Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna y la ciencia: defensor de la astronomía popular en Chile a finales del siglo XIX

Abstract

Benjamin Vicuna Mackenna was a prolific writer and collaborator of the Chilean press during the second half of the 19th century, and within this task he devoted several pages to scientific issues. This paper analyzes his texts dedicated to astronomical knowledge, many of them which had not been specifically studied before. The hypothesis seeks to demonstrate that Vicuna Mackenna’s main purpose, when talking about astronomy in the press, was to defend the popularization of this science, as well as other scientific disciplines. The perspective of this analysis considers the works of James Secord and Agusti Nieto-Galan, who affirm that science should not only be conceived as a practice in which formal institutions participate, but also diverse groups that make up society, the “publics” of science being relevant as active agents in the generation of knowledge.