Józef Rogaliński, SJ
Methodology of Natural Sciences and Natural Philosophy in the Enlightenment Period
Abstract
This paper analyses – in a broader philosophical and cultural context – the achievements of the Jesuit Józef Rogaliński (1728–1802), a teacher of mathematics and experimental physics at the Jesuit college based in Poznań. For Rogaliński’s activity the assimilation of the achievements of modern natural science is characteristic. Hence, the epistemological status of his main work, Doświadczenia skutków rzeczy pod zmysły podpadających [Experience of the effects of things falling under the senses], is analysed. As phenomenal experimentalism is favoured in Rogaliński’s work, it can be considered a manifestation of modern natural science. In accordance with the concept of longue durée, it is emphasized that philosophical categories used by Rogaliński are validated with empirical evidence. Therefore, his achievement can be treated as a manifestation of philosophia recentiorum, a typical characteristic of education in the second half of the eighteenth century, eclectically yet critically participating in the philosophical and scientific (natural) culture of the time. Rogaliński’s approach also respects the religious standards of that time, which allows us to see this form of improving modern Christian Aristotelianism as a manifestation of the Christian Enlightenment.
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