Abstract
From Aristarehus and Hipparchus, to Tycho Brahe and Galileo, Kepler and Newton... To the philosophers of the 19th century, in their concern with the way (or ways) in which the human mind functioned, astronomy, in its double role as science of the natural universe and paradise of the abstract, appeared to be a privileged domain. Auguste Comte wrote:
Inasmuch as astronomical phenomena are the most general, the simplest and most abstract of all, natural philosophy must obviously commence by their study, since the laws governing them influence the laws governing all other phenomena, while remaining on the contrary essentially independent of the latter.
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© 1970 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Pecker, JC. (1970). Astronomy — An Experimental Science?. In: Experimental Astronomy. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 18. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3302-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-3302-2_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-3304-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-3302-2
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