Caverni, Raffaello, Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia, 1891-1900

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                  <pb xlink:href="020/01/016.jpg" pagenum="xvii"/>
                And thus “we must consider it quite a rare event and receive with all the
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                more satisfaction this
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                Storia del metodo sperimentale in Italia,
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                whose author
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                shows himself not unequal both in scholarship and narrative art to the high
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                and difficult task he sets himself.” After masterfully condensing and com­
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                menting on the vast contents of the part already published, Schiaparelli,
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                expert of ancient and modern science that he was, comments on certain of
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                Caverni's opinions and “demonstrations”: “He feels a strong attraction to
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                some of his personages and just as pronounced an antipathy for others His
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                enthusiasm for Plato is truly excessive ... without considering that Platonic
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                speculation is the exact antithesis of the experimental method.... On the
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                contrary, according to Caverni, Aristotle is the evil star,” while “it is commonly
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                held that that great thinker was instead one of the greatest observers of
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                antiquity and not even altogether unfamiliar with the art of experimentation.
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                ... Obviously Caverni has confused Aristotle with the peripatetics of low
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                extraction who were contemporaries of Galileo.” (We can readily agree with
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                Schiaparelli that Caverni, who never did things halfway, exaggerated some­
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                what in refusing to recognize any Aristotelian components in the currents of
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                thought that determined the scientific method. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">As for Plato, however, para­
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                doxical as it may seem, we must agree with Caverni who sees him as the true,
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                great inspirer of the decisive turn of knowledge from Copernicus to Galileo. </foreign>
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                Plato, in fact, scorned the casual and unconditioned
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                experience
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                of our senses, not
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                  <emph type="italics"/>
                experimentation
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                which in its artificiality is a completely different thing and is
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                intimately bound to abstractions of the Platonic type!) At this point close to
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                the end of his long review, the great astronomer of Brera, after saying “I have
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                not found another work comparable to this in our scientific literature, unless it
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                be the
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                Storia delle Matematiche in Italia
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                by Gugliemo Libri,” comes to the
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                burning question, that of the so-called anti-Galilean Caverni: “He is a great
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                admirer of the science of Galileo, but this does not prevent him from presenting
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                the nature of it in a paradoxical light. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">According to Caverni, Galileo was a
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                common egoist, a scientific pirate, constantly spying for the opportunity to rob
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                his predecessors, his contemporaries, his friends, his disciples, of the merit of
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                their inventions and discoveries, to attribute everything to himself ... to be
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                the only King in the realm of the new science. </foreign>
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                <foreign lang="en">And with this accusation,
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                Caverni calls for a new trial of Galileo, quite different from the ones he under­
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                went during his lifetime and one which no one would have ever thought of....
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                He takes it upon himself to strip as much as possible the laurels which circle the
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                brows of the great old man of Arcetri and this constant concern sometimes leads
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                to curious errors.... Fortunately these errors in judgment, which one en­
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                counters here and there in the
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                Discorso preliminare,
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                occur more rarely in the
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                specific part of the work.” (Actually, only the first volume had by then
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                appeared.) “And let all this be said not for the mania of finding fault, of looking
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                for spots on the sun, but to show that the praises of Caverni's work given here
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                are the result of an impartial and pondered study of it.” And reviewing the </foreign>
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