This paper defends a version of J. H. Randall’s thesis that modern empiricism is rooted in the Scholastic regressus method epitomized by Jacopo Zabarella in De Regressu (1578). Randall’s critics note that the empirical practice of Galileo and his contemporaries does not follow Zabarella. However, Zabarella’s account of the regressus is imprecise, which permitted an interpretation introducing empirical hypothesis testing into the framework. The discourse surrounding Galileo’s lunar observations in Sidereus Nuncius (1610) suggests that both Galileo and his interlocutors amended (...) the regressus method in this way, such that a developmental narrative links Scholastic logic to Galilean science. (shrink)

Članek se osredotoča na Galileijevo razumevanje razmerja med razodeto in naravoslovno resnico. Galilei je v Pismu Castelliju zagovarjal ločevanje med teologijo in naravoslovnim raziskovanjem, vendar pa je v tem istem pismu in Pismu Diniju Biblijo bral kot kopernikansko besedilo in tako – vsaj na prvi pogled – nasprotoval svojim lastnim načelom in hermeneutičnim postulatom. Avtor zagovarja tezo, da je treba Galileijevo kopernikansko interpretacijo Psalma 18 v Pismu Diniju razumeti na podlagi argumentacije, ki jo je razvil v Pismu Castelliju, v katerem (...) je tudi interpretiral pasus iz Jozuetove knjige, obe pismi pa je nemogoče razumeti brez poznavanja in razumevanja konteksta, v katerem sta nastali. Ta pa ni samo teološki, temveč predvsem naravosloven. Po avtorjevem mnenju Galileijevo stališče in argumentacija nikakor nista protislovna, temveč konsistentna. Drugi cilj članka je opozoriti na dejstvo, da Galilei v teh dveh pismih razvije zametek specifične filozofijo narave, s katero skuša svoja teleskopska odkritja pojasniti na bolj temeljni filozofski ravni. (shrink)

This paper is about the use of analogical reasoning, models and metaphors in Galileo's discovery of the mountains of the moon, which he describes in the Starry Messenger, a short but groundbreaking treatise published in 1610. On the basis of the observations of the Moon he has made with the newly invented telescope, Galileo shows that the Moon has mountains and that therefore it shares the same solid, opaque and rugged nature of the Earth. I will first reconstruct Galileo's reasoning, (...) and illustrate the counterintuitive and quasi-circular way in which discovery depends on analogy: in order for analogical reasoning to succeed in bridging ontological gaps and thus serve as a discovery tool, a certain similarity between what are considered as radically different domains has to be presupposed. More particularly, in order for analogical reasoning to lead to genuine discoveries, salient features have to be selected in the source domain that will be mapped onto the target domain. There is disagreement as to how this mapping is successfully carried out: the syntactical, pragmatic and ontological-categorical approaches, all illuminate some features of this selection in the mapping process. On the basis of an analysis of Galileo's discovery, I will argue that we need a different "bootstrapping" approach which involves the construction of an imaginary temporary model encompassing both the source and the target domains, and which is occasionally strengthened by metaphors which serve as incomplete transitional models. (shrink)