Galileo and the humanities

Abstract

Galileo’s greatest contribution did not involve lenses, pendulums or mathematics. His most revolutionary act – what is at the core of what might be called the Galilean moment – was to usher in a way of looking at the world in which we can look at the heavens with lenses, think of its chandeliers and swings as pendulums, and read its book in the language of mathematics. This is more than a scientific development; it is at once an intellectual and a cultural transformation. The Galilean moment connects with the humanities in two ways. One is that Galileo, thanks to his training in the humanities, was able to transform mathematics from what was essentially a branch of philosophy and theology, studied by artists and humanists, into a tool for scientists. But if the humanities were a legacy that made the Galilean achievement possible, that achievement now posed a fundamental challenge for the humanities: how to characterize the relation between that mathematically structured world and our own. This is a second way in which the humanities are connected with the Galilean moment. The humanities still struggle to cope with that challenge, which will eventually force the humanities to rethink their role.