Galileo Galilei Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

MEHAP-Andrew Fortugno

Perry- Galileo Galilei Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina and Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems- Ptolemaic and Copernican

Galileo Galilei Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

Galileo argues God intended us to our senses and reason, which is against those who denounce that the earth, moves about the sun by citing biblical passages

· Men well grounded in astronomical and physical science were persuaded as soon as they received Galileo’s first message

· Those arguing would have us all together abandon reason and the evidence of our sense for in favor of some biblical passage.

· Galileo argue against condemning Copernicus’ book they way these people do, without understanding weight, or even reading it

· The bible does state the sun moves around the earth but, Galileo argues that nobody will deny that the bible is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify

· Galileo states that he does feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge with which can obtain them.

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems- Ptolemaic and Copernican

Galileo attacks the unquestionable acceptance of Aristotle’s teachings.

· Simplicio is an Aristotelian who asks who would we look to without Aristotle

· Salviati a spokesman for Galileo states that he reproaches those who gives themselves up as slaves to Aristotle and they are in fact only historians or memory experts, not philosophers.

· Sagredo introduces the problem with relaying on the authority of Aristotle