New Perspectives on Galileo

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

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2. Galileo’s Scientific Method: A Reexamination

   • Winifred Lovell Wisan

   Pages 1-57

3. Some Tactics in Galileo’s Propaganda for the Mathematization of Scientific Experience

   • Robert E. Butts

   Pages 59-85

4. Galileo Galilei and the Doctores Parisienses

   • William A. Wallace

   Pages 87-138

5. Descartes as Critic of Galileo

   • William R. Shea

   Pages 139-159

6. Galileo and the Causes

   • Peter Machamer

   Pages 161-180

7. Galileo: Causation and the Use of Geometry

   • Joseph C. Pitt

   Pages 181-195

8. Galileo’s Matter Theory

   • H. E. Le Grand

   Pages 197-208

9. The Conception of Science in Galileo’s Work

   • Ernan McMullin

   Pages 209-257

10. Back Matter

    Pages 259-264

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The essays in this volume (except for the contribution of Dr. Le Grand) are extremely revised versions of papers originally delivered at a workshop on Galileo held in Blacksburg, Virginia in October, 1975. The meeting was organized by Professor Joseph Pitt and sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religion, The College of Arts and Sciences, and the Division of Research of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The papers that follow deal with problems OIf Galileo's philosophy of science, specific and general problems connected with his methodology, and with historical and conceptual questions concerning the relationship of his work to that of contemporaries and both earlier and later scientists. New perspectives take many forms. In this book the 'newness' has, for the most part, two forms. First, in the papers by Wisan, Shea, Le Grand and Wallace (the concerns will also appear in some of the other contributions), greatly enriched historical discoveries of how Galileo's science and its method­ ology developed are provided. It should be stressed that these papers are attempts to recapture a deep sense of the kind of science Galileo was creating. Other papers in the volume, for example, those by McMullin, Machamer, Butts and Pitt, underscore the importance of this historical venture by discussing various aspects of the philosophical background of Galileo's thought. The historical and philosophical evaluations and analyses compliment one another.

• Galileo Galilei
• René Descartes
• concept
• experience
• methodology
• organ
• philosophy
• philosophy of science
• science
• score
• will

• Department of Philosophy, the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

  Robert E. Butts

• Department of Philosophy and Religion, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, USA

  Joseph C. Pitt

Policies and ethics