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Post by wraggy on Mar 4, 2011 23:46:21 GMT
While we are on the topic of Galileo and his contemporaries, here is an interesting critique of the Nova documentary "Galileo's Battle for the Heavens". The authors argues that the documentary was flawed, not so much by what it said but by what it failed to say. He mentions in particular Galileo's contemporaries, competitors and contributors. www.scientus.org/Galileo-Battle-for-Heavens.html |
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Post by humphreyclarke on Mar 5, 2011 16:04:07 GMT
Re the hypothetical-deductive method - there was some interesting debate on this issue from the late Ernan McMullin (I think it was in 'New Perspectives on Galileo). The conclusion there was that Galileo's approach is not particularly hypothetico-deductive - he seeks to determine a basic proposition by measurement and then treats it with certainty for the purposes of further demonstration. So for example, he seems doesn't seem to be basing his new science on a hypothesis (a computational device to 'save the appearances), rather he is making a stronger claim for demonstration 'ex suppositione' in the Medieval Aristotelian sense. It's more complicated than that because at times he does take the attitude of testing through consequences but this is not treated systematically and he does not reflect on it at length.
Therefore it's correct to say his model of science is based on an older conception of demonstrative science - which I think is what Thony Christie is driving at
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