Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T15:20:30.305Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Galileo and the Continuity Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

William A. Wallace
William A. Wallace*
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In his review of my Prelude to Galileo (1981a), Ernan McMullin rejects my emendation of Pierre Duhem's “continuity thesis” wherein I develop the case for a pronounced medieval-scholastic influence on Galileo's science based on parallels between Galileo's early Latin compositions and lectures given by contemporary Jesuits at the Collegio Romano (McMullin 1983). He does so on two grounds: (1) that the evidence of derivation I provide, using textual parallels, is so strong that it refutes the claim for any intellectual influence, being a better instance of mindless copying than one of personal appropriation; and (2) that, in any event, the logical structure of the argument which I attribute to Galileo's mature work is not that of demonstration ex suppositione as understood by Aquinas, and so the example I provide of Galileo's use of suppositio “does not link him in any significant way to the specifically Thomist tradition of natural science” (1983, p. 173). An adequate reply to this critique would require the introduction of more historical evidence than would be appropriate for the pages of this journal. A few remarks, however, may be in order concerning such evidence which bears directly on McMullin's first ground, and concerning the implications of this evidence for contemporary philosophy of science, which bear on his second.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , September 1984 , pp. 504 - 510
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brush, S. G. (1983), “Negativism Sesquicentennial”, in N. Rescher (ed.). The Limits of Lawfulness. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, pp. 3–22.Google Scholar
Jardine, N. (1976), “Galileo's Road to Truth and the Demonstrative Regress”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 7: 277–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMullin, E. (1978), “The Conception of Science in Galileo's Work”, in R. E. Butts and J. C. Pitt (eds.). New Perspectives on Galileo. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, pp. 209–57.Google Scholar
McMullin, E. (1983), Review of Wallace (1981a). Philosophy of Science 50: 171–73; a briefer review of the same by him appeared in The Review of Metaphysics 36: 738–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mertz, D. W. (1980), “On Galileo's Method of Causal Proportionality”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 11: 229–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mertz, D. W. (1982), “The Concept of Structure in Galileo: Its Role in the Methods of Proportionality and Ex suppositione as Applied to the Tides”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 13: 111–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papuli, G. (1983), “La teoria del ‘regressus’ come metodo scientifico negli autori della Scuola di Padova”, in L. Olivieri (ed.). Aristotelismo Veneto e Scienza Moderna. Vol. 1. Padua: Editrice Antenore pp. 221–77.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1972), Causality and Scientific Explanation. Vol. 1. Medieval and Classical Science. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Reprinted 1981. Lanham: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1977), Galileo's Early Notebooks: The Physical Questions. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1981a), Prelude to Galileo: Essays on Medieval and Sixteenth-Century Sources of Galileo's Thought. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1981b), “Aristotle and Galileo: The Uses of Hupothesis (Suppositio) in Scientific Reasoning”, in D. J. O'Meara (ed.). Studies in Aristotle. Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, pp. 47–77.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1982), “St. Thomas's Conception of Natural Philosophy and Its Method”, in L. Elders (ed.). La Philosophie de la nature de Saint Thomas d'Aquin. Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, pp. 7–27.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1983a), “The Problem of Causality in Galileo's Science”, The Review of Metaphysics 36: 607–32.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1983b), “Aristotelian Influences on Galileo's Thought”, in Aristotelismo Veneto e Scienza Moderna. Olivieri, L., (ed.). Vol. 1. Padua: Editrice Antenore, pp. 349–78.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1983c), “Galileo's Science and the Trial of 1633”, The Wilson Quarterly 7: 154–64.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1983d), “Galilée et les professeurs jésuites du Collège Romain à la fin du XVIe siècle”, in P. Poupard (ed.), Galileo Galilei: 350 ans d'histoire 1633–1983. Tournai: Desclée International, pp. 75–97.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1983e), From a Realist Point of View: Essays on the Philosophy of Science. Second Edition. Lanham-New York-London: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1984a), Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo's Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1984b), “Galileo's Early Arguments for Geocentrism and His Later Rejection of Them”, in P. Galuzzi (ed.). Novità Celesti e Crisi del Sapere. Florence: Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza.Google Scholar
Wallace, W. A. (1984c), “Medalist's Address: Aquinas, Galileo, and Aristotle”, in Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 1983. Washington DC: American Catholic Philosophical Association.Google Scholar