The Jesuit Culture of Correlation in Observatory Sciences

Bibliographic Data

ID3351769
AuthorsAitor Anduaga (0000-0002-6111-0057, University of the Basque Country, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume116
Issue1
Pages3-22
Publication date2025-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/733999
OpenAlexW4407686734
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited16

This essay aims to show the peculiar emergence of a culture of correlation in the field of observatory sciences that resulted from the experimental and philosophical currents of the Society of Jesus and Catholic culture in general. Building on the teaching of experimentalism and physico-chemical atomism at the Jesuit Collegio Romano (in a context of opposition to both the materialism and atheism of modern society and neo-Thomist currents within the Church), it examines the observational practice and the unitary conception of physical forces introduced by the director of the Collegio’s Observatory, Angelo Secchi. It argues that his dynamist theory of the unified universe shaped his later articulation of the correlation between meteorological, magnetic, and astronomical phenomena. The essay suggests that the construction of correlations promoted in this context is not merely local in character but precedes and participates in the formation of the culture of prediction in Jesuit mission observatories

Astronomy · Geography · Observatory · Physics · Historical Geography and Cartography · History and Developments in Astronomy · History of Science and Natural History

Tools

Open DOI