Lecture by Dr. Raz Chen-Morris: The Telescope as an Agent of Change: Imagination, Politics, and Knowledge

Galileo turning his perspectival tube to the sky marked a momentous historical event. It tore apart the solid line separating the heavens from the earth in one sweep, as this ancient boundary evaporated and dissolved. The eye could now penetrate the most secret and exalted mysteries of God's creation, which had always been hidden from human knowledge. Instead of Icarus’ wings, it allowed the stationary human observer to probe the planets and inspect heavenly bodies that had never been observed before. This paper contends that this challenged early modern notions of the role of imagination in the production of knowledge and was pivotal in molding new ideals of sovereignty. Following diverse texts from Shakespeare and Francis Bacon to Margaret Cavendish, and from Johannes Kepler to Christian Huygens, this paper will trace how the telescope, as a material instrument, triggered such changes at the threshold of the modern world. Observing the mountains and craters on the moon endowed the imagination with new possibilities for interpreting the images provided by the telescope. Yet, fantasy must be controlled and restrained. The telescope simultaneously offered a new view of knowledge and power that merged the Platonic philosopher-king with the technician and manipulator of instruments. The years between Galileo’s telescope and the founding of the Royal Society and l'Académie royale des sciences saw the emergence of a new, both epistemological and political, synthesis.

Dr. Raz Chen-Morris is an Associate Professor of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he holds the Barbara Druss Dibner Chair for Research and Teaching in History of Science. From 2020-2025 he was also the Academic Director of the Martin Buber Society of Fellows. He has published widely on Renaissance science, including Measuring Shadows: Kepler's Optics of Invisibility Penn State University Press, 2016); with Ofer Gal, Baroque Science (The University of Chicago Press, 2013); and "Geometry and the Making of Utopian Knowledge in Early Modern Europe." Nuncius 35 (2020), pp. 387–412.

Cosponsored by the Program in History and Philosophy of Science and Experimental Humanities.

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