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Philosophy 2330: Science and Society
In my opinion, Bellarmino Foscarini's letter was a kind of manifesto, setting out the position of the Jesuits, not only and not so much in relation to Copernicans (although formally the letter dealt only with it), as much as science in general. It clearly outlines, through the rigid demarcation of theology, natural philosophy, and astronomy. The institutional framework of scientific discourse as they saw the intellectual elite of the Society of Jesus. As for Ballarino’s reasoning (at the end of the letter) about what was later called the principle of relativity of movement. He answered the question, and he simply accepted faith and stated that "clear experience shows that the Earth is motionless." (Finocchiaro14)
The Ballarino’s letter recorded two approaches to the exegesis of Holy Scripture. Proponents of the first approach (in particular, Ballarino himself) proceeded from the fact that since the Holy Spirit is the source of every word of the Bible, the whole sacred text embodies undeniable truth. Proponents of the second approach (for example, Foscarini) argued differently: although we accept everything that the Holy Scripture teaches as absolute truth, however, it is necessary to understand what it teaches, which the sacred text says.
Galileo’s observations should also have led him to conclude that the Tycho Brahe system is correct. Galileo was a strong supporter of the Copernican system. The fact that he decided not to exclude the argument against the heliocentric system does not seem surprising, although according to modern scientific standards he probably should have done it. The main idea of Galileo's scientific work was the idea of the world as an ordered system of bodies that move one relative to another in a homogeneous space devoid of privileged directions or points. For example, what is considered top or bottom, according to Galileo, depends on the chosen frame of reference. He caused a sensation in 1610 with his first major scientific publication "Sidereus Nuncius" (Message of the Stars). (Giedymin 179)He reported on the discoveries he had made with his telescope, including the moons of Jupiter. He also wrote several times clearly that he considered the Copernican worldview true. He had come to this conviction when he had watched the moons revolve around Jupiter. Just as well, the planets could orbit the sun, he thought; However, the Jupiter moons were not proof, and Galileo owed his life.
A specific feature of the Copernican revolution, which largely determines the constant interest of researchers on the part of it, is that Copernicus’s theory was assimilated by science, even though it did not have new empirical evidence in comparison with the Ptolemy system.
Work cited
Finocchiaro, Maurice A. "Galileo Affair." The Blackwell companion to science and
Christianity (2012): 14.
Giedymin, Jerzy. "Instrumentalism and its critique: a reappraisal." Essays in Memory of Imre
Lakatos. Springer, Dordrecht, 1976. 179-207.
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