University Planetariums and Observatories: The Critical Role of Higher Education in Future Studies

Abstract

In the article, the authors reviewed the main functions of the university planetariums and observatories in higher education. When considering higher education in Plato’s tradition, the authors found that in addition to the three generally recognized functions, there is a fourth, perhaps the main function of the university planetariums and observatories. They form the planetary and cosmic thinking, i.e. person’s spatial awareness on a scale of Earth and the cosmos. In fact, the university planetariums and observatories lay the foundation for the arête of a modern man: the inextricable link between the inner essence of a person and the space. They expand a person’s world view from a regional and even planetary scale to the perception of the self as a product of cosmic processes, thus laying the foundation for the ontological orientation of individual self-realization to future studies.