Programska knjižica - Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo

the famous Ragusan states (n. 19) and hence sings: “You, Newton, shall be my
greater deity” (Tu maius mihi numen eris, Newtone, VI,10), understandably,
than those from the mythology of the ancients. Underlying Bošković’s epic
is not merely the celebration of Newton’s work in verses and notes, but also
exhaustive description of Newton’s contributions to optics, primarily the key
experiment with the prisms (nn. 49–57).
In addition, Bošković clearly defines his views on Newton’s philosophy
of science and offers his own as a “method of right philosophizing” (methodus
recte philosophandi, n. 28): “Nature is researched by observations and
experiments,” in which observations are applied in astronomy and natural history,
and experiments in experimental physics and chemistry. Following in the
footsteps of Newton and his famous dictum Hypotheses non fingo, Bošković
too is against the application of the “entirely arbitrary hypotheses” (hypotheses
penitus arbitrariae). He does not envisage the path to genuine theory in physics
as linear progress, but it also passes “through many errors” (per errores
etiam plurimos).
Having acknowledged in London that his scientific works had not reached
the British Isles, in the notes Bošković attempts to introduce the British scholarly
milieu to the continuity and diversity of his scientific work. Quite expectedly,
he recurrently refers to his important treatise De lumine (1748), as well
as to Carlo Benvenuti’s treatise under the same title, who followed and proved
Bošković’s ideas (n. 16). He describes his participation in the 1752 competition
of the Académie des Sciences in Paris about the perturbations of Jupiter
and Saturn (n. 5). He draws attention to his most significant contribution to
geophysics: the shape of the Earth is “completely irregular,” as he expounded
in the fifth part of his geodetic report De litteraria expeditione per Pontificiam
ditionem (1755) (n. 8). He makes two references to the achievements of his
theory of forces and the work Philosophiae naturalis theoria (1758) printed
in Vienna (nn. 45, 49). Moreover, he brings to mind his hypothesis from 1748,
by which the refraction of light depends on the multitude and distribution of
points which compose the particle of light (n. 23).
Bošković also refers to “Notae ad iridem” (1747), his notes accompanying
the poem of his professor Carlo Noceti, in which he wrote about the application
of prism in optical research (n. 29). He outlines the major contributions in
his Supplementa to the epic Philosophia recentior by Benedikt Stay: in the first
volume (1755) he expounded on the general properties of bodies and the force
of inertia, and in the second (1760) he provided a comprehensive survey of
astronomy (n. 28). Finally, in his revision of the notes in the Paris edition of his
epic in 1779, Bošković draws attention to the book which is his main contribu-
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