth, since the affirmative and the negative would be equally credible to all men. But this is not the case concerning the mobility of the earth and the stability of the sun, which are propositions far removed from the apprehension of the common man. As a result it has pleased the Holy Spirit to accommodate the words of the Sacred Scriptures to the capacities of the common man in such matters which do not concern his salvation, even though in nature the fact be otherwise. (in Blackwell, 1991, 270)

Here Galileo was referring to his own quotation of Cardinal Baronius' epigram in the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, which stated that "the intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." However, Galileo was able to ally this with a reductio: if it is true that everything in the Scriptures is a "matter of faith" ex parte dicentis, then it follows that denying that Tobias had a dog would be tantamount to heresy. Indeed, while the movement of the Earth may have been denied in the Scriptures, this is not a commonsensical issue and may be a question of accommodating the Biblical passages to the understanding of the lay readers. That Tobias had a dog, on the other hand, is a literal and straightforward interpretation of the Scriptures, and hence to deny it is – on Bellarmine's principle – heretical. This absurd conclusion demonstrates the poverty of Bellarmine’s position but Galileo, of course, did not dare publish it.

Boundary Conditions

If we wish to distill meaningful methodological principles from Bellarmine’s and Galileo's thought on interpreting the Scriptures, then, we have to look to their differing employment of boundary conditions. For Bellarmine, the common understanding of the Bible may not be without error but its overall status (containing either a part or the whole of the revelation, as discussed above) meant that it should be treated accordingly with a certain respect. That is, unless a passage could be shown to be contradicted by a certain demonstration to the contrary, we should assume its truth.

For Galileo, on the contrary, the fact that some aspects of the Scriptures were false when read literally implied that physical arguments should take priority, with the Bible holding the "last place" in the interpretive chain ("if truly demonstrated physical conclusions need not be subordinated to biblical passages, but the latter must rather be shown not to interfere with the former", he writes in the Letter). Only when it speaks of an issue having nothing to do with the Book of Nature should the literal understanding of the Bible be accepted as definitive (cf. the extremely subtle reading of this section of the Lettter given in Fantoli, 2003, 156-159). Moreover, Galileo added that

Quote

… before a physical proposition is condemned it must be shown to be not rigorously demonstrated - and this is to be done not by those who hold the proposition to be true, but by those who judge it to be false.

When we bear in mind Galileo's methodology of suppositions and the regressive demonstration of causes, we arrive also at the realisation that for him only those physical propositions contained in passages of Scripture that were in agreement with certain proof could be taken as definitive; all others should not be subject to condemnation unless or until the complainant could show that they could not possibly be demonstrated. This is thus Galileo’s Aristotelian conception of what we now call science, still relying on certainty but operating in the opposite direction.

What we have, then, are two hermeneutic principles. On the one hand, the Bible is to be taken as true (or approximately true) as is unless we can find reason to believe otherwise, whereupon its meaning must be reinterpreted. This is so for physical and theological elements alike (and also historical). On the other, we must start with true (or approximately true) physical propositions and interpret the Bible from within the context they provide. The one sets the Bible as a methodological standard by which to navigate, while the other strips it of all but theological content and sets the Book of Nature in its stead. It is this change in priority that has led to Galileo being called the "father of modern science", while these opposing methodologies inform debates on the priority of Scripture even today.


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References:
  • Ugo Baldini and George V. Coyne, S.J., The Louvain Lectures (Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, 1984)
  • Ugo Baldini, Additamenta Galilaeana, in Annali dell’Instituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze (1984)
  • Giuseppe Biancani, Aristotelis loca mathematica ex universes ipsius operibus collecta et explicata (Bononiae, 1615)
  • Giuseppe Biancani, Sphaera mundi, seu cosmographia demonstrativa, ac facili methodo tradita (Bononiae, 1620)
  • Richard Blackwell (trans.), A Defense Of Galileo the Mathematician from Florence (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994)
  • Richard Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991)
  • Melchior Cano, Opera (Rome: Ex typographia Forzani et Soc., 1890)
  • Christopher Clavius, S.J., Opera mathematica (Moguntinae, 1611-12)
  • G.V. Coyne, S.J., M. Heller and J. Źyciński, The Galileo Affair: A Meeting of Faith and Science (Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, 1984)
  • Decreta, canones, censurae, et praecepta Congregationum Generalium Societas Jesu (Avenione: Ex Typographia Francisci Sequin, 1830)
  • Stillman Drake, Cause, Experiment and Science: A Galilean Dialogue Incorporating a New English Translation of Galileo’s "Bodies that Stay atop Water or Move in it" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981)
  • Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (New York: Anchor Books, 1957)
  • Epistolae selectae praepositorum generalium ad superiors Societatis (Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vatincanis, 1911)
  • Anibale Fantoli, Galileo: For Copernicanism and for the Church (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003)
  • Antonio Favaro (ed.) Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, Edizione Nazionale (Florence: G. Barbera, 1890-1901)
  • Rivka Feldhay, Galileo and the Church: Political Inquisition or Critical Dialogue? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)
  • Hubert Jedin, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1957)
  • Jerome J. Langford, Galileo, Science and the Church (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998)
  • Jean Dietz Moss, Novelties in the Heavens: Rhetoric and Science in the Copernican Controversy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)
  • Olaf Pederson, Galileo and the Council of Trent (Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, 1983)
  • Benedictus Pereyra, Commentarium et disputationum in Genesim tomi quatuor (Rome: Apud Georgium Ferrarium, 1591-95)
  • B.M. Reichert (ed.), Acta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Praedicatorum (1558-1628), Monumenta Ordinum Praedicatorum (Rome: 1901)
]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:30:08 +0000 c9892a989183de32e976c6f04e700201 Galilean Myths http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/galilean-myths-r70 Paul Newall (2005)

As explained in the extended essay, the Galileo Affair is well known for giving rise to mythical interpretations. Although the reading that portrays Galileo as a martyr to science or rationality persists in many circles, there are two others.

The first perhaps had its origin in the work of Koyre and others and holds that the Church acted correctly in censuring Galileo, since in advocating Copernicanism without proof it was his that was the unscientific position. This relies on the view of Galileo as a Copernican zealot, keen to promote heliocentrism at all costs even though he knew he did not have anything approaching a convincing demonstration. Apart from being wholly anachronistic (there were no demarcation criteria to decide what was or was not science at that time, since there was no science at all), Wallace has shown that Galileo knew exactly what would or would not constitute a proof or demonstration according to the sophisticated (Aristotelian) understanding of his day. Moreover, once we appreciate that Galileo was hoping to prevent the Church from falling into the error that Augustine had warned against previously - that is, of making an empirical claim an article of faith and thereby allowing a heathen who could show it to be false to call the faith into doubt - this myth runs out of steam very quickly.

A variant of this approach claims with Feyerabend (see his address to the Pontifical Academy given in Krakow) that Bellarmine's remarks in 1616 exemplified a "scientific" attitude and hence Galileo was wrong to insist that the Church give up a worldview which worked for one which was unproven. Leaving alone the unfortunate circumstance that Galileo was doing no such thing, Bellarmine's letter to Foscarini is usually cited in support of this contention, wherein Bellarmine wrote that he knew of no proof of Copernicanism and would

Quote

...not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown me. Nor is it the same to demonstrate that by supposing the sun to be at the centre and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances, and to demonstrate that in truth the sun is at the centre and the earth in heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have very great doubts about the second, and in case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scriptures as interpreted by the Holy Fathers. (Opere, XII, 171-172)

The principle employed here is that we should not dispense with a position of known success in interpreting our world unless we have good reason to, a sentiment that we are supposed to agree with as transparently obvious. The section of Bellarmine's letter conveniently not quoted, however, gives a rather different picture of Bellarmine's supposedly enlightened attitude:

Quote

Consider now, with your sense of prudence, whether the church can tolerate giving Scripture a meaning contrary to the Holy Fathers and to all the Greek and Latin commentators. Nor can one answer that this is not a matter of faith, since it is not a matter of faith ex parte objecti [as regards the topic or object of discussion], it is a matter of faith ex parte dicentis [as regards the speaker]; and so it would be heretical to say that Abraham did not have two children and Jacob twelve, as well as to say that Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophets and the apostles.

Here we see (as among Galileo scholars only Fantoli appears to have noted clearly and with regard to its consequences) that Scriptural statements concerning the movement of the Sun around the Earth cannot be questioned because they issue from the Holy Spirit via the Biblical authors. The result of this position, as is immediately obvious to all who read this far in the letter, is that there can never be any non-heretical proof of Copernicanism. Regardless of the arguments Galileo could muster, then, he would unavoidably fall into heresy. Whatever we call this unfalsifiable position with regard to astronomical questions, "scientific" and "rational" are not meaningful descriptions.

A more recent look at the Galileo Affair points to the so-called "Galileo Commission" set up by Pope John Paul II in 1979 as indicative of a desire on the part of the Church to gain a more acccurate understanding of what occurred and where the Church of that time made mistakes. The harshest criticisms of their conclusions, however, have come from George Coyne, a Jesuit, and Annibale Fantoli. At the close of my essay, I explained why the Church had succeeded in little more than erecting new myths in place of the old, in spite of earlier optimism that something valuable would be achieved.

Why does the Galileo Affair give rise to such a variety of myths? Probably because it represents the confluence of so many different factors that it is quite easy to focus on one or a few to the exclusion of others and hence to read into it opinions actually held a priori. A wide reading can perhaps help avoid this to some extent, but a more important lesson may be to simply realise that everyone has a position to sell. Sadly many of the accounts of Galileo's life and times make this far too obvious to be interesting on any other level.

(NB. All references in this article may be found in the extended essay on The Galileo Affair linked to above.)]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:28:39 +0000 a86c450b76fb8c371afead6410d55534 The Galileo Affair, Part 5: The aftermath http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/the-galileo-affair-part-5-the-aftermath-r69 Paul Newall (2005)

Consequences

So it was that the trial and its inevitable result established what had already been determined in 1616 by Bellarmine's blinkered approach, wherein he claimed that no Scriptural passage could be challenged by physical arguments because they all came from the Holy Spirit. This opinion, followed to the letter, would kill science before it had even developed.

As Fantoli put it, "to hold that the provisions of 1616 were only intended to break the untimely zeal of Galileo for Copernicanism without blocking further careful scientific research on the matter appears to me to be completely untenable" (op cit: 481). Although there were other factors, the effect on Copernican astronomy within Italy was catastrophic. Galileo blamed the Jesuits (XIV, 116-117, for example) and there is little doubt that a varied group of opponents was arrayed against him, from jealous academics to furious theologians. Nevertheless, the decisive influence was Urban VIII, convinced that Galileo had betrayed him—without which certainly even the most strident efforts of Galileo's detractors could not have borne fruit.

The complex tale that is the Galileo affair cautions us not to make simplistic judgements. Nevertheless, it remains the case that the question of whether or not Galileo had any proof for Copernicanism was never at issue—in 1616 or in 1633. The very possibility of any demonstration was excluded in principle by Bellarmine's doctrinal position and its adoption by an authoritarian Church. The trial and abjuration of Galileo thus represented an "institutionalised abuse of power which can never be sufficiently deprecated" (ibid), in which the societal position of the Church was used to dictate the correct understanding of an issue that was never considered on its own terms. Allowing the enmity of some philosophers to provoke a theological confrontation when there was only a physical argument at issue, the machinery of the Holy Office was turned against Galileo and fell into the very error he and Augustine before him had warned against.

In spite of Galileo not being blameless himself, it is fair to say that history has judged the Church justifiably harshly—most notably, perhaps, Pope John Paul II with his comment on the Galileo affair that "the sons and daughters of the Church must return with a spirit of repentance ... [to] the acquiescence given, especially in certain centuries, to intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of the truth" (1994: 45). The upshot of the affair was characterised by Westfall when he explained that

Quote

[a]s the Church had remained a central factor in European life for more than fifteen hundred years by refusing ever to put itself in opposition to prevailing learning, so it would remain a factor in the new age then being formed if it refused to be at odds with modern science. The net result of Cardinal Bellarmine's devoted effort to defend his Church was to place an incubus to its back that it struggles still to shake off. (op cit: 24)

For his part, Galileo had seen his attempt to save his Church from this mistake crushed by the authoritarianism he had sought to delimit to theology. Writing in 1633 to his friend Diodati of yet another attack on Copernicanism by Libert Froidmont, he asked

Quote

[w]hen Froidmont or others have established that to say the earth moves is heresy, while demonstrations, observations, and necessary conclusions show that it does move, in what swamp will he have lost himself and the Holy Church? (XV, 25)

It seems the question could only be rhetorical.

Galileo was imprisoned by the Holy Office but his sentence was commuted—first to confinement within the Tuscan Embassy, then to house arrest in the Archbishop of Sienna's residence, and finally to house arrest in his own villa at Arcetri, close to Florence in his native Tuscany (XIX, 389). This circumstance remained in force even when he was completely blind. Using dictation to his students, however, he continued to work despite his disappointment, compiling all the work he had done or intended to do on dynamics. This was published in 1638 in Leiden as the Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations about two new sciences belonging to Mechanics and local motions.

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The Discourses, leading to Galileo being described as "the father of modern science"


On the 8th of January, 1641, his health having deteriorated for the last time, Galileo Galilei died with his son Vincenzio and his student Evangelista Torricelli at his bedside. He was buried in the church of Santa Croce in Florence, the Grand Duke resolving immediately to "provide a sumptuous tomb for him comparable to and facing that of Michelangelo Buonarroti" (XVIII, 378). The Tuscan Ambassador was told by Urban VIII in Rome that this could not possibly be allowed (ibid, 378-379), showing that the attitude of the Church to him did not soften following his death. His friends, at least, realised his true stature and how he would be considered by posterity (for example, Holste, ibid).

Only in 1734 did the Church finally give permission for a mausoleum to be built for Galileo's remains (XIX, 399), which were moved to the completed structure in 1736. The inscription read Galileo Galilei, Florentine Patrician, very great Innovator of Astronomy, of Geometry and of Philosophy. Incomparable to anyone of his time. May he rest here well. The work that Galileo had begun with the Two new sciences had since been completed by Newton in his Principia Mathematica and the Church finally had to come to terms with what Bellarmine supposed there could not be—a justification of Copernicanism.

The adaptation was still slow, with the 1741 authorised edition of Galileo's works still requiring "corrections". In 1757 the decree of 1616 was quietly dropped from the Index of forbidden books, but the Copernican works proscribed therein remained until 1822 "out of at having finally to take a clear position with respect to the behaviour of the Church" (Fantoli, op cit: 497). In perhaps the ultimate irony, Pius VII released a decree in 1822 stating that no work treating of the motion of the Earth was to be prohibited, on pain of punishment for the person proposing to do so—a complete reversal of the situation in 1616 and 1633.

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Galileo's Tomb in Florence


The Galileo Affair Today

In the nineteenth century the rise of anti-clericalism and its antithesis in the combative defenders of the Church led to the myths we began this essay with. For the former, Galileo was a martyr to intellectual freedom, having fought the dragon of implacable hostility to science and free thought. No more convincingly, for the militant supporters of the Church Galileo embodied vanity, pride and ambition, and was responsible for his own sufferings at the hands of a Church that had correctly judged the limits of the available knowledge and acted accordingly. Neither of these can be taken seriously today, as we have seen.

In 1849 the archives of the Holy Office were opened for the first time for the study of the Galileo affair. Giacomo Manzoni, Minster of Finances of the short-lived Roman Republic, and Silvestro Gherardi, Minister of Public Education, found some of the relevant documents and published them as The Trial of Galileo Reseen through Documents from a New Source in 1870. With the return to power of Pius IX, the Church hastily compiled its own resource to prevent any possible damage, with Prefect of the Secret Vatican Archive Marini's Galileo and the Inquisition issued in 1850. This was—intentionally—nothing approaching a complete record of the affair. Several other scholars were later given the chance to consult the volumes on Galileo, including Henri de L'Espinois, Domenico Berti and Karl von Gebler. In 1880 the Secret Archives were finally opened by Leo XIII and Antonio Favaro began his work on the National Edition of the Works of Galileo. Nevertheless, a resolution of the difficulties posed by the Galileo affair was no closer.

In 1941 a decision was made by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences to commission a biography of Galileo in time for the 300th anniversary of his death in 1942. The work was entrusted to Monsignor Pio Paschini, professor of Church history in Rome at the Pontifical Lateran University, which he duly completed (slightly late) within three years. The book was rejected, however—some said for the harshness of opinion Paschini demonstrated towards the Jesuits for their part in the affair—and only released some twenty years later, having been corrected for the "inappropriate" way it portrayed the Church (cf. Maccarrone, 1980 for more detail). Thus did the concern to "save face" extend all the way to the Second Vatican Council and beyond.

On the 10th of November, 1979, Pope John Paul II gave an address at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Einstein, at which he noted that

Quote

The greatness of Galileo is known to everyone, like that of Einstein; but unlike the latter... the former had to suffer a great deal—we cannot conceal the fact—at the hands of men and organisms of the Church. ... I hope that theologians, scholars and historians, animated by a spirit of sincere collaboration, will study the Galileo case more deeply and, in a loyal recognition of wrongs from whatever side they come, will dispel the mistrust that still opposes, in many minds, a fruitful concord between the Church and the world. I give all my support to this task, which will be able to honour the truth of faith and of science and open the door to future collaboration. (quoted in Bucciarelli, 1980: 79)

This challenge was taken up with the formation in July 1981 of a "Galileo Commission" under the leadership of Cardinals Casaroli and Garrone and split into four areas: exegetical; cultural; scientific and epistemological; and historical and juridical. A series of works were produced, beginning in 1983 and culminating in the Studi Galileiani of the Vatican Observatory.

On the 31st of October, 1992, the Pope again addressed the Pontifical Academy to draw to a close this period of investigation. Commenting on the whole affair, his talk took a different tack when he said that

Quote

From the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment down to our day, the Galileo case has been a sort of myth, in which the image fabricated out of the events was quite far removed from reality. In the perspective, the Galileo case was the symbol of the Church's supposed rejection of scientific progress, or of dogmatic obscurantism opposed to the free search for truth. This myth has played a considerable cultural role. It has helped to anchor a number of scientists of good faith in the idea that there was an incompatibility between the spirit of science and its rules of research on one hand and the Christian faith on the other. (in 1992: 271-280)

The Pontiff went on to explain that the affair had resulted from a "tragic mutual incomprehension", which consisted in four separate conclusions of the Commission:

  • Galileo failed to appreciate that he had no proof of Copernicanism;
  • Theologians of that time did not correctly understand Scripture;
  • Bellarmine truly understood what was "at stake" in the affair; and
  • The Church accepted Copernicanism as soon as proof was available.
We have seen that the first of these is untenable. The second fails because the methodological principle of Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess, while commonplace today, was neither understood nor employed by theologians at that time; and so it is useless to complain that it was not wielded correctly. We have also noted that Bellarmine's position rendered any such accommodation impossible. Following on from this, the third we already know to be in error: Bellarmine's position was not instrumental at all but based on reading all Scriptural passages as literally coming from the Holy Spirit. Finally, the idea that the Church embraced Copernicanism as soon as it was demonstrated is given the lie by the unwillingness to open the Secret Vatican Archives and the fact that the 1744 edition of Galileo's works was not allowed to contain the Letter (although it did include the Dialogue, but only with the sentence of 1633 alongside it) (Coyne, 2002), as we have treated of briefly above.

Thus we see that the Church had retreated from the boldness of John Paul II's intentions in 1979 to a restatement of the old myths we have considered and rejected throughout. Meanwhile, Galileo studies continue unabated with new perspectives continually casting the affair in a different light. It is perhaps in this desire to consider the case closed that the contemporary Church has erred most seriously, since the continuing relevance of all the issues encompassed by this great human, theological, philosophical, political and personal drama is such that it seems likely to maintain its hold over our imaginations indefinitely. It is as well to leave the last word on a subject that is never final, then, to Fantoli (1996: 511), who suggested that:

Quote

[The Galileo Affair] remains, and should remain, "open"... as a severe lesson of humility to the Church at all levels and as a warning, no less rigorous, not to wish to repeat in the present or in the near future the errors of the past, even the most recent past.


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References:

(Note: Links do not necessarily refer to the same edition.)

]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:18:47 +0000 8b16ebc056e613024c057be590b542eb The Galileo Affair, Part 4: The trial and its d... http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/the-galileo-affair-part-4-the-trial-and-its-d-r68 Paul Newall (2005)

The Trial and its Development

Urban VIII and Politics

The reception of the Dialogue among Galileo's friends was enthusiastic (XIV, 357), as could have been expected. Riccardi received a copy and made no complaint (Paschini, 1965: 501), which will prove relevant later. Meanwhile, political events were overtaking all other aspects to the affair.

Urban VIII's attempts to sail a course between the French and the Hapsburgs during the Thirty Years War had come unstuck when he was accused by the Spanish of favouring the French. Galileo's friend Ciampoli became mixed up in the affair, having been befriended by Cardinal Gaspare Borgia, Ambassador to Spain, and the Spanish group in general. In March of 1632 Borgia, backed by another seven Cardinals, publicly criticised the Pope at a consistory, accusing him of favouring heretics and lacking apostolic zeal, leading almost to a brawl when the Pontiff's brother, Cardinal Antonio Barberini, took exception. (See Redondi, 1987: 227-232 for a full account of these events.) Stung by these and other accusations and unable to do anything against Borgia himself, Urban VIII acted against the group around him, expelling Cardinal Ludovisi for his support for Borgia and his threats to depose the Pope. Ciampoli, who had had Ludovisi as a patron and who was close to Cardinals Ubaldini and Aldobrandi, other members of the group, was dismissed for his association with the Spanish party. (Some, including Ambassador Niccolini, gave another reason for Ciampoli's fall: overconfident in his own abilities, he had taken a letter of the Pontiff's written in Latin and rewritten it, showing the result to friends. The Pope, being a man of letters and deeply proud of his own abilities, was stung to the quick. (Fantoli, 1996: 457-458))

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Pope Urban VIII, Galileo’s friend and patron


In April, the Protestant army of Adolphus reached Bavaria and began to loot the Jesuit Colleges. Urban VIII was caught between the demands of Philip IV and Ferdinand II to act against Adolphus and Cardinal Richelieu's suggestions to split with Spain. His indecision did not last long, however, because Adolphus reached the Alps in May and threatened to head for Rome. The Pope was forced to capitulate to the Spanish demands completely. With this political upheaval came a sea change in outlook, with many artists leaving Rome and the culture of patronage being stunted. Urban VIII took to sealing himself within Castel Gandolfo, suspecting everyone (Biagioli, 1993: 336).

The Dialogue is a massive tome, running to 465 pages in Drake's 1953 translation. Copies began to arrive in Rome in July and August, but it is unlikely that the Pope had had the time or inclination to read it, with other problems on his mind. Nevertheless, it is likely that Galileo's enemies had succeeded in informing the Pontiff of its contents by July and he eventually saw for himself that his argument against interpreting astronomical theories as real put into the mouth of Simplicio, the simpleton (Fantoli, 1996: 459). Deeply upset at what he saw as his betrayal by Galileo, Urban VIII immediately ordered the book suspended, as Riccardi explained:

Quote

... it is the wish of Our Lord (but no more than my name is to be mentioned) that the book be withheld and that it not be sent here without there having been sent from here that which is to be corrected, nor should it be sent to other places. (XX, 571-572)

In the same letter, Riccardi asked about the picture of three dolphins found on the frontispiece. This was merely the logo of the publisher, Landini, but the Pope suspected it was an insinuation about the way in which he was perceived to protect his nephews. Everything was piling up around him and the Dialogue was but the last straw. "Something had burned out in Urban VIII's heart: the admiration he had for Galileo..." (Fantoli, op cit: 394).

In a long letter to Guidicci from Filippo Magaloti, a Florentine and relative of the Pontiff, the latter explained that the work was being recalled only to add the arguments that Urban VIII had used to convince Galileo "of the falsity of the Copernican theory". Having said this, he became more candid:

Quote

This is the pretext; but the real fact is that the Jesuit Fathers are working most valiantly in an underhanded way to get the work prohibited. The reverend Father's [Riccardi's] own words to me were: 'The Jesuits will persecute him most bitterly.' (XIV, 370)

Galileo protested the blocking of the distribution of the Dialogue in the strongest terms, but Ambassador Niccolini described the difficulties in a letter of August 1632:

Quote

... I have not been able to see the Master of the Sacred Palace [Riccardi] in regard to the question of Mr. Galilei. However, because I hear that there has been set up a Commission of persons versed in his profession, all unfriendly to Galileo, responsible to the Lord Cardinal Barberini, I have decided to speak about it to his Eminence himself at the earliest opportunity. Furthermore, because they are thinking of calling a mathematician from Pisa, named Mr. Chiaramonti and rather unfriendly to Mr. Galileo's opinions, it will be necessary that His Highness have someone talk to him, to make sure he pursues the cause of truth here, rather than his emotional feelings... (XIV, 372)

Secretary of State Cioli replied that the Grand Duke would "take it badly if persecution of his works by those who are envious of his learning continues" (XIV, 373). Unfortunately Galileo's enemies had succeeded in allying the Pope to their cause and it was too late, in spite of Cioli's and Niccolini's best efforts. The latter remarked on this when he wrote that "when his Holiness becomes obstinate, it is a lost cause, especially so if one has intentions of opposing or threatening or asserting oneself, because under those conditions he is hard to deal with and shows respect for no one" (XIV, 385). Nevertheless, we can see plainly that the machinations of these "envious" people had very little (if at all, even at the beginning) to do with religion or its purported conflict with science and everything to do with politics, jealousy and misunderstandings—in short, too many factors to make any generalised (mythical) account tenable.

On the 5th of September, Niccolini again wrote to Cioli to give his account of the meeting he had had with Urban VIII the day before. It does not make for pleasant reading, except for the principled and dedicated way Niccolini stuck to his assignment and tried to defend Galileo in a situation he knew he could not hope to save. After stating his agreement with the Grand Duke that "the sky is about to fall", he went on to describe how things had gone from bad to worse:

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While we were discussing those delicate subjects of the Holy Office, His Holiness exploded into great anger, and suddenly he told me that even our Galileo had dared entering where he should not have, into the most serious and dangerous subjects which could be stirred up at this time. I replied that Mr. Galilei had not published without the approval of his ministers and that for that purpose I myself had obtained and sent the prefaces to your city. He answered, with the same outburst of rage, that he had been deceived by Galileo and Ciampoli, that in particular Ciampoli had dared tell him that Mr. Galilei was ready to do all His Holiness ordered and that everything was fine...(quoted in Finocchiaro, 1989: 229-232)

Thus did the Pope associate Galileo with Ciampoli and allege a joint ruse, a charge he would repeat ("his complaint was to have been deceived by Galileo and Ciampoli"). When Niccolini begged for Galileo to have the chance to explain himself before a fair panel, the Pontiff declared that "in these matters of the Holy Office the procedure was simply to arrive at a censure and then call the defendant to recant". Urban VIII's responses became increasingly violent as the Ambassador pressed the issue, the latter summarising their discussion by remarking that "I feel the Pope could not have a worse disposition toward our poor Mr. Galilei" (op cit).

Although Riccardi tried to assure the Ambassador that all that was required were some adjustments to the text (XIV, 389), matters came to a head when a document was discovered in the files of the Holy Office which apparently showed Galileo have been ordered not to "hold, teach or defend" Copernicanism "in any way". Since this injunction is so important to the subsequent trial, we shall quote it in full:

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At the palace of the usual residence of the said Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal Bellarmine and in the chambers of His Most Illustrious Lordship, and fully in the presence of the Reverend Father Michelangelo Segizzi of Lodi, O.P. and Commissary General of the Holy Office, having summoned the above-mentioned Galileo before himself, the same Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal warned Galileo that the above-mentioned opinion was erroneous and that he should abandon it; and thereafter, indeed immediately, before me and witnesses, the Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal himself being also present still, the aforesaid Father Commissary, in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, ordered and enjoined the said Galileo, who was himself still present, to abandon completely the above-mentioned opinion that the sun stands still at the centre of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing; otherwise the Holy Office would start proceedings against him. The same Galileo acquiesced in this injunction and promised to obey. (Finocchiaro, op cit: 147-148)

Since it was plain to anyone who had read the Dialogue that Galileo had broken these terms, it seemed he was finished. Urban VIII's Commission inevitably decided that the Holy Office should investigate the work (XIV, 398) and on the 23rd of September the Congregation met to discuss the Commission's report. There he was charged with having "been deceitfully silent about the command laid upon him by the Holy Office, in the year 1616" (XIX, 279-280) and the Pope ordered that Galileo be brought to Rome by October to appear before the Commissary general.

Galileo received this command from the Florentine Inquisitor on the 1st of October and agreed to follow it (XIX, 331-332). He could do little else. Even so, he wrote to Cardinal Francesco Barberini to ask for his help, suggesting that an alternative to the long journey to Rome would be to appear before the Inquisitor in Florence (XIV, 410). Galileo was seventy years old at this stage and did not think he had any significant amount of his life remaining. Meanwhile, Galileo's friends tried to assist him as best they could, with Castelli talking to Riccardi and Vincenzo Maculano, the Commissary of the Holy Office. The Grand Duke himself became involved, instructing Niccolini to do "everything that might ever be possible to help him" (XIV, 413). The Ambassador met with Urban VIII in November and attempted to appeal to Galileo's age and ill health, but the Pope could not be swayed. The latter did, however, grant that the conditions of Galileo's quarantine would be eased as far as possible. Cardinal Francesco Barberini apologised for not being able to offer an opinion other than that of his uncle, the Pontiff, but he also pledged to do whatever he could to see that Galileo did not suffer (XIV, 427). Nevertheless, the Pope insisted that Galileo be forced to come to Rome (XIX, 280) in spite of the latter being so sick that he was confined to his bed. It was clear that Urban VIII was still bitter at having been deceived, as he put it (XIV, 428-429). When Galileo at last sent word of his poor health, certified by three doctors, the Pope "commanded that we [the Holy Office] write to the inquisitor that his Holiness and the Sacred Congregation cannot and absolutely must not tolerate subterfuges of this sort" (XIX, 281-282). Eventually it was decided that doctors from Rome would visit Galileo at his own expense to determine the extent of his illness, particular since "he is the one who has reduced himself to this state of affairs" (ibid).

Thus it was that Galileo finally left for Rome in January of 1633, the Grand Duke having offered him a carriage to travel in and accommodation with Ambassador Niccolini, who treated him with "indescribable kindness" from his arrival in February. The wheels of the Holy Office moved slowly, however, and Galileo struggled to find out what was going on, still supposing that his honesty and faith could save him. He remained ignorant of the sheer extent of the forces arrayed against him, even as others were very clear that he "suffer[ed] from the envy of those who s[aw] in him the only obstacle to their having the reputation of the highest mathematicians" (Holste to de Peiresc, XV, 62). Niccolini spoke again with the Pope in March, finding this time that Urban VIII made specific reference to his own argument of the omnipotence of God and His power to make the world in any way He chose. When the Pontiff began to lose his temper in response to the Ambassador's objections, the matter had to be dropped (XV, 68). At last, in April, Galileo was called before the Congregation of the Holy Office to be interrogated.

The Trial and Verdict

Galileo appeared before Commissary Maculano on the 12th of April and was interviewed on the same day (XIX, 336-342 and Finocchiaro, 1989: 256-262). After some preliminaries, Maculano focused on what Galileo had been told by Bellarmine in 1616, the former knowing of the document quoted above. Galileo replied that

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Lord Cardinal Bellarmine told me that Copernicus's opinion could be held suppositionally, as Copernicus himself had held it. His Eminence knew that I held it suppositionally, namely in the way that Copernicus held it, as you can see from an answer by the same Lord Cardinal to a letter of Father Master Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Provincial of the Carmelites; I have a copy of this, and in it one finds these words: "I say that it seems to me that Your Paternity and M. Galileo are proceeding prudently by limiting yourselves to speaking suppositionally and not absolutely." (Finocchiaro, op cit)


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Galileo’s Trial


Then came the decisive issue: asked what he had been told by Bellarmine in 1616 at the time of being informed of the decree of the Index, Galileo said that "Lord Cardinal Bellarmine told me that since Copernicus's opinion, taken absolutely, was contrary to Holy Scripture, it could neither be held nor defended, but it could be taken and used suppositionally" (ibid). He then produced a copy of a signed note from Bellarmine, stating to this effect. This was obviously a surprise to Maculano, but he pressed the main issue of whether Galileo had been enjoined upon not to "teach, hold or defend in any way". Galileo answered that

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I do remember that the injunction was that I could not hold or defend, and even that I could not teach. I do not recall, further, that there was the phrase in any way whatever, but maybe there was; in fact, I did not think about it or keep it in mind, having received a few months thereafter Lord Cardinal Bellarmine's certificate dated 26 May which I have presented and in which is explained the order given to me not to hold or defend the said opinion. Regarding the other two phrases in the said injunction now mentioned, namely not to teach and in any way whatever, I did not retain them in my memory, I think because they are not contained in the said certificate, which I relied upon and kept as a reminder. (ibid)

The discrepancy between the document of the Holy Office and the one signed by Bellarmine was such that Maculano had to ask Galileo for more detail on who was present at the 1616 meeting at Bellarmine's residence. Using the former piece of evidence, the Commissary tried to jog Galileo's memory but was told the same thing: Bellarmine had said that he could not hold or defend Copernicanism, but Galileo did not recall any additional remarks about not teaching in any way whatever. Notwithstanding the context of Bellarmine's certificate, Galileo was stood over while the Holy Office appointed three theologians, Oreggi, Inchofer and Pasqualigo, to examine the Dialogue (again, in the case of the first two) in order to determine if Galileo had transgressed the order he was given in the first formulation. The result (op cit, 262-276) was a foregone conclusion, of course, and thus constituted (at this time) an aggravating circumstance—that is, Galileo's apparent dishonesty on this matter.

Many Galileo scholars have attempted to explain the existence of these two—seemingly contradictory—pieces of written evidence. Perhaps the most interesting were Stillman Drake's (1999, 1:142-152) and Guido Morpurgo-Tagliabue's (1963: 14-25; they are similar in almost all respects), which suggested that Michael Seghizzi, then Commissary General, was present when Galileo went to visit Bellarmine to receive his injunction in 1616. As a Dominican, Seghizzi may not have trusted Bellarmine to explain Galileo's error in strict terms. According to Drake, "[b]y the time the Cardinal had finished his admonition, the Commissary was ready. Without allowing Galileo time for any reply, he proceeded to deliver his own stringent precept not to hold, defend, or teach Copernicanism in any way, orally or in writing, on pain of imprisonment" (ibid: 145). This was duly recorded by a notary and became the (unsigned) document that Maculano questioned Galileo about. Upset with the way Seghizzi had behaved, Bellarmine then met with Galileo subsequently following the latter's complaints that people were gossiping about his having been silenced. Telling him to discount what he had been told by Seghizzi, who had overstepped his bounds (although Fantoli, 1996: 260 disagreed on this point), Bellarmine wrote a certificate of exactly what he had said to Galileo and then signed it (XIX, 348). This is the second document, which Galileo produced at his interrogation and which no one but he knew of until that time.

On this version of events, Galileo had indeed been ordered not to "hold, teach, or defend [Copernicanism] in any whatever, either orally or in writing", but in an extrajudicial manner. His instructions from Bellarmine, on the other hand, did allow him to treat of Copernicanism in a suppositional way. In any case, the coexistence of these two statements caused a great deal of consternation for Maculano and the Commission. It was easy to see that the signed certificate from Bellarmine outweighed the unsigned notary's paper but it was simply not possible to leave Galileo unpunished because the "Holy Office had itself brought the charges, and in theory at least, a false charge of heresy carried the same penalty as heresy itself" (ibid: 149). There was also the matter of whether Galileo had transgressed the instructions given to him by Bellarmine, irrespective of which of the papers was an accurate record of what had occurred on that day in 1616. In spite of Galileo's protestations of innocence, which he later dropped (XIX, 361-362), it was obvious that he had written the Dialogue in such as way as to leave the reader in no doubt as to which was the more reasonable worldview. There was a case to answer.

Maculano explained the dilemma the Congregation was faced with late in April:

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In compliance with the commands of His Holiness, I yesterday informed the Most Eminent Lords of the Holy Congregation of Galileo's case, the position of which I briefly reported. Their Eminences approved of what has been done thus far and took into consideration, on the other hand, various difficulties with regard to the manner of pursuing the case and of bringing it to an end. More especially since Galileo has in his examination denied what is plainly evident from the book written by him, as a consequence of this denial there would result the necessity for greater rigour of procedure and less regard to the other considerations belonging to this business. (XV: 252-253)

He was alluding here to the difficulty caused by the two conflicting documents and the fact that Galileo's denial of defending Copernicanism would have to lead to his trial focusing on this apparent lie to the exclusion of the matter of publishing without permission (according to Urban VIII, at any rate). However, Maculano proposed an alternative:

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Finally, I suggested a course, namely, that the Holy Congregation should grant me permission to treat extrajudicially with Galileo, in order to render him sensible of his error and bring him, if he recognises it, to the confession of the same. (ibid)

Such an out-of-court settlement would allow the Church to save face in the light of Galileo's certificate from Bellarmine while Galileo himself would be let off with a lesser sentence. Since Galileo was one of the most famous people in Europe and Philosopher and Mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, it would also be a prudent way to deal with the issue. The latter was pleased with the idea, as Maculano explained:

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That no time might be lost, I entered into discourse with Galileo yesterday afternoon, and after many and many arguments and rejoinders had passed between us, by God's grace, I attained my object, for I brought him to a full sense of his error, so that he clearly recognised that he had erred and gone too far in his book. And to all this he gave expression in words of much feeling, like one who experienced great consolation in the recognition of his error, and he was also willing to confess it judicially. (ibid)

As a result of this discussion, Galileo was interrogated for a second time on the 30th of April. Having reconsidered the matter, he said, he had re-read his Dialogue, checking whether "against my purest intention, through my oversight, there might have fallen from my pen not only something enabling readers or superiors to infer a defect of disobedience on my part, but also other details through which one might think of me as a transgressor of the orders of the Holy Church" (quoted by Finocchiaro, 1989: 277-279). Of course, it turned out that "it appeared to me in several places to be written in such a way that a reader, not aware of my intention, would have reason to form the opinion that the arguments for the false side, which I intended to confute, were so stated as to be capable of convincing because of their strength, rather than being easy to answer" (ibid). Galileo's explanation for this conduct was that he had "resorted to that of the natural gratification everyone feels for his own subtleties and for showing himself to be cleverer than the average man, by finding ingenious and apparent considerations of probability even in favour of false propositions" (ibid). Shortly thereafter he added that he would gladly write a sequel to the Dialogue in which he would confute Copernicanism thoroughly.

This was not what Maculano had hoped for and certainly not enough to satisfy the Congregation. Nevertheless, Galileo was given leave to return to the Tuscan Ambassador's residence owing to his ill health, where he would prepare his defence for the eventual trial at which his plea bargain would be entered. Declining the eight days he was allowed for this purpose, he presented the story of his discussions with Bellarmine and the events leading to the presentation of his signed certificate.

Nothing seemed to happen for many days thereafter, but behind the scenes the situation was deteriorating rapidly. On the 16th of June a document was provided to the Congregation called Contra Galileo Galilei (XIX, 293-295). It contained the accusations of Lorini and Caccini of 1615 and 1616 respectively, together with "grossly inexact" (Fantoli, op cit: 438) details of many of the important events we have covered. It is doubtful that the trial could have been concluded any other way, however, even without these deceitful tactics on the part of some unknown persons. At the meeting of the Congregation on the same day the Pope's decree was

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that said Galileo being interrogated on his intention, even with the threat of torture, and, si sustinuerit ["thereafter", according to Fantoli (ibid: 478)], he is to abjure [under vehement suspicion of heresy] in a plenary session of the Congregation of the Holy Office, then is to be condemned to imprisonment at the pleasure of the Holy Congregation, and ordered not to treat further, in whatever manner, either in words or in writing, on the mobility of the Earth and the stability of the Sun; otherwise he will incur the penalties of relapse. The book entitled Dialogue of Galileo Galilei the Lincean is to be prohibited. (XIX, 283)

Niccolini again met with Urban VIII to try to achieve some form of compromise but was told that the decision had been made. Maculano's attempt at a plea bargain had extracted a "confession" that was not considered adequate, so the only concession that Niccolini could win was a promise that the Pontiff would discuss later how to minimise the suffering Galileo would have to endure (XV, 160).

On the 21st of June Galileo arrived again at the Holy Office for his final interrogation. He repeated that he did not hold the Copernican opinion and that he had "not held it since the decision of the authorities" (XIX, 361-362). When it was pointed out to him, again, that his Dialogue gave a contrary impression, he repeated his disavowal. Finally, warned that if he did not speak the truth then recourse might be made to torture, Galileo stated once more that he had not "held this opinion of Copernicus since the command was intimated to me that I must abandon it; for the rest, I am here in your hands—do with me what you please" (ibid).

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An excerpt from the abjuration of Galileo Galilei


The next day, Galileo was led to the convent of Minvera to another plenary session of the Holy Office, clad in penitential clothes. After reviewing the circumstances of the case, the closing section of the condemnation read thus:

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We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of matters adduced in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgement of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having believed and held the doctrine which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the centre of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the centre of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probable after it has declared and defined to be contrary to the Holy Scriptures; and that consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. From which we are content that you be absolved, provided that first, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, you abjure, curse, and detest before us the aforesaid errors and heresies and every other error and heresy contrary to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church in the form prescribed by us for you.

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And, in order that this your grave and pernicious error and transgression may not remain altogether unpunished and that you may be more cautious in the future and an example to others that they may abstain from similar delinquencies, we ordain that the book of the "Dialogue of Galileo Galilei" be prohibited by public edict.

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We condemn you to the formal prison of this Holy Office during our pleasure, and by way of salutary penance we enjoin that for three years to come you repeat once a week the seven penitential Psalms. Reserving to ourselves liberty to moderate, commute, or take off, in whole or in part the aforesaid penalties and penance. (XIX, 402-406)

His hopes crushed completely, Galileo could do no more than read the required abjuration:

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I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, arraigned personally before this tribunal and kneeling before you Most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinal Inquisitors-General against heretical pravity throughout the entire Christian commonwealth, having before my eyes and touching with my hands the Holy Gospels, swear that I have always believed, do believe, and by God's help will in the future believe all that is held, preached, and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. But, whereas—after an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the Sun is the centre of the world and immovable and that the Earth is not the centre of the world and moves and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture—I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this new doctrine already condemned and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favour without presenting any solution of these, I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the centre of the world and immovable and that the Earth is not the centre and moves.

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Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, detest the aforesaid errors and heresies and generally every other error, heresy and sect whatsoever contrary to the Holy Church, and I swear that in future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but, should I know any heretic or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to the Holy Office or to the inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be. (XIX, 406-407)

Fantoli (op cit: 446-450) has shown that the juridical position taken against Galileo "can be viewed as fully justified according to the regular practice of the Inquisition at that time, on the basis of the doctrinal and disciplinary decisions of 1616" (ibid: 450). He had denied that he wished to defend Copernicanism when it was plain that he had done so, even if only showing it to be probable; he had defended in the Dialogue a theory that had been declared contrary to Holy Scripture by the decree of 1616; and he had disobeyed the orders given to him by both Bellarmine and Segizzi. "Vehemently suspected of heresy" (but not heretical, a considerably worse charge that, quite correctly, was not brought because it could not be sustained), the only option for the Congregation was to impose an abjuration.

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Next Posted Image]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:15:53 +0000 dd458505749b2941217ddd59394240e8 The Galileo Affair, Part 3: Intellectual contexts http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/the-galileo-affair-part-3-intellectual-contexts-r67 Paul Newall (2005)

As we shall see, the Assayer was not just a polemic, in spite of the declarations to that effect on the part of several writers on Galileo (cf. de Santillana, 1958; Geymonat, op cit). Commenting on the fact that the myriad areas touched upon and arguments used have confused some scholars, Biagioli became befuddled himself when he referred to so-called Feyerabendian opportunism as an explanation for Galileo's employment of "ad hoc hypotheses, internal contradictions, and unjustified attacks" (1993: 268). Preferring to see Galileo's response within the context of patronage and as an attempt to reinforce his belief that he, and not Brah , was the pre-eminent post-Copernican astronomer, Biagioli failed to consider the possibility that Galileo was employing a reductio, a far more accurate "Feyerabendian" reading of the problematic existence of inconsistencies (cf. Farrell, 2003: 12-17 and further). This is part of a general trend among Galileo scholars that praises him for his genius as a rhetorician at one moment and ignores the most potent tool in any polemic the next in seeking to explain why the text does not form a cogent whole. Drake, at least, had noticed this (1999, 1: 30).

Before moving on to consider the other aspects of the Assayer, it is illuminating to compare Galileo's situation at this time—and hence—with that of John Wilkins in England. A vociferous defender of Copernicanism, he faced little opposition and was able to publish his Discovery of a world in the moon (1638) and Discourse concerning a new planet (1640) with ease. Although his career as an academic was put at risk by his alleged sympathies with the Royalist cause, his "survival as warden of Wadham [the Oxford College], his move to the mastership of Trinity College Cambridge in 1659, his becoming bishop of Chester in 1668, and his appointment as Lent preacher to the king suggest that there was nothing particularly hazardous in being England's most conspicuous Copernican" (Brooke, 1991: 107-108). To explain the Galileo affair simplistically as an instance of the supposed conflict between science and religion, then, is to invite the question as to why the reaction to Copernicanism differed between countries that were all religious (cf. Russell, 1991: 83-88).

Intellectual Contexts

Galileo's work and the criticism it faced were not just rhetoric, politics and patronage. In this second section we shall look at Galileo's science and its development, along with the philosophical aspects to the affair. In particular, we shall look again at the objections raised against his ideas.

Galileo and Science

Many pages have been authored on the subject of Galileo's scientific personality, a significant proportion of them concerned with "de-mythologising" Galileo and the view within the history of science that science proceeded (and proceeds) according to leaps of genius by greats like Galileo, Newton or Einstein. Some historians, however, have gone so far as to attribute to Galileo the character of a Copernican zealot who went far beyond reasonable scientific behaviour in seeking to convince others to accept conclusions for which there were insufficient grounds (for example, Koestler, 1959; Feyerabend, 1993; Shea and Artigas, 2003). This is the second myth we began with.

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Johannes Kepler, Galileo’s correspondent and fellow astronomer


As we have noted above, Galileo regularly declined to publish his ideas when he felt they needed more work, whether his theories on motion or Copernicanism. He had preferred the second since the late 1590s but, lacking the telescopic observations that would show the Ptolemaic system to be false, he did not publicly support it until 1610. During his student days Galileo had rejected Copernicanism, setting out his reasons for so doing (Wallace, 1977: 71-74). Later, in a letter of 1597 to Kepler, he had written that

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... I have already for many years come to accept the Copernican opinion and with this hypothesis have been able to explain many natural phenomena, which under the current hypotheses remain unexplainable. (X, 68—emphasis added)

Until his telescopic observations of the phases of Venus in late 1610, Galileo had no conclusive proof of the falsity of the Ptolemaic system, although he had come to believe the reality of the Copernican system. This is quite in accordance with a gradual development in both his thought and arguments (a full account of which was given by Drake (1999, 1: 351-363)) and the general principle he would later famously state in the following terms:

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There is not a single effect in Nature, not even the least that exists, such that the most ingenious theorists can ever arrive at a complete understanding of it. This vain presumption of understanding everything can have no other basis than never understanding anything. For anyone who had experienced just once the perfect understanding of one single thing, and had truly tasted how knowledge is attained, would recognise that of the infinity of other truths he understands nothing. (Drake, 1953: 101)

In spite of passages like this and the principles enunciated in the Letter to Christina, some Galileo scholars have insisted that he was a convinced Copernican who was determined to battle dishonestly for a doctrine he knew to be unproven and for which he had no proof. When we understand these issues from the perspective of his wish to bring about the separation of science and religion, however, there are no such problematic excerpts to explain away as deliberately disingenuous or still more rhetoric: the telescope had sounded the death-knell for both the Ptolemaic and Tychonic systems and, even if this did not imply the truth of the Copernican alternative, it at least showed that the wedding of astronomical fact to Scriptural exegesis could not be maintained.

Much has been made of Galileo's writing in Italian, rather than the Latin then employed by most philosophers, theologians and the like. According to Feyerabend (1993), this was a rhetorical strategy on the part of Galileo, helping him to bypass the theologians and scholastics and appeal directly to the public; but it is hard to see how common opinion could have aided a zealous Copernican, even one of Galileo's stature, in swaying the decisions of the authoritarian Church. A far simpler explanation was given by Galileo himself in a letter of 1612:

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What inspires me to do this [i.e. use Italian—or, more accurately, the Tuscan dialect] is my seeing how students in the universities, sent indiscriminately to become doctors, philosophers, etc., apply themselves in many cases to such professions when unsuited to them, while others who would be apt are occupied with family cares or with other pursuits remote from literature. Though well provided with horse sense, as Ruzzante would say, such men, being unable to read things written in Latin, become convinced that these wretched pamphlets containing the latest discoveries of logic and philosophy must remain forever over their heads. Now, I want them to see that just as Nature has given them, as well as philosophers, eyes to see her works, so she has also given them brains capable of grasping and understanding them. (Drake, 2001: 13-14)

This gives us an insight into Galileo's mentality: opposed to the idea that knowledge was exclusively the province of experts, he held that the book of Nature was open to all who would look rather than rely on the authority of Aristotle. Indeed, Galileo insisted that if Aristotle were somehow to return, he would be the first to oppose the doctrines justified in his name. In a very famous passage in the Assayer in which he was critical of this tendency, he laid out its failings:

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In Sarsi I seem to discern the firm belief that in philosophizing one must support oneself upon the opinion of some celebrated author, as if our minds ought to remain completely sterile and barren unless wedded to the reasoning of some other person. Possibly he thinks that philosophy is a book of fiction by some writer, like the Iliad or Orlando Furioso, productions in which the least important thing is whether what is written is there is true. Well, Sarsi, that is not how matters stand. Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one wanders about in a dark labyrinth. (VI, 232)

Many scholars have read this as indicative of Platonism in Galileo (Dijksterhuis makes this mistake, 1969: 337), but Drake explained (1999, 1: 53-54) that such a narrow reading misses the tripartite distinction Galileo was making between the universe, our attempts to understand it, and mathematics as a tool to aid us in so doing. This is very different from supposing mathematics to be the ultimate reality. Indeed, that Galileo did not even intend that philosophy had to be written in mathematical terms is immediate from the masterful way in which he used everyday metaphors, analogies and examples to explain his ideas. As an indicative instance, we may consider another excerpt from the Assayer that was beloved of Urban VIII. It concerns the story of a man who becomes fascinated by music and determines to seek out all possible sources of sound until he finds a cicada and becomes confused:

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For having captured in his hands a cicada, he failed to diminish its strident noise either by closing its mouth or stopping its wings, yet he could not see it move the scales, which covered its body, or any other part. At last he lifted up the armour of its chest and there he saw some thin ligaments beneath, and thinking that the sound might come from their vibration, he decided to break them in order to silence it. But nothing happened until his needle drove too deep, and transfixing the creature he took away its life with its voice, so that he was still unable to determine whether the song had originated in those ligaments. This experience reduced him to diffidence, so that when asked how sounds were created he used to answer candidly that, although he knew some of the ways, he was certain many more existed that were unknown and unimaginable. (VI, 281)

Urban VIII was so pleased with the Assayer that he had it read to him while he ate (XIII, 141). This passage in particular embodied his own conviction that, since God could have created the universe in an infinity of ways, it was better to delight in that small part of it we may come to know than suppose useful hypotheses to be the whole truth on an issue.

Aside from attaching importance to mathematics as an instrumental language, Galileo also made a distinction between primary and secondary qualities (although he was not the first to do so) that would be taken up by Locke years later and which hinted at the mechanistic philosophy that would prove so important in the development of science (cf. Dijksterhuis, op cit: 333-359). When, in 1626, Grassi finally replied to the Assayer with his Ratio ponderum Librae et Simbellae, he took exception to the former, and specifically a passage in which Galileo had suggested that natural philosophy should be the study of "figures, numbers and local motion" (Fantoli, 1996: 293), not mere "names":

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To excite in us tastes, odours and sounds I believe that nothing is required in external bodies except shapes, numbers, and slow or rapid movements. I think that if ears, tongues and noses were removed, shapes and numbers and motions would remain, but not odours or tastes or sounds. The latter, I believe, are nothing more than names when separated from living beings. (VII, 350)

This idea, still current in philosophy today and according to which eyes, light and wavelengths exist but "redness", say, does not, was seized upon by Grassi because he claimed that it had implications for the Catholic Eucharist, wherein bread is literally transformed into the body of Christ while maintaining its secondary qualities like taste and colour. If what was preserved as part of this miracle was nothing but "names", then nothing was preserved in reality and there is no miracle. Galileo was sufficiently worried by this accusation to ask Castelli to look into it (XIII, 389) and one Galileo scholar takes it as the basis of his interpretation of Galileo's subsequent trial (Redondi, 1987).

With Maffeo Barberini having ascended to the Papacy, Galileo again journeyed to Rome to pay his respects and to attempt to divine the attitude of the new Pope to his ideas and goals (XIII, 135). He arrived on the 23rd of April, 1624, and was granted no less than six audiences. He also met with Cardinals Antonio and Francesco Barberini, the brother and nephew of Urban VIII respectively (XIII, 175). On his departure in June, the Pontiff presented Galileo with a painting, a gold and a silver medal and several Agnus Dei. He was no closer to attaining his aim, however, and conceded that his discussions with Urban VIII had taught him that a prudent approach would be best (XIII, 179).

It is interesting to note the attitude that the Pope displayed toward the Copernican issue, considering more fully the instrumentalist thinking alluded to above. In an undated record of a conversation between Galileo and Urban VIII, the latter's Papal theologian, Agostino Oregio, explained that, having allowed all the arguments that Galileo had brought to bear on the question, the Pope

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... asked him at the end whether God could not have the power and wisdom to dispose and move in another way the orbs and the stars and all that is seen in the sky and all that is said of the motions, order, location, distance and disposition of the stars... Because if God knew how and had the power to dispose all of this in another way than that which has been thought—in such wise as to save all that has been said—we cannot limit the divine power and wisdom to this way. (quoted by Fantoli, op cit, 322)

In response, said Oregio, "that most learned man [Galileo] remained silent." According to Urban VIII, then, astronomy must remain an instrumental science: if more than one system can save the appearances, or if there is no reason why other, currently unknown systems may not do likewise, we should view them as calculating devices or tools of prediction and not speak of their truth. This conception of theory evaluation will become important later.

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Tommaso Campanella, a Dominican and one of Galileo’s supporters


Nevertheless, Galileo returned to Florence feeling that he could broach the issue of Copernicanism so long as he did so only in a hypothetical way. He decided to pursue a gradual course of action and devoted himself firstly to a paper that had been published back in 1616 by Francesco Ingoli, now secretary of the Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith. This pamphlet had disputed the Copernican system but, owing to the timing of events, Galileo had not felt that he could offer any rejoinder at that time. Kepler had already tackled Ingoli in 1618 and received a reply in turn. Galileo had been told by Tommaso Campanella (a Dominican who was imprisoned in Naples by the Inquisition for many years, largely for his political opinions, before his release by Urban VIII in 1629) in 1616 that he would author a criticism of Ingoli on his behalf (XII, 287), which Galileo declined—hardly the behaviour of a Copernican zealot but very much in keeping with a more accurate conception of Galileo as cautious and considered.

In his Letter to Ingoli, Galileo disavowed any theological argument and instead focused purely on the scientific areas of Ingoli's Disputio. Showing that the Copernican system was more in accordance with observation and reason, he explained that as a good Catholic he did not deny Copernicanism out of ignorance but instead because of the "reverence we have toward the writings of our Fathers" (VI, 511); that is, that Catholics were well aware of the support for Copernicus but, having understood it, placed their faith higher in import than interpreting astronomical theories as true representations. In part, this was in response to the suggestion in Protestant countries that the Church had banned all discussion of Copernicanism. This was referred to by Cardinal Zollern, Bishop of Osnabruck, who had reported to the Pope that "all heretics accept [Copernicus'] opinion and hold it as most certain" (XIII, 182). Attempts to convert Protestants in the German states were thus failing, he said, because of the perception there of the decree of 1616. Urban VIII had replied, according to Zollern, by saying that

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... the Holy Church had not condemned [Copernicanism] nor was she about to condemn it now as heretical, but only as temerarious, though it was not to be feared that there would ever be anyone to demonstrate it as necessarily true. (ibid)

Much later, in 1630, Urban VIII would state that the decree "was never our intention; and if he had been left to us, that decree [of 1616] would not have been made" (XIV, 88).

Galileo's Letter took a long time to be published because the Church was investigating a complaint to the Holy Office concerning the Assayer. His friend Guidicci explained that a "pious person had proposed to prohibit or correct" the work (XIII, 265). According to a document discovered by Redondi in the archives of the Holy Office, the grievance also spoke of the atomism allegedly found in the Assayer as heretical (cf. Redondi, 1987: 137-202 for a discussion of this document and its anonymous author, together with 203-226 for more on the dispute on the Eucharist). The author objected that "if this philosophy of qualities is admitted to be true, it seems to me there follows a great difficulty in regard to the existence of the qualities of bread and wine which in the Holy Sacrament are separated from their own substance..." (in Finocchiaro, 1989: 203). Galileo's friends in Rome were understandably concerned.

Meanwhile Galileo returned to an idea that he first had when he moved to Padua (see Fantoli, op cit: 68), probably because it was more noticeable there: the phenomenon of the tides and their use as a possible argument against the fixed Earth. He wrote about it in several letters to friends in 1624 and still more in 1625 (XIII, 209 and 236, for example). This was to be the Discourse on the ebb and flow of the sea, in which he would consider the "two chief world systems" and the arguments for and against them, along with his thoughts on the tides and what they implied for the motion of the Earth. Although originally intending to finish the book swiftly (XIII, 295 suggests as much), family issues and health problems held him back. More importantly, it seems, the sheer scope of what he was attempting to achieve forced him to delay the writing as he sought more data and had to reconsider the direction he was taking in the light of objections (cf. XIV, 60).

After much work, Scheiner's response to Galileo was published in 1630 as Rosa Ursina, originally De Maculis Solis (or On Sunspots), Book One of which was largely a polemic against Galileo that took issue with his claims of plagiarism and reasserted Scheiner's priority (and independence) in the discovery of sunspots. Galileo's supporters replied in kind, but the far greater remainder of Scheiner's work was in fact a detailed critique of the incorruptibility of the heavens and other Aristotelian assumptions, coupled with "the most valuable treatise on solar physics of that epoch" (Fantoli, op cit: 332). Warned by Ciampoli via Castelli not to offer any comment (XIV, 330), perhaps to avoid any further deterioration in relations with the Jesuits, Galileo remained silent and continued with his own writing.

Late in 1629, Galileo was finally nearing the end of his work on the tides, completing it in April of the next year and writing to his French correspondent Elia Diodati that

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In this [the Dialogue], besides the material on the tides, there will be inserted many other problems and a most ample confirmation of the Copernican system by showing the nullity of all that had been brought by Tycho and others to the contrary. (XIV, 49)

It is easy to read this as indicative of Galileo's zealous certainty of the truth of Copernicanism, but confirmation is not proof. We shall have occasion to discuss this distinction again below, but another letter to Buonamici gave a clear enough picture:

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... I believe I have found the true reason for [the ebb and flow of the sea], very far from those to which up to now that effect has been attributed. I estimate it to be true and so do all of those with whom I have conferred about it. (XIV, 54)

We see here that Galileo believed and estimated the Copernican system to explain the tides, but that is a very long way from holding it to be certain and dedicating his life (or the greater part of it) to convincing others that it was so with all the rhetoric he could muster. (Indeed, at the close of his life Galileo apparently came to doubt the argument from the tides (XVII, 215)).

The Publication of the Dialogue

It was agreed late in 1629 that the Dialogue would be published in Rome, so Galileo again prepared to travel there to aid with the arrangements. Ill health intervened as usual, however, and it was May, 1630 before he arrived. He lodged with Francesco Niccolini, the Tuscan Ambassador since 1621, and his wife Caterina Riccardi (who was related to Niccol Riccardi, the Domincan who had cleared the Assayer for publication and written so highly of it). Galileo was again received by the Pope, the positive result of their discussions (XIV,105) apparently leaving him feeling he was free to publish his work.

At the same time, Galileo's enemies were just as busy, attributing to him a horoscope that foretold the death of Urban VIII and his nephew. The Pontiff, who was deeply superstitious, imprisoned the actual author, Orazio Morandi (who subsequently died in prison) and let it be known that Galileo "had no better friend than [Cardinal Francesco Barberini] and the Pope himself, and that he knew who he was and he knew that he did not have these kinds of matters in his head" (XIV, 111). Nevertheless, Urban VIII was under increasing political pressure as a result of the Thirty Years War and the strength of Cardinal Richelieu within France, such that Riccardi knew the publication of the Dialogue would have to be a delicate process.

Having realised that the Dialogue would be read as sympathetic to Copernicanism, the first thing Riccardi did was to insist that a preface and conclusion should be added, emphasising the hypothetical nature of the study and hence showing "that the Holy Congregation in reproving Copernicus had acted in an entirely reasonable way" (XIX, 325). He then passed the manuscript to Raffaele Visconti, Master of the Sacred Palace and also a professor of mathematics, who approved it. Riccardi was still not happy, though, possibly because he learned that Urban VIII had stated his annoyance at Galileo's claim that the tides depended on the motion of the Earth (XIV, 113—we can refer back to the Pontiff's instrumentalism to understand why). Riccardi decided to review it himself and discussed it with the Pope, who insisted that the title show no reference to the ebb and flow of the sea but instead should speak of the "Chief World Systems", or something similar. Satisfied that the imprimatur would be granted, Galileo returned to Florence after yet another visit to Urban VIII.

It had been agreed that the Dialogue would, as usual, be printed by the Accademia dei Lincei, but on the 1st of August 1630 Prince Cesi died, leaving neither will nor successor at the Academy. Following this deeply saddening event for Galileo, Castelli suggested that he perhaps look to publish in Florence instead (XIV, 135). When Riccardi was asked if he would agree to this arrangement, he declared that he would need a copy first in order to correct it, after which Galileo could publish it wherever he liked (XIV, 150). The plague then raging throughout Italy prevented both travel and post, however, so Galileo requested to be able to amend the work in Florence while leaving only the preface and conclusion to be eventually forwarded to Riccardi in Rome for his consideration. After a diplomatic battle, in which Ambassador Niccolini's wife leant heavily on her relative, Riccardi agreed, with the caveat that the final draft be reviewed locally. This task was entrusted, at Galileo's application, to Father Jacinto Stefani, a Dominican.

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The Dialogue


Riccardi received the preface and conclusion in accordance with this agreement but still stalled, causing Galileo to finally lose patience and refer the matter to the Tuscan Secretary of State (XIV, 217), who brought it to the attention of the Grand Duke. The latter instructed his Ambassador, Niccolini, to move on his behalf, but Riccardi again refused to be rushed. Still more pressure from the Ambassador and his wife resulted in Riccardi proposing much the same compromise as before, except that this time he would send instructions (XIX, 327) to the Florentine Inquisitor, Clemente Egidi, having checked the opening and closing sections himself. Galileo remained deeply frustrated at this performance (XIV, 254) but eventually sent the required passages to Riccardi. Ultimately, Riccardi absolved himself of all responsibility by devolving the decision of whether or not to grant the imprimatur to Egidi. This final permission having at last been gained, printing began and early in 1632 the first copies were ready for sale.

There is no question that Galileo had every right to be annoyed at Riccardi's behaviour, particularly the unprecedented decision to insist on a second revision. Even so, Riccardi—like Niccolini—was aware of the political climate in Rome and how sensitive the publication was likely to be, Niccolini remarking that "the truth is that these opinions are not received well here, especially by superiors" (XIV, 251).

The full title of the work, as insisted upon by Urban VIII, was

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Dialogue of Galileo Galilei, Lincean, Special mathematician to the University of Pisa and Philosopher and Chief Mathematician to the Most Serene Grand Duke of Tuscany, where, in the meetings of four days, there is discussion concerning the two Chief Systems of the World, Ptolemaic and Copernican, propounding inconclusively the philosophical and physical reasons as much for one side as for the other...,

abbreviated ever since the 1744 edition as the Dialogue on the two Chief World Systems. The action unfolded over this period of four days as a conversation between Salviati, Galileo's spokesman and (late) great friend Filipo, and Simplicio, named for the sixth century commentator on Aristotle and very much the defender of Aristotelian orthodoxy. The two are joined by Sagredo, the "educated layman between two experts", called after Galileo's best friend during his time in Padua who had died in 1620. A (deliberate) circumstance that would later lead to more trouble for Galileo was the added fact that Simplicio in Italian gives the sense of "simple" or simpleton", and this is indeed descriptive of how he behaved throughout the text.

In his preface, Galileo began by stating that he would show that the decree of 1616 had not had the effect supposed by others (that is, Protestants) and thus proposed "to show to foreign nations that as much is understood of this matter in Italy, and particularly in Rome, as transalpine diligence can ever have imagined" (VII, 29). He went on to say that it would be demonstrated that "all experiments practicable upon the earth are insufficient measures for proving its mobility, since they are indifferently adaptable to a earth in motion or at rest", followed by an examination of "celestial phenomena... strengthening the Copernican hypothesis until it might seem that this must triumph absolutely" and then a look at the tides "from assuming the motion of the earth". All this was ostensibly to illustrate the rationality of the Catholic position as having come about "not from failing to take count of what others have thought" but "for those reasons that are supplied by piety, religion, the knowledge of Divine Omnipotence, and a consciousness of the limitations of the human mind" (ibid, 30); that is, the position of Urban VIII. As we shall see, some of his more important readers were unfortunately not convinced of his sincerity in holding it.

The Arguments Against Galileo (2)

Political issues aside, there remained an excellent and straightforward reason why Galileo had struggled to convince people that the Earth moves: it plainly does no such thing. At that time, common sense gave the lie to Copernicanism in ways that anyone could understand: if the Earth moves, why do birds flying not get left behind? If an arrow is fired straight up into the air, with the Earth spinning at countless miles per hour, why does it fall at (or near) the feet of the firer? Likewise, why does a stone dropped from a tower land at the base, instead of some distance away? This last is the famous tower argument that was considered a total refutation of the motion of the Earth and which Galileo later treated of in the eighth part of the Second Day in his Dialogue, along with its equivalents that involved either dropping a lead ball from the masts of stationary and moving ship and comparing the different landing positions or firing cannons East and West and doing similarly.

In keeping with these common sense objections, a more philosophical counter-argument suggested that reasoning in support of Copernicanism committed the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. Consider, for example, Galileo's intention to look at the tides on the assumption that the Earth moves. In the course of his discussion, critics said, he proceeded in this fashion:

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The Copernican Planetary System


  • First Premise: If the Earth moves, we would observe phenomenon x (the tides, say);
  • Second Premise: We observe phenomenon x;
  • Conclusion: Therefore, the Earth moves.
This is the formal fallacy of affirming the consequent (the basic form being "if P then Q; Q; therefore, P"). In layman's terms, that an hypothesis such as the Earth moving could explain the observations did not imply that it was therefore a true hypothesis, not least because there might be others that could do likewise (as indeed there were, according to those who held to the Tychonic system). A fallacious argument seemed to give no reason to abandon either common sense or the instrumental interpretation of theories.

It was also said that Copernicanism was simpler as a mathematical construct and ought to be preferred on that basis alone. This, of course, is in keeping with the general preference for parsimony or simplicity in theories that has characterised much (but not all) science for very many years (cf. Holton, 1988). Since Copernicus could explain on the basis of geokineticism what the Ptolemaic system could only manage with the addition of a complicated structure of eccentrics, epicycles, deferents and equants, his ideas must be closer to the true picture (if indeed they were to be read realistically) or easy to use. However, Copernicus actually introduced epicycles of his own, and even epicycles on top of these, leading Cohen to exclaim that the notion of Copernicus's system being the simpler should be taken "cum grano salis, in fact, with the whole cellar" (2001: 111). This, in any case, is a modern argument, one that Galileo did not face. In his time, the question of which system was simpler does not appear to have been asked (Cohen, op cit: 116).

Galileo's use of the telescope has caused much discussion, too. As we noted above, many people refused to look through the telescope or, having done so, refused to believe what they saw. Although we may regard the former position as ridiculous, the latter was rather more justified. The telescope was a new invention and to some it must have seemed like magic. How, Clavius asked, could it be known that what was seen was actually there, rather than a trick of the lenses? As Feyerabend (op cit) and Kuhn (1975: 224) have remarked, Galileo had no theory of optics to answer this criticism, so he relied instead on demonstrations. By pointing his telescope at something terrestrial in the distance, observers could verify for themselves that it had shown a true representation of what was there. There was no guarantee, however, that this should hold when the telescope was raised to the heavens. The situation changed somewhat when the Jesuits announced that they had confirmed Galileo's studies with the telescope, but this, too, was merely a useful (albeit powerful) aid and not a proof. The effect of Galileo's public shows was nevertheless such that this objection remains a recent (and philosophical) one, particularly in the reductio form employed by Feyerabend.

Another relatively recent argument frequently used to justify the second of the myths we began with concerns the tides. It is said that Galileo was wrong about what caused them (as we saw above, he eventually agreed that the moon was responsible, although, as we shall see, this is not quite accurate) and his use of them to prove Copernicanism was flawed. That the error lies in the other direction will become apparent shortly but since, in his Dialogue, the first thing Galileo had to do was tackle the appeal to common sense, that is where we shall begin.

Philosophy of Science and the Galileo Affair

On the second day of discussion, Galileo has Salviati remark on another author (Chiaramonti) who had suggested that those who would disagree with the tower argument must see a stone dropped from the top falling not straight down but in an arc:

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... in this way he hints at believing that to those who say that such motion is not straight at all, but rather circular, it seems they see the stone move visibly in an arc, since he calls upon their senses rather than reason to clarify the effect. This is not the case, Simplicio, for just as I ... have never seen nor ever expect to see, the rock fall any way but perpendicularly, just so do I believe that it appears to the eyes of everyone else. It is, therefore, better to put aside the appearance, on which we all agree, and to use the power of reason either to confirm its reality or to reveal its fallacy. (Drake, op cit: 126)

Note that Galileo's strategy here was to agree with the common sense view of what happens when a stone is dropped from a tower but to challenge its interpretation; that is, to challenge the "basic epistemological principle ... that under normal conditions the human sense are reliable, that they tell us what is really happening, that normal observation reveals reality to us" (Finicchiaro, 1997: 56). Although circumstances opposing this principle were not new (observing a stick in water to be bent when its removal reveals it to be straight, for example, or the one given by Galileo immediately after the tower argument—that of the moon following us as we walk.), Galileo apparently proposed here to put aside the appearances and place reason as the highest court of appeal. This brought (and brings) up many associated questions: when are our senses reliable? When should the evidence of common observation be rejected? Should we always appeal to reason over observation, or only when there is controversy? How do we demarcate between controversial and non-controversial issues? And so on.

When we read on, we find that Galileo did not in fact propose to supplant one principle with another, instead calling for the use of the senses "accompanied by reasoning" (op cit: 255, italics added). In general, philosophers and historians of science have seemed determined to characterise Galileo's science in one way or another while at the same time contriving to overlook the subtlety in his works. Still on the second day, Galileo sketched the scene of two friends in a ship's cabin, throwing a ball to each other and taking note of the movements of fish, butterflies and the like that happen to be with them. On the first occasion this situation plays out while the ship is at rest alongside; on the second, it is underway. The friends in the former notice no difference in the force needed to throw the ball in one direction rather than another and observe no similar difficulty in the animal sharing the cabin with them. This remains the case, according to Galileo, for the latter, too.

This is the introduction of Galilean relativity, which was relied on much later by Einstein. From the perspective of the friends in the cabin, the motion of the ship relative to land has no effect on the motion of the ball relative to the cabin, since the additional motion imparted to the ball by the motion of the ship is also granted to the cabin. This implied that the stone dropped from the mast of a moving ship appears to fall straight down because its motion in any other direction is shared by the ship—or the inertial frame in modern parlance—so that the observer sees only a straight descent. Likewise, the stone dropped from a tower on a moving Earth is not viewed from an absolute point of reference but relative to the tower and its immediate surroundings, which are (according to the assumption of geokineticism) also moving.

The importance of relativity can scarcely be overstated, but what Galileo was able to do was take an observation that refuted geokineticism, re-describe it, and so turn it into a confirmation of the Earth's movement. This is an example of meaning variance between theories, a concept that would later form the basis of the notion of incommensurability. It shows Galileo not to be rejecting observation on the basis of theory, or vice versa, but using reasoning to invite his readers to consider the evidence of their senses in a new way in support of a different worldview. Any effort to cast him solely as an empiricist or a rationalist, then, is bound to fail.

Another fascinating approach to the motion of the Earth that was discussed by Copernicus and which involved the Aristotelian theory of place, which Aristotle himself had defined as "what contains that of which it is the place" (Physics, IV, 211a). Although Finocchiaro (1997:14) remarked that natural motion "has always been regarded as an essential or defining characteristic of a physical body. This seems to have remained unchanged even by the Copernican Revolution", he failed to realise the importance this held for Copernicus. In the Aristotelian system, the outermost sphere of the heavens was supposed to have a natural motion but it could have no place, since, being uncontained in any further sphere, no place could be granted to it under Aristotle's conception above. Thus Aristotle was left with the unfortunate situation in which the outer sphere had natural motion but no place; and since it had no place it could have no motion, which was defined as a change in place. Max Jammer explained that one consequence was that

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... Copernicus finally came to the conclusion that that the two ideas [Aristotelian place and natural motion] were irreconcilable, and that at least one of them would have to be rejected. Either the definition of "place" had to be revised, or the dogma of the motion of the outermost celestial sphere had to be repudiated. As we know, Copernicus preferred the second alternative. (1993: 72-73)

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Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium


In his De revolutionibus orbium celestium, Copernicus drew attention to this difficulty by saying that "since it is the heavens which contain and embrace all things as the place common to the universe, it will not be clear at once why movement should not be assigned to the contained rather than to the container" (1953: 515), later calling the latter option "absurd" (op cit: 520). That there was no way around this issue was clear to Copernicus in the late sixteenth century but not to philosophers of science in the twentieth, it seems. Whether the Aristotelian concept of place or the fixed Earth had to be rejected, his authority and infallibility could no longer be maintained.

It is well known that Copernicanism was slow to gain a following, with only ten Copernicans noted between 1543 and 1600 (those being Rheticus; Maestlin; Rothmann; Kepler; Bruno; Galileo himself; Digges, Harriot; de Zu iga; and Stevin) (Westman, 1986:85). One of the main (logical) objections to it was that it engaged in circular reasoning. That is, the motion of the Earth was assumed in order to explain phenomena; whereupon the excellence of the explanations was taken to imply the motion of the Earth (more strictly, this is affirming the consequent as before). In the Dialogue, Galileo had Simplicio voice this concern:

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I do not think it can be denied that your argument goes along very plausibly, the reasoning being ex suppositione as we say, that is, assuming that the earth does move in the two motions assigned to it by Copernicus. But if we exclude those movements, all the rest is vain and invalid; and exclusion of this hypothesis is very clearly indicated to us by your own reasoning. Under the assumption of the two terrestrial movements, you give reasons for the ebb and flow, and then vice versa, reasoning circularly, you draw from the ebbing and flowing the sign and confirmation of those same two movements. (op cit: 436)

This philosophical criticism is enough to end all possibility of definitively proving Copernicanism. Nevertheless, some philosophers of science have chosen to portray Galileo as a Copernican zealot in spite of his stating plainly—rather than excluding—an objection at the close of his work that would have demonstrated to any philosophically-inclined reader than no such proof was to be found in the book (nor, in principle, could there be). Why would a determined Copernican desperate to convince others of his certainty offer such a decisive refutation of his own position? The question can only be rhetorical. It is hard to see why we should not instead read Galileo as having honestly confronted what he knew would be the main focus of philosophical disapproval, not least because he leaves this criticism unanswered. Indeed, given the contexts already established above, it would seem that his argument was to be a probabilistic one which showed both that the Ptolemaic system was untenable and that the Copernican was at least plausible, if not likely on the balance of the observations and reasoning available. Once again, Galileo the passionate advocate of Copernicanism gives ways to Galileo the prudent defender of his Church.

Supporters of the second myth we began with have looked elsewhere for justification of their reading of the Galileo affair. Another strand has focused on the idea that Bellarmine and the Church correctly rejected Copernicanism as unscientific (cf. Feyerabend, 1993: 126-129—his 2002: 247-264 is a distinct approach to the same question—and Duhem, 1908), with Duhem (op cit, quoted in de Santillana, 1958: 107) asserting that "[l]ogic was on the side of Osiander and Bellarmine and not on that of Kepler and Galileo". Bellarmine's letter to Foscarini of 1615 (XII, 171-172), quoted previously, is typically offered as indicative of his scientific bent, the charge being that while Galileo supposedly wanted unproven theories to be accepted as true, Bellarmine was far more reasonable in stating that Scriptural interpretations should not be changed on this faulty basis and that merely saving the appearances is not enough to render a theory true. This is the third point of the letter, however, and in emphasising it we lose sight of the second:

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Consider now, with your sense of prudence, whether the church can tolerate giving Scripture a meaning contrary to the Holy Fathers and to all the Greek and Latin commentators. Nor can one answer that this is not a matter of faith, since it is not a matter of faith ex parte objecti [as regards the topic or object of discussion], it is a matter of faith ex parte dicentis [as regards the speaker]; and so it would be heretical to say that Abraham did not have two children and Jacob twelve, as well as to say that Christ was not born of a virgin, because both are said by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophets and the apostles. (op cit)

Here Bellarmine had given a very different principle, according to which all Scriptural passages were to be taken as coming through the writer directly from the Holy Spirit. Supposing, then, with Galileo, that the motion of the Earth is not a matter of faith because it is an astronomical issue is thus rejected by Bellarmine because the source of the Biblical statements on geostaticism and geocentrism is the Holy Spirit. Any dissent is thus straightforwardly heretical. We see at once that this approach renders Bellarmine's "scientific" remarks in the rest of his letter moot: "If Scripture statements on the motion of the Sun are 'matters of faith' in the sense indicated by Bellarmine, they constituted truths which could not be doubted and which could never be overturned by whatever progress science might make" (Fantoli, op cit: 187). No amount of subsequent investigation could over-rule the fact that the Holy Spirit had declared in Scripture that the Earth did not move—precisely the stance that Galileo was trying to remove because he thought that it would place his Church in a very difficult position (and subject to ridicule) if, as it seemed, Copernianism should be true or, at any rate and with the same consequence, the Ptolemaic system false. To call Bellarmine's position scientific when its rigorous application would have killed science completely is, to be blunt, quite absurd.

Another criticism of Galileo states that he was condemned by his own opinions from his Letter to Christina (for example, Shea, 2003:73-74):

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These words imply I think the following doctrine: in the learned books of worldly authors are contained some propositions about nature which are truly demonstrated and others which are simply taught; in regard to the former, the task of the wise theologians is to show that they are not contrary to Holy Scripture; as for the latter (which are taught but not demonstrated with necessity), if they contain anything contrary to the Holy Writ, then they must be considered indubitably false and must be demonstrated such by every possible means. (V, 327)

The lesson here is supposed to be clear: if a proposition is not demonstrated as necessarily true, the Church was quite correct to assert their falsity and use "every possible means" to ensure that this is known to be the case. Galileo, then, could have no complaint. Nevertheless, we need only consider the very next lines of the Letter to see what Galileo had meant:

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So physical conclusions which have been truly demonstrated should not be given a lower place than Scriptural passages, but rather one should clarify how such passages do not contradict those conclusions; therefore, before condemning a physical proposition, one must show that it is not conclusively demonstrated. Furthermore it is much more reasonable and natural that this be done not by those who hold it to be true, but by those who regard it as false... (op cit)

This is the eminently sensible idea that a proposition should not be condemned as heretical unless it has been shown to not be demonstrated, thus preventing people from merely declaring Copernicanism to be false in order to have it condemned by the authorities. Moreover, those who would wish to have it condemned should have the burden of proof associated with that claim. This would require that any theologian who wished to see a scientific proposition condemned would have to show that it ought to be, and hence would have to understand it sufficiently to justify his claim that it was not demonstrated to a degree that would imply changing the interpretation of Scripture accordingly. Given the fate that could await the heretic, this is both reasonable and—at the very least—just. Once again, we see that the effort to sustain the second myth can lead to illiteracy.

When Galileo finally came to discuss the ebb and flow of the sea on the fourth day (although this ordering is open to doubt), he was disdainful of the idea that the Moon had a significant influence on the tides. He rejected the supposed attraction between the Moon and Earth as part of his general objection to "occult properties" (VII, 486) and sought a terrestrial, mechanical explanation. Since there was no proof or theory of gravitational attraction at that time, we might expect Galileo to be lauded by mythicists in the second sense for his (Bellarminean) scientific rejection of gravitational explanations of the tides. Instead, he is criticised for having held the incorrect opinion. In fact, there is an effect on the tides caused by the diurnal rotation of the Earth. Moreover, Galileo was well aware of the sheer complexity of the phenomenon and gave many factors that played a part in his theory (Dialogue, 457-462). Thus did Drake observe that "the departure of presentations of Galileo's theory from what he wrote goes ever widening" (1999, 2: 111). That Galileo did not consider his argument a proof of Copernicanism has already been established, but this attempt to justify the second myth remains popular. In short, Galileo's theory was "incorrect but scientific" (Drake, 2001: 93) and modern tidal theories retain a degree of intricacy that renders any attempt to speak of Galileo's as "inadequate" little more than anachronism (cf. Drake, 1999, 2: 107).

Galileo's stated purpose in the Letter, his correspondence and in the Dialogue itself was in any case already being practised by the Church. As is well known, there are Biblical passages suggesting a flat Earth (Daniel 4:11, for instance) that were not interpreted realistically (although Bellarmine's principle would have meant otherwise) and for the Church to insist on a literal reading would have been thought ridiculous, particularly by the Protestants. What Galileo was asking for, then, was neither new nor controversial. This should lead us to a rejection of the first myth, of course, because Galileo did get into trouble all the same.

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Next Posted Image]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:14:43 +0000 99c5e07b4d5de9d18c350cdf64c5aa3d The Galileo Affair, Part 2: Non-intellectual co... http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/the-galileo-affair-part-2-non-intellectual-co-r66 Paul Newall (2005)

Non-Intellectual Contexts

From his time as a student (Drake, 2001: 17), Galileo had been known as someone who willingly opposed orthodoxy. Even so, the social environment in which he found himself presented him with other obstacles to navigate, including the political climate, the patronage system and the rivalries engendered by those envious of his position or angered by his ideas.

The Political Setting of the Galileo Affair

The Protestant Reformation had begun in 1517 with Luther's theses nailed to the door of the Wittenberg cathedral, followed swiftly by the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1563 and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. In the wake of Protestant calls for greater interpretive leniency in reading the Bible, the Council had decreed that

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... no one relying on his own judgement shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation, has held or holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers...(Schroeder, 1978: 18-19)

Ostensibly, then, we would expect this to have given Galileo pause insofar as his work might call for a re-evaluation of those passages that appeared to straightforwardly speak of a Earth that does not move (for example, Proverbs 8:25 and 27:3, Job 26:7, Ecclesiastes 1:5, 1 Chronicles 16:30 and Psalm 104:5). As we shall see later, Galileo indeed had the "teaching of the Fathers" in mind. In this Reformation context, however, the Church was perhaps understandably wary of allowing any further adjustment or latitude in determining the meaning of Scripture; after all, if one reinterpretation was possible, why not others?

Shortly after Galileo's telescopic discoveries, in 1618, the Thirty Years War began. Partly religious and partly political in character, it placed successive Popes in difficult positions—none more so that Urban VIII, who occupied the Papacy at the time of Galileo's trial. Under pressure to provide troops and funds to the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, he had tried to play the two sides against one another to limit the power of the Hapsburgs and to repay a debt to the French who had aided considerably in his election as Pontiff. Galileo, as we know, was a Tuscan and representative of the Grand Duke, who was allied with Spain. When Urban chose, on the 8th of March 1632, to rid his staff of all Spaniards in response to public criticism from the Spanish Cardinal Gaspare Borgia, one of those exiled was Giovanni Ciampoli, correspondence secretary to the Pope and a man who proved instrumental in arranging the publication of Galileo's Dialogue. The significance of this will become clear later.

Lastly, since its creation in 1540, Loyola's Society of Jesus had been immensely successful in its intellectual and pedagogical battle with Protestantism and the Jesuits enjoyed an unrivalled reputation within the Catholic world. This had irked their Dominican brothers and it is interesting to study from which side and which times the support for Galileo from these two came. We have already seen that the Jesuits lauded Galileo's telescopic achievements in 1611; a response from some of the Dominicans was not long in coming.

Galileo and Personal Rivalries

Galileo did not dignify Colombe's critique of his Sidereus nuncios with a reply, but in 1611 he became involved in a discussion with two of the (Aristotelian) professors of philosophy at Pisa on the question of ice floating on water. Following Aristotle, the latter pair concluded that ice floated because of its flat shape that opposed its sinking; Galileo, on the other hand, referred to a theory of Archimedes and held that it is the respective densities of the ice compared to water that leads to sink or float. Colombe, never too far away, seized on this disagreement and proposed a public debate in which he would take on Galileo.

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Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncios


Advised otherwise by the Grand Duke, Galileo wrote some notes on the issue that he expanded into booklet form after a dinner attended by Cardinals Ferdinando Gonzaga and Maffeo Barberini in which he opposed a defence of the Aristotelian position given by Flaminio Papazzoni, another professor of philosophy at Pisa. Published as a Discourse on objects which rest on water or which move in it, it explained experiments that could be carried out by anyone interested in seeing for themselves rather than relying on the authority of Aristotle. Colombe responded with An apologetic discourse concerning the discourse of Galileo but Galileo preferred to avoid any further controversy and allowed his friend and former student, Benedetto Castelli, who had replaced him at Pisa as professor of mathematics, to reply in his stead. Unfortunately this course of action was unsuccessful and Galileo learned of the existence of a letter (XI, 241-242) of the 22nd of September, 1612, addressed to Alessandro Marzimedici (Archbishop of Florence and well-disposed to Galileo) who had ensured that a copy would find its way to his friends. This correspondence spoke of the formation of an organised group of Florentines in opposition to Galileo, lead by Colombe and meeting at Marzimedici's home. There they conspired to bring about a controversy on the question of the Earth's motion and had hopes to incite one of their number to preach against Galileo from the pulpit. This group was called by Galileo's friends the League of Pigeons ("Colombe" being Italian for "dove"). One member of the League, Niccol Lorini, attacked Galileo in private in 1612 for his ideas that—according to Lorini—verged on the heretical but later wrote to him in apology. Another letter was sent to Galileo himself by the painter Cigoli in December of 1611, which explained in more detail:

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I have been told by a friend of mine, a priest who is very fond of you, that a gang of ill-disposed men, who are envious of your virtue and merits, met at the residence of the Archbishop of Florence, and put their heads together in a mad quest for some means by which they could damage you, either with regard to the motion of the Earth or otherwise. One of them asked a preacher to state from the pulpit that you were asserting outlandish things. The priest, seeing the animosity against you, replied as a good Christian and a member of a religious order ought to do. I write this that your eyes may be open to the envy and malice of these evildoers.


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Federico Cesi, Galileo’s great friend, supporter and patron


Also in 1612, another line of disagreement with Galileo arose. A Jesuit professor of mathematics at Ingolstadt, Christoph Scheiner, had announced his observations of sunspots in a letter of 1611 to Mark Welser, a banker and an amateur scientist in Augsburg. Although sunspots had already been seen by the Dutchman Johann Fabricius who had published a treatise on them at Wittenberg, Welser wrote to his friend Johannes Faber in Rome asking if similar studies had been performed there. Faber was a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and Cesi (and subsequently Faber) soon came to know of the letter, passing on the news to Galileo (XV, 236 and 238-239). Meanwhile, Scheiner continued his work and sent a further two letters to Welser, affirming that the sunspots were, in his opinion, wandering stars (i.e small planets). These letters were published under a pseudonym.

Galileo received a copy of this collection in January of 1612 and wrote a letter to Welser in response, stating that he had not dared to reply without making some further observations of his own because he feared that any minor error on his part would be seized upon "by the enemies of truth whose number was infinite" (V, 94-113). Nevertheless, he argued that the sunspots were not planets but were actually on or very near the surface. Scheiner had continued his own work and sent a further three letters to Welser under the title A more accurate discourse, in which he appeared to dispute Galileo's priority in noticing the sunspots (V, 46)—in spite of their having been known since antiquity and often being visible to the naked eye. Galileo sent a second letter of his own, without having seen the booklet by Scheiner, which he received from Welser in September. Galileo's friends, including Cesi, were insistent that he respond in print to this question of priority (for example, XI, 418) and Galileo resolved "to make it clear how foolishly this matter has been dealt with" by his opponent, whom he now knew to be a Jesuit (XI, 426). In his third letter, Galileo tackled Scheiner's arguments and rejected the latter's attempts to demonstrate the Tychonian system (proposed by the Dane Tycho Brah , in which the Earth is at the centre of the system with the Sun revolving round it and the planets orbiting the Sun).

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The Tychonian system of Brahe


The collection of Galileo's three letters were published in 1613 by the Accademia dei Lincei with a preface by Angelo de Fillis, their librarian, in which he attacked Scheiner and claimed priority for Galileo in the matter of the discovery of the sunspots. Galileo himself was wary of this addition and the harm it could do to his standing with the Jesuits. Unfortunately the polemical remarks by Scheiner and Galileo's friends alike had left the former particularly bitter, as would later comments by Galileo in his Assayer. Bound by their adherence to Aristotelian ideas (Constitutiones Societas Jesu, Ganss, 1970: 220), the Jesuits Giuseppe Biancani and Fran ois D'Aguilon also continued to state Scheiner's priority, while Galileo's friends rebutted them with zeal. The damage had been done.

Galileo's Motivations

These conflicts and squabbles form one of the subtexts to the Galileo affair and it was not long before his antagonists had another opportunity. In July of 1612, Galileo had written to Cardinal Carlo Conti about sunspots and the questions raised by them. In reply, Conti "stated that Scripture did not support the Aristotelian theory of the incorruptibility of the heavens but that, on the contrary, the common opinion of the Fathers of the Church was that the heavens were corruptible" (Fantoli, 1996: 141). Conti further remarked that the motion of the Earth could be accommodated with the Biblical passages if it was supposed that Scripture was written according to the understanding of ordinary persons, not as consisting in exact astronomical information. This, he added, "should not be admitted unless it is really necessary" (XI, 355). As a result, Galileo had noted in his second letter to Welser that the incorruptibility of the heavens was "not only false but repugnant to those truths of Sacred Scripture about which there could be no doubt" (V, 138-139)—a phrase which was removed by the censor before publication in spite of protests and referrals to Conti's opinion. Even so, a marginal statement on Copernicus (discussing "the truth of the rest of his system" following from a correct—astronomical—understanding of his De revolutionibus orbium celestium(V, 195)) was left alone, encouraging Galileo, according to Fantoli (1996: 170), to believe that he could broach the subject in more depth and detail.

On the 12th of December, 1613, Galileo's friend Castelli attended a lunch with the Grand Duke. Also present were the Grand Duchess Dowager, Christina of Lorraine, and Cosimo Boscaglia, special professor of philosophy at Pisa and an expert on Platonism. Prompted by Boscaglia whispering in her ear, the Grand Duchess asked Castelli whether the motion of the Earth was contrary to Scripture. Over the course of the meal, Castelli won an admission from Boscaglia that Galileo's discoveries were true and reduced the theological objections to silence, "carr[ying] things off like a paladin" by his own account in a letter describing the events that he sent to Galileo (XI, 605-606). Concerned at this development and the recourse to Scripture when the denial of his observations had proven impossible, Galileo wrote a lengthy reply to Castelli explaining his view of the relationship between the Bible and science (V, 281-288).

Either intentionally or without considering the consequences, Castelli made copies of this letter and some found their way to Galileo's opponents. Matters came to a head when, on the 21st of December 1614, the Dominican Tommaso Caccini preached against Galileo in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, telling his audience that mathematicians, being spreaders of heretical ideas, should be banished from the Italian states (XII, 130). Caccini was associated with the League of Pigeons and this was a calculated attack. Although Luigi Maraffi, another Dominican and a friend of Galileo, wrote to him apologising for such "madness and ignorance" (XII, 127), Galileo was advised against responding by Cesi, who told him that Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine was of the opinion that "the motion of the Earth is without any doubt against Scripture" (XII, 129-130). Galileo decided to leave Caccini unanswered, the latter having already been rebuked by his own brother.

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Cardinal Bellarmine, the influential Jesuit


Hearing about the controversy and expressing his displeasure at Caccini's behaviour, Lorini was given a copy of Galileo's original letter by Castelli. On reading this, Lorini, aware of the restrictions on interpretation dictated at the Council of Trent (quoted above), considered Galileo to have overstepped the mark and, believing it to be his duty to do so, sent a copy of the letter to Cardinal Paolo Sfondrati for examination (XIX, 297-298). The latter was Prefect of the Congregation of the Index, created in 1571 by Pius V to halt the dissemination in print of heretical ideas. Since the letter was not in print, however, he passed it on to his colleague Cardinal Giovanni Millini, Secretary of the Holy Office (more commonly known as the Inquisition). Although generally favourable to Galileo, this organisation decided to pursue the matter further and requested a copy of his original letter. Having discussed the matter with their mutual friend Piero Dini and Maffeo Barberini, Ciampoli passed on the latter's advice to Galileo in a letter, stating that he ought to be careful because "not everyone has the dispassionate faculty... [o]ne man amplifies, the next one alters, and what came from the author's own mouth becomes so transformed in spreading that he will no longer recognise it as his own" (XII, 146); in short, to be careful what he said or wrote because others were want to twist his meaning. Meanwhile, Galileo was increasingly worried that events were overtaking the importance of his work and concentrating instead on Scripture, such that his enemies had "in short, opened a new front to tear me to pieces" (V, 292-293). He was also wary of the possibility that Lorini had not copied his letter faithfully, remarking that "because I have not received the least sign of scruples from anyone else who has seen the letter, I suspect that perhaps whoever transcribed it may have inadvertently changed some word..." Galileo forwarded an accurate copy to Dini, asking him to see to it that Bellarmine should read it (ibid).

Dini did as he was asked, also forwarding a copy to Christopher Grienberger, the Jesuit professor of mathematics who had succeeded Clavius. Both recommended caution, suggesting that Galileo should attend to his investigations and leave Scripture alone, at least for the time being. Galileo responded by hinting at a work in progress and stating unequivocally that he had "no other aim but the honour of the Holy Church" and that he did not direct his labours "to any other goal..." (V, 299-300). Galileo, however, was encouraged by the news that Paolo Antonio Foscarini, a Carmelite professor of theology at the university of Messina in Calabria, had published his Letter on the opinion of the Pythagoreans and of Copernicus in 1615. Cesi brought it to Galileo's attention, stating that it "certainly could not have appeared at a better time, unless to increase the fury of our adversaries is damaging, which I do not believe" (XII, 150)—a misplaced hope, as it would later turn out. Foscarini sent a copy of his work to Bellarmine, asking for his views on the subject. The latter replied graciously in a letter that has been subject to much analysis and disagreement (as we shall see below), giving as his opinion that he knew of no "true demonstration that the sun is at the centre of the world...", and further that he would

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... not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown me. Nor is it the same to demonstrate that by supposing the sun to be at the centre and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances, and to demonstrate that in truth the sun is at the centre and the earth in heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have very great doubts about the second, and in case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scriptures as interpreted by the Holy Fathers. (XII, 171-172)

Leaving aside for now the question of how Bellarmine's position as described in the complete letter to Foscarini should be understood, we may note that reference was made to the philosophical concept of saving the appearances, or astronomical instrumentalism. This was the widespread (although some scholars have disagreed: cf. Musgrave, 1991) notion that astronomers were not concerned with giving a true description of the heavens but only a model that would fit the observations (hence "saving the appearances") and provide an instrument of prediction. To assert that Copernicanism saved the appearances better than the Ptolemaic or Tychonic systems, then, was only to say that it gave more accurate predictions or fitted the available data more simply. (A preface written by Andreas Osiander, a Lutheran theologian, was inserted into De revolutionibus orbium celestium for just this reason.) Bellarmine, like most of his contemporaries, had no complaint at instrumental claims for the superiority of the Copernican system, but considered that it would be a grave error to conclude that it represented the truth about what was in the heavens.

To respond to this and the other criticisms he had faced since the circulation of his letter to Castelli, Galileo re-wrote and expanded it substantially, addressing it as a Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (V, 309-386). In this famous work, Galileo set out his aims and motivations; namely, to separate science from religion and to save the Church from falling into the error advised against by Augustine centuries before ("... we do not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: I will send you the Paraclete to teach you how the Sun and the Moon move. Because he wished to make them Christians, not mathematicians." (De Actis cum Felice Manichaeo, I, 2)). This second point was to note that since a heretic might know more astronomy than a Christian, it would be foolish to fix the truth via the Scriptures lest an infidel show them to be in error. We shall look at both these ideas in more detail.

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The Letters on Sunspots


Realising that his opponents, unable to debate him on scientific grounds, wanted to fight him behind the shield of Scripture, one of the first tasks Galileo set himself in the letter was to call attention to the precedent for non-literal interpretations of Biblical passages:

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.... the Scripture appears to be not only full of contradictions and false propositions but also of serious heresies and blasphemies; for one would have to attribute to God feet, hands, eyes, and bodily sensations, as well as human feelings like anger, contrition, and hatred, and such conditions as the forgetfulness of things past and the ignorance of future ones. Since these propositions dictated by the Holy Spirit were expressed by the sacred writers in such a way as to accommodate the capacities of the very unrefined and undisciplined masses, for those who deserve to rise above the common people it is therefore necessary that wise interpreters formulate the true meaning and indicate the specific reasons why it is expressed by such words. This doctrine is so commonplace that it would be superfluous to present and testimony for it. (op cit)

Faced with a Biblical statement that appeared to make no sense, then, the Fathers of the Church would try to discover the correct, non-literal interpretation of it. They were bound to do so since the Bible, being the Word of God, could not err. Galileo did little more than conclude "that in disputes about natural phenomena one must begin not with the authority of Scriptural passages but with sensory experience and necessary demonstrations" (op cit). Going further, Galileo wrote that

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... some physical propositions are of a type such that by any human speculation and reasoning one can only attain a probable opinion and a verisimilar conjecture about them, rather than a certain and demonstrated science; an example is whether the stars are animate. Others are of a type such that either one has, or one may firmly believe that it is possible to have, complete certainty on the basis of experiments, long observations, and necessary demonstrations; examples are whether or not the earth and sun move and whether or not the earth is spherical. As for the first type I have no doubt at all that, where human reason cannot reach, and where consequently one cannot have a science, but only opinion and faith, it is appropriate piously to conform absolutely to the literal meaning of Scripture. In regard to the second type of propositions, however, I should think, as stated above, that it would be proper to ascertain the facts first, so that they could guide us in finding the true meaning of Scripture; this would be found to agree absolutely with demonstrated facts, even though prima facie the words would sound otherwise, since two truths can never contradict each other. (op cit)

Here Galileo was hoping to establish the separation of science and religion: where there is no way to establish by science the truth or otherwise of a theory, it is proper to resort to a literal reading of the relevant Biblical opinions; but where science can be used, we should interpret the Scripture in light of what science tells us can or cannot be so. In the case of Copernicanism, specifically, Galileo's discoveries should be employed to help understand what the problematic Biblical passages actually entail. To insist that the literal meaning should be adhered to when scientific investigation shows otherwise is to fall into error, since there cannot be two conflicting truths.

A possible rejoinder to Galileo's arguments here was made both then by Bellarmine in the excerpt quoted above and more recently by Galileo scholars; namely, that Galileo did not have anything approaching "complete certainty" with regard to the Copernican hypothesis. He quite clearly stated, however, that where "one may firmly believe that it is possible to have" scientific justification to the contrary of a literal reading, we should defer to science and allow it to guide our interpretation. In more modern parlance, perhaps, we might say that where it is possible in principle that a literal Scriptural passage may be contradicted by scientific investigation, we should be careful in attributing the same. This is the approach taken by the Church today.

Commenting on the fact that the Pope had the power to condemn any opinion at any time as heretical, Galileo explained another aspect to the separation of science and religion. It was, he said,

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... advisable to first become sure about the necessary and immutable truth of the matter, over which one has no control, than to condemn one side when such certainty is lacking; this would imply a loss of freedom of decision and choice insofar as it would give necessity to things which are presently indifferent, free, and dependent on the will of supreme authority. In short, if it is inconceivable that a proposition should be declared heretical when one thinks it may be true, it should be futile for someone to try to bring about the condemnation of the earth's motion and the sun's rest unless he first shows it to be impossible and false. (ibid)

The principle invoked here is one holding that since no one (from the Pope to a layman) would consider heretical a statement that could in fact be true, they could similarly not declare Copernicanism heretical unless they have already demonstrated its impossibility. In conjunction with the earlier remarks, we have a separation that allows science to pursue any matter that we have reason to believe may be resolved by investigation, a pursuit that may not be hindered by an apparent conflict with Scripture because Biblical passages are not always interpreted literally and cannot speak definitively of heresy unless the scientific question has been shown to be false. What this did, of course, was to place Scripture as the final (as in last) authority, not the first or pre-eminent one—a move that would incite his enemies yet again.

The impact of the Letter at the time was minimal, since it circulated solely within Galileo's circle of friends and was not published until late in his life. We can see, though, that when Galileo protested that he had "no other aim but the honour of the Holy Church" (ibid), he was seeking to separate science and religion in order that the Church not come to dishonour by fixing on interpretations of Scripture that could later be shown false. This in turn would raise the possibility that the Church could be left behind by science, perhaps rendering it irrelevant or at least suggesting to those so inclined that if it was in error in one area then why not another? This is an important point to realise: Galileo was a devout Catholic and there is no question he sought to save his Church, not to criticise or call it into question.

The Arguments Against Galileo (1)

While Galileo was at work on the Letter, Caccini was in front of the Holy Office in March of 1615, testifying on his own initiative in support of his allegation that Galileo was holding opinions "repugnant to the Divine Scripture" (XIX, 308-309). Caccini remarked that Galileo was "suspected in matter of Faith" by others and in correspondence with Germans (i.e. Protestants) by virtue of his membership of the Accademia dei Lincei (ibid). Ultimately, all of Caccini's accusations were dismissed, with the exception of one concerning Galileo's Copernicanism. In November of that year, an order was given that his Letters on the sunspots should be examined (XIX, 278).

Understandably concerned by this latest attack by his opponents, Galileo resolved to journey to Rome to make his case in person, "in the hope of at least showing [his] affection for the Holy Church" (XII, 184). In particular, he was opposed to any declaration that Copernicus had himself merely hoped to save the appearances, rather than believing that the Earth truly moves (ibid). His problems were exacerbated, however, by Foscarini's book and the conservative backlash it had engendered in at atmosphere already tense because of Galileo's writings. He requested and was granted permission to travel to Rome "to defend himself against the accusations of his rivals", as the Grand Duke wrote to his ambassador (XII, 203).

Arriving on the 10th of December, 1615, Galileo was determined to defend himself from the suggestion that he was a secret heretic, when—as we have seen—he thought himself a devout Catholic, dedicated to his Church. He embarked on an intense period of letter writing and visits, gradually realising the depth of feeling against him in some quarters. This was due, in no small part, to a tendency he had in debate that was explained by Antonio Querengo in a letter to Cardinal d'Este in January:

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What I enjoyed most was that before he would answer the arguments of his opponents, he would amplify them and strengthen them with new grounds which made them appear invincible, so that, when he proceeded to demolish them, he made his opponents look all the more ridiculous. (XII, 226-227)

This was by no means an isolated instance of the power (and effect) of Galileo's rhetoric, as we shall see in more detail below. Nevertheless, his activity and Foscarini's work had forced the Church to look at the matter in more detail and so two propositions were submitted for the consideration of the qualificators of the Holy Office:

  • The Sun is the centre of the world and hence immovable of local motion.
  • The Earth is not the centre of the world, nor immovable, but moves according to the whole of itself, also with a diurnal motion. (XIX, 320)
These were examined by theologians, not scientists or those skilled in scientific areas. This, of course, was Galileo's complaint against his adversaries to begin with—that they did not know enough about the ideas they presumed to dismiss. In spite of this handicap, a decision was reached within four days. The Tuscan Ambassador, Piero Guicciardini, attributed this to the fact that "Galileo has monks and who hate and persecute him" (XII, 242), asserting that "certain friars of St. Dominic, who play a major role in the Holy Office, and others are ill disposed toward him" (XII, 207). Guicciardini had already warned that nothing good could come of the trip and had strongly advised against it (ibid).

On the 23rd of February, 1616, the opinion of the qualificators was agreed and presented the next day in the plenary session of the consultors of the Holy Office. On the first proposition, the qualification was that

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All said that this proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture, according to the literal meaning of the words and according to the common interpretation and understanding of the Holy Fathers and the doctors of theology. (XIX, 321)

For the second, the decision was that

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All said that this proposition receives the same censure in philosophy and that in regard to theological truth it is at least erroneous in faith. (ibid)

It is important to appreciate fully what the key terms in these qualifications meant. "Formally heretical" implies that the first proposition was diametrically opposed to a doctrine of faith; that is, the opinion of the plenary session was that the words of the Holy Fathers and the literal interpretation of the Scriptures were to be understood as a statement of faith. (Note that this is precisely the position Galileo had warned of and tried to have his Church avoid, and Augustine before him—that of allowing faith to dictate a physical truth.) This charge was the most serious possible. "Erroneous in faith", however, is a lesser complaint, according to which the Scriptures do not give a clear indication on the issue but, given the falsity of the first proposition, it would be an error to suppose that the Earth moves when it had already been declared a matter of faith that the Sun circles the Earth. As for "foolish and absurd in philosophy", note that theologians were pronouncing a physical theory philosophically unsound. We have already seen, from Guicciardini's letters, why these men should have taken such a short period of time (four days) to decide a question entirely beyond their ken on the basis of Scripture. Neither physical nor philosophical arguments were given.

On the next day, in the weekly meeting of Cardinals, Millini notified those present that "after the reporting of the judgement by the Father Theologians against the propositions of the mathematician Galileo, to the effect that the sun stands still at the centre of the world and the earth moves even with the diurnal motion, His Holiness ordered the Most Illustrious Cardinal Bellarmine to call Galileo before himself and warn him to abandon these opinions; and if he should refuse to obey, the Father Commissary, in the presence of notary and witnesses, is to issue him an injunction to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it; and further, if he should not acquiesce, he is to be imprisoned" (XI, 321). Although this may seem harsh, it expresses a careful degree of tact: the two propositions had been condemned, not Galileo, and the Church sought a way to entreat him to give up his ideas without embarrassing the Grand Duke (of whose court Galileo was an official part) or Rome (on account of Galileo's fame throughout Europe). Fantoli (1996: 259) remarks that neither Paul V nor Bellarmine bore Galileo any ill will, the former evidenced by the audience that he was granted with the Pope shortly thereafter.

We shall discuss the physical and other arguments against the two propositions below but there was also a specific objection to Galileo's ideas that worried the Church. In his letter of advice to Galileo sent via Ciampoli, already quoted from above, Cardinal Barberini explained:

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Your opinion regarding the phenomena of light and shadow in the bright and dark parts of the moon draws an analogy between the lunar globe and the Earth. Somebody then enlarges on this, and says that you place inhabitants on the Moon. The next fellow starts to dispute how these can be descended from Adam, or how they can have come off Noah's ark, and many other extravagances you never dreamed of" (op cit).

Barberini's solution to this difficulty was to "declare frequently that one places oneself under the authority of those who have jurisdiction over the minds of people in the interpretation of Scripture is to remove this pretext for malice" (op cit). The problem suggested here was a very real one, however: for some people it was a short step from displacing the Earth from the centre of the world to it being just another planet like any other, some of which might contain life. This would be far more than allowing that the Earth moves, extending to the possibility that people might live elsewhere in the universe and raising all kinds of theological questions: would these people have known the revelation of Christ? How could they be saved if it were otherwise? Had they then received the Scriptures? How? If Christ had ascended to heaven following His resurrection, when did he visit these other worlds? The redemption was supposed to be a unique event, and so on. For the farsighted clergy, Copernicanism was not just a matter of the moving Earth, and Barberini's warning was that Galileo's enemies could take advantage of his silence on these issues to assert that he would imply them all unless stopped. A good example of the concerns was given by Brecht's simplistic rendering of the affair in his play:

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I am informed that Signor Galilei transfers mankind from the centre of the universe to somewhere on the outskirts. Signor Galilei is therefore an enemy of mankind and must be dealt with as such. Is it conceivable that God would trust this most precious fruit of His labour to a minor frolicking star? Would He have sent His Son to such a place? ... [To Galileo] You have degraded the earth despite the fact that you live by her and receive everything from her. I won't have it! I won't have it! I won't be a nobody on an inconsequential star briefly twirling hither and thither... The earth is the centre of all things, and I am the centre of the earth, and the eye of the Creator is upon me. About me revolve, affixed to their crystal shells, the lesser lights of the stars and the great light of the sun, created to give light on me that God might see me—Man, God's greatest effort, the centre of creation: "In the image of God He created him." (op cit, 72-73)

For some, the case of Giordano Bruno was still fresh in their minds. Bellarmine, in particular, had worked as a consultor on it before his election as Cardinal. Basing his ideas on Copernicus' heliocentrism, as well as Neo-Platonism, Bruno held that the universe was infinite (something Copernicus had refused to countenance—cf. Book I, Chapter VIII of De revolutionibus orbium celestium) with a correspondingly infinite number of systems like our own, drawing the obvious conclusion that beings similar to us probably lived on some of these and bringing to bear all the above questions. Accused of heresy, Bruno was tried by the Holy Office and, although none of the charges were proven and he was repeatedly denied his legal right to appeal all questions of heresy to the Pope (cf. Fantoli, 1994: 43 and Drake, 2001: 26), he was publicly burned at the stake in 1600.

Galileo and Patronage

Galileo was not treated in a similar fashion at this stage, however. In accordance with the order quoted above and his position both as the pre-eminent intellectual in Europe and as a member of the Tuscan Court, he visited Bellarmine and was given a private injunction. Exactly what happened at this meeting has been subject to much discussion and scrutiny, particularly given its import at Galileo's later trial. We shall return to it below.

On the 5th of March, the Congregation of the Index published its decree announcing the prohibition of certain works. After describing the intent of the "Pythagorean doctrine", it declared that

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... in order that this opinion may not insinuate itself any further to the prejudice of the Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation decreed that the said Nicolaus Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium celestium, and Diego de Zu iga, On Job, be suspended until they be corrected; but that the book of the Carmelite Father, Paolo Antonio Foscarini, be altogether prohibited and condemned, and all other works likewise, in which the same is taught, be prohibited, as by this present decree it prohibits, condemns and suspends them all respectively. (XIX, 323)

We need not be apologists to note that the contemporary era lacks any moral high ground from which to lament the banning of books (cf. Martin, 1954), which is the exclusive domain of neither religion nor medieval contexts. Moreover, it is known that only eight percent of copies of Copernicus' work were ever censored (Gingerich, 1981: 45-61), the decree being difficult to enforce. Nevertheless, for our purposes the important point on which to remark is that there was no mention of heresy in the decree of the Index, nor Galileo. Although Foscarini's book was to be banned entirely, Copernicus' and Zu iga's merely required minor corrections. This was due, it seems, to Foscarini's work being devoted to showing the compatibility of Copernicanism with Scripture, while the others only mentioned it in passing.

The obvious questions to ask, then, are why, if Galileo's expositions of the first proposition were judged to be "formally heretical", was he not mentioned by name, and why was there no suggestion that the decree was due to the heretical nature of the works? The answers may be found in a diary entry of Gianfrancesco Buonamici, recalling these events many years later:

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In the time of Paul V this opinion [i.e. the two propositions] was opposed as erroneous and contrary to many passages of Sacred Scripture; therefore, Paul V was of the opinion to declare it contrary to the Faith; but through the opposition of the Lord Cardinals Bonifatio Gaetano and Maffeo Barberini, today [i.e. in 1633] Urban VIII, the Pope was stopped right at the beginning on account of the good reasons taken by their Eminences and the learned writings of the said Mr. Galileo on this matter addressed to Lady Christina of Tuscany about the year 1614. (XV, 11)

The reference to Galileo's Letter was described by Fantoli (1996, 262) as "completely unlikely", since it was not published at that time (1616) and hence not available to the Pope in his deliberations. Nevertheless, we see here an important factor in the Galileo affair that has been noted by many scholars (in particular, Biagioli, 1993); namely, the relevance (or even decisive influence) of patronage. This was (and in some places still is) a social dimension that was impossible to avoid (indeed, Biagoli remarks that it was "a voluntary activity only in the narrow sense that by not engaging in it one would commit social suicide" (1993: 16). Not only was the social status of an author correlated with the credibility of their ideas and, in particular, their reports of observation and experiment (cf. Shapin, 1985 (with Schafer) and 1995, and Dear, 1985), just as today, but also individual disciplines were accorded a place in a hierarchy, theology, as queen, at the top. The rigidity of this particular structure is one of the reasons why Galileo's challenge was so unwelcome. Indeed, already in the 1540s Tolosani had written a critique of Copernicus from this perspective, stating that the "lower science receives principles provided by the superior" and that the latter had violated this order by neglecting to ascribe to mathematics and astronomy their proper places (quoted in Garin, 1975: 31-42).

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Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany


As we have seen, Galileo's early career depended on the patronage of men like Guidobaldo and Clavius. Aside from his obvious talents, he relied on the patronage connections already established by his father, Vincenzio (Biagioli, op cit: 22). At this stage Galileo was not able to contact the Grand Duke directly, having to negotiate his way via satellite personalities that functioned as brokers. An example of the manner of writing and speech that was required to navigate the system of patronage is given by his first letter written directly to Cosimo in 1605, his former student with whom he had cultivated the client/patron relationship for several years:

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I have waited until now to write to Your Most Serene Highness, being held back by a respectful concern of not wanting to present myself as presumptuous or arrogant. In fact, I made sure to send you the necessary signs of reverence through my closest friends and patrons, because I did not think it appropriate ... to appear at once in front of you and stare in the eyes of the most serene light of the rising sun without having reassured and fortified myself with their secondary and reflected rays. (X, 153-154)

It is important to place Galileo and the entire Galileo affair within this context of patronage. The system functioned in two directions: on the one hand, the client hoped to use his patrons to secure social advance and economic success; on the other, the patron intended his clients to shower him in reflected glory, as it were—a testament to his enlightened court and his wide ranging interests. "A patron demonstrated his magnificence by supporting the best." (Westfall, 1989: 65) The image of early science as a venatio or "hunt" beyond the realm of mere appearances was a product of the courts, "develop[ing] outside of the universities" and "in opposition to the methodological assumptions of official academic culture" (Eamon, 1991: 74). Courts at this time were a magnet for all types of new ideas and Galileo was not the only one seeking to make a name and find a place for himself, Machiavelli having declared that "a prince ought to show himself a lover of ability, giving employment to able men and honouring those who excel in a particular field", thereby gaining "the reputation of being a great man of outstanding ability". Many Renaissance courts kept wunderkammern to house and publicly display curiosities, thereby demonstrating the power of the prince and the extent of his dominion, even unto the weird and wonderful. The de' Medicis kept a studioli in like fashion, Francesco I eventually transferring most of the contents of his to the Uffizi gallery in 1584. Perhaps the most famous example of patronage and its import is the court of Rudolf II in Prague and its Kunstkammer, a part of his attempt to establish himself as a contemporary Maecenas, acting as a patron to Brahe and Kepler, amongst others.

Intermediaries were used because patrons did not want to take the risk associated with direct communication or offering support to a client who might subsequently embarrass them. Having invested many years in his association with Cosimo, Galileo was able to use his telescopic discoveries to finally give himself the importance he felt he had, although prior to that time he had little value to the court. "Without these carefully forged relationships, the Medicean Stars would not have projected him into prominence" (Biagioli. ibid: 24). A network of brokers supported this system and it is easy to see parallels in some aspects of contemporary society.

The ritualised conduct inherent in the patronage system was not an archaic irrelevancy that Galileo had to struggle against, then, but one in which he fully immersed himself as he had to. This was vital because the hierarchical status of Galileo's discipline (mathematics) and his methodology was so low in comparison with others (cf. Westman, 1980 and Biagioli, 1989). In order to improve its epistemological standing, it was first necessary for Galileo to gain in social standing; and the only way to do that was to seek out a patron—the higher in society the better. As a consequence, we have to appreciate that Galileo's social activities were not ancillary to his scientific work but an unavoidable and interdependent part of it: the more he gained in importance by his association with patrons, the more his ideas gained a hearing; while, conversely, the more famous he became from his scientific work, the more desirable he was as a client to patrons of increasing prestige and influence. Inevitably, of course, Galileo would come into conflict with others seeking patronage in much the same way, whether those seeking similar positions or those resentful of the proposed reordering of the disciplines that he was working towards. Then, as now, fame and reward brought with them jealously and envy.

To return to our story, an obvious question to ask is why the Church—if it was indeed opposed to Galileo's ideas and to science in general—allowed him to publish at all, either up to 1616 or later? As we have seen, his position in the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany was in no small part responsible for the private injunction he received from Bellarmine and his absence from the decree of the Index, along with the relatively minor role of the asides on Copernicanism in his writings to that date. The letter from Buonamici, quoted above, together with one from the much later Tuscan Ambassador Francesco Niccolini (XIV, 428), both spoke of Maffeo Barberini having "preserved" Galileo (cf. also Westfall, 1989: 21). Speaking directly of his intervention, Barberini remarked in 1630 that prohibiting Copernicanism "was never our intention, and if he had been left to us, that decree would not have been made" (XIV, 88). If Galileo's patrons had saved him, however, others were suggesting that he was himself unintentionally doing all he could to ruin his good fortune.

Galileo and Rhetoric

When he wrote to Tuscan court to inform them of the outcome of the events of early 1616, Ambassador Giucciardini explained what he held to be Galileo's significant part:

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Galileo has relied more on his own counsel than on that of his friends. Cardinal del Monte and myself, and also several Cardinals from the Holy Office, tried to persuade him to be quiet and not to go on irritating the issue. If he wanted to hold this Copernican opinion, let him hold it quietly and not to go on irritating the issue. If he wanted to hold this Copernican opinion, he was told, let him hold it quietly and not spend so much effort in trying to have others share it. Everyone feared that his coming here might be prejudicial and dangerous and that, instead of justifying himself and triumphing over his enemies, he could end up with an affront. (XII, 241-242)

He went on to add that Galileo was

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... all afire on his opinions, and puts great passion in them, and not enough strength and prudence in controlling it [sic]; so that the Roman climate is getting very dangerous for him... (ibid)

It is this kind of description of Galileo as a Copernican zealot, utterly convinced of the truth of his ideas and determined to spread them, that forms the basis of the second myth of the Galileo affair (cf. Duhem, 1969; Koestler, 1959; Feyerabend, 1993; Langford, 1966; Shea and Artigas, 2003). Giucciardini was not alone in his view of events, with even Kepler blaming the prohibition of part of his own 1618 work Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae on the "inappropriateness of some who have treated of astronomical truths in places where they should not be treated and with improper methods" (V, 633).

This thesis, however, overlooks several important points that—at this stage, at any rate—give the lie to it. Guicciardini did not know the content of Bellarmine's injunction to Galileo, sending his report to the Grand Duke before the adoption of the decree of the Index and incorrectly asserting that Galileo's opinion had been found "erroneous and heretical" (op cit). He spoke, therefore, only of "rumours that were circulating among the circles of the Papal Curia" (Fantoli, 1996: 258). More importantly, perhaps, and in spite of the Ambassador's insistence that the Pope would not tolerate such things, Galileo was granted an audience with the Pontiff less than two weeks later. According to Galileo's testimony,

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... since I appeared somewhat insecure because of the thought that I would always be persecuted by their [i.e. his enemies'] implacable malice, he consoled me by saying that I could live with my mind at peace, for I was so regarded by His Holiness and the whole Congregation that they would not easily listen to the slanderers, and that I could feel safe as long as he lived. (XII, 248)

Galileo did not return immediately to Tuscany with this assurance, since he heard from several of his friends (for instance, XII, 246) that rumours were circulating to the effect that he had been ordered by Bellarmine to adjure his heresy. Having complained to the latter in this connexion, Galileo received on May the 26th a signed statement from the Cardinal describing what had occurred at their meeting (XIX, 348). (This document would prove important for his later trial and all subsequent scholarship, and we shall return to it later.) Although his attempt to separate science and religion had failed for the time being, Galileo was content to travel back to Florence and wait for a more opportune moment. In spite of the judgement of the theologians, the Church had not condemned Copernicanism but only mandated that it be treated as a hypothesis.

In the meantime, Galileo returned to his studies and observations, working on his Discourse on the ebb and flow of the sea and the eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter. This latter endeavour was being used to compile tables that Galileo believed could help address the problem of determining longitude at sea, a famous problem for navigators (cf. V, 419-425). Negotiations had been opened with the Spanish King to this end, although they would eventually (in 1632) grind to a halt.

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Christoph Scheiner, Galileo’s Jesuit opponent on the question of sunspots


Late in 1618, three comets were seen in quick succession, beginning another round of speculation on their implications—whether for astronomical systems or as harbingers of upheavals to come. Galileo was unable to offer any comment himself due to illness (a susceptibility to which had plagued him throughout his life and would continue to do so), later stating so explicitly (VI, 225), and refused to rely on guesswork when he had made no observations of his own.

Nevertheless, the Jesuits were not so constrained and in 1619 their professor of mathematics at the Roman College, Orazio Grassi, who would later take over from Grienberger, wrote De tribus cometis anni MDCXVIII disputatio astronomica ("An astronomical discussion on the three comets of 1618"), otherwise known as the Disputatio. Although released under a pseudonym, much like Scheiner's booklet, Grassi defended the Tychonian system and word reached Galileo that "the Jesuits have spread it around that this thing overthrows the Copernican system, against which there is no surer argument than this" (XII, 443—although Biagioli claimed that this is a mistranslation (1993: 282, n49) and, more accurately, states that some outside the Jesuit order were spreading the rumour).

This tactic of composing texts without giving a real name was part of the precautions used in the patronage system, according to Biagioli (1993: 63): to avoid tarnishing the image of his order or patron, an author would not give his name. Galileo quickly found out, however, and took exception—wrongly (Fantoli, 1996: 303)—to a remark he felt was directed at him. Replying through his friend and former student, Mario Guidicci (although it is known that Galileo wrote almost the entirety of the work attributed to Guidicci (XII, 457)), Galileo and his friends were thereby responsible for the rapid destruction of his good relations with the Jesuits, the consequences of which concerned Ciampoli who said that the Jesuits were "much offended" (XII, 466). It was too late, however, as Grienberger observed:

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As to the affairs of Galileo, I would prefer not to get mixed up in them after he has behaved so badly with the mathematicians of the Roman College, by whom he was treated, in fact, more than once not less well than with sincerity. If even one mention of him had been made in the Disputatio Romana or if he had been refuted in any way, I would be less resentful towards him. But since no thought at all was given to him and the whole question turned on the fact that the comets were found much higher than common opinion maintained and use was made here of an hypothesis which up to now it had been licit to admit, I cannot marvel enough how it could have leapt into Galileo's mind to consider himself under attack... (Codex 530, II, folio 48r, Archives of the Pontifical Gregorian University)

So began the cycle that demonstrates Galileo's brutal rhetoric and its effects decisively. A master of satire and wit, possessed of the sharpest of tongues, Galileo opened the Discourse on the comets by explicitly accusing Scheiner of plagiarism during their earlier interaction on the subject of sunspots, a charge "deliberately couched in the most insulting terms" (Westfall, 1989: 51), before moving on to "rip Grassi apart" (ibid). In spite of some scholars incorrectly portraying Galileo's arguments as "decadent Aristotelianism" (Shea, 1972: 85) when they could not be reconciled with Aristotle (Fantoli, 1996: 278), or the barely disguised glee at the "demythologiz[ing of] the heroes of the scientific revolution" (Shea, 2003: 100), he had shown the inability of the Tychonic system to account for the observations of the comets rather than attempted to replace it—that is, to show that the purported refutation of Copernicanism was no such thing. Grassi's response was not long in coming, published as the Libra astronomica ac philosophica also in 1619 but under a different pseudonym, "Sarsi", allegedly a disciple of Grassi and keen to show him in a better light. This reply was also not free of rhetoric but nothing on the scale that Galileo would unleash in his rejoinder.

While the Jesuits were speaking of having "annihilated" Galileo (XII, 498-499), he himself was cautiously composing what would become The Assayer. Since his patron Cosimo II had died, along with Paul V earlier in 1621, he was keen to avoid controversy at home. As time passed, his friends became increasingly concerned that silence on his part was as good as admitting defeat, although—as usual—Galileo had again been very ill. He eventually completed the work in 1622 and his friends Cesi and Cesarini set about obtaining permission for its publication in Rome by the Accademia dei Lincei, some its members suggesting slight modifications. Examined and accepted by the Dominican Niccol Riccardi, the manuscript was with the printers in 1623 when the new Pope, Gregory XV, died suddenly only two years into his tenure. After much argument among the Cardinals, Maffeo Barberini, Galileo's friend and great defender, was elected to the Pontificate, taking the name Urban VIII. Galileo immediately wrote to Cesi of this mirabil congiuntura ("marvellous conjuncture"), saying that if they could not achieve their aims now then "they will never come about because—as far as I am concerned—there is no point hoping that a similar situation will come around again" (XIII, 135).

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Giovanni Ciampoli, Galileo’s friend


Galileo had good reason to continue to delight in this fortuitous occasion: his friends Cesarini and Ciampoli were appointed as Master of the Chambers and Secretary of the Briefs to the Princes respectively—both already members of the Accademia dei Lincei. To take advantage of the circumstances, the Accademia decided to dedicate the Assayer to the new Pontiff (XIII, 129). Thus was born a work that has been described as "a stupendous masterpiece of polemical literature" (Geymonat, 1965: 101), in which Galileo's command of rhetoric was given free reign. Having told Colombe previously that "there is no point in undertaking to refute someone who is so ignorant that it would require a huge volume to refute his stupidities (which number more than the lines of his essay)" (IV, 443), he was simply brutal to Grassi and his appeals to the authority of others:

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If Sarsi [i.e. Grassi] insists that I must believe ... that the Babylonians cooked eggs by swiftly whirling them in a sling, I will believe it; but I must say that the cause of such an effect is very remote from that to which it is attributed, and to find the true cause I shall reason thus. If an effect does not follow which followed with others at another time, it is because, in our experiment, something is wanting which was the cause of the former success; and if only one thing is wanting to us, that one thing is the true cause. Now we have eggs, and slings, and strong men to whirl them, and yet they will not become cooked; nay, if they were hot at first, they more quickly become cold; and, since nothing is wanting to us but Babylonians, it follows that being Babylonians is the true cause why the eggs became cooked, and not the friction of the air, which is what I wish to prove. ... I, at least, will not be so wilfully wrong, and so ungrateful to Nature and to God, that, having been gifted with sense and logic, I should voluntarily set less value on such great endowments than on the fallacies of a fellow-man and blindly and blunderingly believe whatever I hear and barter the freedom of my intellect for slavery to one as liable to error as myself. (quoted by de Santillana, 1958: 158)

In another famous passage, he expressed his contempt for those who attacked him:

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Perhaps Sarsi believes that all the host of good philosophers may be enclosed within four walls. I believe that they fly, and that they fly alone, like eagles, and not in flocks like starlings. It is true that because eagles are rare birds they are little seen and less heard, while birds that fly like starlings fill the sky with shrieks and cries, and wherever they settle befoul the earth beneath them... The crowd of fools who know nothing, Sarsi, is infinite. Those who know very little part of philosophy are numerous. Few indeed are they who really know some part of it... (from Drake, 1957: 239)

Little wonder, then, that Galileo aroused such vehement opposition in his enemies through a combination of a gargantuan ego and ruthless tongue. As Westfall remarked, "[n]ot even a saint would have received Il Saggiatore without hostility, and Grassi has not been nominated for sainthood" (1989: 51). Nevertheless, Galileo was caught up in the patronage system and ignoring Grassi and others was not an option: defeat would reflect on his patrons as surely as his successes and there were continual calls for "some further new invention of [his] genius" (XIII, 146-147). In spite of the risks, then, Galileo had to "publish or perish"; showing, once more, that it is simply not possible to break up the Galileo affair into distinct spheres of influence. Galileo's ego and his rhetoric, as well as his patronage and his successes, won him many adversaries; but to maintain the latter pair he had to continually demonstrate the former (Biagioli, 1993: 277), and so it is easy to conclude that they would eventually (and inevitably) bring about his downfall (cf. Biagioli, in toto, op cit).

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Next Posted Image]]> Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:13:34 +0000 db85e2590b6109813dafa101ceb2faeb The Galileo Affair, Part 1: Introduction http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/history/the-galileo-affair-part-1-introduction-r65 Paul Newall (2005)

The trial and resulting abjuration of Galileo before the Holy Congregation of the Catholic Church, which occurred at the convent of Minerva on the 22nd of June, 1633, has been studied by scholars and laymen alike for several hundred years. Not surprisingly, the sheer number of personalities involved, together with the many aspects playing a part in political, religious, philosophical and scientific affairs over the course of Galileo's life, have given rise to a great many interpretations of what happened and—perhaps more importantly—why.

Introduction

What happened to Galileo has been examined at length as an historical event that can shed light on a few specific questions:

  • What is the relationship between science and religion?
  • How did modern science develop and why?
  • What is the relationship between science and society?
Although it has also been viewed as a human tragedy (Brecht, 1966), the first of these has tended to be paramount. Some perspectives seemed well-supported by a cursory glance and the trial has since come to be known as a paradigmatic example of the inherent conflict between science and religion.

The Myths

According to one such interpretation, Galileo knew the Earth to go round the Sun (as Copernicus had written) rather than the converse (as implied in several Biblical passages). The Church would not allow science to disprove the revealed truth of Scripture, however, and hence threw Galileo to the Inquisition where he was forced under threat of torture to disclaim this opinion and never speak of it again. He was then imprisoned under house arrest for the remainder of his life, a clear example of the conflict between scientific investigation of the world around us and the presumed infallible authority of the Bible.

Another, less well-known myth states instead that the Church had been correct to deal with Galileo as it did. Having seen no convincing scientific evidence or reasons to abandon the Ptolemaic Earth-centred system, the Church ignored Galileo's skilful rhetoric and held to the eminently reasonable approach of not abandoning an idea that was supported both by common sense and Scripture for an alternative that was unproven and had more than enough problems of its own. Galileo was trying to force society and religion to adjust to ideas that were either disputed or inconclusive, and he was rightly rebuffed and his objections dismissed.

In this essay we shall look at Galileo's early life before considering in more detail the events that became known as The Galileo Affair. Following Finocchiaro (1989, 10), we shall distinguish between non-intellectual (political, personal and social) and intellectual (theological, philosophical and scientific) factors before looking at the trial and its consequences. We shall also consider the recent position taken by the Church under John Paul II and the new fictions introduced thereby. Under the weight of all these diverse aspects, these myths will hopefully give way to a deeper appreciation of the whole affair. Initially, however, we shall reflect on the astronomical problem that provides the overall context for what is to come.

Unless otherwise noted, all references are to Antonio Favaro's Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Galileo Galilei, with the volume and page numbers given by Roman and Arabic numerals respectively. This is the standard collection of works and correspondence in Galileo studies.

Astronomical Systems

In order to understand the debate that had been ongoing in European religious, philosophical and scientific circles since the publication of Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium celestium in 1543, we first need to understand the different terms and world systems involved. From the time of Aristotle (384-321 B.C.E.) it had been thought that the Earth stood still (which we call geostaticism) at the centre of the universe (and hence geocentrism). Everything in the universe was part of one of two distinct worlds: that made up by the sublunar and that of the heavenly bodies. The former were made up of earth, fire, air and water, each of which had its natural motion: earth and water, being heavy, moved from high to low; while fire and air, being light, moved from low to high. Once something reached its natural place it no longer moved—much like a pendulum slowing down until it reaches an equilibrium. This meant that the sublunar world must consist in a core of earth with the other elements arranged in "shells" around it—water, air and fire. Since the Earth was mostly earth, it sat at the centre of the universe and did not move.

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The simplified Ptolemaic system, sometimes called Aristotelian


The heavenly bodies, being separate, could not be composed of the four elements, so Aristotle invoked a fifth—the ether. They could not move toward the centre, since that was occupied by the Earth, so their natural motion had to be circular, becoming neither closer nor farther away as they moved. A circular motion, however, could continue indefinitely in one direction, hence there would be no opposition and so no change. The heavenly bodies, then, were immutable. All this was set in motion by God, the final mover, the result being much like an onion: a central Earth surrounded by concentric spheres, just as the onion is made up of a centre around which the layers are arranged one on top of each other.

Although much of this model seemed confirmed by observation and common sense, it struggled to explain phenomena that became increasingly familiar to early astronomers. Why did the brightness of the planets vary? What of retrograde motion, where a planet appeared to move eastward for most of the year but then to go back on itself, westward, before heading east again—tracking a loop across the heavens, as it were? These difficulties made it hard to claim that the Aristotelian representation could be an accurate picture of the universe.

This situation changed significantly with the work of Ptolemy, who is estimated to have lived circa 100-178 C.E. His Almagest (a name given to it by the Arabs, from al—the Arabic "the"—and megiste—the Greek "greatest"—to set it apart from another textbook called The Little Astronomer) was based on observations from 127 to 151 and gave a mathematical account of the movements in the heavens. In particular, he affirms in chapters five and seven of Book One that the Earth is central and does not move. His explanations were based on three principles:

  • The eccentric, according to which the Earth is not at the centre of planetary orbits but slight off.
  • The epicycles, according to which a planet revolved around a circle (an epicycle) which, in turn, was centred on a deferent. The deferent could itself be on another deferent, and so on, allowing Ptolemy to account for retrograde motion.
  • The equant, according to which the angular velocity (or speed of revolution) of a deferent was not constant with respect to its centre but instead off-set slightly at an equant point, so that the angular velocity would be greater the farther away from the equant, and vice versa. This would help explain the speeding up of the planets at various times of the year.

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Diagram reproduced with permission from Nick Strobel's Astronomy Notes site.


With these mathematical devices, Ptolemy was able to describe the motions of the planets in mathematical terms so successfully that his account was still in use some 1400 years later. Although he himself tried to interpret his work realistically in his Hypothesis on the Planets, a lasting consequence of his treatment was the separation of astronomy and natural philosophy (or what we would now call science): on this view, the task of the astronomer was not to give a true explanation of the structure of the universe and how it functions, but merely to offer a tool or instrument of prediction to help in calculating positions when required.

The first geokinetic ("moving Earth") system was implicit in that of Philolaus in approximately 475 B.C.E., which, though now lost, was referred to by Archimedes and others. A true heliocentric ("sun centred") approach was devised by Aristarchus of Samos in the fourth century B.C.E. This was not heliostatic (i.e. the Sun standing still) since the Sun rotated on its own axis. His account was rejected by Aristotle and others because of the theory of natural place (explained above), the lack of any common experience that suggested its truth, and—most importantly—because the phenomenon of stellar parallax was not noted.

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Diagram reproduced with permission from Nick Strobel's Astronomy Notes site.


This was an argument that noted that, on the assumption of a moving Earth, the line of sight from an observer to a star would not remain parallel over the course of a year but would vary. Aristarchus thought that this was because the universe is so vast in extent that the change would be negligible, but, with his system not coming close to the mathematical sophistication of Ptolemy's, this idea was rejected along with the motion and rotation of the Earth.

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Copernicus, the heliocentrist.


With some other minor developments that are beyond the scope of this essay, this was how matters remained until the publication, on his deathbed (literally), of Nicholas Copernicus's (1473-1543) De revolutionibus orbium celestium. In this work he gave a mathematical account of a universe centred on the Sun, in which all the planets (and the Sun itself) rotated on their axes and around the Sun.

Although Copernicus interpreted his model not as an instrument but as a description of reality, a preface was added to his work by Andreas Osiander that asserted to the contrary in order to avoid the censure of the Church. The reception given to Copernicanism varied between countries and over time, but one of the most important responses was given by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe who developed an alternative system, according to which the planets orbited the Sun and the Sun, in turn, orbited the Earth. This Tychonic view retained geocentrism and geostaticism, winning the support of astronomers in the instrumental tradition. Others, however, complained that it was merely a mathematical concession that did not address the physical difficulties with the Ptolemaic system, which were raised anew by the appearance of many comets between 1577 and 1596. Aware of these issues, Brahe could not bring himself to accept Copernicanism. A more detailed account of the background may be found in a study of the history of astronomy (cf. Kuhn, 1971 and Fantoli, 1996 for recent examples), but this was the situation when Galileo arrived on the scene.

Galileo the Man

Galileo Galilei was born in the environs of Pisa on the 15th of February, 1564, the son of Vincenzio Galilei, a musician and teacher of music who emphasised the use of experiment and was scornful of any deference to authority. His mother was Giulia Ammanati, known from her letters to have been a difficult woman. He was schooled initially by the monks at Vallombroso until his removal by his father due to problems with his eyesight, and was later enrolled at the University of Pisa in 1581 to study medicine. In 1583 he began to take private lessons in mathematics from Ostilio Ricci, a tutor associated with the Tuscan court. His father's disagreement with this change of direction was assuaged somewhat by Ricci's intervention. Galileo left the university without graduating, intending to devote his efforts to mathematics, but unable to win a scholarship from the Grand Duke.

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Galileo.


Some work on the centres of gravity of solids won Galileo the admiration of Christopher Clavius, a famous Jesuit mathematician whom he visited in Rome in 1587, together with the patronage of the Marquis Guidobaldo del Monte. Both were able to use their influence to help Galileo gain the chair of mathematics at his old university in 1589, having failed the year previously to win the same position at the University of Bologna. It was in Pisa that he was reputed to have carried out his famous experiments, dropping weights from the leaning tower.

More accurately, these were demonstrations, not experiments, because Galileo already knew what to expect from his childhood experience of watching falling hailstones of different sizes striking the ground at the same time and the prior suggestion and testing by others of this result—contrary to Aristotelian teaching (Giambattista in 1553 and Stevin in 1586; cf. Drake, 1999, 1: 8). (According to Aristotle's ideas on impetus and place, a heavy stone should fall proportionately quicker, attempting to regain its natural place.) Although some historians of science have doubted whether this celebrated incident ever occurred (Koyre, 1978 and Dijksterhuis, 1969: 336, for example), the matter was settled by Thomas B. Settle's repetition, observation and explanation of the curious fact that the heavier ball descends slightly behind the lighter—a puzzling circumstance noted by Galileo and found by Settle to be due to differential muscular fatigue, leading to the early release of the lighter ball even though the holder believes the release to be simultaneous (Cohen, 1992: 195; see also Drake, 1999, 1: 309 for how Settle's work ousted the Koyrean programme within Galileo studies).

Soon after his arrival at Pisa, Galileo had written a paper on mechanics that would perhaps have been sufficient to displace Aristotelianism and certainly win him a reputation in the wider world (Drake, op cit, 28). He preferred instead to continue working and ultimately never published it. We should bear this in mind when considering the later suggestion that he lacked prudence or defended ideas he knew to be untenable.

Disappointed with his prospects of advancement, Galileo resigned from his position in 1592 and, again with the aid of Guidobaldo, took up the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua, then part of the Venetian Republic. The intellectual climate there was more to his liking, the government in Venice being easily the most tolerant of the Italian states while the great Vesalius had taught at the university. There Galileo met and befriended Giovanfrancesco Sagredo, who would later take the third role in Galileo's Dialogue. In his time at Padua he invented several devices that found medical applications after their adaptation by Sanctorio Santorius, the professor of medicine. It was here also that Galileo first met Roberto Cardinal Saint Bellarmine, who would play such an important role in later events. Galileo lodged for a time with G.V. Pinelli and it is reckoned that a later meeting there, involving Bellarmine and Cesare Baronius—the latter a cardinal, too—was the source of a maxim attributed to Baronius by Galileo some years hence, according to which "the Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go." (Drake, op cit.)

In 1597 Galileo was given a copy of Johannes Kepler's Precursor of the Cosmographic Dissertations or the Cosmographic Mystery and struck up a correspondence with the author. They discussed Copernicanism and Galileo mentioned his concern at the fate of Copernicus's ideas (X, 68). Also in 1597, Galileo invented a "geometric and military compass", or what we would today call a sector. In 1599 he began to manufacture these commercially by taking on a craftsman, such was their utility. Over the next few years he was able to prove several theorems concerning motion on inclined planes and discovered the law of falling bodies.

Although he never married, Galileo formed a relationship with Marina Gamba and had two daughters, in 1600 and 1602, followed by a son in 1606. He was utterly devoted to his eldest daughter, Virginia, who wrote many letters to him and maintained his spirits during his later difficulties with unwavering faith in him. When she died in 1634, he was inconsolable and probably never recovered from his loss.

In 1604 an event occurred that perhaps marked the beginning of his troubles with the philosophers. A supernova was observed in the night sky and Galileo was called upon to give lectures on it. These were so popular that no spare seats could be found and Galileo pointed to what had occurred in the heavens as evidence that Aristotle had been incorrect in supposing that the sphere beyond the planets was composed of a perfect and immutable quintessence that could not be altered.

The Paduan professor of philosophy, Cesare Cremonini, replied to Galileo in a small booklet, to which the latter responded in turn—probably in collaboration with his friend Antonio Querengo—by composing a dialogue in rustic Paduan dialect between two peasants (Drake, op cit). In this work the peasants made a mockery of the Aristotelians and, although published under a pseudonym, it was widely known to have been Galileo's creation. A student in Padua called Baldessar Capra criticised this work in a pamphlet of his own, in addition to plagiarising the handbook that Galileo had written for the use of his military compass. In 1607, Galileo published his Defence against the calumnies and impostures of Baldessar Capra, in which he answered these objections alongside an account of bringing the theft of his ideas to the attention of the authorities. During the resulting trial he had demonstrated that Capra did not sufficiently understand either the instrument or the principles behind it. Capra's work was prohibited and he was expelled, while Galileo was never again so open with his ideas.

Hard at work on theorems concerning materials and motion, Galileo discovered that projectiles follow parabolic paths but did not publish his thoughts until late in his life. The event that compelled him to put these inquiries aside was to have a profound influence on his work: the invention of the telescope. In 1608 the Dutch optician Hans Lippershey had built the first example and tried to patent his invention. Hearing about it from his friend Paolo Sarpi, Galileo realised that he could manufacture his own from convex and concave lenses placed at the objective and eyepiece ends of a tube respectively. Able to achieve a nine-fold magnification, he presented his telescope to the Venetian government and was offered an appointment for life together with an increased salary. On further examination, however, it transpired that no new raises would be permitted. Galileo was hoping for a better deal, so he continued to develop his telescope and looked to the Tuscan Court instead.

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Galileo's Telescope.


By 1610, Galileo's telescope could magnify thirty times and he did something that very few had thought to do (although there is evidence that Thomas Harriot had already been observing the moon—cf. Cohen, 1992: 185): armed with this new tool, he turned his augmented attention upwards to gaze deeper into the heavens than anyone before him. Close attention to and sketches of what he saw over a period of many nights revealed to him that the moon was not smooth at all but mountainous. He also discovered vast numbers of stars and the four satellites of Jupiter. Publishing the results of these investigations in his Sidereus nuncios (or Starry Messenger), he dedicated the work to Cosimo II de' Medici, his former student and now Grand Duke of Tuscany. Christening the four moons the "Medicean Stars" in a shrewd move, Galileo applied for and was granted the position of Chief Mathematician and Philosopher to the Grand Duke, as well as Chief Mathematician of the University of Pisa with no requirement to either teach or live there. He was also granted a salary of 1000 scudi, a large amount of money at that time and which was soon to rouse the envy of other ducal courtiers (although it was nothing like the pay of a professor of philosophy—a circumstance that would bother him throughout his later life).

In Florence, Galileo observed the phases of Venus and the strange form of Saturn. He received Kepler's Conversation with the Starry Messenger, offering the latter's support for his discoveries. Nevertheless, there were plenty of hostile reactions: a gathering led by Giovanni Magini, professor of mathematics at Bologna, had been unable to see the Medicean Stars through the telescope, even with Galileo present to help them; Martin Horky, a student of Magini's, published A Very Short Excursion Against The Starry Messenger; and Ludovico delle Colombe wrote Against the Earth's Motion, in which he marshalled religious criticisms of Galileo's ideas. Cesare Cremonini and Giulio Libri, professors of philosophy at the universities of Padua and Pisa respectively, refused even to look through the telescope. Christopher Clavius in Rome stated that the satellites were a trick of the lenses, not real objects in the heavens.

In spite of these difficulties, Galileo gave three public lectures in Padua and the Jesuits in Rome, including Clavius, verified his observations as soon as they obtained a suitably powerful telescope. Finally, on the 20th of March, 1611, Galileo arrived in Rome where he was feted as a hero, welcomed by Cardinals and provided with opportunities to give demonstrations in the gardens of the rich and powerful. He was granted an audience with Pope Paul V, inducted into Marquis (later Prince) Federico Cesi's Accademia dei Lincei (the Academy of the Lynx-Eyed, the first scientific academy) on the 25th of April, and was received with much ceremony by the Jesuits at the Roman College on the 13th of May where an address entitled The Sidereal Message was read in his honour in the presence of the entire College and many Cardinals.

At this point, then, Galileo was at the apex of his fame. However, there were plenty waiting in the wings to attack him and those who already had, for a variety of reasons. It is to these reasons that we shall now turn.

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