Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken G
We covered this long ago on this thread. Galileo is credited as the father of the scientific method in some places, but nobody claims he gave birth to it fully formed.
|
I think you may like this...
In 1602, he wrote an opener to a syllabus used for his students in his cosmography course:
...Accordingly, we say the subject of Cosmography is the world, or we mean the universe, as indicated by the word itself, which only means "description of the world." But of everything that might be considered about the world, only a part belongs to the Cosmographer, which is to reflect on the number and order of the parts of this world and the shape, size, and distance of these, and especially about their motions, leaving to the Natural Philosophers consideration of the qualities of the said parts of the world.
As to the method, the Cosmographer customarily proceeds in the reflections in four ways, the first of which embraces the appearances, or phenomena, and these are nothing but sensate observations we see every day, as for example the rising and setting of stars; the darkening now of the sun and again of the moon; the latter's showing herself now crescent, now at quarter, now full, and again completely dark; the moving of the planets with very different motions; and many other such appearances. In the second place there are hypotheses, and these are nothing but some suppositions relating to the structure of the celestial orbs such as correspond with the appearances, as it would be when, guided by what appears to us, we should assume the heavens to be spherical and to be moved circularly, sharing diverese motions, the earth to be stable, situated at the center. Third there follow geometrical demonstrations [math] with which, by means of some properties of circles and straight lines, the particular events that follow from the hypotheses are demonstrated. And finally, what has been demostrated by lines being calculated by arithmetical operations, is reduced to tables from which without trouble we may later at our pleasure find the arrangement [predictions] of the celestial bodies at any moment in time."
[My bolds, and I removed my own insertion of 'theorinos' as an augmentation so as not to disrupt this powerful passage. ]
There is reason to believe the above methodology of Galileo stems from Ptolemy who tried so hard to connect math to that which is observed. Unfortunately, Ptolemy did not develop this as a recommended method, nor did he ever seem to apply it to anything other than astronomy, though he was active in other fields such as geography. Ptolemy's opening in his Almagest stated that Aristotle, unlike Plato, divided theoretics into three classes: physical, mathematical, and thoelogical (metaphysical). Agreement from philosophers would only be found in the mathematical.