Galileo's Interventionist Notion of Cause

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Author: Steffen DucheyneSteffen Ducheyne
Affiliation: Ghent University
Source: Causation 1500-2000, 2008
Keywords: causation, Galileo  [edit]

@inbook{ducheyne2008g,
    author = "Ducheyne, Steffen",
    title = {Galileo's Interventionist Notion of Cause},
    booktitle = "Causation 1500-2000",
    year = "2008"}

Synopsis

In this essay, I shall take up the theme of Galileo’s notion of cause, which has already received considerable attention. I shall argue that the participants in the debate as it stands have overlooked a striking and essential feature of Galileo's notion of cause. Galileo not only reformed natural philosophy, he also introduced a new notion of causality and integrated it in his scientific practice (hence, this new notion also has its methodological repercussions). Galileo’s conception of causality went hand in hand with his methodology (see section 3). Galileo's new notion of causality was closely intertwined with a new conception of how to discover causal relations. His new notion of causality focused on heuristics rather than on ontology. This is the main message of this essay. It is my claim that Galileo was trying to construct a new scientifically useful notion of causality. This new notion of causality is an interventionist notion. According to such a notion, causal relations can be discovered by actively exploring and manipulating natural processes. In order to know nature, we have to intervene in nature. Generally: if we wish to explore whether A is a cause of B, we will need to establish whether deliberate and purposive variations in A result in changes in B. If changes in A produce changes in B, the causal relation is established. It will be shown that this notion first emerged from Galileo's work in hydrostatics and came to full fecundity in his treatment of the tides.