Autor: Lonergan, Bernard J.F.

Buch: Topics in Education

Titel: Topics in Education

Stichwort: Philosophic Differences: Galileo , primary and secondary qualities, geometry; Aristotle

Kurzinhalt: For Galileo the object of science was a geometrization of the world. In proposing this he had to meet the objection that ; The fundamental Aristotelian axiom is that knowing is by identity

Textausschnitt: 58/7 What I have said thus far is very general, and now we may illustrate it. I begin with the empiricist movement. (180; Fs)
Galileo did not merely discover the idea of the natural law in the instance of the law of free fall. His real inspiration was the idea of a system of laws, and his concept of that system was a ready-made system, namely, Euclidean geometry. For Galileo the object of science was a geometrization of the world. In proposing this he had to meet the objection that it is obvious to everybody that the real world is far more than is treated in geometry. To meet that objection he drew a distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are ...
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59/7 Now this was a doctrine invented by Galileo to sell his theory of science. And, while his theory of science underwent subsequent revisions, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities continued to have a great influence in philosophy. Nor is this incidental. For it was the real concern of philosophers to arrive at a theory of knowledge that would ground the scientific methodology and justify how science is able to produce such results. And that aim has been attained to a great extent. But as you can see, the position of Galileo that what is really out there is the geometrical object, and the rest of it is just in the subject, is a theory about what is real. It rests upon an epistemological assumption that most people find self-evident, namely, that knowing is a matter of taking a look, that a real distinction between subject and object, and a confrontation of the object to the subject, are of the very essence of knowledge, so that Aristotle was completely wrong when he asserted that sense in act is the sensible in act, that intellect in act is the intelligible in act, and that in things that are without matter the one that understands and what is understood are identical. The fundamental Aristotelian axiom is that knowing is by identity. (181; Fs) (notabene)