ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Epistemic Constraints and Observatory Sciences. Forms of Collaboration within Real and Ideal Observatories (17th-18th Centuries)

• In Event: New Perspectives on Collaboration in Science 2

English Abstract

Describing astronomical observation in early 17th-century France, Aurélien Ruellet (Ruellet, 2016) defines it as an inherently collective practice. With the founding of the Observatoire royal (Deias, 2020), collective observation took on an institutional form and was organised in various ways, some more official and regulated than others. The Observatoire's missions outside France and family observations within its walls are examples of this. This model endured over time, although our analysis will stop at the French Revolution.
A scientific but above all political institution, the observatory was founded and functioned in time and space thanks to collaboration. Taking into account much of the literature on the observatory (such as Aubin, 2015; Bret & Deias, 2025), on the observatory sciences (Aubin, Bigg, Sibum, 2010; Deias, 2020) and deliberately using different models of observatories over the centuries, my paper will analyse these collaborative forms 1) using the concept of 'epistemic constraint ' (Guzzardi, 2024), but also 2) to (re)examine the nature of the observatory through a series of questions that arise from recent literature (Nylor, 2024).

Author

• Deias Dalia, Centre Alexandre Koyré