The basis of discovery began in ancient Greece when philosophers started to separate the creation of the world from cultural myths and the gods. Because of this separation, chaos started to become Kosmos, and cosmology, the study of the makeup of the world. The author of the Kosmos text gives a detailed description of the ocean and the inhabitant world as he knew it. He accounts how the Atlantic Ocean surrounds the inhabitant world and the seas throughout the inhabitant world. However, the validity of his claims becomes unclear as he explains how the ocean surrounds Europe, Asia, and Libya coupled with fictional islands and odd placements of presently known islands. In this text, I will prove that the author of the Kosmos does not have enough
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He could glean where countries lie in relation to the ocean by keeping the shore in sight. He reported the world as, “a little short of 4 myriad stades [ca. 6300 km] … and its length is approximately 7 myriad stades [ca. 11000 km]. It is divided into Europe, Asia and Libya,” which were the only continents of the inhabitant’s world (Kosmos, 132). Philosophers of the time used measurements of 600 feet to gage distance. The author has a thorough technique of recording empirical data and keeping a system by using measurements. But how could philosophers not tell that Africa was twice its size? The author claims, “The ocean that is outside the inhabited world is called the Atlantic, or Ocean, and surrounds us” (Kosmos, 132). But the author had only theorized about the south of Libya. How could he know the scope of land? He did not know the size of Libya. He assumes the ocean only penetrated the southern boarder at the Red Sea. “In the East, the Ocean again penetrates the inhabited world; it opens out the of lndia and Persia and without a break reveals the Red Sea, embracing these as parts of itself” (CITE) then, the ocean continues until the Pillars of Herakles. But how could the author know the Red Sea opens into the ocean without awareness of a huge body of land immediately to adjacent to it? This information proves too faulty to stand as a credible description of the world of
He could glean where countries lie in relation to the ocean by keeping the shore in sight. He reported the world as, “a little short of 4 myriad stades [ca. 6300 km] … and its length is approximately 7 myriad stades [ca. 11000 km]. It is divided into Europe, Asia and Libya,” which were the only continents of the inhabitant’s world (Kosmos, 132). Philosophers of the time used measurements of 600 feet to gage distance. The author has a thorough technique of recording empirical data and keeping a system by using measurements. But how could philosophers not tell that Africa was twice its size? The author claims, “The ocean that is outside the inhabited world is called the Atlantic, or Ocean, and surrounds us” (Kosmos, 132). But the author had only theorized about the south of Libya. How could he know the scope of land? He did not know the size of Libya. He assumes the ocean only penetrated the southern boarder at the Red Sea. “In the East, the Ocean again penetrates the inhabited world; it opens out the of lndia and Persia and without a break reveals the Red Sea, embracing these as parts of itself” (CITE) then, the ocean continues until the Pillars of Herakles. But how could the author know the Red Sea opens into the ocean without awareness of a huge body of land immediately to adjacent to it? This information proves too faulty to stand as a credible description of the world of