Galileo and the Church: Political Inquisition or Critical Dialogue?

ISBN-13: 9780521344685 / Angielski / Twarda / 1995 / 316 str.

Rivka Feldhay

Opis

Historians of science have tended to view Galileo's trials as an example of the conflict between science and religion in the seventeenth century. This book questions the traditional "grand narrative" that opposes science and religion, and thus attempts to reconceptualize a key episode in the history of modern science. Feldhay offers a new interpretation of the debate between Galileo and the Church, viewing it as a "dialogue" rather than a "conflict." The known contradictions between the documents of Galileo's "trials" are reread as expressions of the contradictory nature of the Counter Reformation Church. Torn between different cultural orientations (Dominican and Jesuit), the Church was unable to crystallize a coherent attitude towards Galileo's science.

Recenzje

"It is historically well informed and, in the main, interpretively sensitive in a context where such qualities have often in the past been in short supply." American Historical Review

Spis treści

Part I. The 'Trials of Galileo': 1. The Galileo affair: an interpretation of an historical event; 2. 1616; 3. 1633; Part II: The Culture of the Counter Reformation: 4. The Council of Trent: the doctrinarian phase of the Counter Reformation; 5. The Dominicans: a traditional intellectual elite of the Catholic Church; 6. The Jesuits: an alternative intellectual elite; 7. Freedom and authority in Jesuit culture; 8. The Thomist boundaries of Jesuit education; 9. Dominicans and Jesuits: a struggle for theological hegemony; Part III: Galileo and the Church: 10. Traditionalist interpretations of Copernicanism: from an unproven to an unprovable doctrine; 11. Copernicanism and the Jesuits; 12. The cultural field of Galileo and the Jesuits; 13. The dispute on sunspots.