Abstract

PHILOSOPHERS have traditionally appreciated the relevance of Galileo in a number of ways. First, since his scientific contributions made him the "father of modern science," or at least one of its founders, philosophers like Husserl, Ortega y Gasset, and Burtt have studied his work to determine its epistemological implications and metaphysical foundations; this kind of approach is pursued more or less systematically by professional philosophers of science, for whom Galileo's work has become a standard test case for their theses and analyses, as we find in books by Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn, and Dudley Shapere. Second, since he was subjected to an Inquisition trial and condemnation that came to be labeled "the greatest scandal in Christendom," the interpretation and appraisal of the Galileo affair has become a cause célèbre, attracting the attention of cultural generalists and resulting in works of socio-political criticism with an anti-clerical tendency and of theological apologetics. A third type of philosophical appreciation has consisted in exploring and establishing conceptual and empirical ties between Galileo and the history of philosophy as such, which can be done and has been done in regard to his philosophical contemporaries such as Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Bruno, and Campanella, as well as successors like Hume, and predecessors like Plato; the last connection, in particular, had recently acquired some popularity, after having been pioneered by Koyré's celebrated "Galileo and Plato" in the pages of the Journal of the History of Ideas. More recently, the present reviewer has elaborated a fourth type of philosophical appreciation of Galileo, from the point of view of what is now generally called "informal logic." Here Galileo's work becomes a model for the analysis and evaluation of given arguments and for the construction of new ones, as well as a data base for the elaboration of a theory of reasoning oriented toward practice, applications, and everyday use.