File feyerabend/feyerabend.0504, message 7


Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2005 20:17:57 +0100
From: Paul Newall <hugoholbling-AT-gmail.com>
To: feyerabend-driftline.org-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [PKF] Feyerand and the new Pope
Cc: Feyerabend List <feyerabend-AT-driftline.org>,


As I understand it, Ratzinger gave an interview in the Corriere della
Sera of March 30, 1990, in which he quoted from Feyerabend. The
relevant passage reads:

"Se qui entrambe le sfere di conoscenza vengono ancora chiaramente
differenziate fra loro sotto il profilo metodologico, riconoscendone
sia i limiti che i rispettivi diritti, molto pi=F9 drastico appare
invece un giudizio sintetico del filosofo agnostico-scettico P.
Feyerabend. Egli scrive:

"La Chiesa dell'epoca di Galileo si attenne alla ragione pi=F9 che lo
stesso Galileo, e prese in considerazione anche le conseguenze etiche
e sociali della dottrina galileiana. La sua sentenza contro Galileo fu
razionale e giusta, e solo per motivi di opportunit=E0 politica se ne
pu=F2 legittimare la revisione."

Here Ratzinger was quoting from the heading of chapter 13 of
Feyerabend's Against Method; that is:

"The Church at the time of Galileo not only kept closer to reason as
defined then and, in part, even now; it also considered the ethical
and social consequences of Galileo's views. Its indictment of Galileo
was rational and only opportunism and a lack of perspective can demand
a revision." (p125 in the Verso 2002 edition)

Ratzinger's comment reads (paraphrased, with apologies for my poor
Italian) "if we distinguish between methodological spheres and
acknowledge their limits, we arrive at a more synthetic position like
that of the agnostic-skeptic philosopher P. Feyerabend". Feyerabend
himself commented on this talk of Ratzinger's in a footnote to the
13th chapter (2002 edition, n20, pp133-134), saying that Ratzinger had
"formulated the problem in a way that would make a revision of the
judgement [i.e. Poupard's, following the work of the Commission set up
by John Paul II under his direction] anachronistic and pointless."
Feyerabend added that he had responded to Ratzinger's speech in two
interviews, one in Il Sabato of 12 May 1990 and the other in La
Repubblica of 14 July 1990, but I have been unable thus far to read
these.

The idea that the Church had acted "more rationally" in its dealings
with Galileo was given its most detailed defence by Feyerabend in his
talk to the Crakow Conference of 24-27 May 1984, entitled "Galileo and
the Tyranny of Truth" (reprinted in "Farewell to Reason"). Severe
critique of Poupard's (non-)resolution can be found in Annibale
Fantoli's work, particularly his "Galileo and the Catholic Church: A
Critique of the "Closure" of the Galileo Commission's Work" (Specola
Vaticana, 2002). I myself have discussed why Feyerabend's argument
fails (http://www.galilean-library.org/galileo3.html#pos with more
detail at http://www.galilean-library.org/bible.html ), but the basic
point is that the interpretive principle arrived at by Bellarmine in
his "Letter to Foscarini" rendered any possibility of development in
the Church's attitude to heliocentrism or geokineticism impossible due
to the insistence that the Bible passages ostensibly contradicting
either were to be considered a matter of faith ex parte dicentis. Both
Feyerabend and Ratzinger were mistaken on this issue, then, since
calling this approach more rational than Galileo's is absurd.

Paul Newall.

P.S. I'm new to this list, so I hope I sent it to the correct address
and didn't include too many deliberate typos.

On 4/25/05, John Preston <j.m.preston-AT-reading.ac.uk> wrote:
> Has anyone noticed Feyerabend's reference to the new pope?:
>
> [Around 1990?] 'Cardinal Ratzinger, the pope's expert on doctrinal
> affairs, gave a talk in Parma about Galileo and mentioned me in support
> of his views' (Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend
> (1995), p.178).
>
> Feyerabend doesn't mention whether he appreciated this reference, but
> one of the more interesting (but perhaps not reverential?) photos in the middle pages of his
> autobiography is captioned with this very quote.
>
> John Preston,
> Department of Philosophy,
> The University of Reading,
> England.
>
> _______________________________________________
> List address: feyerabend-AT-driftline.org
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>
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