Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Julia Henkels and Diana Robinson PHIL/PHYS 30389 February 23, 2006

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand DuchessJulia Henkels and Diana RobinsonPHIL/PHYS 30389February 23, 2006

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess I. A Basic Issue Mathematical vs. Physical Instrumental vs. Realism Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess “…it is not proper to apply human things to divine things nor to get beliefs concerning such great things from such dissimilar examples” --Ptolemy,on his system of cycles and epicycles I. A Basic Issue Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess I. A Basic Issue Galileo Bellarmine Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess I. A Basic Issue “…to affirm that the sun is really fixed in the center of the heavens… and that the earth is situated in the third sphere… is a very dangerous thing… injuring our holy faith and making sacred scripture false” --Robert Cardinal Bellarmine Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess I. A Basic Issue “…the surest way to prove that the position of Copernicus is not contrary to Scripture would be to give a host of proofs that it is true… this and the Bible must be perfectly harmonious. But how can I do this… when those [Aristotelians are] incapable of following even the simplest… of arguments… ?” --Galileo Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess I. A Basic Issue Interpreting Scripture Ptolemaic vs. Copernican models Tycho Brahe Luther Christopher Clavius Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess I. A Basic Issue Tycho Brahe’s Model Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

The stage was set for battle. --James T. Cushing Philosophical Concepts in Physics

Date & Location • December 1613, Pisa • Host • Grand Duke Cosimo II • Guests • Dowager Grand Duchess, Christina of Lorraine • Benedetto Castelli • The Aristotelian Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess II. The Letter to the Grand Duchess Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess 1. Galileo’s persecutors valued opinions and past beliefs more than truth. The arguments against him were focused on incompatibility with the Bible rather than oppositions to the validity of his science. “Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth they sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses whould have demonstrated to them.” II. The Letter to the Grand Duchess “…these men have resolved to fabricate a shield for their fallacies out of the mantle of pretended religion and the authority of the Bible.” Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess 2. Science does not dictate or change religious beliefs. The Bible was written in the language of the common people for whom it was intended. Thus, interpretation of physical aspects of Scripture is necessary. “These propositions uttered by the Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the capacities of the common people, who are rude and unlearned.” II. The Letter to the Grand Duchess “Who, then, would positively declare that…the Bible has confined itself rigorously to the bare and restricted sense of its words, when speaking but casually of the earth, of water, of the sun, or of any other created thing?” “…these things in no way concern the primary purpose of the sacred writings, which is the service of God and the salvation of souls – matters infinitely beyond the comprehension of the common people.” Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess 3. Experience and the reason God gave us ought to be used to decide the meaning of Scripture, rather than a blind acceptance of authority. “But I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them.” II. The Letter to the Grand Duchess “And to ban Copernicus now that his doctrine is daily reinforced by many new observations and by the learned applying themselves to the reading of his book…would seem in my judgment to be a contravention of truth, and an attempt to hide and suppress her the more as she revealed herself the more clearly and plainly.” Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess 4. The purpose of the Bible is not to teach science. Galileo again stresses the unity of truth. “The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.” II. The Letter to the Grand Duchess Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess 5. Galileo was concerned with the danger of allowing dogma to silence intellectual inquiry. “Who indeed will set bounds to human ingenuity? Who will assert that everything in the universe capable of being percieved is already discovered and known? Let us rather confess quite truly that ‘Those truths which we know are very few in comparison to those which we do not know.’” II. The Letter to the Grand Duchess Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess 6. Finally, Galileo urged scholars to seek the sense of the Bible with the aid of the sciences. “the interpretation which we impose upon passages of Scripture would be false whenever it disagreed with demonstrated truths… therefore we should seek the incontravertible sense of the Bible with the assistance of demonstrated truth, and not in any way to try to force the hand of Nature or deny experiences and rigorous proofs in accordance with the mere sound of words that may appeal to our fraility.” II. The Letter to the Grand Duchess Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess • Maffeo Barberini • Born in Florence • 1568 - 1644 • Doctor of Law from University of Pisa in 1598 III. Galileo and Urban VIII • Elected Pope in 1623 Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

1611 – Galileo and Cardinal Barberini meet • Dinner given by the Grand Duke in Florence • Barberini supported Galileo’s views on floating bodies against Cardinal Gonzaga • Patron/Client Relationship Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess • 1623 – Galileo dedicates his newly published book, Il saggiatore (The Assayer), to the new Pope III. Galileo and Urban VIII • 1624 – Galileo comes to Rome and visits with the Pope • Granted permission to discuss Ptolemaic and Copernican theories Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess • The Ptolemaic and Copernican theories were only to be discussed “hypothetically” and impartially III. Galileo and Urban VIII • Simplicio’s concluding argument and Salviati’s concluding response • Ridiculed and betrayed the trust of the Pope Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess A Defensive Church • 1337 – 1453: Hundred Years War III. Galileo and Urban VIII • 1517: Martin Luther’s “95 These” and the Protestant Reformation • The Inquisition Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Reminder: Galileo has a History with the Church that leads up to 1632 and the Church’s Response to his Dialogue III. Galileo and Urban VIII Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Conviction Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess • Pope Urban VIII appoints Cardinal Francesco Barberini as chairman of a committee to asses charges against Galileo III. Galileo and Urban VIII • Formally interrogated by the Inquisition from April to June • A plea bargin is made, and Galileo confesses that the Dialouge may have been too partial to the Copernican system • Pope Urban VIII sentences Galileo to life imprisonment in his villa near Florence Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess “Who can doubt that it will lead to the worst disorders when minds created free by God are compelled to submit slavishly to an outside will? When we are told to deny our senses and subject them to the whim of others?” -Galileo, penned in the margins of his copy of the Dialogue III. Galileo and Urban VIII Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess The Dialogue was removed from the Index of Prohibited Books in 1824 In 1992, over 350 years after Galileo’s trial and sentencing, The Roman Catholic Church formally acknowledged that the church was wrong in its treatment of Galileo III. Galileo and Urban VIII Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess IV. Religion vis-à-vis Natural Philosophy Institutional Authority vs. Freedom of Individual Church vs. Science Galileo Hobbs Whitehead “the search into nature could only result in the vindiction of the faith in rationality” “The faith in the possability of science… is an unconcious derivative from medieval theology” Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Questions? Julia Henkels • Diana Robinson February 23, 2006 PHIL/PHYS 30389

Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Julia Henkels and Diana Robinson PHIL/PHYS 30389 February 23, 2006