In this paper the astronomical explorations of the southern celestial sky by Dutch navigators at the end of the sixteenth century are investigated. It is shown that the main motivation for this scientific enterprise stemmed from Dutch cartographic tradition and interests, represented first and foremost by Petrus Plancius and the competing globemakers Hondius and Blaeu. It is shown, too, that at the time actually two surveys were carried out. We have investigated the results of the two surveys by analysing (...) the data presented on celestial globes by Hondius and Blaeu, and in the star catalogue published by De Houtman in 1603. It appears that only after the first survey was it recognized that the stars of the well-known Southern Cross constellation could be matched with stars already recorded by Ptolemy. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a cardboard dissected globe made in 1813 by Edward Mogg, a cartographer and map seller, to instruct children in the principles of astronomy. Since little is known about the maker or the specific object, I draw on evidence beyond the sphere itself to construct an account of how the object might have been used. In particular I address conversation as a key part of astronomical education and examine the way in which the cardboard plates (...) of the sphere, the presentation slipcase and the accompanying booklet would have prepared young learners for polite astronomical discourse around large instruments in later life.Keywords: Dissected globe; Edward Mogg; Educational toys; Astronomy; Conversation. (shrink)

Between 1650 and 1664, a giant globe was created in Gottorf under Duke Friedrich III, which was widely known and marvelled at by many contemporaries as a wonder of the world. The scientific management of the project was the responsibility of the court mathematician and librarian Adam Olearius. The Gottorf Globe and its counterpart (a “Sphaera Copernicana”) presented the astronomical knowledge of the time in a pictorial form. The image of the earth and the cosmos was also intended (...) to show the Creator and his omnipotence. Erhard Weigel, professor of mathematics at the University of Jena from 1653, also constructed monumental globes. These baroque world models, as well as Robert Long’s 18th-century sphere, can be considered the precursors of today’s planetariums. (shrink)

Thomas Reid argued that the geometrical properties of visible figures equal the geometrical properties of their projections on the inside of a sphere centred around the eye. In recent scholarship there are only a few suggestions of which sources might have inspired Reid. I point to a widely ignored body of early eighteenth-century literature – introductions into projective geometry, the use of celestial globes and astronomy – in which the model of the eye in the centre of a sphere (...) was immensely popular. Moreover, I argue that Reid's account results naturally from some astronomical doctrines in conjunction with George Berkeley's theory of vision. (shrink)

In the doxography on Anaximander it is reported that he has made a celestial globe or another kind of model, map or sketch of his astronomical conceptions. Several scholars have tried to reconstruct this model, but without success. In fact the history of the reconstruction of Anaximander's model of the heavens is a concatenation of mistakes and misunderstandings. The various and sometimes ingenious attempts will be discussed hereafter. Mostly the efforts fail through the difficulty of putting oneself into (...) the position of a more primitive astronomy which considers the earth as a flat disk and as the centre of the universe. Yet it is possible to draw a model which is both in agreement with the doxographical tradition on Anaximander's astronomy, without making special assumptions, and explains the movements of the celestial bodies as seen from a flat earth, as will be shown in the present article. (shrink)

Diogenes Laërtius and Plinius report that Anaximander made a globe, meaning a celestial globe. These statements must be due to an anachronistic misunderstanding, as a celestial globe presupposes a conception of a spherical universe in which the stars make up the outermost sphere. According to Anaximander, however, the stars are nearest to the earth, as is confi rmed by Aëtius and Hippolytus. Generally speaking, Anaximander’s universe of a column-drum-like earth at the center of the concentric (...) wheels of the celestial bodies can hardly be called spherical. Nevertheless we may assume that Anaximander, who drew a map of the earth, offered some representation of his cosmological ideas as well. Although a three-dimensional representation like a celestial globe is not likely, one may readily imagine that he drew a two-dimensional picture, a kind of ground-plan or map of his conception of the cosmos. The doxographers will erroneously have taken an account about this map as standing for a celestial globe such as they knew from their own experience. In this article I will deal with the problems that arise when we try to draw a map of Anaximander’s universe, and suggest ways to solve them. In discussing several authors who have studied the subject I will point out some bothersome inconsistencies and mistakes in their renditions. One problem, however, which has not been noticed before, will prove to be insolvable within the context of the doxographical evidence. I will argue that the only way to meet this problem is to look upon it as circumstantial evidence for the supposition that Anaximander never made a three-dimensional model whatsoever of his conception of the universe. (shrink)

In early modern science, the struggle between feminine and masculine allegories of science was played out within fixed parameters. Whether science itself was to be considered masculine or feminine, there never was serious debate about the gender of nature, one the one hand, or of the scientist, on the other. From ancient to modern times, nature—the object of scientific study—has been conceived as unquestionably female.5 At the same time, it is abundantly clear that the practitioners of science, scientists, themselves, overwhelmingly (...) have been men.But what about science? What gender was it—as an activity and set of ideals—to have? In one tradition the answer was clear: science was a woman. This tradition, stretching back at least to Boethius’ sixth-century portrayal of Philosophy as a woman, was codified and explained in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, the Renaissance bible of iconography.6 In this work, Ripa portrayed each of the sciences as a woman. “Scientia”—knowledge or skill—was portrayed as a woman of serious demeanor, wearing stately robes . “Physica”—physical science—was a goddess with a terrestrial globe at her feet. Geometry was a woman holding a plumb line and compass. Astrology, too, was a woman, dressed in blue, with a crown of stars and wings signifying the elevation of her thoughts to the distant stars. With a compass in her right hand and the celestial sphere in her left, she studied the movement and symmetry of the skies. 5. See Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution .6. Boethius describes female Philosophy as she appeared to him in a dream in his De consolatione philosophiae. See also Cesare Ripa, Iconologia , first illustrated in 1603. Londa Schiebinger is an assistant professor of history at Pennsylvania State University. Her book, “The Mind has no Sex”: Women in the Origins of Modern Science, will be published next spring. (shrink)

Despite an assumption that Christchurch — the Garden City of New Zealand — has historically been viewed as the manifestation of a utopian dream, the experiences of the city's gardeners reveal a variety of sentiments about the meaning of gardens. Hillside gardeners, in particular, tended to see their gardens and their place in them in very different ways from their counterparts on the flat. These hillside gardens were places that allowed for an explicit appreciation of internationalism, localism, and an often (...) spiritual connection with the world at large. They were `celestial', paradisical, and I therefore argue that tropes of utopias and paradise may sit uneasily with each other in colonial discourse. This point requires further attention from historians. (shrink)

The starting question in this article is: what does globalization mean philosophically? What matters for this article, is not inasmuch the content of the politico-moral claims or the ideological scope of worldviews as described by sociological and political sciences in the process of globalization, but rather a philosophical horizon that exceeds everyday political reality. This stems from a point of view that the debate on globalization and its alternatives is still too often protruded by ideological and idealist arguments. This article (...) will scrutinize what globalization actually means, considered from a philosophical standpoint. In order to investigate the meaning of globe in globalization, we turn to the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy. (shrink)

For Averroes, celestial circulation is evidence of a divinely mandated rational universe. This paper follows Averroes’ account on cosmic contact between the eternal and the temporal, in Tahafūt al-tahafūt contra al-Ghazālī. It argues that the polemical perspective of the Tahafūt al-tahafūt frames Averroes’ appeal to Aristotle’s account of cosmic motion. Consequently, Averroes’ exceptional account of the universe contrasts Aristotle’s exemplary account of the mutual participation of intellect and nature. Their accounts of celestial circulation implicate the status of human (...) nature conditioned by cosmic nature. As such, the possibility of human freedom rests on the nature of causality between divine intellect and cosmic manifestation. The convergence and divergence of Aristotle and Averroes regarding celestial circulation reveals Averroes’ politics that guide a rational argument for a strong cosmic causal connection between the unmoved mover and the universe, against al-Ghazālī’s rationally inaccessible divine will. (shrink)

This workshop was organized to explain the GLOBE database to IABS members and elicit interest in embarking upon a major study of national similarities anddifferences in corporate responsibility practices.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Celestial Web: Buddhism and Christianity – A Different Comparison (Das Himmlische Geflecht: Buddhismus Und Christentum: Ein Anderer Vergleich) by Perry Schmidt-LeukelThomas CattoiTHE CELESTIAL WEB: BUDDHISM AND CHRISTIANITY – A DIFFERENT COMPARISON (DAS HIMMLISCHE GEFLECHT: BUDDHISMUS UND CHRISTENTUM: EIN ANDERER VERGLEICH). By Perry Schmidt-Leukel. Gütersloher Verlagshaus: Munich, 2022. 416 pp. (German Edition) €26.In his 2004 study Gott ohne Grenzen—available in English as God Without Boundaries (2017)—Perry (...) Schmidt-Leukel affirms that if God is truly beyond our conceptual reach and knowledge about the divine is not limited to one small section of humanity, theology also has to be without boundaries; speculation about ultimate reality and the nature of transcendence should be informed by the insights that all of humanity was able to gather throughout its history, independently of confessional or cultural divisions. Echoing the premise of Jerry Martin's later project Theology without Walls, which would call for theology to become an all-encompassing trans-religious project, this earlier volume laid the foundation for a pluralist theology of religions, which saw value in the diversity of religious tradition. Schmidt-Leukel continued this intellectual trajectory in his 2006 monograph Understanding Buddhism (expanded and republished in German as Buddhismus Verstehen, 2017) where he outlines the role that Buddhism—as the context for existentially transformative experiences of transcendence—can play in such a theological perspective. Finally, in his 2019 Wahrheit in Vielfalt (Truth in Diversity)—a revised version of his Gifford lectures published in 2017—Schmidt-Leukel calls for the development of interreligious theology as a discipline that is practiced together by individuals of different traditions. This third volume, however, ends with a twist, as the author observes that no religious tradition is actually homogenous: All of them are characterized by a measure of internal pluralism, which are reflected in a variety of theological formulations, but also in a plurality of spiritual practices that the same individuals may undertake at different periods of their lives. The reality of this internal pluralism can become the basis for a new kind of interreligious conversation; if applied to Buddhism and Christianity, this approach would foreground "the parallel character of the differences" that can be found in the two traditions (10). In fact, one would have to ask why truth manifests in a plural manner even within a single religious tradition.This attempt at a "different" kind of comparison—as the subtitle of the volume suggests—is the task Perry Schmidt-Leukel takes on in Das himmlische Geflecht (The Celestial Web), a monograph published in German in May 2022. Hopefully an English translation will soon be available, allowing a broader public to benefit from the author's ongoing engagement of the question of religious pluralism and its implications for Buddhist-Christian dialogue.At the outset of the volume, Schmidt-Leukel reflects on the image of Indra's net, a celestial web whose knots carry marvelous and resplendent jewels—and what is even more striking is that every jewel reflects the whole web in its own way. This image—rooted in Vedic texts such as the Atharva Veda, but also explored in the highly influential Avataṃsaka sūtra—perfectly encapsulates the emptiness—the lack of an unchanging substantial ground—that constitutes the totality of the universe (14). According to the Avataṃsaka sūtra, whoever is able to see the whole world in a fragment does not destroy the distinguishing characteristics of its features, but actually [End Page 409] ensures that they should all shine in a visible manner. Indra's net is the guiding metaphor of this volume, which no longer views Buddhism and Christianity as homogenous realities, but as multi-layered and partly heterogeneous structures. The comparative exploration of this heterogeneity will uncover a fractal pattern where visible differences between the two traditions can then be seen again within each tradition. In this way, one can almost discern a mutual interpenetration of the two traditions, which can enrich and even correct each other (15).Following these introductory reflections, Schmidt-Leukel offers a review of the history of comparative religions and comparative theology, asking why and for what purpose scholars engage in this kind of speculative endeavor, while also... (shrink)

An inspired and provocative exploration of mankind's relationship with myth, the divine, and the idea of transformation.

Summary Late Babylonian astronomical texts contain frequent measurements of the positions of the Moon and planets. These measurements include distances of the Moon or a planet from a reference star and measurements of the position of celestial bodies within a sign of the zodiac. In this paper, I investigate the relationship between these two measurement systems and propose a new understanding of the concepts of celestial longitude and latitude in Babylonian astronomy. I argue that the Babylonians did not (...) define latitude using the ecliptic but instead considered the Moon and each planet to move up or down within its own band as it travelled around the zodiac. (shrink)

I explore how the nature, scope, and limits of the knowledge obtained in orbital dynamics has changed in recent years. Innovations in the design of spacecraft trajectories, as well as in astronomy, have led to new logics of theory-testing—that is, new research methodologies—in orbital dynamics. These methodologies—which combine resonance overlap theories, numerical experiments, and the implementation of space missions—were developed in response to the discovery of chaotic dynamical systems in our solar system. In the past few decades, they have replaced (...) the methodology that dominated orbital research in the centuries following Newton's Principia. As a result, the kind of knowledge achieved by orbital research has changed: we can know how orbiting bodies in chaotic systems behave, but only over sufficiently short time scales; and we can reliably measure those temporal limitations, using Lyapunov time. (shrink)

Following the traces of a statement by Margaret Mead, emphasizing that the first photographic images of the Earth from space presented notions of fragility, the article contextualizes the recent critique of the dominant representation of the Earth as a globe that emerged in conjunction with the discourse on the Anthropocene. It analyses the globe as an image and the sentiments that accompanied it since the first photographs of our planet from space were published in 1968. The article outlines (...) how the cultural meaning of the whole Earth representation changed in parallel with the appropriation of the image by the large technological enterprises that emerged from US America’s counterculture. It returns to the possibility of a coexistence of ‘views from within’ and ‘views from without’ following a detour with Gregory Bateson via Bali and proposes a Cybernetics of Grace as a practice of resistance against pure exteriority. The article concludes by linking the Cybernetics of Grace with the second-order conversations of Gordon Pask. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to begin the study of the handful of references to celestial divination found in the Assyrian royal inscriptions from the perspective of propaganda analysis by approaching one text in particular, Esarhaddon’s Aššur A inscription. This inquiry helps to solve some of the outstanding problems in regard to the celestial phenomena recorded in these inscriptions and their mantic implications.

In this article, the author examines the work of Boris Pasternak, primarily his novel Doctor Zhivago, in the context of his Marburg experience and Kantian ideas as the basis of his moral-aesthetic...

This volume brings together contributors from a wide variety of disciplines to take a critical, empirical look at bioethics around the globe, examining how it ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Homeric ΔΙΙΠΕΤΕΟΣΠΟΤΑΜΟΙΟand the Celestial NileR. Drew GriffithHomeric διιπετής, which occurs only in the verse–end formula διιπετέος (Il. 16.174, 17.263, 21.268, 326; Od. 4.477, 581, 7.284; cf. Hes. fr. 320 Merkelbach–West), is usually interpreted as "fallen from Zeus, i.e., from heaven,... fed or swollen by rain" (LSJ),1 for high–thundering, cloud–gatherer Zeus is the sky who rains and snows (Il. 12.25; Od. 9.111, 14.457, Alc. Z 14.1 Lobel–Page 5 338.1 (...) Voigt; Ar. Nub. 368, 373; Babrius 65.1; Marcus Aurelius 5.7), and rivers can be "swollen by rain and melted snow" (). Yet it only takes a moment for the desperate nature of this interpretation to become clear: it has at least four flaws.2First, there is διι–. We may explain the quantity of the second iota (long in διιπετής, short in Διί) either as metrical lengthening, or as a survival of the Mycenaean, with or without the emendation to διειπετής proposed by one Zenodorus (schol. E2Od. 4.477, var. l. Zenodotus, HQ) and supported by some moderns,3 but the form itself is unexpected. Even supporters of the usual interpretation admit that διι is a very odd way of saying "from Zeus," which should be expressed by a [End Page 353] genitive of source:4 indeed, when Euripides wants to characterize a statue as having "fallen from the sky," he uses διοπετής (IT 977; cf. fr. 971 Nauck2 ). They account for διι- in one of three ways: either as chosen on the analogy of διίφιλος where the dative is appropriate,5 or as a compendious expression meaning "by (the command of) Zeus,"6 as an Arcado– Cypriot use of the dative as an ablative.7 This last approach relies in turn on the hypothesis (itself controversial) of an Achaean stratum of the Homeric language, in which are alleged to persist forms specific to the Mycenaean dialect.8Second, the final element, πετής, is elsewhere in Homer derived from πέτομαι (Il. 12.201, etc.;Il. 8.42, etc.; cf. Hes. Theog. 267). Unlike διιπετής, these words are accented paroxytone (but note παλιμπετές Il. 16.395, Od. 5.27, which means "falling or flying backward"; Pind. Pyth. 3.105; and Aesch. Supp. 782), but this shows only that during the Alexandrian period, when the written accents were devised, scholars associated them with a different root from διιπετής. Leaving our word aside, for examples of -πετής derived from πίπτω we must look to Aeschylus, Pindar, and subsequent authors.9 (Words with πετής from πετάννυμι are attested in later Greek.)10Third, the earliest post–Homeric uses of διιπετής (Eur. Bacch. 1267, Rhes. 43, Hypsipyle fr. 1. sp. IV, 1.31 Bond; Hippoc. Morb. Mul. 1.24) demand the translation "translucent" vel sim. (Etym. Magn. s.v.), and Zenodotus (apud schol. Il. 17.263) glosses the word in its Homeric use as διαυγής,11 yet the semantic development from "fallen from Zeus, etc." (on the usual interpretation) to "translucent" can only be seen as "encore inexpliqué."12 [End Page 354]Fourth, one of the three named rivers to which Homer applies διιπετής is the Nile (Od. 4.477, 581; the others are Spercheius, Il. 16.174, and Scamander, Il. 21.268, 326), yet if ever there were a river that is not "fed or swollen by rain" it is the Nile: rainfall is scarce in Egypt (Hdt. 3.10.3), and, knowing this, Diogenes hypothesized that the Nile was fed by subterranean springs (64 A18 Diels–Kranz; cf. Sen. Q.Nat. 4.2.28–30, 6.8.3–5; schol. Ap. Rhod. 4.269 = p. 277 Wendel). The application of the epithet to the Nile would have, therefore, to be classed among Homer's (admittedly numerous) formulary illogicalities.13Not all scholars accept the usual view. In 1958 M. Treu pointed to a then newly discovered papyrus fragment of Alcman containing the adjective διαιπετής in the phrase (III 66–67 PMG, PMGF = fr. 26.66–67 Calame), which was taken to describe a star "falling through..., less prob.... flying through" heaven (LSJ Suppl. s.v.),14 to hypothesize that the Homeric instances of διιπετής are all miscorrections of an original διαιπετής, "flying through." This theory has won few adherents,15 and R. Renehan (1972b) has with more... (shrink)

The general thesis of this paper is that the motives of the currently dominant global educational governance are rooted in a specific cultural milieu in the time of the Cold War, more precisely in the late 1950s, heading to a harmonious world. The more specific thesis is that a series of failures in the achievement of this harmonized globe led to reforms in educational governance, leading eventually to the development of instruments like large-scale assessments, such as PISA. The concluding (...) thesis of the paper is that precisely because the idea of global governance is rooted in a specific culture, its instruments run the risk of only affecting formal structures of education in other cultures rather the inner activities of the ‘educational fabric’. (shrink)

The impact on globe making of the change from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican world-view is examined. As well as showing a map of the Earth and the Heavens, the main use of globes originally was to demonstrate the natural phenomena as these are observed from a geocentric perspective. In the second half of the eighteenth century some belated attempts were made to construct so-called Copernican globes for this purpose. This late response did not stop the production and use (...) of the common Ptolemaic globe. It is argued that the technological developments of the nineteenth century made the role of the globe as a demonstration model superfluous and thus contributed more to the downfall of the common Ptolemaic globe than did any revolution in science. (shrink)

A leading Japanese philosopher and author explores the deep structures of Zen Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian philosophies. Izutsu compares the concepts of the three disciplines regarding time, metaphysics and visionary experiences, and more.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Renaissance Thought on the Celestial Hierarchy:The Decline of a Tradition?Feisal G. MohamedThe Dionysian arrangement of the angels was dismantled on the one hand because its author was increasingly regarded as a "counterfait," and on the other hand because Protestants upheld the Bible's supremacy over all the "vain babblings of idle men." In consequence, those who like Spenser celebrated the "trinall triplicities," look back upon a great past that (...) had provided a vision hallowed by time and graced by an impressive array of intellects.—C. A. Patrides1It has been some forty years now since C. A. Patrides first argued in these pages that English Renaissance views on the celestial hierarchy constitute "the decline of a tradition," an argument made so convincing by his encyclopedic articles on the subject that scholars have been content to accept it. Indeed there is a good deal of evidence suggesting that the tradition of the ninefold hierarchy of angels associated with the Pseudo-Dionysius suffered serious injury at the hands of the Renaissance and Reformation. Subjected to the scrutiny of Renaissance scholarship and in light of the rediscovery of several Neoplatonists, particularly Proclus, it became quite clear that the Corpus Dionysiacum had been written centuries later than its author pretended. In the mid-fifteenth century Lorenzo Valla argued that because the Areopagus was a legal rather than a philosophical assembly, because none of the Greek or Latin fathers make mention of Dionysius, and because the claim in the letter to Polycarp to have witnessed [End Page 559] in Heliopolis the solar eclipse at the moment of Christ's death is a clear fabrication, placement of the Corpus in the first century should be doubted.2 These suggestions went largely unnoticed until Desiderius Erasmus, returning from England (where William Grocyn had begun murmurs regarding the Areopagitic origin of the Corpus), discovered in Louvain a manuscript of Valla's commentary on the book of Acts and incorporated its conclusions in his influential annotations on the New Testament.3 The discovery of Dionysius's pseudonymity and Erasmus's suggestion that Dionysian ceremonies could no longer be connected to the apostolic church would damage permanently the now Pseudo-Areopagite's influence. In a classic case of complicity between Renaissance humanism and Reformation theology—both Protestant and Catholic, it must be stressed—the sixteenth century turned away from Dionysian thought in general and from The Celestial Hierarchy in particular. The interrogation of apostolic origin begun by prominent Catholic thinkers like Erasmus and Cardinal Cajetan was most convenient to reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, both of whom described the author of the Corpus as "Dionysius, whoever he was."4Such an open-and-shut presentation of sixteenth-century Dionysiana, however, ignores several factors. One of them is that Renaissance scholars were not the first to question the dating of the Corpus: Peter Abelard fueled general perception of his heretical tendencies by suggesting that Dionysius may not have been the Pauline convert mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles.5 Much more important, however, is the number of Renaissance scholars for whom Dionysius was a formative influence. Despite his stance on the authenticity of the Corpus, Lorenzo Valla describes Dionysius in the peroration to his Encomium Sancti Thomae Aquinatis as playing the flute in a celestial symphony before the throne of God.6 For Nicholas Cusanus, as F. Edward Cranz describes [End Page 560] it, "Dionysius is the most important Christian theologian with no runner-up who is even close."7 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola saw Dionysius's writings as following directly from the teachings of Paul.8 Marsilio Ficino employed Dionysius in his comments on angels in the Theologia Platonica, translated and commented on The Divine Names and The Mystical Theology, and consistently endorsed first-century dating of the Corpus Dionysiacum.9 Ambrogio Traversari, who described Dionysius as "Apostoli disciplus," would also produce a fresh translation acceptable to humanist tastes in 1437, which would receive wide dissemination in the 1499 edition produced by Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples.10 Lefèvre saw the Corpus as apostolic in origin and authority and went so far as to endorse the traditional conflation of Dionysius with Saint... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Homeric ΔΙΙΠΕΤΕΟΣΠΟΤΑΜΟΙΟand the Celestial NileR. Drew GriffithHomeric διιπετής, which occurs only in the verse–end formula διιπετέος (Il. 16.174, 17.263, 21.268, 326; Od. 4.477, 581, 7.284; cf. Hes. fr. 320 Merkelbach–West), is usually interpreted as "fallen from Zeus, i.e., from heaven,... fed or swollen by rain" (LSJ),1 for high–thundering, cloud–gatherer Zeus is the sky who rains and snows (Il. 12.25; Od. 9.111, 14.457, Alc. Z 14.1 Lobel–Page 5 338.1 (...) Voigt; Ar. Nub. 368, 373; Babrius 65.1; Marcus Aurelius 5.7), and rivers can be "swollen by rain and melted snow" (). Yet it only takes a moment for the desperate nature of this interpretation to become clear: it has at least four flaws.2First, there is διι–. We may explain the quantity of the second iota (long in διιπετής, short in Διί) either as metrical lengthening, or as a survival of the Mycenaean, with or without the emendation to διειπετής proposed by one Zenodorus (schol. E2Od. 4.477, var. l. Zenodotus, HQ) and supported by some moderns,3 but the form itself is unexpected. Even supporters of the usual interpretation admit that διι is a very odd way of saying "from Zeus," which should be expressed by a [End Page 353] genitive of source:4 indeed, when Euripides wants to characterize a statue as having "fallen from the sky," he uses διοπετής (IT 977; cf. fr. 971 Nauck2 ). They account for διι- in one of three ways: either as chosen on the analogy of διίφιλος where the dative is appropriate,5 or as a compendious expression meaning "by (the command of) Zeus,"6 as an Arcado– Cypriot use of the dative as an ablative.7 This last approach relies in turn on the hypothesis (itself controversial) of an Achaean stratum of the Homeric language, in which are alleged to persist forms specific to the Mycenaean dialect.8Second, the final element, πετής, is elsewhere in Homer derived from πέτομαι (Il. 12.201, etc.;Il. 8.42, etc.; cf. Hes. Theog. 267). Unlike διιπετής, these words are accented paroxytone (but note παλιμπετές Il. 16.395, Od. 5.27, which means "falling or flying backward"; Pind. Pyth. 3.105; and Aesch. Supp. 782), but this shows only that during the Alexandrian period, when the written accents were devised, scholars associated them with a different root from διιπετής. Leaving our word aside, for examples of -πετής derived from πίπτω we must look to Aeschylus, Pindar, and subsequent authors.9 (Words with πετής from πετάννυμι are attested in later Greek.)10Third, the earliest post–Homeric uses of διιπετής (Eur. Bacch. 1267, Rhes. 43, Hypsipyle fr. 1. sp. IV, 1.31 Bond; Hippoc. Morb. Mul. 1.24) demand the translation "translucent" vel sim. (Etym. Magn. s.v.), and Zenodotus (apud schol. Il. 17.263) glosses the word in its Homeric use as διαυγής,11 yet the semantic development from "fallen from Zeus, etc." (on the usual interpretation) to "translucent" can only be seen as "encore inexpliqué."12 [End Page 354]Fourth, one of the three named rivers to which Homer applies διιπετής is the Nile (Od. 4.477, 581; the others are Spercheius, Il. 16.174, and Scamander, Il. 21.268, 326), yet if ever there were a river that is not "fed or swollen by rain" it is the Nile: rainfall is scarce in Egypt (Hdt. 3.10.3), and, knowing this, Diogenes hypothesized that the Nile was fed by subterranean springs (64 A18 Diels–Kranz; cf. Sen. Q.Nat. 4.2.28–30, 6.8.3–5; schol. Ap. Rhod. 4.269 = p. 277 Wendel). The application of the epithet to the Nile would have, therefore, to be classed among Homer's (admittedly numerous) formulary illogicalities.13Not all scholars accept the usual view. In 1958 M. Treu pointed to a then newly discovered papyrus fragment of Alcman containing the adjective διαιπετής in the phrase (III 66–67 PMG, PMGF = fr. 26.66–67 Calame), which was taken to describe a star "falling through..., less prob.... flying through" heaven (LSJ Suppl. s.v.),14 to hypothesize that the Homeric instances of διιπετής are all miscorrections of an original διαιπετής, "flying through." This theory has won few adherents,15 and R. Renehan (1972b) has with more... (shrink)

In this paper I wish to examine our imagination of the unity of the earth and the process of globalization by contrasting it with the early origins of mapping and measuring the globe. I will pay particular attention to the work of Abū Rayḥān Al-Bīrūnī. I will demonstrate that the assumptions which allowed for Al-Bīrūnī’s advances in the measurement of the globe were based upon a certain understanding of the relationship of place within the sacred order of the (...) cosmos and the role of reason in this connection. This carries over to his anthropological works which considers the history of other religions and cultures. It shows an approach where objectivity in scientific investigation can stand alongside a diversity of religious faiths or visions. I wish to use these insights to consider the positions of such Western writers on the philosophy of globe-formation, such as Carl Schmitt and especially Peter Sloterdijk. Sloterdijk understands the development of our imagination of the globe as a singular history which was achieved primarily through conquest. Comparing these thinkers is important because our understanding of geopolitics and globalization often involves imposing one definition of humanity, reality or the sacred, which marginalizes or vilifies those with differing views. I hope to demonstrate by these contrasts that a unified imagination of the earth through globalization poses extreme dangers, and that the fragmentation of the globe through many religious and secular and artistic projections is the only possibility for a future. That is: the possibility of a future is dependent upon many opposing images of a future. It is only by a return to the initial impulses which led such scientists as Al-Bīrūnī that a true relationship of the human to the earth can be preserved. (shrink)