L'Astronomia popular al segle XIX: de François Arago a Camille Flammarion

Resum

Through the works of Auguste Comte, François Arago and Camille Flammarion, among others, this paper analyses the role of popular astronomy along the nineteenth century. The popularisation of celestial bodies served different aims: the spread of positivism; the construction of a common place between expert and lay knowledge; it was a tool for the democratisation of knowledge; an intersection between science and literature; a stimulus of new scientific careers; a useful knowledge for amateur scientists; a public space for controversies and rivalries, in which the scientific authority of observations, theories and opinions was often under question; it was a strategy to reinforce religious faith, but also a rational tool in favour of the secularisation; a weapon in the service of anticlericalism; and very often, a social balsam.