Galileo vs Aristotle on free falling bodies

History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 7 (1):1-11 (2004)
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Abstract

This essay attempts to demonstrate that it is doubtful if Galileo's famous thought experiment concerning falling bodies in his 'Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences' (Galileo 1954: 61-64) actually does succeed in proving that Aristotle was wrong in claiming that "bodies of different weight […] move […] with different speeds which stand to one another in the same ratio as their weights," (Galileo 1954: 61). (Part I); and further that it is likewise doubtful that that argument does or even can establish Galileo's own famous 'Law of Falling Bodies,' viz., that regardless of their weight all bodies fall with the same speed. (Part II).

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Markus Schrenk
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

Citations of this work

The Role of Explanation in Understanding.Kareem Khalifa - 2013 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 64 (1):161-187.
Knowing what would happen: The epistemic strategies in Galileo's thought experiments.Kristian Camilleri - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 54:102-112.

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References found in this work

Are Thought Experiments Just What You Thought?John D. Norton - 1996 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (3):333 - 366.
Galileo and the indispensability of scientific thought experiment.Tamar Szabó Gendler - 1998 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (3):397-424.
Thought Experiments.Yiftach J. H. Fehige & James R. Brown - 2010 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 25 (1):135-142.
Dictionary of Philosophy.Simon Blackburn - 2005 - Oxford ;: Oxford University Press UK.

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