Dyck, Maarten Van (Author)
Universiteit Gent (Belgium)
Physical Details: 286 pp.
Language: English
In my dissertation I have investigated the conditions of Galileo's mathematization of his science of motion. The main question that I try to answer is how Galileo could have exploited a mathematical framework that was developed for dealing with artificial instruments, such as a balance, to develop a science of natural phenomena. The precise formulation of this question forces us to first consider the ca. 1600 current philosophical ideas concerning the relation of mathematics to natural philosophy. Given this background, we can then see how Galileo radically departs from this tradition. The most important element in understanding how he effects this transgression of traditional boundaries is provided by a close analysis of Galileo's mechanical treatise Le mecaniche. By comparing Galileo's treatment of the simple machines with that of his immediate predecessor Guidobaldo del Monte, I argue that we can see how Galileo starts exploiting a different set of ideas concerning the status of what is "natural" in physical phenomena. After having uncovered this essential transformation in Galileo's writings, I show how this allows us to understand Galileo's tactics of idealization and abstraction in the development of his science. We also see how this forms the background towards his more sophisticated experimental analysis of causal structures. I then use these analyses to shed light on Galileo's struggles in his attempts to understand the dynamics behind free fall on the basis of his understanding of the working of machines. Finally, in a last chapter I show how all the foregoing discussions allow us to understand Galileo's references to the mathematical character of the book of nature in a new, and possibly more exciting way.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. C 68/02 (2007): 37. Pub. no. AAT C827615.
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