In Aristotle's cosmology the Earth was static and the sun stars and planets rotated around it once a day. Many of a religious bent thought the sky was black at night due to dark matter obscuring the divine world beyond. As George Orwell wrote in 1948:
This stance was highlighted by Thomas Kuhn in that book: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962,1970), where in the postscript to the second edition (section 6 in particular), forced to defend himself from hounding by his critics, he takes refuge behind the FACT that the modern world has indeed returned to an Aristotelian conception of the universe i.e. an anti-Galilean conception of the world (and by 'Galilean' I mean Galileo, not the euphemism for JC).
Modern cosmology teaches that the universe is finite, hence it affirms O'Brien's view that the stars are trivial and that even if we should venture into space to try to start colonies there it would be an ultimately futile and finite venture. I.e. the world is finite but God (or the gods) is/are infinite! The educated masses worldwide have understood this implication hence their ongoing justification of, excusing of and financial support for the massive religious revival in the latter 20th century - not just Judaeo-Christian Zionism but Islamic Fundamentalism, Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell-type Evangelism etc. etc. In this way science is sidelined to become a prop for religious revival - and not just at Creation Science museums!
From this we can see the key role of Galileo in having overthrown Aristotelian cosmology. In order to do this Galileo developed and proved the arguments of the Greek materialist philosopher Epicurus. In turn Epicurus had developed his philosophy from the earlier materialist philosopher Democritus. The difference between Epicurus and Democritus was that the former taught human free will but the latter taught that the world was deterministic. The former was also apolitical, whereas Democritus was democratic in his political approach (a happy easy-to-remember coincidence in names).
Since Epicurus was an atheist Galileo avoided mentioning his name. However the difference between Epicurus and Democritus was the subject of Marx's PhD Thesis (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/index.htm), Marx championing the former over the latter. Academic researchers on the subject (notably Cyril Bailey's The Greek Atomists and Epicurus, 1928) find little from the modern era predating Marx on the subject, the only example given by Bailey being in French by one Lafaist in 1833.
The key difference in the Epicurean atomic theory as against Democritus was that Epicurus taught that atoms had differing weights but that all moved at equal speed when under the influence of a force - as Galileo demonstrated with falling objects, disproving Aristotle's claim that heavier objects fell faster. Galileo then asserted a general law of motion - that all motion is relative. He thus not only displaced the Earth from being the centre of the universe, but also displaced the Sun from being the centre, unlike the Copernican heliocentric teaching which he otherwise upheld. Typically then, the Church condemned him on the false charge that Galileo taught heliocentrism!
Isaac Newton was born the year Galileo died. When at last Newton put forth his teaching on motion, his laws of motion which seemed to harmonize with Galileo's were contradicted by Newton's teaching of Absolute Space, a notion embodying Cartesian 3-D space with its x, y and z-axes. Hence for Newton, Galileo's relative motion was only of limited or approximate application. For Newton motion was actually absolute, i.e. "relative ONLY to space itself" meaning that absolute space provided a fixed reference frame for motion.
What we see here with Newton is the attempt to smuggle back Aristotelian notions into science - the procedure of logocentrism whereby static notions are reintroduced into human thought, static notions which can then be reinterpreted as the effect of divine influence and control. That this claim is NOT a mistaken inference on my part is shown by the fact that Aristotle considered the creator god or demiurge to be immovable, i.e. static or fixed and not moving with respect to the earth - as implied in my first paragraph above.
The philosophical corruption of science - unintentionally revealed by Kuhn - arises from Newton's reintroduction of Aristotelian conceptions into science, specifically his conception of Absolute Space (and its corollary, absolute motion). Or to put it another way 'absolute space' is a euphemism for the divine, for God, much as 'intelligent design' in modern anti-evolutionary creationist 'science' is.
Yours faithfully
Claude
The return to Aristotelian thinking in the 20th century is characteristic of modernity (= modern thought, modern science etc.) and exemplified by the Party's official words.1984 part 3:3 said:
This stance was highlighted by Thomas Kuhn in that book: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962,1970), where in the postscript to the second edition (section 6 in particular), forced to defend himself from hounding by his critics, he takes refuge behind the FACT that the modern world has indeed returned to an Aristotelian conception of the universe i.e. an anti-Galilean conception of the world (and by 'Galilean' I mean Galileo, not the euphemism for JC).
Modern cosmology teaches that the universe is finite, hence it affirms O'Brien's view that the stars are trivial and that even if we should venture into space to try to start colonies there it would be an ultimately futile and finite venture. I.e. the world is finite but God (or the gods) is/are infinite! The educated masses worldwide have understood this implication hence their ongoing justification of, excusing of and financial support for the massive religious revival in the latter 20th century - not just Judaeo-Christian Zionism but Islamic Fundamentalism, Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell-type Evangelism etc. etc. In this way science is sidelined to become a prop for religious revival - and not just at Creation Science museums!
From this we can see the key role of Galileo in having overthrown Aristotelian cosmology. In order to do this Galileo developed and proved the arguments of the Greek materialist philosopher Epicurus. In turn Epicurus had developed his philosophy from the earlier materialist philosopher Democritus. The difference between Epicurus and Democritus was that the former taught human free will but the latter taught that the world was deterministic. The former was also apolitical, whereas Democritus was democratic in his political approach (a happy easy-to-remember coincidence in names).
Since Epicurus was an atheist Galileo avoided mentioning his name. However the difference between Epicurus and Democritus was the subject of Marx's PhD Thesis (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1841/dr-theses/index.htm), Marx championing the former over the latter. Academic researchers on the subject (notably Cyril Bailey's The Greek Atomists and Epicurus, 1928) find little from the modern era predating Marx on the subject, the only example given by Bailey being in French by one Lafaist in 1833.
The key difference in the Epicurean atomic theory as against Democritus was that Epicurus taught that atoms had differing weights but that all moved at equal speed when under the influence of a force - as Galileo demonstrated with falling objects, disproving Aristotle's claim that heavier objects fell faster. Galileo then asserted a general law of motion - that all motion is relative. He thus not only displaced the Earth from being the centre of the universe, but also displaced the Sun from being the centre, unlike the Copernican heliocentric teaching which he otherwise upheld. Typically then, the Church condemned him on the false charge that Galileo taught heliocentrism!
Isaac Newton was born the year Galileo died. When at last Newton put forth his teaching on motion, his laws of motion which seemed to harmonize with Galileo's were contradicted by Newton's teaching of Absolute Space, a notion embodying Cartesian 3-D space with its x, y and z-axes. Hence for Newton, Galileo's relative motion was only of limited or approximate application. For Newton motion was actually absolute, i.e. "relative ONLY to space itself" meaning that absolute space provided a fixed reference frame for motion.
What we see here with Newton is the attempt to smuggle back Aristotelian notions into science - the procedure of logocentrism whereby static notions are reintroduced into human thought, static notions which can then be reinterpreted as the effect of divine influence and control. That this claim is NOT a mistaken inference on my part is shown by the fact that Aristotle considered the creator god or demiurge to be immovable, i.e. static or fixed and not moving with respect to the earth - as implied in my first paragraph above.
The philosophical corruption of science - unintentionally revealed by Kuhn - arises from Newton's reintroduction of Aristotelian conceptions into science, specifically his conception of Absolute Space (and its corollary, absolute motion). Or to put it another way 'absolute space' is a euphemism for the divine, for God, much as 'intelligent design' in modern anti-evolutionary creationist 'science' is.
Yours faithfully
Claude
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