You can't handle the Truth

September 11, 2007 8:27 PM

A long time ago I read in a larger work of fiction a story about Truth. The story compared Galileo to another person in history. Galileo recanted in front of the Church the truth he spoke about the Earth orbiting the Sun because his belief in it did not matter to the truth of the statement ("and yet she moves"). The other person (was his name "bruno"?) stated that he was the brother of Jesus (or something similar). And the Church killed him for it because he would not recant the statement. The author says that if he would have recanted, the statement would have been false. What book was it?

Even better, what page in the book?

I feel like it was a Milan Kundera book, but I can't find it. Google web search and Google books, which allows a search of Kundera's Immortality and ULoB isn't coming up with the story.

posted by about_time to Religion & Philosophy (13 answers total)

I don't know the book, but the other guy you're talking about is almost certainly Giordano Bruno.
posted by nasreddin at 8:37 PM on September 11, 2007

Possibly the oher person mentioned was Giordano Bruno (Giordano Bruno, Giordano Bruno)?
posted by hattifattener at 8:38 PM on September 11, 2007

(d'oh!)
posted by hattifattener at 8:38 PM on September 11, 2007

Borges, Umberto Eco, or Italo Calvino spring to mind as possible authors that might have a story like this.
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:00 PM on September 11, 2007

Was it the play "Galileo" by Bertolt Brecht?
posted by paleography at 9:15 PM on September 11, 2007

(And, if not, I'm with LobsterMitten. One of those other three.)
posted by paleography at 9:16 PM on September 11, 2007

Response by poster: I've never read anything by Borges, Calvino, or Brecht. I have read Foucault's Pendulum... l can't find a copy in my home and Google books doesn't have it as a searchable item.
posted by about_time at 9:22 PM on September 11, 2007

Are you completely sure it was in a work of fiction? Might it have been a philosophy, or "popular philosophy" book? Raymond Smullyan, Martin Gardner, Douglas Hofstadter and a few others come to mind in the pop philosophy/philosophy of science category, who might tell a little story about truth along these lines.

Alternatively, could it have been a classic era science fiction author -- Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury?
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:14 PM on September 11, 2007

Best answer: Whoever they are, they're kind of biting their argument from one philosopher of science Karl Jaspers made in 1948. (That excerpt just quotes and cites Jaspers - Google Books only has an illegible snippet view for the work itself.)
posted by ormondsacker at 12:13 AM on September 12, 2007

Giordano Bruno shows up frequently in the fantastical novels of John Crowley.
posted by cocoagirl at 5:19 AM on September 12, 2007

Response by poster: It was a long time ago, so I may be wrong about the fact that the book was a work of fiction. I have read a lot of Asimov.

But this link above to the thoughts of Jaspers is exactly the argument I'm thinking of. I've never read the book that is linked to, or books by Jaspers, but that is the story/argument I'm thinking of! I still wish I knew where I first read it, but it is not as important as finding a reference to the argument itself.

Thanks everyone who helped out! MeFi is great.
posted by about_time at 5:21 AM on September 12, 2007

I'm pretty sure this was mentioned in the book Perfume or in the Baqoue Cycle books. Have you read either lately? I swear I just read this recently but have never read any Milan Kundera.

Can you list the last few books you have read?
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:05 AM on September 12, 2007

Response by poster: I haven't read the books you mentioned, damn dirty ape. I read the book I'm asking for well over a decade ago.
posted by about_time at 12:29 PM on September 12, 2007