tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post4340400002492459552..comments2024-03-23T07:33:30.972+00:00Comments on Quodlibeta: A Spherical ArgumentJameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01594220073836613367noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-63873392517665264562016-01-03T05:52:21.039+00:002016-01-03T05:52:21.039+00:00Anonymous Anonymous said...
Text is grat. But ...Anonymous Anonymous said...<br /><br /> Text is grat. But globus cruciger is not earth right? It is whole universe?<br /><br />The images that I have seen have the globe split into three sections representing Europe and Africa, sharing one half of the globe, while Asia occupies the other half. This would indicate that the globe refers to the Earth rather then the Universe. Although I don't know how early this division of the globe took place.<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps#/media/File:Diagrammatic_T-O_world_map_-_12th_c.jpg<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globus_cruciger#/media/File:Denmark_globus_cruciger2.jpgThe Rabbihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16326266051375680796noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-7057781018677889182012-06-10T16:08:47.546+01:002012-06-10T16:08:47.546+01:00Text is grat. But globus cruciger is not earth rig...Text is grat. But globus cruciger is not earth right? It is whole universe?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-6476108471035200142011-12-05T18:21:49.825+00:002011-12-05T18:21:49.825+00:00There were some serious delays with issue 42.1, bu...There were some serious delays with issue 42.1, but the thing is finally out now. Hope the article's going to be of some modest use in further clarifying the issue of patristic cosmology.<br /><br />http://secure.pdcnet.org/augstudies/tocAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-90874606400838304072010-11-24T01:29:20.647+00:002010-11-24T01:29:20.647+00:00As far as I can tell, pretty much every people tha...As far as I can tell, pretty much every people that has lived by the ocean, or on a really flat plain, has had plenty of opportunity to observe that the Earth must be round. Only peoples who live in fairly broken lands seem to be able to believe that Earth is flat....<br /><br />Anyway, the early medieval Irish knew that the Earth was round (thanks to early Christian lit), and they were all over the place in Europe. So pretty much everybody must have heard about it, whether they believed the Irish or not.Bansheehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12594214770417497135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-91085869146116740052010-11-14T18:07:54.632+00:002010-11-14T18:07:54.632+00:00It is particularly ironic to place Colombus at the...It is particularly ironic to place Colombus at the heart of the flat earth myth as, not only do his writings demonstrate without doubt that the global earth theory was universal amongst educated men, but that he himself became convinced they were wrong.<br /><br />In his third letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, he begins: "I have always read that the world comprising the land and water was spherical, and the recorded experiences of Ptolemy and all the others have proved..." <br /><br />Before 'correcting' this assertion based on his own observations: "I have now seen so much irregularity that I have come to another conclusion respecting the Earth, namely, that it is not round, as they describe, but of the form of a pear, which is very round except where the stalk grows, at which part it is most prominent"Barthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02779488710233230585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-29991077536341134262010-11-08T22:07:51.133+00:002010-11-08T22:07:51.133+00:00I agree with your assessment, James. In fact, even...I agree with your assessment, James. In fact, even McCready admits in his article that Isidore assumed the heavens to be spherical. How a spherical heaven (rather than a dome-shaped one) can be combined with a flat earth in any convincing way is not clear to me. But I have to admit that McCready did a competent job pointing out existing ambiguities in Isidore's text.<br /><br />For all the good work that has been done to debunk the "flat earth myth", I feel there is still much room for discussion and further research. One claim, which is still very frequently encountered in the literature concerns Magellan's circumnavigation and its role as "proof" of the earth's sphericity. Even scholars who know that the sphericity was common knowledge during the middle ages tend to attach great importance to his voyage, treating it as "final proof" or something along the lines (as if Aristotle's arguments weren't striking enough). I have the suspicion that this familiar narrative might be a remnant of the myth, which was able to survive the myth itself. In fact, I am unaware of any source contemporary to Magellan's voyage, which actually views the undertaking in this light (but I am grateful for every pointer to the contrary). It seems that people at the time were so confident about the earth's sphericity that they saw no need for proof circumnavigation. I may be wrong, of course, but it would be worth checking the sources to see if sixteenth century perceptions match those of modern textbooks. <br /><br />BTW: The brute fact of Magellan's circumnavigation can be easily reconciled with belief in a flat earth, if the latter is construed in the way modern-day "flat earth societies" have usually done it. Theory is underdetermined by data after all. <br /><br />Update:<br />I was just informed that my article will appear in one of the next issues of "Augustinian Studies", 41/2 (2010) or 42/1 (2011).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-11187250894287145772010-11-08T20:16:55.697+00:002010-11-08T20:16:55.697+00:00Yes, I agree. Thank you Baerista. I have to say ...Yes, I agree. Thank you Baerista. I have to say that I was not convinced by Isidore the flat earther either. <br /><br />It seems pretty obvious that the orbis which he describes as like a wheel is the inhabited world in the northern hemisphere between the arctic and zone of fire. This is clear because he divides it up into the three continents and surrounds them by the ocean which is the standard ancient geography.<br /><br />The earth, on the other hand, comes in the paragraph above and is placed in the centre of the heavens.<br /><br />To call Isidore a flat earther offends the principle of charity at the very least.Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01594220073836613367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-19665335044751822952010-11-08T18:34:09.863+00:002010-11-08T18:34:09.863+00:00Very interesting, Baerista.
I look forward to re...Very interesting, Baerista. <br /><br />I look forward to reading your work!Merkavahnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-86769144307451578032010-11-06T22:23:58.904+00:002010-11-06T22:23:58.904+00:00Thanks for this interesting and insightful post.
...Thanks for this interesting and insightful post. <br />While the vast majority of serious medievalists and historians of science today is well-aware of the "flat earth myth" and is thus not inclined to repeat it in classrooms or textbooks, there still seems to be considerable confusion about the degree to which flat-earth belief might have been influential within Christianity for a certain period during the transitional centures from late antiquity to the early middle ages. Isidore of Seville is a good case in point. His remarks in the Etymologies are definitely confusing and maybe even contradictory. You may remember that there was a somewhat heated debate between Wesley Stevens and William McCready (who argued that Isidore was a flat-earther) on the pages of "Isis" back in 1996, which had no clear winner. Having said that, I'm inclined to side with Stevens in this question, if only because Isidore was so closely affiliated with King Sisebut, whose epistolary poem on a lunar eclipse quite unambiguously presupposes the spherical cosmological model of Greek natural philosophy.<br />Another candidate for controversy are the cosmological views of St. Augustine. Recent voices within Augustinian scholarship have basically made him into a flat-earther again (see for instance the article on "cosmology" in "Augustine through the Ages", which is the standard encyclopedia). I have written an article, in which I try to defend the older view, showing that Augustine most likely accepted the spherical model. It is currently being peer reviewed and will hopefully be published next year.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5074683.post-44584674217757573462010-11-05T17:40:25.731+00:002010-11-05T17:40:25.731+00:00They don't make cartoons like they used to.They don't make cartoons like they used to.Noonsnoreply@blogger.com