Feijoo's Opticks Analysis

A similar characterization is found when he considered the principles of the refraction of light, as Newton proposed them in his Opticks. As we can see, in the 1730s and 1740s, Feijoo introduced in Spain a conception of the Newtonian experimentalism as a way to scape of the epistemological problems entailed by his skepticism concerning the explicative power of the philosophical systems and the impossibility of knowing God’s action upon his creation. In this context, he introduced diverse Newtonian ideas, like the attractive forces, the composed constitution of the white light, and the ratio of the centripetal force, as paradigmatic examples of the results that can be achieved by analyzing carefully the information gathered from experiments and observations. Nevertheless, it is important to highlight that Feijoo’s introduction of Newton’s method and his theoretical achievements is characterized more by the explicative gaps he left than by a well-formed understanding of them. Thus, in the Volume V of his Teatro crítico, where he presented the most complete explanations of these issues, he only included some general characterizations of some features of them, avoiding any reference to the technical or mathematical aspects of Newton’s demonstrations. That is the case, for instance, of his explanation of the heaviness of the air, the motion of

But, more importantly, it is likely that Feijoo did not have the intellectual capacity and an adequate mathematical background for understanding Newton’s explanation of natural phenomena. The first of these difficulties is evidenced when Feijoo considers the reasons why he has not introduced Newton’s theories in his Teatro crítico. According to