Recent Narratives on Galileo and the Church

Or The Three Dogmas of the Counter-Reformation

Bibliographic Data

ID14670935
AuthorsRivka Feldhay (Tel Aviv University, corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume13
Issue3-4
Pages489-507
Publication date2000-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889700003884
OpenAlexW2001651640
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited5

The Argument This article confronts an old-new orientation in the historiographical literature on the “Galileo affair.” It argues that a varied group of historians moved by different cultural forces in the last decade of the twentieth century tends to crystallize a consensus about the inevitability of the conflict between Galileo and the Church and its outcome in the trial of 1633. The “neo-conflictualists” — as I call them — have built their case by adhering to and developing the “three dogmas of the Counter-Reformation”: Church authoritarianism is portrayed by them as verging towards “totalitarianism.” A preference for a literal reading of the Scriptures is understood as a mode of “fundamentalism.” And mild skeptical positions in astronomy are read as expressions of “instrumentalism,” or “fictionalism.” The main thrust of the article lies in an attempt to historicize these three aspects of the Catholic reform movement. Finally, the lacunae in insufficiently explored historiographical landscape are delineated in order to tame the temptation to embrace the three dogmas, and to modify the radical conflictualist version of the story of Galileo and the Church

Art · Epistemology · Geography · Historiography · Literature · Political science · Law · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies

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