Notes on the Scientific Instruments in Galileo

Abstract

In the first part of this paper, we try to characterize the concept of instrumentalism analyzing the astronomical, political and theological problems that led to the contraposition of such epistemological program ”” that reduces science to the work of "saving appearances" ”” to the conception of science that culminated with the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the second part, we show that there is a certain conception of mathematical knowledge that aligns with instrumentalism, but that there is also another conception, supported by Galileo, that considers mathematics as an expression of structural relations constitutive of physical reality itself. In the third part, we defend that, against the idea of ”‹”‹instrument contained in the instrumentalist program, Galileo understands his scientific instruments as theories in concrete and operant state. To demonstrate such interpretation, we have examined Galileo's positions on the use of some of the scientific instruments he has made, namely, the military-geometric compass, the hydrostatic scale, and the telescope.