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Galileo’s Unpublished Treatises

A case study on the role of shared knowledge in the emergence and dissemination of an early modern “new science”

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The Reception of the Galilean Science of Motion in Seventeenth-Century Europe

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science ((BSPS,volume 239))

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Abstract

Galileo’s last publication, his Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze attenenti alla mecanica & i movimenti locali (1638), is widely considered to be one of the most influential contributions of early modern science to the emergence of classical physics. As the title of Galileo’s book indicates, he himself claimed to have established “two new sciences,” including a new science of motion which, from the perspective of classical physics, indeed turned the Aristotelean theory of motion, which had prevailed for hundreds of years, into an obscure medieval relic.

The following considerations have been inspired by vivid discussions in the context of the Amsterdam workshop on the reception of the Galilean science of motion in Europe and constitute a preliminary attempt to deal with preconditions of reception within the framework of historical epistemology. These discussions have been continued at the Eurosymposium 2001 on Galileo in Tenerife. A somewhat modified version of the present paper has therefore also been published in the proceedings of this conference (cf. Büttner e.a. “Traces of an Invisible Giant).

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Authors
  1. Jochen Büttner
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  2. Peter Damerow
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  3. Jürgen Renn
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Radboud University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Carla Rita Palmerino  & J. M. M. H. Thijssen  & 

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Büttner, J., Damerow, P., Renn, J. (2004). Galileo’s Unpublished Treatises. In: Palmerino, C.R., Thijssen, J.M.M.H. (eds) The Reception of the Galilean Science of Motion in Seventeenth-Century Europe. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 239. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2455-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2455-9_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6658-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-2455-9

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