Wilhelm Wundt Essay Example for Free

Wilhelm Wundt Essay Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt born on August 16th, 1832 in the German State of Baden was a philosopher, physician, professor and psychologist, and is considered by many as the â€Å"founder of modern psychology† or the â€Å"father of experimental psychology†. His contribution to psychology on a whole is noted favourably among modern psychologists; however, his labeling hence contribution to psychology as a science has distinguished him from many other prominent figures in the domain of psychology. He established the first laboratory committed exclusively to psychological research at the University in Leipzig, expanded experimental psychology as an established school of thought, developed the method of introspection which became the basis of the modern scientific method, wrote books and volumes of journals which channelled the spread of experimental psychology, and influenced different schools of thought such as structuralism and voluntarism. These were the major results of his efforts to pursue the study of human behavior in a systematic and scientific manner and his goal to establish psychology as a unique categorical science. Wundt, raised in a suburb called Neckarau, was the son of a Lutheran minister and grew up in an environment in which there were many scholars and intellectuals as both his parents’ families were made up of scholarly individuals such as historians, theologians, physicians and scientists. He therefore had a studious childhood and his education became solely the responsibility of his father’s assistant. His formal education began at the University of Tubingen, however, after staying for just one year he transferred to the University of Heidelberg where he became one of the top medical students in his class, graduated summa cum laude, and placed first in the state medical board examination (B. R. Hergenhahn, 2009). After graduating with his medical degree, he went on to the University of Berlin where he spent a year and after returned to Heidelberg where he became the lab assistant of famous physiologist Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz. It was during this tenure with von Helmholtz that Wundt began to develop his theory that psychology was a natural science. This influenced him to give lectures on his scientific approach to psychology and write his first book called Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception which in essence paved the way for his journey in proving psychology to be a science. Wundt remained at Heidelberg until 1874 when he got an offer to be a Professor of inductive philosophy at Zurich University in Switzerland. After staying there for a year he received an appointment to teach philosophy at the University of Leipzig back home in Germany which he accepted and stayed until his death in 1920. The scientific approach by Wundt had soon come to be known as ‘Wundtian psychology’ because of its difference from what is was known as before him. The roots of psychology are quite archaic and are in fact dated back centuries to the early Greeks such as Aristotle and Hippocrates who had contrasting views of whether the heart or the brain was the seat of the mind. Glassman Hadad (2009) believed that generally psychology emerged from two traditions: philosophy and the natural science. Philosophers were always interested in understanding the meaning of human experience and perception. This interest sparked several studies which â€Å"set the stage for the development of the sciences, including psychology, through their reliance on observation as a means of knowing their world† (Kasschau, 2003, p. 15). One such philosopher was John Locke who showed his interest in deliberating the role of learning in behaviour when he wrote his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which was published in 1690. Seventeenth century philosophers had introduced and popularized the idea of dualism, the concept that the mind and body are separate and distinct. Another famous philosopher Rene Descartes agreed with this idea; however he purported that there was still some interaction between mind and body. He had a mechanistic view of a human behaviour and reasoned that the mind and body influence each other to create a person’s experiences. He saw the mind as controlling the body’s movements, sensations, and perceptions. The scientific interests of psychology can also be dated back thousands of years with physicians such as Galen and Hippocrates who propelled their views of brain function. One scientist who emphatically influenced psychology was Isaac Newton. His work in physics helped to develop a scientific ‘method’ â€Å"consisting of observation, the formulation of hypotheses designed to predict events and outcomes and the subsequent testing of these hypotheses through further observation† (Watts, 2010). These elements remain central to the scientific method that is generally used in psychology. Also having great impact on psychology was Newton’s application of those methods and his theory of mechanical determinism. It was therefore believed that sciences such as biology, chemistry, physics and physiology had influenced aspects of psychology. Basically psychology was a combination or hybrid of different scientific fields and philosophy and was not seen as a distinct science. Philosophers such as Galileo, August Comte and Immanuel Kant rejected psychology as a science because they believed that it was outside the realm of science. Comte is noted famously for his exclusion of psychology from the classification of sciences which he wrote about in one of his famous writings Course of Positive Philosophy. John Stuart Mill, who was deeply influenced by and admired by Comte and his writings, disagreed with this exclusion. Mill voiced his objection of this exclusion and was of the opinion that psychology could become a science which he stated in his System of Logic in 1843; however, it needed someone with the scholarship and knowledge of how observation and experiments are made. Although Mill was of this position he did not go as far as to try to achieve this goal and only talked about doing psychological experiments; but Wundt took up the responsibility and actually did them. Therefore it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s that was the time when psychology broke away from philosophy and became a separate field of study (Plotnik Kouyoumdjian, 2011). Wundt believed that experimentation could be used to study only the simple processes of the mind but could not be used to study the more complex mental processes; however he did propose that it could help in the understanding of the higher mental processes. George A. Miller (1998) states that â€Å"For Wundt, psychology involved the analysis of consciousness into elements, the determination of the manner in which these elements are connected, and the determination of the laws of connection. This conception he borrowed from the British empiricists. Just as chemists had analyzed matter into atoms and anatomists had analyzed living systems into cells, psychologists, he decided, must analyze mind into the elementary sensations and feelings that make it up†.

Consilience, by Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig :: Philosophy Term Research Papers

The Philosophy of Science in Consilience, by E. O. Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig Introduction The plot where the fields of science, ethics and religion intersect is fertile for study, and the crops it yields often represent the finest harvest of an individualà ­s mind. In our time, modern philosophers of science have tilled this soil and reaped widely differing and important conclusions about the nature of humankind, its relationship to the natural world and the role that science should take in the discernment process. Through the comparison and contrasting of three important worldviewsà ³as expressed in Consilience, by E. O. Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsigà ³the seeds of philosophy and faith can be sown in the budding scientistà ­s psyche, and a bumper crop of beliefs cultivated. History of the Philosophy of Science The surest foundation for the origin of science in its practical form is to be found in the à ¬co–rdination and standardization of the knowledge of common sense and of industry.à ®[1] One of the first occurrences of this co–rdination can be traced back to 2500 BCE in the form of edicts from the ancient Babylonian rulers, who issued royal standards of length, weight and capacity. Non-Semitic Sumerians also laid down the elements of mathematics and geometry at that time, making use of fractions, decimals, circles and radial angles. But knowledge as we know it today was tightly woven with magical notions, and as both spread westward they instilled in European thought a reverence for à ¬special numbers, their connections to the gods and the application of geometrical diagrams to the prediction of the future.à ®[2] As well, the ancient Babylonians were fascinated by the heavens. They were the first to make a map of the stars and associate them with animals like the Ram, Crab and Scorpion, names that we still use to this day. They also realized the periodicity and reliability of astronomical movement and phenomena, and were soon able to predict many of them. Tablets have been found dating to the sixth century BCE that predicted the relative positions of the sun and moon, as well as forecasted the occurrences of eclipses.[3] Out of all this knowledge the Babylonians built up a fantastic system of astrology, through which the starsà ³which were thought to fix and foretell the course of human affairsà ³would give up their secrets. Consilience, by Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig :: Philosophy Term Research Papers The Philosophy of Science in Consilience, by E. O. Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig Introduction The plot where the fields of science, ethics and religion intersect is fertile for study, and the crops it yields often represent the finest harvest of an individualà ­s mind. In our time, modern philosophers of science have tilled this soil and reaped widely differing and important conclusions about the nature of humankind, its relationship to the natural world and the role that science should take in the discernment process. Through the comparison and contrasting of three important worldviewsà ³as expressed in Consilience, by E. O. Wilson, Life is a Miracle by Wendell Berry and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsigà ³the seeds of philosophy and faith can be sown in the budding scientistà ­s psyche, and a bumper crop of beliefs cultivated. History of the Philosophy of Science The surest foundation for the origin of science in its practical form is to be found in the à ¬co–rdination and standardization of the knowledge of common sense and of industry.à ®[1] One of the first occurrences of this co–rdination can be traced back to 2500 BCE in the form of edicts from the ancient Babylonian rulers, who issued royal standards of length, weight and capacity. Non-Semitic Sumerians also laid down the elements of mathematics and geometry at that time, making use of fractions, decimals, circles and radial angles. But knowledge as we know it today was tightly woven with magical notions, and as both spread westward they instilled in European thought a reverence for à ¬special numbers, their connections to the gods and the application of geometrical diagrams to the prediction of the future.à ®[2] As well, the ancient Babylonians were fascinated by the heavens. They were the first to make a map of the stars and associate them with animals like the Ram, Crab and Scorpion, names that we still use to this day. They also realized the periodicity and reliability of astronomical movement and phenomena, and were soon able to predict many of them. Tablets have been found dating to the sixth century BCE that predicted the relative positions of the sun and moon, as well as forecasted the occurrences of eclipses.[3] Out of all this knowledge the Babylonians built up a fantastic system of astrology, through which the starsà ³which were thought to fix and foretell the course of human affairsà ³would give up their secrets.

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Over the last several years I have been working on and off award an additional degree in Education. I am currently working for the El Paso Independent School District as a classroom instructor, as well as a curriculum writer in US History. I look forward to having you in class. Course Description This course provides an overview of the principal cultural, political, and economic developments that shaped Western civilization from prehistory to the Middle Ages. It presents a framework for understanding current social experience by applying historical perspectives to contemporary issues.After the course, students will be able o use historical knowledge to solve contemporary issues. Policies Faculty and students/learners will be held responsible for understanding and adhering to all policies contained within the following two documents: University policies: You must be logged into the student website to view this document. Instructor policies: This document is posted in the Course Materi als forum. University policies are subject to change. Be sure to read the policies at the beginning of each class. Policies may be slightly different depending on the modality in which you attend class.If you have recently changed modalities, read the policies overriding your current class modality. Course Materials The West: Encounters and Transformations, Combined Volume, e ISBN: 9780205947157 Author: nana Elevate Copyright Pearson Education, Inc. (2014) All electronic materials are available on the student website Week One: Prehistory and the Ancient World Details Due Points Objectives 1. 1 Explain the significance of the transition from the Paleolithic era to the Neolithic era. 1. 2 Compare the cultural, political, and economic developments of Mesopotamia and Egypt.Readings Read Chi. 1 The West: Encounters and Transformations, Combined Volume, e Read Unhistorical: Issue of the Day: From Hunter-gatherers to Food-producers – Overcoming Obstacles Read Unhistorical: Issue of the Day: Geography and Civilization: Egypt and Mesopotamia – Impact of Agriculture? Attendance & Participation Attendance & Participate in class discussion. 8/06 2 Talking Respond to weekly discussion questions. Choose 2 questions to answer and post each week by pm. Week 1 Talking Points What is an important discovery from prehistory? Why is it important?What are the differences between the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras? What is important about the development of human history when we consider the preferences between these two eras? How were the worldviews of the Mesopotamia and Egyptians similar? How were they different? What factors have influenced the way each of these cultures developed their worldviews? What kind of evidence do we have in order to comprehend prehistory and the ancient civilizations? Does the evidence offer a clear picture of these time periods? Why or why not? Which era of Egyptian history was the most successful?Why? Individual Prehistory and the Ancie nt Civilizations Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper in which you explain the significance of the ruinations of humankind from a hunter-gatherer society to a food-producing society. Include the following: A description of the Paleolithic era Events that transformed society from the Paleolithic era to the Neolithic era A description of Neolithic era An explanation of how the transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic was significant in the development of Mesopotamia and Egypt Format your paper consistent with PAP guidelines.Galoshes (before 2000 BCC)-?Earliest known fully-developed literary character )d First written language on cuneiform clay tablets )e Elaborate art work, mosaics (Standard of Our) )f First systematic polytheistic religion 01 Sights: goddess of love, fertility, and wars 02 Elaborate temple rituals in auguries 03 Religion in Sumerian Oh Sacred literature b Influence on Hebrew Bible )g Babylon under reign of Hamburg (1792-1750 BCC) – powerful cultural and political center 01 Code of Hamburg Oh Collection of laws b Earliest evidence of legal system Co Guarantees protection of slaves, women, and childrenOdd Governs complex Babylonian commerce system Oh Principle of Justice is retribution 02 Advancements in mathematics and astronomy 03 Jargon, king of Kodak – Most important figure in Mesopotamia history )2 Political and economic developments of Mesopotamia )a Several dynasties develop concept of monarchy )b Assyria (northern district of Sumerian)-?kings are chief priests )c Babylonian-?kings and priests have separate offices )d In later stages, influx and intermingling of various cultures, such as Hitters and Assyrian )e Expansion into Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Palestine, and Egypt under

Galileo Galilei, Renaissance Philosopher and Inventor

Galileo Galilei (February 15, 1564–January 8, 1642) was a famous inventor, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher whose inventive mind and stubborn nature ran him into trouble with the Inquisition. Fast Facts: Galileo Galilei Known For: Italian Renaissance philosopher, inventor, and polymath who faced the wrath of the Inquisition for his astronomical studiesBorn: February 15, 1564 in Pisa, ItalyParents: Vincenzo and Giulia Ammannati Galilei (m. July 5, 1562)Died: January 8, 1642 in Arcetri, ItalyEducation: Privately tutored; Jesuit monastery, University of PisaPublished Works: The Starry MessengerSpouse: None; Marina Gamba, mistress (1600–1610)Children: Virginia (1600), Livia Antonia (1601), Vincenzo (1606) Early Life Galileo was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564, the oldest of seven children of Giulia Ammannati and Vincenzo Galilei. His father (c. 1525–1591) was a gifted lute musician and wool trader and wanted his son to study medicine because there was more money in that field. Vincenzo was attached to the court and was often traveling. The family was originally named Bonaiuti, but they had an illustrious ancestor named Galileo Bonaiuti  (1370–1450) who was a physician and public officer in Pisa. One branch of the family broke off and began calling itself Galilei (of Galileo), and so Galileo Galilei was doubly named after him. As a child, Galileo made mechanical models of ships and watermills, learned to play the lute to a professional standard, and showed an aptitude for painting and drawing. Originally tutored by a man named Jacopo Borghini, Galileo was sent to the Camaldlese monastery at Vallambroso to study grammar, logic, and rhetoric. He found the contemplative life to his liking, and after four years he joined the community as a novice. This was not exactly what his father had in mind, so Galileo was hastily withdrawn from the monastery. In 1581 at the age of 17, he entered the University of Pisa to study medicine, as his father wished. The University of Pisa At age 20, Galileo noticed a lamp swinging overhead while he was in a cathedral. Curious to find out how long it took the lamp to swing back and forth, he used his pulse to time large and small swings. Galileo discovered something that no one else had ever realized: the period of each swing was exactly the same. The law of the pendulum, which would eventually be used to regulate clocks, made Galileo Galilei instantly famous. Except for mathematics, Galileo was soon bored with the university and the study of medicine. Uninvited, he attended the lecture of court mathematician Ostilio Ricci—who had been assigned by the Duke of Tuscany to teach the court attendants in math, and Galileo was not one of those. Galileo followed up the lecture by reading Euclid on his own; he sent a set of questions to Ricci, the content of which greatly impressed the scholar. Galileos family considered his mathematical studies subsidiary to medicine, but when Vincenzo was informed that their son was in danger of flunking out, he worked out a compromise so that Galileo could be tutored in mathematics by Ricci full-time. Galileos father was hardly overjoyed about this turn of events because a mathematicians earning power was roughly around that of a musician, but it seemed that this might yet allow Galileo to successfully complete his college education. The compromise didnt work out, for Galileo soon left the University of Pisa without a degree. Becoming a Mathematician After he flunked out, Galileo started tutoring students in mathematics to earn a living. He did some experimenting with floating objects, developing a balance that could tell him that a piece of gold, for example, was 19.3 times heavier than the same volume of water. He also started campaigning for his lifes ambition: a position on the mathematics faculty at a major university. Although Galileo was clearly brilliant, he had offended many people in the field and they would choose other candidates for vacancies. Ironically, it was a lecture on literature that would turn Galileos fortunes. The Academy of Florence had been arguing over a 100-year-old controversy: what were the location, shape, and dimensions of Dantes Inferno? Galileo wanted to seriously answer the question from the point of view of a scientist. Extrapolating from Dantes line that the giant Nimrods face was about as long/and just as wide as St. Peters cone in Rome, Galileo deduced that Lucifer himself was 2,000 arm-lengths long. The audience was impressed, and within the year, Galileo had received a three-year appointment to the University of Pisa, the same university that never granted him a degree. The Leaning Tower of Pisa When Galileo arrived at the University, some debate had started up on one of Aristotles laws of nature: that heavier objects fell faster than lighter objects. Aristotles word had been accepted as gospel truth, and there had been few attempts to actually test Aristotles conclusions by actually conducting an experiment. According to legend, Galileo decided to try. He needed to be able to drop the objects from a great height. The perfect building was right at hand—the Tower of Pisa, which was 54 meters (177 feet) tall. Galileo climbed to the top of the building carrying a variety of balls of varying sizes and weights  and dumped them off the top. They all landed at the base of the building at the same time (legend says that the demonstration was witnessed by a huge crowd of students and professors). Aristotle was wrong. It might have helped the junior member of the faculty if Galileo had not continued to behave rudely toward his colleagues. Men are like wine flasks, he once said to a group of students, Look at†¦bottles with the handsome labels. When you taste them, they are full of air or perfume or rouge. These are bottles fit only to pee into! Perhaps not surprisingly, the University of Pisa chose not to renew Galileos contract. The University of Padua Galileo Galilei moved on to the University of Padua. By 1593, he was desperate and in need of additional cash. His father had died, so Galileo was now head of his family. Debts were pressing down on him, most notably the dowry for one of his sisters, which was to be paid in installments over decades. (A dowry could be thousands of crowns, and Galileos annual salary was 180 crowns.) Debtors prison was a real threat if Galileo returned to Florence. What Galileo needed was to come up with some sort of device that could make him a tidy profit. A rudimentary thermometer (which, for the first time, allowed temperature variations to be measured) and an ingenious device to raise water from aquifers found no market. He found greater success in 1596 with a military compass that could be used to accurately aim cannonballs. A modified civilian version that could be used for land surveying came out in 1597 and ended up earning a fair amount of money for Galileo. It helped his profit margin that the instruments were sold for three times the cost of manufacture, he offered classes on how to use the instrument, and the actual toolmaker was paid dirt-poor wages. Galileo needed the money to support his siblings, his mistress (21-year-old Marina Gamba), and his three children (two daughters and a boy). By 1602, Galileos name was famous enough to help bring in students to the University, where Galileo was busily experimenting with magnets. Building a Spyglass (Telescope) During a vacation to Venice in 1609, Galileo Galilei heard rumors that a Dutch spectacle-maker had invented a device that made distant objects seem near at hand (at first called the spyglass and later  renamed the  telescope). A patent had been requested, but not yet granted. The methods were being kept secret because it was obviously of tremendous military value for Holland. Galileo Galilei was determined to attempt to construct his own spyglass. After a frantic 24 hours of experimentation, working only on instinct and bits of rumors—he had never actually seen the Dutch spyglass—he built a three-power telescope. After some refinement, he brought a 10-power telescope to Venice and demonstrated it to a highly impressed Senate. His salary was promptly raised, and he was honored with proclamations. Galileos Observations of the Moon If he had stopped here and become a man of wealth and leisure, Galileo Galilei might be a mere footnote in history. Instead, a revolution started when, one fall evening, the scientist trained his telescope on an object in the sky that all people at that time believed must be a perfect, smooth, polished heavenly body—the moon. To his astonishment, Galileo Galilei viewed a surface that was uneven, rough, and full of cavities and prominences. Many people insisted that Galileo Galilei was wrong, including a mathematician who insisted that even if Galileo was seeing a rough surface on the Moon, that only meant that the entire moon had to be covered in invisible, transparent, smooth crystal. Discovery of Jupiters Satellites Months passed, and his telescopes improved. On January 7, 1610, he turned his 30-power telescope toward Jupiter and found three small, bright stars near the planet. One was off to the west, the other two were to the east, all three in a straight line. The following evening, Galileo once again took a look at Jupiter and found that all three of the stars were now west of the planet, still in a straight line. Observations over the following weeks led Galileo to the inescapable conclusion that these small stars were actually small satellites that were rotating around Jupiter. If there were satellites that didnt move around the Earth, wasnt it possible that the Earth was not the center of the universe? Couldnt the  Copernican  idea of the sun resting at the center of the solar system be correct? Galileo Galilei published his findings in a small book titled The Starry Messenger. A total of 550 copies were published in March 1610, to tremendous public acclaim and excitement. It was the only one of Galileos writings in Latin; most of his work was published in Tuscan. Seeing Saturns Rings There continued to be more discoveries via the new telescope: the appearance of bumps next to the planet Saturn (Galileo thought they were companion stars; the stars were actually the edges of Saturns rings), spots on the Suns surface (though others had actually seen the spots before), and seeing Venus change from a full disk to a sliver of light. For Galileo Galilei, saying that the Earth went around the Sun changed everything since he was contradicting the teachings of the Catholic Church. While some of the churchs mathematicians wrote that his observations were clearly correct, many members of the church believed that he must be wrong. In December 1613, one of the scientists friends told him how a powerful member of the nobility said that she could not see how his observations could be true since they would contradict the Bible. The woman quoted a passage in Joshua in which God causes the sun to stand still and lengthen the day. How could this mean anything other than that the sun went around the Earth? Charged With Heresy Galileo was a religious man and agreed that the Bible could never be wrong. However, he said, the interpreters of the Bible could make mistakes, and it was a mistake to assume that the Bible had to be taken literally. That was one of Galileos major mistakes. At that time, only church priests were allowed to interpret the Bible or define Gods intentions. It was absolutely unthinkable for a mere member of the public to do so. Some of the church clergy started responding, accusing him of heresy. Some clerics went to the Inquisition, the Catholic Church court that investigated charges of heresy, and formally accused Galileo Galilei. This was a very serious matter. In 1600, a man named Giordano Bruno was convicted of being a heretic for believing that the Earth moved about the sun and that there were many planets throughout the universe where life—living creations of God—existed. Bruno was burned to death. However, Galileo was found innocent of all charges and was cautioned not to teach the Copernican system. Sixteen years later, all that would change. The Final Trial The following years saw Galileo work on other projects. With his telescope he watched the movements of Jupiters moons, recorded them as a list, and then came up with a way to use these measurements as a navigation tool. He developed a contraption that would allow a ship captain to navigate with his hands on the wheel, but the contraption looked like a horned helmet. As another amusement, Galileo started writing about ocean tides. Instead of writing his arguments as a scientific paper, he found that it was much more interesting to have an imaginary conversation, or dialogue, between three fictional characters. One character, who would support Galileos side of the argument, was brilliant. Another character would be open to either side of the argument. The final character, named Simplicio, was dogmatic and foolish, representing all of Galileos enemies who ignored any evidence that Galileo was right. Soon, he wrote up a similar dialogue called Dialogue on the Two Great Systems of the World. This book talked about the Copernican system. Inquisition and Death Dialogue was an immediate hit with the public, but not, of course, with the church. The pope suspected that he was the model for Simplicio. He ordered the book banned and also ordered the scientist to appear before the Inquisition in Rome for the crime of teaching the Copernican theory after being ordered not to do so. Galileo Galilei was 68 years old and sick. Threatened with torture, he publicly confessed that he had been wrong to have said that the Earth moves around the Sun. Legend then has it that after his confession, Galileo quietly whispered, and yet, it moves. Unlike many less famous prisoners, he was allowed to live under house arrest in his house outside of Florence and near one of his daughters, a nun. Until his death in 1642, he continued to investigate other areas of science. Amazingly, he even published a book on force and motion although he had been blinded by an eye infection. The Vatican Pardons Galileo in 1992 The Church eventually lifted the ban on Galileos Dialogue in 1822—by that time, it was common knowledge that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. Still later, there were statements by the Vatican Council in the early 1960s and in 1979 that implied that Galileo was pardoned and that he had suffered at the hands of the church. Finally, in 1992, three years after Galileo Galileis namesake had been launched on its way to Jupiter, the Vatican formally and publicly cleared Galileo of any wrongdoing. Sources Drake, Stillman. Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications Inc., 2003.Reston, Jr., James. Galileo: A Life. Washington DC: BeardBooks, 2000.  Van Helden, Albert. Galileo: Italian Philosopher, Astronomer and Mathematician. Encyclopedia Britannica, February 11, 2019.Wootton, David. Galileo: Watcher of the Skies. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2010.