TS II: Science and Religion (fall 2021)

Assigned reading:

[Pseudo?-] Paracelsus, "Concerning certain particular signs of natural and supernatural things," Concerning the Nature of Things (c. 1537), from The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast, of Hohemheim, called Paracelsus, vol. 1, ed. A. E. Waite (1894), 188-194. [This is a brief excerpt, and you need not spend much time puzzling over the substance of it. But for purposes of class discussion, ask yourself why churchmen might be concerned about the way that "signs" function in this work.]

Galileo Galilei, "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany" (1615) 

Maurice A. Finocchiaro, "Science, religion, and the historiography of the Galileo Affair: On the undesirability of oversimplication," Osiris, 2nd Series, 16 (2001): 114-132. 

J. J. Bono, The Word of God and the Languages of Man (1995), 193-198.

Brian P. Copenhaver, "Natural magic, hermetism, and occultism in early modern science," in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge, 1990), 261-301. 

Further reading: 

Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Sciences (1998).

Stephen Gaukroger, The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685 (2006).

Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago, 1964).

Allen G. Debus, Man and Nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1978). [Borrow at archive.org]

Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica : the Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a new English translation, with notes and introduction (1992). [available at Medieval Library]

Mario Biagioli, Galileo Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago, 1993). 
J. L. Heilbron, Galileo (Oxford, 2010). 

Some of the burgeoning histories of Galileo from the nineteenth century, many of them drawing on the lengthy project to publish his works in their entirety, and via a dialectic of critical and apologetic views, creating our modern image of him as suffering for science:

David Brewster, The Martyrs of Science; or, the Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841).

R. Caspar, Galileo Galilei : Zusammenstellung der Forschungen und Entdeckungen Galilei's auf dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaft, als Beitrag zur Geschichte der neueren Physik (1854).

Galileo Galilei: sein Leben und seine Bedeutung für die Entwicklung der Naturwissenschaft (1856).

Emil Wohlwill, Der Inquisitionsprocess des Galileo Galilei (1870).

Karl von Gebler, Galileo Galilei und die römische Curie : nach den authentischen Quellen (1876).

Gaston Tissandier, Les Martyrs de la Science (1891 [1882]). (Russian translation)

Alajos Czógler, "Galilei," A fizika története életrajzokban (1882).

József Lukscsics, A Galileo-kérdés (1910).

J. N. Frank, Proces inkwizycyjny Galileusza podług najnowszych badan (1881).

Artur Wołyński, "Dwukrotny proces Galileusza," Przewodnik naukowy i literacki (1885): 16 ff. (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (part 8) (part 9) (part 10) (part 11)

František Studnička, "Galileo Galilei," Bohatýrové ducha (1898).

P.  A. Forner, Galileo a jeho spor s církví (1910).

V. I. Assonov, Галилей перед судом инквизиции: Очерк его жизни и трудов (1870).

O. Ia. Pergament, Галилео Галилей, его жизнь и научная деятельность (1897).

Е. А. Predtechenskii, Галилей, его жизнь и научная деятельность: Биографический очерк (1892).

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