Kahn, C.H., Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology. Hamel, J., Die Vorstellung von der Kugelgestalt der Erde im europäischen Mittelalter bis zum Ende des 13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010 (=Gr). Graham, D.W., The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010, 412–451. Schofield, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987. Volume I: The Formation of the Atomic Theory and Its Earliest Critics. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications 1953.įurley, D., The Greek Cosmologists. Zürich/Hildesheim: Weidmann 1951 6 (=DK).ĭreyer, J.L.E., A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler.

Ithaca N.Y.: Thames and Hudson 1970.ĭiels, H. New York: Springer 2011.ĭicks, D.R., Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle. Ĭouprie, D.L., Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology. Berkeley: University of California Press 2004.Ĭopernicus, N., De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. Leiden: Brill 2016.īigwood, J.M., Aristotle and the Elephant Again. Aristotle’s arguments can be divided into two groups: theoretical and empirical.īakker, F.A., Epicurean Meteorology. Since then, hardly any serious philosopher or astronomer has doubted that the earth is a sphere. Aristotle, who was familiar with the ins and outs of the debate, sought to terminate it by putting forward arguments for the sphericity of the earth and arguing against alleged evidence that the earth is flat. For example, a curious argument, attributed to Anaxagoras, that is intended to prove that the earth is flat. There must have been a heated debate among ancient Greek cosmologists about the shape of the earth, some of which can still be followed in the reports of the doxographers. He then compares the earth with a dodecahedron. In the Phaedo, Plato tells us that someone has convinced Socrates that the earth is a sphere, without indicating who this “someone” was or what his arguments were. Several scholars have argued that Parmenides was the first to accept the earth’s sphericity.

These testimonies are usually considered false. Diogenes Laërtius reports that Hesiod, Anaximander and Pythagoras taught that the earth was spherical. According to Aëtius, Thales stated that the earth is shaped like a ball.

Ancient cosmology theories flat earth