Elements of Epistemology
	Chapter I Socrates and Plato
	Chapter II Corpus Aristotelicum
	Chapter III Laughing and Weeping Philosophers
	Chapter IV Skepticism and Stoicism
	Chapter V Scholastic Epistemology
	Chapter VI Friar Roger and Sir Francis Bacons
	Chapter VII Cosmology and Epistemology
	Chapter VIII Classic Protagonists of Epistemology
	Chapter IX The Sociologists
	Chapter X Logical Positivism and Beyond ...

Cosmology and epistemology

Ipse Dixit  Galileo Galilei's (1564-1642) nickname was 'the wrangler,' because of his caustic wit, nonconformity, and argumentativeness. This, together with him being a brilliant teacher with students flocking to his lectures (in academe, nothing else will infuriate colleagues more) made him many enemies. Galileo's contribution to epistemology is that he called attention to Aristotle's erroneous assertion that objects fall at accelerations proportional to their weights, i.e., the intuitively obvious argument that a heavier stone falls faster than a lighter stone. For centuries, the scientific reputation of Aristotle was such that statements were asserted without proof by the 'ipse dixit,' he himself (Aristotle) said it argument. Galileo used his timed (he counted his pulse to measure time) experiment - throwing objects from the (tilted) Pisa tower and measuring the time from their release to their impact to disprove the Aristotle's assertion. One of the first experiments carried after the landing of humans on the moon was the (successful) verification of the Galileo's free fall experiment. The epistemological implication of this Galileo vs. Aristotle controversy is that deference to authority is not a valid proof of assertions, arguments, hypotheses, or beliefs.

The primary reason behind Galileo's trial by Inquisition was his epistemology and not his cosmology. As most of the religion is based on proving assertions by references to the Bible, Galileo's prosecutor Cardinal Bellarmine was well aware that Galileo's epistemology is a greater threat to religion than his cosmology. He used the Galileo's cosmology (asserting the implausibility of the heliocentric system) as the pretext for his prosecution, as Galileo's cosmology was a lesser threat to religion than his epistemology. In hindsight, Bellarmine was correct. Religion was able to survive the prima facie evidence, provided by satellites, that the Biblical geocentric arguments are erroneous and recently, Pope John Paul apologized for Galileo's persecution. As the assertion that Bible is the 'verbum Dei' is ipsative, whether religion could survive acceptance of Galileo's epistemological canon is an open question. Pope John Paul's Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), a summary of the principles of the Christian religion, has over 3,000 quotations. About 1200 quotes are from the New Testament, 800 from the Old Testament, 760 from encyclicals, canon laws, and ecumenical councils and 300 from church fathers. Pope John Paul's catechism relies not on evidence, but on the ipse dixit type of arguments.

Cosmological Argument and the Solar System  The cosmological proof of God's existence revolved around the question of how the Earth came into being and how it will end. In Indias epic poem, "Rig-Veda," the primordial state was one of neither existence nor nonexistence, and no one, not even the Gods, knows who produced the universe. In Egypt, the God Khepri claims that before him, there was only non-being. When he came into being, being itself came into being, and all of the other beings were then produced from the fact of his existence. In Judea, God created Heaven and Earth ex nihilo and then shaped the Earth in seven days by giving verbal orders. The Hellenic civilization initially supported the heliocentric world system, first proposed by Aristarchus, (c.310-230 BC) in his book On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon where he accurately estimated the sizes of the Sun and of the Moon and their distances from the Earth. With the rise of Christianity, the heliocentric system was replaced by the geocentric world system. The geocentric system prevailed up to the times of Copernicus (14731543) and Kepler (15711630), who correctly described the celestial mechanics of the solar system.

Galactic Stage of the Cosmological Argument   The second stage of the cosmological proof of God's existence revolves around the questions of how the Universe came into being and how it will end. In 1902, Kapteyn who catalogued positions and brightness of almost a half-million stars and, using statistical methods, described their motions, observed that these motions were not random, but streamed in two opposite direction. Twenty-five years later, Jan Oort, using Kapteyns data, suggested that the two crossing streams of stars could be explained if our galaxy was spiral and rotating. This observation of galaxies also suggested that by looking at the Milky Way, we are looking toward the galactic center of where the stars are the densest.

The Big-Bang Theory   In 1927, Abbe Lemaitre suggested that our Universe is expanding and that it likely began with the 'big-bang,' i.e., with the explosive expansion of extremely condensed matter. The big bang theory was readily embraced since it tacitly implied that the universe could have been created. Subsequently, Albert Einstein postulated that the space-time universe is distorted due to gravitational effects.

If this curvature is positive, then the Universe has a finite, closed volume, and properties analogous to that of a spheroid. Its expansion will eventually stop and the red shifts of stars, marking the expanding Universe will become the blue shifts, characteristics of the contracting Universe. After a long but finite time interval, the universe will return to the state of again being a singularity of infinite density. At this moment, it will vanish, and, possibly, again be created during the next big bang.

If this curvature is negative, then the Universe has an infinite, open volume, and properties analogous to that of a hyperboloid. Its expansion will go on and, eventually, all the energy of the stars will be used up and the universe will vanish in the total darkness. There are so far, no definite answers with respect to the curvature of the universe and its final destiny.

Although the Big-Bang theory is widely accepted, the recent Symmetric theory of cosmology, named for the underlying symmetries which form the basis of the general theory of relativity, provides a viable alternative.

Devils Concubine  When advances in astronomy made Biblical fables about the creation of the terracentric world untenable, Martin Luther (1483-1546) was not able to reconcile his incisive reasoning with his faith. Like many others he was unable to renounce his belief even

though his reason was telling him that he was wrong. In desperation, he called reason

the devils concubine

and developed his sotereologic (from Gr. soteri(a) salvation) teaching around the central theme that people believe in Gods existence sola gratia, sola fide, and sola scriptura. That is, through faith given to them as a favor by God, and revealed in the Bible. Luther, who was well educated, had to realize that at his time the classical proofs of Gods existence were no longer tenable. What remained, unassailable by evidence, was faith. And it was faith that Luther embraced.

Those who believe God can be known only by faith that is a response to the Biblical revelation tend to be skeptical of philosophical proofs of Gods existence and maintain that the proofs of Gods existence by faith or by direct personal experience are more transcendental than the rational proofs. The assertions of God's existence by faith are intangible and stand aloof as ultimately unverifiable, purely personal mental constructs.

Some time ago there happened an alleged miracle in a southern Arizona town. The television commentator reporting the event asked a Franciscan monk for his opinion. The old man, confident that few would know he is quoting from Franz Werfel's Das Lied von Bernadette (1941) replied:

To those who believe, no proof is necessary.
To those who do not, no proof is possible.

The onset of Protestantism coincides with the time when the advances in sciences, especially astronomy, made the rational proofs of God's existence untenable and they thus had to be replaced by experiential (based on exaltation) and fiducial (based on trust) arguments that God exists.