Dissertation Research: Pilots Versus Cosmographers: Theory and Utility in Early Modern Spain

论文研究：飞行员与宇宙学家：近代早期西班牙的理论与实用

• 批准号: 9709986
• 负责人: Michael Shank
• 金额: $ 0.92万
• 依托单位: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-07-15 至 1998-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9709986&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Pilots; Versus; Cosmographers

This dissertation project examines a sixteenth century dispute in Spain over navigation and cartography, which pitted educated cosmographers against practical pilots in arguments about the relative value of theoretical knowledge and practical utility. The researcher will use legal records preserved in Seville, writings on navigation, and maps and navigational instruments to explain the goals and positions of the main factions in this debate -- the pilots who navigated the ships, the cosmographers their examiners, and the instrument makers who mediated between them --as well as those of one man, Sebastian Cabot, who affiliated himself at various times with all three groups. The researcher will use the dispute to probe the reasons for the consistent misunderstandings between pilots and osmographers. The dissertation will look beyond the pilots' conservativism and ignorance, invoked in most of the historiography, to explore their reasons for rejecting the new knowledge and techniques of the cosmographers. The dissertation will also explore the vastly different conceptions the pilots, cosmographers and instrument-makers had both of what constituted valid knowledge and of why one would want to acquire it. By examining the different goals of the pilots and cosmographers, and by focusing attention on the ways the pilots chose what methods to adopt, the researcher hopes to understand the problems inherent in trying to make theoretical knowledge practically useful.

本论文项目探讨了十六世纪在西班牙的争端导航和制图，这坑教育宇宙学家对实际飞行员的理论知识和实际效用的相对价值的争论。 研究人员将使用保存在塞维利亚的法律的记录、航海著作、地图和航海仪器来解释这场争论中主要派别的目标和立场--驾驶船只的飞行员、他们的检验员、在他们之间斡旋的仪器制造商--以及一个人的目标和立场，他就是塞巴斯蒂安卡伯特，他在不同时期都加入了这三个团体。 研究者将借由这场争论来探讨飞行员与绘图员之间一直存在误解的原因。 本论文将超越飞行员的保守和无知，在大多数的历史编纂援引，探讨他们拒绝新的知识和技术的宇宙学家的原因。 本论文还将探讨飞行员、宇宙学家和仪器制造者对什么是有效知识以及为什么要获得有效知识的不同概念。通过考察飞行员和宇宙学家的不同目标，并通过关注飞行员选择采用什么方法的方式，研究者希望了解在试图使理论知识实际有用时所固有的问题。