Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T13:40:23.685Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dialectic, Dialogue, and Controversy: The Case of Galileo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Marta Spranzi Zuber
Marta Spranzi Zuber
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Paris X, NanterreFrance
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The purpose of this article is twofold. Firstly, I propose to analyze controversies using a “dialectical” model, in the sense described in Aristotle's Topics. This approach presupposes that we temporarily disregard, for the sake of clarity, the concreteness of real life controversies in order to focus on their argumentative structure. From this point of view, the main advantage of controversies is that they allow the interlocutors to test each other's claims and therefore to arrive at relatively corroborated conclusions. This testing function in a dialectical context is implemented through the assent to commonly accepted premises, and the necessity which characterizes each step of the reasoning.

Secondly, I shall apply this dialectical framework to the study of the controversy concerning the motion of the Earth, or rather a small episode of it. I shall examine an exchange of letters, written in 1616 and in 1624 respectively, between Galileo Galilei and Francesco Ingoli, one of his Aristotelian opponents. I shall then compare this exchange with the first day of Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World (1632), a fictional debate, where Galileo discusses some of the same arguments. While the first exemplifies what I call “negative” testing, and yields a refutation of the opponent's theses, the second exemplifies “positive” testing and yields a dialectical demonstration of the motion of the Earth.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Summer 1998 , pp. 181 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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

Alexander of Aphrodisias. 1573. In VIII Topicorum Aristotelis Libros Explanatio. Venice.Google Scholar
Aristotle, . 1926. Art of Rhetoric. Translated by Freese, J. H. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Leob Library).Google Scholar
Aristotle, . 1955. Sophistical Refutations. Translated by Forster, E. S. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Loeb Library).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, . 1964. Topics. Translated by Forster, E. S.. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Loeb Library).Google Scholar
Aubenque, P. 1961. “Sur la notion Aristotélicienne d'aporie.” In Aristote et les problémes de méthode, 3–19. Louvain: Publications Universitaires.Google Scholar
Bolton, Robert. 1990. “The Epistemological Basis of Aristotelian Dialectics.” In Biologie, logique et métaphysique chez Aristote: Séminaire CNRS-NSF 1987, 186–236. Paris: Editions du CNRS.Google Scholar
Brunschwig, Jacques, ed. 1967. Aristote: les Topiques. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.Google Scholar
Clavelin, Maurice. 1984. “Le Dialogue ou la conversion rationelle: à propos de la première journée.“ In Novità celesti e crisi del sapere, edited by Galluzzi, Paolo. Firenze: Giunti Barbera.Google Scholar
Dascal, Marcelo. 1989. “Controversies as Quasi-Dialogues.” In Dialoganalyse II, edited by Edda, Weigand and Franz, Hundsnurscher, 147–159. Tübingen: Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dascal, Marcelo. 1995. “Epistemología, Controversias y Pragmática.” Isegoría 12:8–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Santillana, Giorgio. 1955. Le procès de Galilée. Paris.Google Scholar
Dietz Moss, Jean. 1993. Novelties in the Heavens: Rhetoric and Science in the Copernican Controversy. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Drake, Stillman. 1986. “Reexamining Galileo's Dialogue.” In Reinterpreting Galileo, edited by William, Wallace. Washington, D. C: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Evans, J. D. G. 1977. Aristotle's Concept of Dialectic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Favaro, Antonio. 1891. “Nuovi studi Galileiani.” Memorie del R. Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Venezia: Antonelli. 24:149–164.Google Scholar
Feher, Martha. 1982. “Galileo and the Demonstrative Ideal of Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 13:87–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldhay, Rivka. 1996. “Producing Sunspots in an Iron Pan: Galileo's Rhetoric.” In Science, Reason and Rhetoric, edited by McGuire, J. E, Krips, H and Melia, T. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Galilei, Galileo. 1624. Lettera a Francesco Ingoli. In Le Opere. Edizione Nazionale, edited by Antonio, Favaro, 1890–1909, Vol. 6:502–561. English translation in Maurice Finocchiaro. 1989. The Galileo Affair, 154–196. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Galilei, Galileo. 1632. Dialogo Sopra i Due Massimi Sistemi del Mondo. In Le Opere. Edizione Nazionale, edited by Antonio, Favaro, 1890–1909, Vol. 7.Google Scholar
Galilei, Galileo. 1890–1909. Le Opere. Edizione Nazionale, 20 vols. Edited by Antonio, Favaro. Firenze: Giunti Barbera.Google Scholar
Gil, Fernando and Giulio, Giorello. 1984. “La controverse comme méthode.” Revue de Synthèse 116:435–450.Google Scholar
Ingoli, Francesco. 1616. De Situ et Quiete Terrae contra Copernici Systema Disputatio. In Le Opere. Edizione Nazionale, edited by Antonio, Favaro, 1890–1909, Vol. 5:403–412.Google Scholar
Jardine, Nicholas. 1991. “Demonstration, Dialectic and Rhetoric in Galileo's Dialogue.” In The Shapes of Knowledge from the Renaissance to the Enlightment, edited by Kelly, D. R and Popkin, R. H, 101–121. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Kepler, Johannes. 1618. Responsio ad Ingoli Disputationem de Systemate. In Favaro 1891:173–184.Google Scholar
Koyré, Alexandre. 1966. Etudes Galiléennes. Paris: Hermann.Google Scholar
Marsch, David. 1980. The Quattrocento Dialogue. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMullin, Ernan. 1987. “Scientific Controversy and its Termination.” In Scientific Controversies, edited by Engelhardt, H. Tristram and Caplan, Arthur L., 49–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelsohn, Everett. 1987. “The Political Anatomy of Controversy in the Sciences.” In Scientific Controversies, edited by Engelhardt, H Tristram and Caplan, Arthur L., 93–124. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moreau, Paul. 1968. “La joute dialectique d'après le huitième livre des Topiques.” In Aristotle on Dialectic: the “Topics,” edited by Owen, G. E. L, 277–312. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Pera, Marcello. 1991. Scienza e retorica. Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar
Rescher, Nicholas. 1977. Dialectics: A Controversy-Oriented Approach to the Theory of Knowledge. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Snyder, Jon. 1989. Writing the Scene of Speaking. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, William, ed. 1986. Reinterpreting Galileo. Washington: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, William. 1992. Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wisan, Winifred. 1978. “Galileo's Scientific Method: a Reexamination.” In New Perspectives on Galileo, edited by Butts, Robert and Pitt, Joseph, 1–58. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar