Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:
Paper Instructions:
Background:
Shortly after Urban VIII’s elevation to the Papacy, Galileo had six meetings with him. According to a report from one of Urban’s confidants, Urban spoke to Galileo in words along roughly these lines:
Let us grant you that all of your arguments [in favor of Copernicus’ hypothesis] are sound and that it is entirely possible for things to stand as you say. But now tell us, do you really maintain that God could not have wished or known how to move the heavens and the stars in some other way? Then you will have to concede to us that God can, conceivably, have arranged things in an entirely different manner, while yet bringing about the effects that we see. And if this possibility exists, which might still preserve in their literal truth the sayings of Scripture, it is not for us mortals to try to force those holy words to mean what to us, from here, may appear to be the situation.
Paper topic:
Your assignment is first to explain Urban’s argument and then to critique it.
Advice and further requirements:
First give the argument step-by-step. Don’t rush through this part. Fill in any steps that you think Urban needs in order to arrive at his conclusion from his premises. Notice that Urban begins with a claim about something being “conceivably” so and ends with a conclusion about what we should believe about what is so. What is the argument connecting them supposed to be?
Then offer the best objection(s) to it that you can find and that Galileo could have offered (given his other beliefs) and explain whether Urban’s argument withstands these objections.
In the course of explaining Urban’s argument, explain whether this argument, if accepted, would have any implications for scientific theorizing in general (not merely for the Copernican theory). This is an important part of your assignment.
If you depend upon any source (other than our class discussions), then you must indicate the sources that you use. Your references can be of any format as long as they include all of the relevant information (author, date, title, publisher, publication location, page number – or website – or…). If you quote anyone directly, then you should explain the quoted passage in your own words.
But I am not expecting you to use any source outside of our class. This is not a research assignment; it is a thinking assignment.
Your assignment should occupy no more than 2 pages of 8 ½” x 11” paper. It should be typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins all around. It should be written in clear, short, grammatically correct sentences. The assignment is only three pages long, so you can check every sentence carefully to make sure
• that it is not a sentence fragment,
• that it is not a run-on sentence,
• that it obeys parallel construction,
• that its subject and verb agree,
• that every required punctuation mark is included,
• and so forth.
If I find that you are making the same grammatical mistakes as I have noted in previous papers, then your paper’s grade will be severely penalized. So be sure to check my comments on those earlier assignments to ensure that the same mistakes do not appear in this assignment.
Proofread your paper very carefully. You should check it several times to make sure that you have not missed anything.
Make sure that you explain fully in your own words any philosophical, scientific, or other technical terms that you use.
If you include diagrams in your paper, then those diagrams do not count towards the 2-page limit. (In other words, the diagram can be on a third page.) Likewise, any bibliographical references do not count towards the page limit.
