Critique of Tutelage Tradition in Bertolt Brecht's Galileo

Abstract

The application of scientific knowledge and trust on empiricism, Enlightenment believed in the emancipation of human kind from intellectual slavery. Tutelage and confirming to the untested truths and beliefs are serious setback on the cultivation of knowledge. In Bertolt Brecht's play Galileo, the protagonist Galileo's recantation is an example of tutelage which he himself created because of his fear of being punished by the then powerful religious institution. Galileo knows that the Roman Catholic Church is powerful enough to punish him or if situation deteriorates, burn him at the stake. Time and again, the pope reminds him that in the past also the inquisition had burned at the stake those who raise voice against church, the inquisition and Ptolemaic world view. Frightened by the language of threat used by Pope, Galileo decides to make a recantation of his previously proposed and inductively tested truth. This recantation is Galileo's inability to affirm truth at any cost. He begot a precious scientific truth but did not fight for it till he dies. This cowardice on the part of Galileo is the explicit display of tutelage that delays the happening of enlightenment thousand years late. The play positions to argue that it is telescope that provided knowledge to know the truth of the heavenly bodies. The application, in modern times, in the rule of capitalism, helps working class to know the historical process and break away from capitalist hegemony.