Sojourner553

In response to Bede:

Augustine is quite clear that parts of the bible are metaphorical and figurative.

Perhaps. But I did not see it from the link you provided.


You are right to say that authoritarian systems stiffle many ideas and that occasionally will stiffle a good one.


Good. Depends on the authoritarian system as to whether this is "occasional".



But this is an historically uninteresting observation.


Why the exception? Obviously many people disagree so why make such a statement with no support to back it up?



As a 21st century liberal I completely support the right of people to make unsubstantiated statements and insult those who disagree with them. For instance, I'm not saying Yuri should be thrown in jail.


Then why bring it up? (OK, I have to ask: What about Dr. Rick? muffled laugh)



However, you said that Galileo got into trouble because his views conflicted with scripture and hence appeared to be endorsing a science/religion conflict scenario. Hugo has helped us establish that this is objectively wrong and you seem to now accept this.


I have read that Galileo came up with some mathematics to coincide with how Jupiter's moons appeared and reappeared in their orbit, in accordance with his observations with his telescope.

However, I also agree that Galileo's optics were so vague and cloudy, critics could legimately claim that distortions "could" cause the same effect. Therefore -- although there was "proof"-- without a larger body of scientific evidence/better instrumentation -- there really could be no absolute proof that would begin to convince a majority of contemporary scholars -- especially with such an entrenched opposite view.

As to contemporaries -- I would argue that there were not a strong base of scholars at the time that could be moved by any SCIENTIFIC arguments made by Galileo--that the field of science was too much in its infancy. That is why, I more or less ceded his point that Galileo was unlikely to convince using scientific arguments one way or the other.

As for Galileo's achievement: Just because he didn't get the tides theory correct, doesn't mean he isn't a well respected scientist His theories on gravity are still taught in the classroom. And His approach of using mathematics in analyzing the results of experiments, is often credited with initiating the modern style of scientific research.

Regarding the Religion/Science conflict (I suspect your true issue), as I have always stated this should be considered an issue of Science vs Orthodoxy/Authority. (And it just so happened in the case of Galileo that the Catholic Church was the authority.) I notice I have seen no one argue for the Lysenko case where the authority was Stalin communism.




BTW, excommunication was a much more serious punishment than house arrest and G would have had to refuse to recant to merit such severe treatment.


Yes, this likely would be true from Galileo's point of reference. I am sure Galileo would have feared excommunication as he remained a devout Catholic all his life.

My point was the Church would have been more justified to threaten excommunication as this is a religious punishment. I intended to say (if I didn't then) that this would have been taken as a very serious punishment by Galileo.

An interesting thought experiment though: Wouldn't you think the Inquisition should not have been necessary since the Catholic Church could just threaten excommunication?

Excommunication would have been much simplier, more expedient, and of course (my speciality --Finance)-- much less expensive than all that Inquisition equipment and labor...


Sojourner

Bluenose

Copyright 1909, with lots of references to the latest information from the 19th century in the bibliography.

This from the enlightened first decade of the 20th century when Fundamentalism began, and the RC was burning the Encyclopedia Britannica [probably because it sold better than the Catholic one]

Bede

Sojourner,

Galileo had no proof and if he had, his contemporaries would have been quite capable of understanding it. To argue otherwise is anachronistic and patronising as well as wrong. But my issue with you, as you say, was the science/religion one and, as we seem to have settled that and got away from the idea that Galileo's attackers were mainly worried about his contradicting scripture, more subtle issues can wait.

Also, are you seriously suggesting it would be better for the church to summarily excommunicate people without trial just to spare the expense of running the inquisition? And I thought you believed in the rule of law!

Augustine is quite plain in On Christian Doctrine that the bible is sometimes metaphorical and figurative. This is at the link I gave you.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Hugo Holbling

... and not contradicted by any argument in the philosophy of science since. Kuhn's work dates from 1957 but is hardly out-of-date, while Feyerabend's is the most discussed reading.

I hope you don't mind if i briefly butt in on your response to Bede. It's not my intention to suggest that Galileo wasn't a great scientist, if that's the impression anyone has taken. See the last part of my previous post for why i agree that he was, but for different reasons.

This is a little weak, i'm afraid. You have it backwards: it was because Galileo was unable to convince great men like Brahé with his scientific arguments that he resorted to other, less honest methods. This redescription process enabled him to cast familiar ideas in different ways, but only gradually. I'm not an expert on this period, but i suspect Bacon, Newton and so on would qualify by most scholars' criteria as a "strong base".

What are you asking me here?

I suppose that depends on how you understand "just". I'm not avoiding the question: some unorthodox opinions are dealt with very harshly today, while transitions between ideas are rarely smooth.

This analogy only works if we judge both instances retrospectively from a presupposed understanding of true justice. Neither the churchmen nor the Stalinists believed in the ahistorical approach of many scientists today and did not consider scientific knowledge to be independent of the circumstances in which it would be used. To use the parlance of the philosophy of science: they were instrumentalists, making just the same demands that Bohr and Einstein would later insist upon with regard to the understanding of theories and their justification. I don't know if you're in the US, but in Europe historical revisionists are imprisoned for publically disagreeing with orthodox historical views. Moreover, creationists are banned from teaching their doctrines as proven, or even on a par with evolution, although they are trying to fight this. You earlier rejected my analogy along these lines but the difference in degree between their intellectual support and that Galileo could count on is slight.

I suspect this may lead us to a more general discussion of the freedom of expression.

Again, you are taking an ahistorical approach and applying it to periods that were defined otherwise. Feyerabend identified two traditions dealing with the "role of science in society":

Interestingly enough, it seems that the former was Bellarmine's position, while the latter is common in particle physics today (cf. Fine's discussion). Hopefully you appreciate that to note this is not to apologise for the Stalinists; even so, today we expect scientists to be more resourceful than to pronounce themselves naive realists. If you want to claim that the first of Feyerabend's identified traditions (of course, there may be more) is inherently superior to the second - and i see no reason why you shouldn't; indeed, i'd be interested to participate in that debate - then you can apply your analogy and ridicule the churchmen.

I'd like to see that argument. I imagine a case could be made for adversity in the form of a lack of freedom providing a significant spur for creativity, particularly in the case of Galieo: he seemed to relish and indeed court controversy. In any case, Wittgenstein wrote the Tractatus while huddled in the trenches.

"Stamp out" is an emotive term, out-of-place here and not applicable at all to the methodological difficulties at issue.

Well, it seems as though you wish to shift the goalposts. In any case, the answer is a solid "yes" when we consider so-called holocaust denial. Moreover, these days many minority opinions are implicitly prevented from being aired to the wider public by not allowing them access to media, as a brief visit to the political forum will show. Thus is it that i continue to see the issue as highly interesting to the philosophy of science, but not in the terms you cast it. Nevertheless, i hope you'll try again to convince me.

I lurk in this forum all the time, enjoying you and Bede debating and checking anything Peter Kirby posts (:notworthy ). I just wanted to point out with that remark that i'm not concerned with making a religious or heathen case - my disagreement is on other grounds entirely.

Bede

Dear Hugo and Sojourner,

I am tempted to sit this out now and enjoy your discussion but would like to throw a spanner into the works as well.

I have some concern in comparing Creationism, holocaust denial etc to ideas I think are true. This sounds much like postivist bias in the way Sojourner is a positivist. She believes, as I understand her, that the truth of an idea is a central factor in its acceptability and also whether it is accepted. Hence, she has looked for errors that Galileo's opponents made in order the justify their rejecting his idea. To the positivist this is essential - she cannot accept that it is possibe for a true idea to actually be an absurdity as this shows that truth does not have self-re-enforcing power that the postivist is keen to grant it.

So, while I reject the idea that truth is a primary factor in whether an idea is accepted, I accept that it is central to acceptability. Hugo seems to want to stand above all this argument and consider all ideas only in the social context we find them in. Whether heliocentrism or creationism are right doesn't seem to matter much.

My problem, I suppose, is I do not share Sojourner's evangelical faith in her own reason that allows her to survey all of intellectual history and declare who was right and castigate those who turned out to be wrong. But neither can I accept what appears to be Hugo's support of Feyerabend's relativism. The truth, I think, is out there. In the case of holocaust denial, YEC and heliocentrism I'm fairly sure I know what is right and what is wrong. On other issues, many of them scientific as well as political or religious, I'm not so sure and have not found intellectual history has done much more than increased my uncertainty.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Hugo Holbling

Bede,

Thanks for laying your cards on the table, so to speak. It doesn't throw a spanner into the works as much as providing an opportunity to discuss the presuppositions that lead to the Galileo affair being interpreted in one way or another. That said, i wonder if the mods will allow the discussion to proceed into that territory and yet remain in BC&A? For the time being, it would be a shame if you left the discussion, so i'll respond briefly in the hope of engaging you.

I made those analogies, so Sojourner isn't to blame if they're flawed. I leave her to comment on how accurately you read her; nevertheless, if you are close then it may indeed go some way to explaining an eventual impasse.

I choose to leave terms like "truth" or "right" out of the discussion because they have no place in it, in my opinion, and because there are severe philosophical problems with them, particularly with regard to the philosophy of science (and hence the context of this thread). I think we can maintain our interest without straying into this autistic area.

I appreciate that you are loathed to move into Feyerabendian areas, but there is no need to take his reading of the affair to maintain that the standpoint adopted earlier in this thread is flawed. If you are interested, i could explain why the truth is probably not out there (assuming that the statement itself is not simply meaningless) and how correspondence with such was dropped from the philosophy of science (and hence the context of justification and demarcation difficulties - very much the issues here) a long time ago.

Evangelion

Largely irrelevant, since the CE is primarily concerned with the history and teaching of the Church, and as such, contains material that will always be valid.

There's no expiry date on history, folks.

Sojourner553

by Evangelion:

There's no expiry date on history, folks.


I agree. It has some excellent factual data in it. We can add to it, or show where we disagree. It is a good starting point though.




by Hugo:
This is a little weak, i'm afraid. You have it backwards: it was because Galileo was unable to convince great men like Brahé with his scientific arguments that he resorted to other, less honest methods. This redescription process enabled him to cast familiar ideas in different ways, but only gradually. I'm not an expert on this period, but i suspect Bacon, Newton and so on would qualify by most scholars' criteria as a "strong base".

Let’s take the text from your source {which is an excellent article, although as I shall demonstrate below, has some important biases}

Another exerpt from the same source:

From these two excerpts it is clear:

*Galileo did not publicly avow the heliocentric system until after his telescopic discoveries AND Brahe (d 1601) “never lived to see the telescope.”

Put them together, and it is not accurate to insinuate Brahe reviewed Galileo’s evidence for heliocentric ism and rejected it. The author relies on parenthesis () so as to be "technically" correct still. This is easy to overlook though as your comments gloss over it.


* Francis Bacon was more a philosopher than a hands-on scientist. A better characterization of him is that he is merely silent on the subject of heliocentricism, rather than an advocate for or againstit ; and he likely would not have welcomed the additional controversy even if he agreed with the heliocentric system.

* The author also shows bias by noting early in the article how Kepler and Galileo discussed heliocentricism, but then gives the impression later on that only contemporaries of Galileo rejected his ideas--That is, the author never offers a list of those contemporaries who agreed with Galileo. This falsely gives the impression there were none.

Still my point remains: The vast majority of contemporary scholars – Cardinal Bellarmine included -- would not have had the scientific background with which to evaluate Gallileo’s proof within a scientific (as opposed to philosophical) context.

Kepler is one exception, but he also believed in heliocentricism -- although not because of Galileo's arguments. And the author here ignors this, etc, etc.



I have to answer this question by Bede too:

Quote:

per Bede: Also, are you seriously suggesting it would be better for the church to summarily excommunicate people without trial just to spare the expense of running the inquisition? And I thought you believed in the rule of law!

Definitions are key here. You are making up ones different from me: Of course I was not equating the term “inquisition” with an ordinary judicial body of law. To me, the Inquisition was much more with its introduction of SOCIAL-RELIGIOUS laws and yes, instruments of special punishments including torture to enforce these.

My meaning should have been obvious: “IF” (as we were on the topic of discussing) a person was truly more afraid of excommunication than a secular form of punishment (be it torture, imprisonment, execution) – after a body of law found a person guilty of their crime, the PUNISHMENT of excommunication should have sufficed. Not only would this in theory already punish the “criminal” but should also serve as an even STRONGER deterrent to prevent others to want to commit the same “offense”. My joke was this would have been cheaper as well, because they would not have had to hire all the personnel for torturers/prison guards/executioners and the like, PLUS purchase all the expensive equipment, etc.

Really it should have been obvious this never would imply one should not have the trial itself! Tsk tsk so touchy.


Hugo: I will address the rest of your post later today. Probably later this evening for me (Washington DC area is where I live now by the way.)

Hugo Holbling

I look forward to it. I hope you don't mind if i say a few words about your objection above so that you can incorporate a response later, if you wish.

Perhaps, but the matter is not so clear cut as you would have it. Brahé reviewed the evidence that Galileo provided which did not and could not include the telescopic data until the latter could provide a reasonable theory of optics. As it turned out, by the time he had done so the Copernican theory had already won the day on both philosophical and scientific grounds; i.e. the telescope only contributed after the fact. Hence, your point is moot.

I don't quite know how i'm supposed to view this objection. You agree that Galileo's case was rejected on empirical and theoretical grounds, but then disallow the former by supposing that no-one was capable of evaluating it - an ad hoc move, if ever i saw one. Even if you refer only to the telescope, i have already explained that it only supported Galileo after it was properly understood and the case was by then decided.

Bede

Sojourner,

On a historical note, the victims were handed over to secular authorites for capital punishment so this wasn't on the cost ledger of the inquisition. Also, as excummunication was condsidered more severe in would have been unjust to give out this punishment more often simply on the grounds of procedual convenience.

Hugo,

You said "If you are interested, i could explain why the truth is probably not out there (assuming that the statement itself is not simply meaningless) and how correspondence with such was dropped from the philosophy of science (and hence the context of justification and demarcation difficulties - very much the issues here) a long time ago."

I'm very interested. The mods will usually leave discussions like this in the 'higher' forums even when they veer off topic so don't worry about moving at a tangent. I largely support Feyerabend's analysis of the Galileo affair in Against Method but not what he does with it. Perhaps you could call me a methodological relativist. Sadly, I have a physics degree which means I'm doomed to always adopt something of a realist position (if not, I hope naive ). Luckily, I move universities next term and know that I can expect world class seminars on these very questions. BTW, is your interest personal or professional?

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason