ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the meaning and use of Eisinga’s planetarium in the context of eighteenth-century experimental philosophy, physico-theology, and the culture of improvement. It takes a cue from Eisinga himself, presenting the planetarium as a means to spend one’s idle hours usefully by contemplating creation. As an analogon to the universe the planetarium thus mediates our understanding. The chapter positions Eisinga and his planetarium in the epistemic and pedagogic ambitions of (Dutch) experimental philosophy and against the backdrop of physico-theology. Within the context of late eighteenth-century Dutch society, Eisinga can be considered as a representative of a new category of knowledge practitioner, the middle-class amateur.
