Edelman On Galileo Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 9):

In Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead observed that in inventing mathematical physics, Galileo removed the mind from nature.  By this figure of speech, I suppose he meant that Galileo insisted that the observer must be objective, that he must avoid the vexing disputes of Aristotelian philosophers over matters of causation. A scientist should instead make measurements according to a model with no human projection or intention built into it and then search for correlative uniformities or laws that either support or disconfirm his or her claims. 

This procedure has worked magnificently for physics and its companion sciences.  Isaac Newton stands as the triumphant figure of its first full flowering.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, as Kœstler (1979: 476-7) observed — see previous post here — Galileo removed the mind from nature through his distinction between primary qualities (e.g. the position and motion of bodies) and secondary qualities (e.g. odours and sounds), identifying only the former as the domain of scientific description, as expressed in the following excerpt from his Il Saggiatore:

To excite in us tastes, odours, and sounds I believe that nothing is required in external bodies except shapes, numbers, and slow or rapid movements. I think that if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, shapes and numbers and motions would remain, but not odours or tastes or sounds. The latter, I believe, are nothing more than names when separated from living beings.

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, this is the distinction between quantifiable semiotic construals of visual experience and all other semiotic construals of experience.

This is distinct from Edelman's distinction between 'objective' and 'projective' which, from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, is the distinction between the projected ideas of cognitive and desiderative mental processes, that is: the distinction between thoughts and desires.