Introduction
José Celestino Mutis (1732-1808) is mostly known for his work as Director of the Royal Botanical Expedition to the New Kingdom of Granada. Established in 1783, the Botanical Expedition had the purpose of carrying out a complete natural history of Spain’s «equinoctial» territories in America. Thereby, Mutis led the project of gathering a vast collection of flora and fauna specimens, and of illustrating them, for both theoretical and practical purposes. Likewise, the Botanical Expedition turned into the most prominent center of education of the Granadian elite; and in its classrooms, some intellectual figures of the process of independence of Colombia were educated.
However, one of the less-known facets of Mutis is his role as an educator in New Granada before the Botanical Expedition. Since 1762, he taught the first course on Mathematics created in the Viceroyalty in the Dominican Colegio del Rosario. In his lectures, performed in the 1760s and 1770s, Mutis appropriated what he denominated «Newton’s experimental physics», in order to modernize what he considered to be a retrograde scholastic educational system. As the manuscript evidence reveals, in his lectures, Mutis taught Newton’s methodology and some theoretical aspects of Newton’s Principia using his own translated version of Newton’s magnum opus.
Likewise, another important …show more content…
I shall focus on his Sustentación, as he presents there his own appropriation of Galileo’s physical arguments as they are discussed in the Dialogo. In general, I shall argue that, in appropriating Galileo’s physical arguments, Mutis interestingly introduced some modifications to them which aimed to emphasize the veracity of the Copernican system as a thesis rather than as a
José Celestino Mutis (1732-1808) is mostly known for his work as Director of the Royal Botanical Expedition to the New Kingdom of Granada. Established in 1783, the Botanical Expedition had the purpose of carrying out a complete natural history of Spain’s «equinoctial» territories in America. Thereby, Mutis led the project of gathering a vast collection of flora and fauna specimens, and of illustrating them, for both theoretical and practical purposes. Likewise, the Botanical Expedition turned into the most prominent center of education of the Granadian elite; and in its classrooms, some intellectual figures of the process of independence of Colombia were educated.
However, one of the less-known facets of Mutis is his role as an educator in New Granada before the Botanical Expedition. Since 1762, he taught the first course on Mathematics created in the Viceroyalty in the Dominican Colegio del Rosario. In his lectures, performed in the 1760s and 1770s, Mutis appropriated what he denominated «Newton’s experimental physics», in order to modernize what he considered to be a retrograde scholastic educational system. As the manuscript evidence reveals, in his lectures, Mutis taught Newton’s methodology and some theoretical aspects of Newton’s Principia using his own translated version of Newton’s magnum opus.
Likewise, another important …show more content…
I shall focus on his Sustentación, as he presents there his own appropriation of Galileo’s physical arguments as they are discussed in the Dialogo. In general, I shall argue that, in appropriating Galileo’s physical arguments, Mutis interestingly introduced some modifications to them which aimed to emphasize the veracity of the Copernican system as a thesis rather than as a