Maurice Finocchiaro (Philosophy emeritus) has just published his 16th book, entitled Science, Method, and Argument in Galileo: Philosophical, Historical, and Historiographical Essays. The book is a collection of 24 essays, all but three previously published during the last 50 years. Their two-fold focus is argumentation and Galileo. The book is volume 40 of a series labeled “Argumentation Library.”
These essays are methodological and logical analyses of arguments such as the following: arguments by Galileo, about the physics of falling bocies and the astronomical theory of the Earth’s motion; arguments by his critics and by his supporters, about his trial and condemnation by the Inquisition; and arguments by historians and by philosophers, aiming to understand and to evaluate his scientific achievements and his Inquisition trial.
Some of the essays are comparisons and contrasts of argumentation by Galileo and by other important thinkers; for example, one of them is entitled “Socrates, Galileo, and Marx as Critical Thinkers,” and is a description of the course “Introduction to Philosophy” which Finocchiaro taught at UNLV for 33 years.
