Galileo: Heretic?
Galileo Galilei is well known by many, but it is hard to pin point the exact reason behind this apparent fame, he became famous in terms of early empirical science late on in his life, when he wrote his text on the dynamics of rigid bodies Dialogues concerning the Two New Sciences ' which is a forerunner of Isaac Newton 's Laws of Motion. However this branch of science was not his passion or what he spent most of his life arguing and theorising about. Galileo was interested in the Copernican theory of a Heliocentric system, however Galileo lived in a time when the Catholic Church was very powerful and controlled a large amount of Europe, Galileo fought for his beliefs for twenty years (1613-1633) but was branded guilty of suspicion of heresy by the inquisition. A heretic is someone who believes in or publicises heresy, which is an opinion contrary to what is normally accepted, in this case by the doctrine of the Catholic Church. In writing this essay I intend to analyse the reasoning why the Catholic Church found such a verdict, I will look into whether the Church just had a fundamental disregard for all scientific research, maybe due to the problems of the lack of unity of the Catholic Church. Were the Church right to find such a verdict in view of the times they were living in? This should then lead me on to look at the effects of the negative spin put onto the Copernican system by the Catholics.
Galileo never finished his university education due to the costs involved however he did manage to become a lecturer at Pisa, where apparently he performed his famous velocity experiment of dropping to differently weighted object off the Leaning Tower showing that they land at the same time, disproving Aristotle 's theory. He later takes a post at the University of Padua which he won instead of Giordano Bruno, who was later executed (1600) as a heritic for his belief in the Copernican System , Galileo stayed in Padua for eighteen years. Whilst there Galileo
Galileo never finished his university education due to the costs involved however he did manage to become a lecturer at Pisa, where apparently he performed his famous velocity experiment of dropping to differently weighted object off the Leaning Tower showing that they land at the same time, disproving Aristotle 's theory. He later takes a post at the University of Padua which he won instead of Giordano Bruno, who was later executed (1600) as a heritic for his belief in the Copernican System , Galileo stayed in Padua for eighteen years. Whilst there Galileo
Bibliography: Redondi, Pietro, translated by Raymond Rosenthal (1989). Galileo: Heretic. Princeton University Press. Russell, Bertrand (1961). History of Western Philosophy. Unwin University Books Tarnas, Richard (1996) Websites: http://en.wikipedia.org (2005) Giordano Bruno, http://www.free-definition.com/Giordano-Bruno.html (last accessed 08/03/05) Trueman, C (2002) The Council of Trent, http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk, http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/council_of_trent.htm (last accessed 08/03/05) Also of use: