Conversation On The Pluralities Of Worlds Fontenelle Analysis

This Essay is a close reading of the passage number 3 in Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle’s Conversations on the pluralities of worlds. After reading the passage selected indepthly, I believe it was Fontenelle’s goal to demonstrate that anyone can be an active participant in scientific discussions. This was shown through his use of respect and reciprocity between the Marquise and the Philosopher,
Fontenelle uses the mechanics of language of dialogue through the Marquise and the Philosopher as an example of how scientific conversations should be held between men and women. At the start of this passage, the philosopher is speaking to the marquise about the Earth in comparison to what he knows about the other celestial bodies; namely the other …show more content…
This encouragement between the Marquise and the Philosopher, is also not only in this passage but it is seen patterned throughout the entire book. Both parties involved created a safe, non-judgemental setting to discuss the most outrageous ideas of their time. The Marquise struggles with the thought of having more than one possible answer to the possibility of persons on the moon in this chapter “I’m not capable of such imperfect impartiality; I need to believe.” (Fontenelle 38). She, being a symbol of what was considered the lesser class of that time, had a hard time understanding that there are often various ways to explain one theory. The goal here was to inspire the public to question everything and seek proof for each reason instead of following blindly as most people did in that time. From the viewpoint of the philosopher, I inferenced that he just had the hope that all his vocalizations his ideas were accepted or at the least received without judgement (as most persons of that time thought they were just frivolous fantasies) but the open-mindedness of the Marquise helps readers see that the sharing of ideas between men and women or even just people in general, should be practicing impartiality. As important as open mindedness was for this pair to discuss these theories, I feel that the space that they were in also had a large effect on how open they were to engaging in discourse. The word consecrated, used in the quote “A place consecrated to our learned conversations” (Fontenelle 37) seems to imply that the space where the Marquise and the Philosopher went to meet is a special place. I interpreted this as the argument that women and men should have and use a place to openly discuss ideas and issues of their time. During fontenelle’s time, these places were known as salons. Add more onto salons*** Fontenelle being the