Galileo Vs Aristotle: An Overview Of Galileo's Contributions As A Chief Founder Of Modern Science

Galileo vs Aristotle: An Overview of Galileo's Contributions as a Chief Founder of Modern Science.
1. Introduction
Men have always sought for explanations to the mysteries of the unknown, and imagination, an intrinsic characteristic of all men, has played a fundamental role in the development of these. In modern society, science and scientific knowledge has provided rational and convincingsolutions to most of these mysteries, to the point that society's growth and behavior is directly tied to scientific advancement, but most of the world's population remains untroubled by many questions that stay unsolved. It has not always been this way, the earliest explanations of the universe arose from mythic and religious thought, which were purely an unfocused exercise of imagination. InGreece, the cradle of western civilization, philosophy came, at first, to suffice the cognitive void left by religion, and last of all, science, as a systemic approach to knowledge. The Greek concept of science was much broader in the sense of how it's used today, which coincides with what was called 'natural philosophy', the study of nature and the physical world. Up until the seventeenth century, dueto this relation, science was directly guided by philosophy and presupposed an inability to develop freely from the Aristotelian dogmas that were established during the middle ages.
Galileo's importance for the formation of modern science did not depend solely in his discoveries in physics and astronomy but “much more in his refusal to allow science to be guided any longer by philosophy”(Drake, 18). His battle for the freedom of scientific inquiry would position him as “the father of modern physics – indeed, of modern science altogether” (Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions). The purpose of this paper is to give a brief introduction to the historical and ideological context experienced by Galileo and subsequently present his contributions to the foundation of modern science.

2.Aristotle
University education from the thirteen century up to the seventeenth century mainly consisted on the careful study of texts by Aristotle, commentaries on difficult passages of Aristotle, and debates around questions raised on them. Dante called Aristotle 'the Master of those who know', and during this time was regarded as 'The Philosopher', in capital letters. “All matters of Knowledgebelonged to Philosophy, just as all matters of faith belonged to Sacred Theology” (Drake, 28). Arthur Koestler summarizes the environment with a simple remark “Science, up to the Renaissance, consisted in a series of footnotes to Aristotle” (55). As he discusses in his chapter devoted to Aristotle, the reasons for his extraordinary influence are still a topic of debate but mainly, his holisticapproach to knowledge created an entire system that comprised 'all domains of knowledge' in various fields such as metaphysics, physics, biology, logic and epistemology. Physical science, physis, nature in Greek, was covered in multiple works, particularly in Physics, On Heavens and Meteorology. Grounding his science in philosophical principles, Aristotle recognized that reason was the highest giftof men and it's ultimate purpose was contemplation. Unlike Plato, his mentor, Aristotle was also interested in what he called “second philosophy”: physics, mechanics and biology. With the foundation of the Lyceum, he organized a school of scientific inquiry, defined scientific knowledge and justified the importance of sciences.(Lloyd, p122)

2.1 Aristotle's approach to science.
Aristotle'smethod of inquiry resembles similarly the method of modern research. The basics of his philosophy was to understand why things are as they are, and why they could not be otherwise. This led him to the formulation of two basic principles, identify the cause of things and it's ultimate purpose. In order to do so, the first step was to identify the subject of matter, review the accepted views on the...