History Paper Draft
Galileo Galilei once said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Despite the heavy opposition Galileo Galilei had to go through regarding the church, he was a great man of science. His discoveries and achievements had a huge impact on the Scientific Revolution and they are still widely used today in modern science. David Wootton, the author of Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, is a Professor of History. He was a british lawyer and born in 1950. David Wootten was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and has held positions in history and politics at four British and four Canadian universities. David Wootton also held visiting …show more content…
This series of publications begins with Divine Right and Democracy and continues through to his long essay "From Fortune to Feedback" (2006), on the origins of the American Constitution. This argues that eighteenth century constitutional theory cannot be understood until one comprehends the role played by metaphors of machinery, such as 'checks and balances”'. In 1992, after David Wootton carefully observed the work of Stephen Greenblatt, his work adopted an increasingly interdisciplinary character. Within Greenblatt’s work, Greenblatt has argued that radicalism in Shakespeare's day was always contained and controlled, David Wootton's analysis of the Levellers provides a striking example of a genuine egalitarianism. His most recent work in this field is a volume, jointly edited with Graham Holderness, on shrew plays in the Renaissance. Bad Medicine, written in 2006 by David Wootton, was a great piece of literature. David Wootton’s piece of literature, Bad Medicine, was the first in history of medicine to ever shine a light upon the fact that for more than two thousand years medicine was like …show more content…
This book is primarily an intellectual bibliography. It is well written and is organized. Although the author clearly states he is aiming to create an intellectual bibliography (pg. 182), he is creating more of a position for himself in the debate concerning, Galileo and the church. Throughout the book, David Wootton covers most of Galileo Galilei’s life. Maurice A. Finocchiaro wrote a review on David Wootton's book, Galileo: Watcher of the skies. Within his review he said, “Unfortunately, this book exemplifies implausible conjectural history. Consider its two principal theses. The first (pp. 56, 261–62, 266) is an account of Galileo’s attitude toward Copernicanism, claiming that he became a Copernican in the early 1590s, and the rest of his career was an attempt to prove its truth. This is an exaggeration of the fact that, since the early 1590s, Galileo was implicitly pursuing a Copernican research program—namely a general physics of moving bodies, one of whose consequences was the physical possibility of the earth’s motion. The second major thesis (pp. 240–50) is that, although Galileo outwardly tried to appear a good Catholic, in reality he was not a Christian but privately held “esoteric” beliefs. He was allegedly a materialist, pantheism, or deist, who denied the existence of a provident personal God, the reality of
Galileo Galilei once said, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Despite the heavy opposition Galileo Galilei had to go through regarding the church, he was a great man of science. His discoveries and achievements had a huge impact on the Scientific Revolution and they are still widely used today in modern science. David Wootton, the author of Galileo: Watcher of the Skies, is a Professor of History. He was a british lawyer and born in 1950. David Wootten was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and has held positions in history and politics at four British and four Canadian universities. David Wootton also held visiting …show more content…
This series of publications begins with Divine Right and Democracy and continues through to his long essay "From Fortune to Feedback" (2006), on the origins of the American Constitution. This argues that eighteenth century constitutional theory cannot be understood until one comprehends the role played by metaphors of machinery, such as 'checks and balances”'. In 1992, after David Wootton carefully observed the work of Stephen Greenblatt, his work adopted an increasingly interdisciplinary character. Within Greenblatt’s work, Greenblatt has argued that radicalism in Shakespeare's day was always contained and controlled, David Wootton's analysis of the Levellers provides a striking example of a genuine egalitarianism. His most recent work in this field is a volume, jointly edited with Graham Holderness, on shrew plays in the Renaissance. Bad Medicine, written in 2006 by David Wootton, was a great piece of literature. David Wootton’s piece of literature, Bad Medicine, was the first in history of medicine to ever shine a light upon the fact that for more than two thousand years medicine was like …show more content…
This book is primarily an intellectual bibliography. It is well written and is organized. Although the author clearly states he is aiming to create an intellectual bibliography (pg. 182), he is creating more of a position for himself in the debate concerning, Galileo and the church. Throughout the book, David Wootton covers most of Galileo Galilei’s life. Maurice A. Finocchiaro wrote a review on David Wootton's book, Galileo: Watcher of the skies. Within his review he said, “Unfortunately, this book exemplifies implausible conjectural history. Consider its two principal theses. The first (pp. 56, 261–62, 266) is an account of Galileo’s attitude toward Copernicanism, claiming that he became a Copernican in the early 1590s, and the rest of his career was an attempt to prove its truth. This is an exaggeration of the fact that, since the early 1590s, Galileo was implicitly pursuing a Copernican research program—namely a general physics of moving bodies, one of whose consequences was the physical possibility of the earth’s motion. The second major thesis (pp. 240–50) is that, although Galileo outwardly tried to appear a good Catholic, in reality he was not a Christian but privately held “esoteric” beliefs. He was allegedly a materialist, pantheism, or deist, who denied the existence of a provident personal God, the reality of