西方思想史ppt.ppt

What is the purpose of Galileos letter to Christina?How did Galileo go about defending himself?To justify himself and to response to the criticism.In the letter,he says:Now as to the false aspersions which they so unjustly seek to cast upon me,I have thought it necessary to justify myself in the eyes of all men,whose judgment in matters of religion and of reputation I must hold in great esteem.(P182-3)To separate science from religion.among errors that may abound in these considerations of a subject remote from my profession,there is anything that may be serviceable to the holy Church in making a decision concerning the Copernican system,it may be taken and utilized as seems best to the superiors.(P183)To seek sanctuary under the House of Medici.At that time,Florence is under the control of the Medici.How did Galileo go about defending himself?At first,Galileo declares that people spread the opinion that his propositions are contrary to the Bible because the propositions are different from their common known truth.possibly because they are disturbed by the known truth of other propositions of mine which differ from those commonly held,and therefore mistrusting their defense so long as they confine themselves to the field of philosophy,these men have resolved to fabricate a shield for their fallacies out of the mantle of pretended religion and the authority of the Bible.(P181)Latter,Galileo says that he is a supporter of Copernicus who had assumed his laborious enterprise by the order of the supreme pontiffand at the same time he is a devout Catholic and supports the Vatican just like Copernicus.He did not ignore the Bible,but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved,then it could not contradict the Scriptures when they were rightly understood.(P183)Then,Galileo reminds the Church that its difficult to stop people from talking about Copernicus theories.If in order to banish the opinion in question from the world it were sufficient to stop the mouth of a single man,.then that would be very easily done.But things stand otherwise.To carry out such a decision it would be necessary not only to prohibit the book of Copernicus and the writings of other authors who follow the same opinion,but to ban the whole science of astronomy.Furthermore,it would be necessary to forbid men to look at the heavens.Last,he points out that the holy Bible and the phenomena of nature proceed alike.And things in nature or in the heavens cannot be changed.And these two dont against each other.For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those which govern all physical effects;nor is God any less excellently revealed in Natures actions than in the sacred statements of the Bible.(P185)Why is experiment so important to Newton?What is the relationship between experiment and sense in the experimental science?The experiment is so important to Newton,which is reflected in the rule III of reasoning in philosophy by two aspects.On the one hand,for since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments,we are to hold for universal all such as universally agree with experiments;and such as are not liable to diminution can never be quite taken away.We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiment for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising(Zhu 190).On the other hand,if it universally appears,by experiments and astronomical observations,that all bodies about the earth gravitate towards the earth,and that in proportion to the quantity of matter which they severally contain.That is to say,Newton discovers gravitation.Whats more,according to Optics written by Newton,as in mathematics,so in natural philosophy,the investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis,ought ever to precede the method of composition.This analysis consists in making experiments and observations,and in drawing general conclusions from them by induction and admitting of no objections against the conclusions,but such as are taken from experiments,or other certain truths(Zhu 193).The relationship between experiment and sense in the experimental science is intimately linked.In light of the rule III of reasoning in philosophy,we no other way know the extension of bodies than by our sense,nor do these reach it in all bodies;but because we perceive extension in all that are sensible,therefore we ascribe it universally to all others also.That abundance of bodies are hard,we learn by experience;and because the hardness of the whole arises from the hardness of the parts,we therefore justly infer the hardness of the undivided particles not only of the bodies we feel but of all others.That all bodies are impenetrable,we gather not from reason,but from sensation(Zhu 190).Briefly speaking,experiment and sense are indispensible to the experimental science.