Maurice Finocchiaro (Philosophy) has just published his fourteenth book, The Trial of Galileo: Essential Documents (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2014). It is a collection of the most important writings leading to the 1633 Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo, who was suspected of heresy for defending Copernicus's…

Maurice Finocchiaro (Philosophy) delivered a public lecture, "Galileo: Science, Religion, and Philosophy," at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London on July 8. This was part of a year-long series of lectures on "People Who Changed the World," which also includes lectures on Jesus, St. Paul, Luther, Muhammad, Socrates, Shakespeare, Isaac Newton,…

Maurice Finocchiaro (Philosophy) will give a talk, "The Galileo Affair: Facts and Issues, Then and Now," at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on June 6. Finocchiaro, MIT '64, will participate in the "Class Speaker Program," which is part of the 50th reunion of the MIT class of 1964.

Maurice Finocchiaro (Philosophy) just has published a book, The Routledge Guidebook to Galileo's Dialogue (Routledge--Taylor & Francis Group, 2013). It is a volume in a series called "Routledge Guides to the Great Books." The great book in question is Galileo Galilei's Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican, whose…

Maurice Finocchiaro (Philosophy) is the author of Meta-argumentation: An Approach to Logic and Argumentation Theory, which was published in March by College Publications (London). It is volume 42 of their series of "Studies in Logic." The book deals with meta-arguments, which are arguments about arguments. As such, it provides a study of the…

Maurice Finocchiaro (Philosophy) gave a colloquium talk at the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society in February. It was titled "The Galileo Affair and the Berkeley Para-clericals." In 1633, Galileo was tried and condemned by the Inquisition for defending Copernicus' hypothesis of the earth's…

Todd Jones (Philosophy) recently was announced as a winner of the American Philosophical Association's "Best Op-Eds by Philosophers" contest. He won for his article, "Budgetary Hemlock," which appeared in the Boston Review. The article was about the importance of public funding for education in general and for philosophy in particular.