movie reflections
cryingbb
SM2022week3-1.pdf
Figaro.
in that one queen song
Bohemian Rhapsody, “Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro”.
No one ever says “that Galileo song by Indigo Girls”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOhqEHYlIrU
Four Five
Fundamental Forces
(Interactions) of the
Cosmos
Semiotic beings sign variable variable
produces meaning (amplifiable) (unpredictable)
Signs carry
denotative connotative performative forces in a linguistic and cultural field
Brian May completed his PhD in astrophysics
in 2007.
Brian May rocks! Don’t think of Brian May!
Pluto is not a planet.
Pluto is a planet.
1. what all scientists use to produce facts and truths 2. a simplification for the very complex and not-always-entirely methodical practices that many
scientists 3. a set of signs whose usage varies according to time and culture but always signifies the unique
process that makes science sciencey 4. signs that perform a boundary that divides some human practices and concepts from many
others, giving the former a special status 5. 2 and 4 6. 2 and 3
I critiqued the (denotative, connotative) informative and performative aspects of Neil’s video...
“what is true and what is not” “what is reliable and what is not reliable”
“what should you believe, what should you not believe”
...he is unaware of the cultural forces and contradictions of the Science Myth System he inhabits (along with the rest of us)...
Science draws bright clear lines between mutually exclusive opposites.
[getting really worked up now; language even more definitive, simple, emphatic]
...whether we call that the Myth of Objectivism, Scientism, or whatever...
[getting really worked up now -- emotional about being rational]
...and I cracked wise about his emotional display as a rational scientist...
[Neil very emotional about rationality again; pay attention to my words, not my face]
...but it was a mistake to focus solely on the linguistic signs and their conflict with the Myth of the Pure Scientist….
…“If it’s true whether or not you believe in it, why are you getting so worked up about it?”… (And why do we need “judgment”?)
Science is before, and separate from, politics.
...and I should have paid more attention to the questions: What is the emotional display itself
signifying? How can we read the
sign that is Neil’s face and voice?
Myths of Galileo perform several different orderings of meaning...
Galileo was an astronomer, a physicist, and created things like the telescope. If no one knows who he is, then you’ll know about him through the song by Queen “Bohemian Rhaspody” !!
Italian astronomer and engineer. stars and telescope come to mind.
Italian astronomer and inventor of the telescope. Astronomer, famous for making various astronomical discoveries with his telescope.
He was known for the telescope and potential inventions that influence the discoveries we have today.
Myths of Galileo perform several different orderings of meaning...
Galileo was a physicist and a astrologer. He made the first telescope and mapped the stars and their retrospect.
He discovered Jupiter’s moons and found that there were craters on the moon.
Galileo was a philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician....
He’s the one that kickstarted the study of outer space by disproving the common belief that the sun (along with the rest of the celestial bodies) revolves around the Earth when in reality we revolve around the sun.
Is he the guy who said the Earth revolves around the sun instead of the other way around, which was commonly believed at the time?
he drank hella wine, studied the stars
Myths of Galileo perform several different orderings of meaning...
He created the heliocentric theory? Where the planets in our solar system revolve around the sun.
He was a scientist and I may be mixing this up with other scientists since I’ve learned about a lot but I think he invented a telescope and he believed in the heliocentric theory that the planets revolve around the sun instead of the geocentric theory that everything revolves around the earth and the church got very angry with that and I believe he was sentenced to death possibly.
he was a scientist that did something with gravity really long ago. I think he was also an astronomer who argued that the earth orbited the sun and was put in prison for it (because it went against the catholic belief), this could've been another dude though.
Myths of Galileo perform several different orderings of meaning...
1. 1. Science is secularizing and antagonistic to religion.
Myth 2. Science is pursued by individuals (geniuses), whose truths are independent of, opposed to, and/or threatening to the power of
established socio-cultural collectives..
Sign 1 Sign 2
Myths of Galileo perform several different orderings of meaning...
Galileo took Copernicus's theory about the sun being the center of the universe instead of the Earth and built a telescope that was able to prove it. This theory shook the Catholic Church to the core as they were the main facilitators of the theory that the earth was the center of the universe.
An astronomer who was despised by the church and church related politicians. He was the first to put into motion that the earth rotates around the sun instead of the sun revolving around the earth as previously believed to be true by society of the time.
He was an early scientist from the 1600's. He found the four Galilean moons of Jupiter. He also did numerous physics experiments. He was sentenced to a home imprisonment (I forget the term) due to perceived heresies against the Catholic church.
heliocentric??? jail
Historians have better* myths: Sciences are individual and cultural practices/achievements.
Differences in persona, time, place, culture, and power matter to the preservation and changing of social orders.
c. 1540 c. 1610 c. 1680
*empirically richer, analytically sharper, multicausal
A Historian’s Myth Incorporating a
Systemic Perspective:
Galileo and his trial are events of culture,
events of
power/knowledge
Re-reading these myth-images not as signs of
Power versus Knowledge
but as signs of one power/knowledge system engaging another power/knowledge system
Sign 1 Sign 2
Historians’ Myths Converge:
Galileo’s trial and sentencing were more political than religious.
(although it is even more difficult to separate “politics” from “religion” in the 17th century than it is now)
Historians Myths Diverge:
About a lot of other things
“More Political Than Religious”?
Galileo – like everyone else in 17th century Tuscany or the Papal States – is as Catholic as they come.
In a “culture of absolutism,” the Catholic Church is the State (Power).
Galileo’s entire career, ending with his trial, is driven by differences internal to an absolutist system of political, cultural, and religious power/knowledges, differences that matter to authority: commoners/nobility, Galileo/Jesuits, Jesuit scientists/non-Jesuit scientists, Spanish/Roman Inquisition, Florence/Rome, Cardinal Barberini/Pope Urban VIII…
Galileo’s Second Greatest Invention: The telescope as an amplifier and conduit of power/knowledge
Bertini fresco of Galileo Galilei and Doge of Venice, 1858
Galileo was an astronomer, a physicist, and created things like the telescope. If no one knows who he is, then you’ll know about him through the song by Queen “Bohemian Rhaspody” !!
Italian astronomer and engineer. stars and telescope come to mind.
Italian astronomer and inventor of the telescope. Astronomer, famous for making various astronomical discoveries with his telescope.
He was known for the telescope and potential inventions that influence the discoveries we have toda?
Galileo’s Greatest Invention:
Galileo, Philosopher-Scientist A creator, conduit, and accumulator of
power/knowledge
For this invention to work, Galileo has to keep upping his game
-Physicist)
power/knowledge
Knowledge is power.
Power determines knowledge.
No truth, only power.
“There is a battle ‘for truth,’ or at least ‘around truth’-- it being understood once again that by truth I do not mean the ensemble of truths which are to be discovered
and accepted, but rather the ensemble of rules according to which the true and the false are separated and
specific effects of power attached to the true.” --Michel Foucault
one power/knowledge system engaging another power/knowledge system
with different rules of establishing truth, using different sources and authorities, attached to different effects of power
1589-92 Teaches mathematical subjects at the University of Pisa (salary 160 scudi per year).
1592 Obtains chair of mathematics at the University of Padua in the Venetian Republic (salary 160 ducats per year). His duties are to lecture on geometry and astronomy. He gives private lessons on Euclid, arithmetic, fortification, surveying, cosmography, optics, and the use of the sector. (GBH 8:33)
1593 Assembles treatises on fortifications and mechanics for his private students. Invents a machine for raising water, a pump driven by horses. In 1594 he receives a patent on this design from the Venetian Senate.
1595 Develops his explanation of the tides which invokes the annual and diurnal motion of the Earth. His commitment to the Copernican theory probably dates from this year.
1599 Begins relationship with Marina Gamba. Obtains a new, six-year contract, retroactive to December 1598, with a salary of 320 ducats.
1600 Giordano Bruno burned (alive) at the stake in Rome.
Galileo’s Long Career of Self-Invention/Promotion by Generating and Accumulating Power/Knowledge
Galileo's surveying and military compass
1593 – Galileo becomes a consultant to the Arsenal of Venice
power/knowledge
1608 Hans Lipperhey in The Hague (probably a Protestant!) requests a patent on his spyglass; denied as “obvious,” but he is paid well.
1609 Cosimo II de' Medici becomes Grand Duke of Tuscany, following his father's death.
Galileo hears about the invention of devices for “seeing faraway things as though nearby” in the Netherlands, begins grinding his own lenses.
Through the connections of a friend, Galileo presents an eight-powered telescope to the Venetian Senate. Receives a doubling of his salary and life-tenure at the University of Padua – but is also informed that there will be no further raises.
Generating and Accumulating Power/Knowledge
Generating and Accumulating New Power/Knowledge from Within Old Power/Knowledge
“Creative scientists need generous support” could be part of the Galileo Myth
patronage
(funding)
Patronage is Politics
Patronage is Politics
...but signs of power/knowledge
carrying performative force
These are not images of
the moon...
Siderius Nuncius (The Starry Messenger), 1610
More signs of/for accumulating
power/knowledge
1610 On 7 January Galileo observes three bright little stars near Jupiter; by 15 January he has figured out that there are four satellites of Jupiter.
March Sidereus Nuncius published in Venice, dedicated to Cosimo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany. The satellites of Jupiter are here called the Medicean Stars, in honor of the house of his prospective patron.
July Following negotiations, Galileo appointed "Chief Mathematician of the University of Pisa and Philosopher and Mathematician to the Grand Duke" of Tuscany. The appointment is for life.
September Galileo moves from Padua to Florence (Freed forever from students!)
Galileo ups his game
History and Demonstrations Concerning Sunspots and their Properties, 1613
Galileo overplays his hand?
GBH 1:01:25
April 12, 1615 Cardinal Bellarmine (“The Hammer”) letter to Father Foscarini: Galileo could speak about the Copernican model "hypothetically, and not absolutely.”
1615 Galileo writes to Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany
1616 Cardinal Bellarmine and members of the Roman Inquisition arrange to meet with Galileo, who stays at Tuscan Embassy. De revolutionibus is placed on Index during this time. Galileo is enjoined not “to defend or hold” Copernicanism -- maybe...
Key confrontation of different but entangled power/knowledge systems
1623 Cardinal Maffeo Barberini elected Pope Urban VIII.
“..the new Pope Urban VIII held a generally positive view of the arts and science…[T]he Pope's private secretary, Secretary of the Briefs Ciampoli, urged Galileo to resume publication of his ideas: "If you would resolve to commit to print those ideas that you still have in mind, I am quite certain that they would be most acceptable to His Holiness, who never ceases from admiring your eminence and preserves intact his attachment for you. You should not deprive the world of your productions.”
Galileo ups his power/knowledge game again Great luck, but ambiguous messages
GBH 1:04:45 – 1:08:30
The Assayer, 1623
(note the change in sign systems!)
Galileo is at the center of POWER
Galileo continue to produce and accumulate power/knowledge
1624 Galileo travels to Rome; six audiences with Pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini) and numerous audiences with cardinals. Pope assured Galileo (according to Galileo) that he could write about the Copernican theory as long as he treated it as a mathematical hypothesis.
1627 Pope Urban VIII bestows a pension of 60 scudi per year on Galileo’s (illegitimate) son Vincenzio.
1630 Pope Urban VIII bestows a pension of 40 scudi per year on Galileo.
1630 "His Holiness has begun to treat of my affairs in a spirit which allows me to hope for a favorable result." Pope Urban VIII reiterated his previously stated view that if the book treated the contending views hypothetically and not absolutely, the book could be published.
1632 Riccardi (chief Vatican licenser) demands changes to the Preface but allows printing (in Florence and Rome).
1632 Dialogue (Concerning the Two Chief World Systems) is published
Dialogue (Concerning the Two Chief World Systems), 1632
Summoned before Bellarmine on February 25, 1616 and admonished, Galileo--according to a witness, Cardinal Oregius--"remained silent with all his science and thus showed that no less praiseworthy than his mind was his pious disposition." Oregius' account, and Galileo's own writings, indicate that Galileo did not "refuse to obey" the Church's admonition. It is assumed, therefore, that Galileo was not formally enjoined. Yet, surprisingly, in the Inquisition file there appeared the following entry:
At the palace, the usual residence of Lord Cardinal Bellarmine, the said Galileo, having been summoned and being present before the said Lord Cardinal, was...warned of the error of the aforesaid opinion and admonished to abandon it; and immediately thereafter...the said Galileo was by the said Commissary commanded and enjoined, in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether the said opinion that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves; nor further to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing; otherwise proceedings would be taken against him by the Holy Office; which injunction the said Galileo acquiesced in and promised to obey. .
1633 Galileo on trial
Two Conflicting Documents
Many things about the entry are suspicious. It appears in the Inquisition file where one would expect the actual Bellarmine injunction (if it existed) to appear. Moreover, the entry appears on the same page as the entry for the previous day--and every other report, legal act, and entry in the entire file begins at the top of a new page. It is widely believed by historians that the reported injunction of Galileo was "a false injunction": the injunction never happened, but a false report was maliciously planted in the file by one of Galileo's enemies. Seventeen years later, Galileo would stand before the Inquisition charged with violating an injunction that was, in all likelihood, never issued against him.
--Historian Stillman Drake
1633 Galileo on trial.
Two Conflicting Documents
“I had been summoned by the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine [in 1616] to abjure certain of my opinions and teachings and also to submit to penitence for them, I was thus
constrained to apply to his Eminence and to solicit him to furnish me with an attestation, explaining the cause for which I had been summoned before him; which attestation I obtained in his own handwriting, and it is the same that I now produce
with the present document. From this it clearly appears that it was merely announced to me that the doctrine attributed to Copernicus, of the motion of the
Earth and the stability of the Sun, must not be held or defended; but that, beyond this general announcement affecting everyone, there should have been ordered
anything to me in particular, no trace thereof appears in it.”
--Galileo’s defense, 1633 (while everybody else from 1616 meeting is dead)
Why does Galileo’s power/knowledge game end?
1. Widespread enmity and jealousy of Galileo among Jesuits and non-Jesuits (e.g. Dominicans) concerning who was to do science and how it was to be done
2. Previously friendly Barberini becomes Urban VIII, angry at being cast as “Simplicio”
3. Previously reasonable Urban VIII becomes increasingly paranoid about everything
4. Roman Inquisition (incl. Pope) needs to show its political strength and resolve to Spanish Inquisition (and Spain, in Thirty Years War)
5. Urban VIII wants to “send a message” to Tuscany and the Medicis for their lack of support in an earlier war
6. Playing out the “fall of the favorite”
The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene
6. Don’t insult your friends.
7. Galileo overplays his hand by including his argument of the tides -- a material argument about a real and not simply hypothetical world
Galileo’s defense: “It’s only a dialogue about a conjecture – I’m not defending it!”
Signs carry
denotative connotative performative
forces in a linguistic and cultural field
The earth moves around the sun is a statement of
power/knowledge.
What the Myth of Galileo Overshadows
c. 1590 1638
Mark Tansey, Coastline Measure
