Az okkultációk szerepei a távcső előtti csillagászati hagyományban

Abstract

This paper examines the possible roles played by occultations, and especially mutual planetary occultations, in the pre-telescopic astronomical tradition. While reviewing the history of occultations in classical astronomy, there are three different roles distinguished. (1) Calibrational: serving as guideline events for adjusting numerical parameters of planetary models. (2) Cosmological: providing information about planetary order. (3) Physical: in Kepler’s interpretation occultations pose the theoretical problem of obscuring influences between celestial bodies, addressed both in astrology and celestial dynamics, stimulating the emergence of the concept of force acting at a distance.