FARINELLI (1998), Did Anaximander Ever Say (or Write) Any Words_ the Nature of Cartographical Reason

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Did anaximander ever say (orwrite) any words? The nature of cartographical reasonFranco Farinelli aa Istituto di Discipline della Comunicazione , Università diBologna , via Toffano 212, Bologna, 40125, Italy E-mail:Published online: 10 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Franco Farinelli (1998) Did anaximander ever say (or write) anywords? The nature of cartographical reason, Philosophy & Geography, 1:2, 135-144, DOI:10.1080/13668799808573640

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Ethics, Place and Environment, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1998

Did Anaximander ever Say orWrite) any Words? The Nature ofCartographical Reason

FRANCO FARINELLI

Original manuscript received, 19 May 1998Revised manuscript received, 10 June 1998

ABSTRACT This paper focuses on Anaximander's pinax, the first map according toWestern tradition. Its aim is to demonstrate that it is only after the realization of thepinax that it was possible to distinguish between Being and beings in a Heideggeriansense, that is to pose the question of the ontological difference. Consequently, all thehistory of Western thought is nothing but the history of the raising of cartographical

representation, and of reason here em bodied, from the dark rigidity of death to therarefied splendours of Pure Reason.

At the beginning of our era Strabo stated that geography was a philosophical matter, thusimplying that philosophy was a geographical affair. Soon after this incipit, he added thatthe first geographers were Homer and Anaximander (Strabo, I, 1, 1). Strabo was a stoic,and according to Stoics Homer was the father of all knowledge, who therefore had to bementioned right at the beginning. Anaximander, on the other hand, was one of thepresocratic philosophers, or more properly, one of the G reek savants, because philosophystarted only later, with Plato (Colli, 1978, pp. 153 -205 ). According to the W esterntradition, Anaximander is well known for his primacy in two separate fields. First of all,he 'dared draw the ecumene on a table (pinax)' (Agathemerus, I, 1, in Müller, II, p. 471).He was also 'the first known Greek who dared to publish the first written accountconcerning nature' (Themistius, in Diels-Kranz, 12 A 7). In this paper I will attempt tomaintain that these two fragments refer to same thing, that Anaximander's supremaciesare only one, and that they are not separated but rather they coincide. If this is true, itwould mean that logos and table are the same thing, and therefore that Western thought(reason) is nothing else than the protocol of geographical representation, that is of the

cartographical image. Further, this would imply that our rationality is determined froma cartographical point of view, that it is already contained and produced by thecartographical image. Western reason is nothing but cartographical reason, its relentlessunwinding and development. In other words, the idea of language as a set of compatible

Franco Farinelli, Istituto di Discipline d ella Com unicazione, Università di Bologna, via Toffano 212, 40125Bologna, Italy. E-mail: [email protected].

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136 Franco Farinelli

symbols is directly derived from the map. Therefore, the house of the Being is not thelanguage, as Heidegger (Heidegger, 1947, p. 56) m aintains, but the map.

Let us begin with the nature of the astronomical system used by Anaximander in thesixth century BC to transform cosmogony into cosm ology, wh ich is usually understoodaccording to a geometrical model. In considering this, I will refrain from any interpreta-

tions about the relevance of its connections (Vernant, 1985, pp. 216 -237) or indeed thelack of its connections (Serres, 1993, pp. 121-131) with the shape of the political order.What interests me here is first of all the internal nature of the geometric order as itexpresses itself that is the nature of the rational implications that are at the basis andtherefore implicit to the afore-mentioned order. These implications, which for Anaxi-mander were originaries, now are taken for granted and are no more questioned. The aimof Anaximander's system was to explain the stability of the earth, the reason why it didnot shift in the universe. The earth was imagined as a precise and fixed center inside amoving cosmos. It was surrounded by concentric wheel-rims, which were empty andfilled with fire. One of these was for the stars, another for the moon, and another for thesun. Stars, moon and sun were nothing but holes in these rims from which one couldglimpse the internal fire (Aetius, in Diels-Kranz, 12 B 21-22). As Aristotle (Cael. 295b 12-16) reports, according to Anaximander it is similarity (pmoiotes) that explains theposition of the earth, as 'what sits in the middle and is similary related to the extremeshas no more reason to go upwards than downwards or sideways'.

Some years ago Jonathan Barnes attempted an interpretation of Anaximander's model.The author himself considers his interpretation speculative and yet in line with all thesources. This has the advantage that it sheds light on the inferences and on some of theimplications which are at the basis of Anaximander's model (Barnes, 1982, pp. 23-28).

Here it is worth examining Barnes' interpretation more closely. According to him,everything Anaximander needs is:

(1) For any cosmic spoke S;, there is a distinct spoke Sj such that Sj is similar to Si.

Here it is important to realize that for 'cosmic spoke' Barnes (1982) means 'a straightline drawn from the center of the earth to the boundary of the finite cosmos' (italicsmine). I will shortly explain what all this means. At this point the text draws ourattention to the fact that when Aristotle talks about the lack of any reasons why the earthshould move, this implicitly refers to Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason, according

to which a fact does not exist or a statement is not true without a motive which explainswhy it is really so and not otherwise. On the basis of this principle Barnes (1982)reconstructs Anaximander's reasoning in the following way. Let us suppose that:

(2) The earth moves along the cosmic spoke indicated with Sj

In order for Anaximander to explain this movement, he has to refer to a principle of thiskind:

(3) If a is F, then for some (f>,a is F because a is (f>.

From (2) and (3) we infer that:(4) For some the earth moves along Si because Si is .

At this point we suppose that the explanatory feature of Si is G.This results in:

(5) The earth is moving along Si because Si is G.

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Cartographical Reason 137

Therefore:

(6) S, is G.

So for 1 and 6 we have:

(7) Some Sj distinct from Si is G.We finally assume that:

(8) S2 is G.

At this point, in order to proceed, Barnes (1982) has to introduce a further principle.According to this all explanations are 'universalizable'. These are expressed with thefollowing formula:

(9) If a is F because a is G, then if anything is G it is F.

It is just in this transition from (3) to (9) that, according to Barnes (1982), occurs whatLeibniz calls the Principle of Sufficient Reason. First, (3) says that what happens impliessome kind of explanation . Second, in (9) it is specified that this explanation is a sufficientcondition for what it explains. So, from (5), (8) and (9) it follows that:

(10) The earth is moving along S2-

But because nothing can move in two different directions at the same time, (2) and (10)are incompatible and therefore Barnes (1982) concludes that (2) is false and thus theearth is motionless.

What is striking in Barnes' (1982) analysis is its partial and incomplete nature. To saythat each spoke has its own similar, as in (1), means to affirm the first of the twoprinciples that according to Leibniz are at the basis of all our reasoning. This is theprinciple of contradiction according to which we judge false what implies contradiction,and true what is the opposite in relation to false (Leibniz, 1989, p. 24). Indeed, theprinciple of contradiction, in the same way as the principle of knowledge, presupposessimilarity. Similarity allows us to go beyond the tautology A = A, according to whichthere is nothing new, and to go on saying that A = B is not a contradiction butcorresponds to the maximum knowledge possible (Olsson, 1998). In short, similarity isthe departure point, the form on which the principle of contradiction is founded, and on

which truth and falseness finally depend. It is only amongst things that are similar thatproblems of sameness and equality arise.

So, what is at stake in Anaximander's system are both of the main fundaments ofWestern reason. Barnes (1982) states that it would not be correct to accuse Anaximanderof abolishing without any explanations all transcendental differences amongst thespokes, as every authentic scientific enterprise is based on the preliminary abolition ofall divine, and therefore capricious, interferences in natural processes. In a similar way,Barnes (1982) goes on by saying that all scientists think (3) and (9) are true even if theycannot demonstrate a priori their validity, because otherwise there would be nopossibility of finding universal astronomical laws. This occurs because Anaximander'smodel is a geometrical model in the same way that the assumption of (1), according toBarnes, is also geometrical: according to his definition, the spokes are, in fact, 'drawn'.But where does W estern reason 'actually come from? What is its material origin? Husserl(1954) pauses in front of this question. He admits that each measure implies therealization of an empirical cause-effect model, but at the same time he ascribes the senseof geometry and the possibility of its objectivity to linguistic comprehension, through


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which subjects communicate their own psychic internal dimension in space and time. Inthis context the figure drawn is nothing but a substitute of the actual reproduction of theoriginary ideal. Husserl (1954) acknowledges that this has become inaccessible andirrecuperable. He also acknowledges that one must thematize the 'apodeictic element'which in geometry serves first as material and then as 'invariable structure', 'absolute apriori' which endow s geometrical truths with absolute validity for all cultures and alltimes. However, Husserl (1954) also acknowledges that the principle which functions asa presupposition for this condition has never been grounded, because it has neverbecome a problem. At the same time he cannot help noticing that, from a phenomeno-logical point of view, for practical reasons human beings are forced to reduce things tosurfaces, that is smooth and fiat tables, and to reduce all lines to straight lines (Husserl,1954, pp. 60 -62 , 367- 36 8, 370-3 72, 376, 383 -386 ). All this could be translated in thefollowing manner: all human praxis has been governed by the reduction of thingsaccording to tabular models or pinakes. Derrida (1962) stresses that for Husserl it is onlywriting, the graphic expression, that constitutes the final condition of 'ideal objectivity'.He further stresses that in each sign that functions as a depository of sense, there is alsodeposited a truth which has not been thought. Derrida (1962) acknowledges that,although Husserl often talks about a perceptible 'base' or 'substratum', these expressionsare not to be understood as fundamentals: the geometrical truth only depends on 'purethinking', which is responsible for idealization (Derrida, 1962, pp.86, 90 -91 , 145).

Also for H eidegger (1950, p. 314), as well as for Husserl, the originary 'dic tare 'comes from thought, but Heidegger, at the end of the 1960s, had still to deal thoroughlywith the 'principle of ground' (Heidegger, 1987, p. 309). What Heidegger (1957,pp. 31 -32 ) calls 'the principle of groun d' is literally Leibniz's P rinciple of Sufficient

Reason. This takes us back to Anaximander, and more precisely to Heidegger'sinterpretation of this figure and his words, probably the most ancient, perhaps mostproblematic and, as a consequence, most debated ones in Western thought. This debateleads us to the core of my argument in this paper.

Following Burnet's lesson, and leaving aside the longer one of Diels-Kranz, Heideg-ger (Heidegger, 1950) refers to the fragments in the following way: katd to chreon;didonai gar auta diken kai tisin allelois tes adikias. R ichardson (1967, p. 520) translatesthe second clause, which is about the beings (td onto) in the following way: 'beings-in-the-ensemble {auta) come to presence insofar as, in com-patibility with each other (tisinallelois), they overcome (didonai ... diken) the tendency within themselves to deny thenegativity (adikias)' that is a very condition of their presencing. One has to be remindedthat, according to Heidegger, for the early Greeks, the Being corresponds to the phusis(which today under a Latin influence is translated with the word Nature) and was anemergent-abiding-presence (Heidegger, 1983, pp. 10-12). From this point of view phusiswas equivalent to aletheia, that is truth without concealment; however, in the above-mentioned essay Heidegger (1950, pp. 375 -376) explains that non-concealment cannotescape negativity, and nor can the beings that become present through it. Richardson(1967) translates and sums up in the following way: beings are insofar as theycome-to-presence, but they remain in some way or other non-present, that is concealed;therefore that which comes to presence is a mixture of the present and the non-present;insofar as that which comes-to-presence is negatived, that is non-present, it is that whichdoes-not-come-to presence. This is a process endowed with a certain dynamism,according to which 'the whiling' (i.e. the staying for a while) of beings obeys a particulararrangement (dike). A-dikla (dis-arrangement) is exactly the privation of that arrange-ment, and can be explained by the fact that intrinsic to this process is a kind of 'drag',a sort of a law of hidden gravity which obstructs movement and fluidity, a tendency of


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beings to freeze into rigidity, to perdure in a static form. Richardson (1967) stresses thatbeings in no way have to be understood anthropomorphically. However, in a footnote,he cannot help explaining Heidegger's interpretation of the saying of Anaximanderthrough an analogy. He discards the image of actors who step before a curtain, thendisappear behind it, and wonders w hether perhaps it would b e possible to say that beings

are as if fashioned out of turbulent quicksand, which is in the process of disappearingat the very moment in which it becomes visible. He quickly adds that this is not theterminology used by Heidegger and that it also presents various problems (Richardson,1967, p. 518).

On the contrary, I think this is a revelatory image, in relation more to Anaximanderthan to Heidegger. Let us start from the first clause of Anaximander's saying. Nointerpreter doubts the facts that this clause does not refer to beings, but to Being, andthat it therefore has an ontological value. For H eidegger (1950, pp . 337 -40) Chreon is'the oldest name by which thought brings the Being of beings into language' and hetranslates this expression as 'according to the handling', meaning that Being 'handssomething to its own essence and keeps it in hand, preserving it in its truth ascoming-to-presence in this way '. Heidegger (1950, pp. 337 -401 ) stresses that the wordChreon comes from a root that means 'hand', and exactly this hand-ling, this keepingbeings in hand, is the originary gathering-together, hence it is the logos (Heidegger,1950, pp. 337 -401). Richardson (1967, pp. 520 -521 ) adds that, curiously, Heideggerspeaks in such a way as to imply not only that Being hands essence to beings, but thatit hands beings over to (their) essence as if beings were 'manu-ducted' by Being into theprocess of coming-to-presence that holds the primacy over them. But at the same timeHeidegger specifies something which is of paramount importance. He explains that the

relation between this process of coming-to-presence and that which comes-to-presenceis not thought of because the first (of which we forget the essence) imperceptiblychanges into the second. The formula is well known and it refers to the event ofmetaphysics: 'The forgottenness of Being is the forgottenness of the difference betweenBeing and be ings' (Heidegger, 1950, p. 336).

This forgottenness can be precisely placed from a chronological point of view—a factthat validates my thesis and that also confirms the validity of Richardson's (1967)analogy which he himself doubted. Also in this case we are reminded of a well-knownstatement (you remember, Hegel said, that those things we are acquainted with are notthose we know): 'I laugh when I see that many have drawn the map of the earth and

nobody has interpreted it wisely. They draw the Ocean that flows around the earth whichis round as if it had just come out of a potter's wheel (os apd tornou) and they draw Asiaas if it was Europe' (Herodotus, IV, 36, 2). It is not customary to translate Herodotusin this way. In fact, usually translators do not refer to the image of the potter's wheeland instead use the expression 'drawn w ith a com pass'. It is however a legitimate choice,and Euripides, for example uses the word tornos in both meanings (fr. 382; Bacch.,1067). My translation has the advantage that it considers the pinax in its true nature asa philosophical sculpture. At this point it is useful to remember that Allen Workmann(1953) has noticed a close relationship, almost coincidence, between the lexicon ofPresocratic thinkers and the lexicon which refers to the technique of the fusion of bronzestatues which was being perfected in Anaximander's lifetime. Workmann explained thatthe fusion of bronze statues was the most technical and scientific process ever performedby the Greeks as it implied the change from one substance to another through the fourphysical states: solid, liquid, gaseous and combustible. He also noticed that the stages ofthis process function as the demonstration of the relationship amongst the four elementsof the Milesian philosophy: earth, water, air and fire. He further stressed the way in


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which thought took the process of sculpture as its model to the point that, for the Greeks,the concept of the Archetypos directly comes from the empty mould obtained spreadinga layer of wax on the original clay figure. In other words thought comes from a formthat is impalpable and yet not ideal. It is for this reason that, according to Workmann(1953), Anaximander and his colleagues have always refused to consider the phenom-enon as the product of ideal forms and have never dared say a word about anything thatwas not endowed with a body.

What then does Herodotus say? He stresses a very important point in relation togeographical representation that allows us to identify the beings with the nature ofcartographical representation. There is no doubt that he laughs at the Ionic pinakes whichdescend from the circular model of Anaxim ander (Kahn, 1960, pp. 82 -83 ). This isusually understood as a revolt against the excessive geometric nature of the geographicalfigures of his time (Jacob, 1992, p. 492). However, this demonstrates that just during theperiod of Pericles the difference between Being and beings is definitely forgotten,because the memory of the process that leads to the production of beings, that is of thecartographical forms with their crystallization and rigidity, is also definitely lost.Richardson (1967, pp. 518-519 ) stresses that Heidegger does not say at all why beingstend to negate the whiling process, why, in the process of falling in the adikia, they tendto freeze into rigidity. However, if we use Workmann's (1953) analysis we have animmediate answer depending upon the material nature of sculpture which functions asmodel. It does not matter whether it is made out of clay or bronze, the pinax is destinedto congeal and solidify in a way that does not bear any trace of the originary fluidity ofits substance or of the process of its transformation. If we start from the potter's wheel,as Herodotus forces us to do, the image that Richardson (1967) proposed, not without

some perplexity, of the quicksand whose shape vanishes as soon as it starts to appear,is a correct one and the only one possible. About Being and its relationship with beings,what Heidegger ascribes to Anaximander fits in perfectly with the relationship that, inthe process of production, exists between the throwing wheel and the clay that is worked.In this way also the formidable question of the limitless nature (apeirori) of Beingintended as origin and domination (arche) of the 'movedness' (Richardson, 1967, p. 310)would find a possible and immediate solution. Onians (1951, pp. 310-326) has demon-strated that the originary meaning of peras is not limit, but rope, knot, bond. Workmann(1953, p. 46) explains that it was only during the process of fusion, and not w hilemodelling the clay, that ropes or chains were utilized to keep the moulds in shape when

the melted metal expanded.The limit of this interpretation is not that it is too simple, but rather that it does not

take into account the reasons for the loss of memory, for the oblivion of the fundamentalontological difference. Questions of this kind still remain unanswered as do those whichrefer to the nature of the cartographical image and its transformations. It is Heidegger(1983, p. 117) himself who points towards an answer when he remarks that the Dasein,the There-being, that is the condition which allows beings to manifest themselves to menand that render all encounters with them possible, is the polls, the city, the place ofhistory (the 'There') in which and from which history happens. And the unwinding ofhistory in Greece from Anaximander to Herodotus can be summed up with a movementfrom the circular shapes of the city and the picture of the earth to the quadrangular shape,the same one whose supremacy Heidegger (1983, pp. 71- 101 ) will celebrate when,considering modernity as 'the time of World-as-Picture', he gives meaning to the wordGestell. For Heidegger (1983) this term contains 'the essence of modern technology' andindicates the structure which, because it coincides with the 'exactness of representation',is necessary to 'uncover, transform, store, divide, alter' the energy hidden in nature. The


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aim of the Gestell is to grasp this energy in the form of 'an organized whole ofcomputable forces' which have to be 'sorted out in order to be utilized' (Heidegger,1954, pp. 19, 23, 25, italics mine). Later on, Michel Foucault, without paying homageto Heidegger, will translate all this with the expression 'timeless rectangle'. Here beingsonly bear their names and are represented through their visible surfaces. They are placed

one beside the other, and ordered according to their physical features, which alone serveto analyse them (Foucault, 1966, p. 143). Foucault's representation still remains amodern unsurpassable definition of the cartographical image.

All Greek history, from Anaximander's times onwards, is nothing but the concreterealization on the earth, in the city, of the order of the map, or pinax. Leveque andVidal-Naquet (1964, p. 123) emphasize the coincidence between Anaximander's geo-metrical vision of the universe and the 'political vision of a rational and homogeneouscity, like that of Cleisthenes'. They also remark how this solidarity disappeared duringthe fifth century. At the end of the sixth century, Athens, the Cleisthenic polis, was thefirst one to be based on the equivalence (isonomy) between citizens. Herodotus (VI, 131,2) sees in the birth of the polis the beginning of the democratic system. There is no doubtthat Cleisthenes' reform marks the beginning of the idea of political identity as we knowit today; an idea which depends on the belonging to a given territory and, at the sametime, on the recognition of the individual position within a plan which prior to thisreform did not exist at all. As Christian Meier (1980) notes, a rupture occurred betweensocial order and political order. Society, with all its inequalities, remained more or lessthe same; however a new separated sphere, in which all were equal, sprang up alongsideit. Meier (1980, p. 263) goes on to clarify that it was not the state and the society thatwere separated and concentrated in different circles of people, but that there were merely

two co-existing levels, which no longer corresponded to one another in any way. It isonly at a political level, within the political order, that a citizen in a situation ofunchangeable social inequality becomes for the first time equal to the others. But wheredoes this ontological modification spring from, what is the nature of this equality, of thisgeneralized, and yet not total identity? Where does this new level or new order comefrom?

It is well known that the city of Athens in Cleisthenes' times started to assume a shapethat was clearly regulated by a set of geometrical relations and it was precisely theserelations which provided the structure for the birth of a new civic sphere. In thisperspective the Cleisthenic reform consisted in re-designing the Athenian administrationaccording to the principle of a spatial and geometrical order (Leveque and Vidal-Naquet,1964, pp. 63-75). It is exactly the nature of this order that transforms the administrativeact into a political project, that is that re-models not simply the form of the city but alsothe nature of the relationship amongst citizens who begin to assume the essence ofperfectly equivalent geometric points (Farinelli, 1994, p. 16). Cleisthenes' reform marksonly the beginning of this equivalence. Qualitatively, in fact, the space of the city is notyet an even, undifferentiated space. Hannah Arendt (1958, pp. 21 -25 ) explains that eachtime the citizens of Athens left their homes to go into the main square, that is into theplace in which they performed their role of citizens, they had to cross an abyss. Theabyss was between the place and the space, that is between the domestic realm and thematerial form of the political sphere. The latter corresponds to the realm of freedomwhich has nothing to do with the realm of necessities and it is made up of the sum ofsocial relations and at the same time significantly overlaps it. But where does thegeometrical space which with Cleisthenes becomes the principle of urban organizationcome from?

At the beginning of this paper we said that Michel Serres (1993) tends to depreciate


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the homology, also noted by Vernant, between the above-mentioned model of urbanorganization and Anaximander's cosmological model. This model was similarlygrounded on the recurrence of the round shape of the circle, the very same shape that,according to what is described for instance in the Iliad governs most ancient politicalsystems. Such systems functioned through the assembly of the warriors. All warriors

were equal, so they sat in a circle and in turns moved to the centre to perform theirspeech. Leveque and V idal-Naquet (1964, p. 68) disregard any direct influence of thepolitical order on the cosmological order; yet at the same time they firmly state that thefirst provides a system of references, the image of an order that is already created andat the same time about to be created. The problem that arises here is one of the priorityof what is considered political over what is cosmological. But where does the formwhich allows the similarly between these two spheres come from?

Karl R einhardt (1960, p. 256) points to a possible answer when he describes A theniancitizenship as equivalent to 'a substance in which each amount, extract at random fromtime to time, has the same structure and the same composition'. In other words, hedescribes politics as something endowed with all the properties of Euclidean space, thatis continuity, homogeneity and isotropy. But differently from the hollow space of themoulds of the sculptor this space is neither ideal, nor impalpable. On the contrary, allEuclidean geometry is a system grounded on tactile and muscular assumptions, onlypreoccupied with metrics and totally oblivious of visuality. Precisely because such asystem depends only on tactile sensations, its spatial intuitions are very elementary andlimited, even though the abstract nature of its symbols was able to organize suchintuitions according to a very complex and coherent gramm ar (Ivins, 1985, p. 32). Thetable has been the only instrument and model of this organization, the object by which

it was possible to produce and synthesize all tactile assumptions. One could at this pointoverturn what Leveque and Vidal-Naquet (1964) state. In defining the nature of 'civicspace', they write that with the Cleisthenes' reform 'the new realities can be inscribedon to a map' (Leveque and Vidal-Naquet, 1964, p. 13). Contrary to what they affirm, itis because the table, that is the map, becomes a model for reality that the latter takes ondifferent and unexpected forms. But why does this occur?

Is it really true that Heidegger (1983) is the only one to offer an adequate answer tothis question when he explains that the function of the work of art is to realize in a beingthe Being. To realize, Heidegger (1983) adds, here means to produce a work of art inwhich the emergent-abiding-Power, which corresponds to the phusis intended as logosand as dike, appears. At this point there is no doubt that a pinax, whether it is made outof bronze or clay, is a work of art, and as such it enters, according to Heidegger (1983,p. 122), the place where everything which appears different, or is there by accident, isconfirmed, made accessible, significant and intelligible, as something which either existsor does not exist. There is nothing complicated, mystical or obscure in all this. HereHeidegger (1983) is simply saying that, from our point of view, it is only through thepinax (the originary work of art?) that we can distinguish between Being and being,according to a movement in which Being, opposing to the beings at the point in whichthey become signs, becomes that which shuns from the map, that which does not appearon it, even though it is imprinted in the geometrical order implied in the very materialityof what functions as basis and concrete support of its representation. And this is thereason why at the same time in which Being is unveiled this is also hidden, and why onecannot conceive of Being without the preliminary production of those particular beingswhich are the signs and the body of the signs. Being can only be conceived of inopposition to the body of beings (the map) and as their negative. It is for this reason thatfor Heidegger (1983), phusis, logos and dike coincide in the work of art. Adikia is


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nothing but the oblivion of the temporary character of this coincidence, of the fact thatonly for a fleeting moment, before it solidifies, being can stay for Being. Somethingsimilar, but in a different context and pointing to a different direction, is also stated byEco (1997, p. 17) for whom, if the Da sein is being which is aware of the semiotic natureof its relation with other beings, it is not necessary to duplicate being and Being.

As a matter of fact, the late Heidegger, in the summer of 1967, seems to say what hasjust been affirmed. Science, Heidegger says, presupposes nature as a specific, measurablesphere of beings. Nature is grounded on measurability and its measurability is in turnmade possible by the homogeneity of space and time. Heidegger also adds that we haveno problem in immediately sensing Newtonian space as this is immediately present tous. On the contrary, in nuclear physics something completely new occurs, as results areinfluenced by the process of undertaking the experiment. Here the model becomesnecessary because it is not possible to sense the objects and yet there is still the needof computability. In the same fashion, Heidegger continues, today the representation oflanguage is not determined by language itself by the way in which one person speaksto another, but by the way in which computers speak and compute. Language isassimilated to the computer in the same way that physics becomes nuclear physics, thatis by excluding people—who inhabit a world organized by computers and nuclearphysics—from access to the world itself (Heidegger, 1987, pp. 309-311). What Heideg-ger does not take into account in this case is that we can immediately understandNewtonian space only because this is the protocol of cartographical representation, andthat the nature of the computer is that of being a map that continuously produces othermaps, 'the square of a map' with the purpose, which is proper to all maps, of makingthe world more and more predictable through the application of a binary logic, a sort of

logic that directly springs out of the map (Farinelli, 1987, pp. 29 -3 0) . 'T he T ime ofWorld-as-Picture' is literally the time of World-as-Map (Farinelli, 1992), and Kantmanages to ground objectivity (the validity of knowledge) only by applying the schemesof cartographical projection to subjectivity, making them transcendental and able toproduce the absolute legality (modality) of knowledge (Farinelli, 1996, pp. 279 -28 2).This is the upturning of the position which was at the base of Western philosophy. Inthe very last lines of P lato's Republic (X, 621 ,b), at the end of the recounting of the mythof Er, is described the world of Death, and more precisely the dry plain of the river Lethe(that is of Forgetfulness), the last halting place of souls before they are sent on earth tobe incarnate again. In this place no vessel can draw the water from the river. A country

where no vessel can draw water from a river could be taken as the best ancient definitionof the cartographical image.

I am well aware that my interpretation of the Platonic Hell is not in line with currentthought (Vernant, 1985, pp. 144-145). Despite this, the fact is still valid that the entirehistory of Western Philosophy, almost up to our days, remains the history of a adikiawhich begins with Anaximander: it is the history of the raising of cartographicalrepresentation and of reason here embodied from the dark rigidity of death to the rarefiedsplendours of Pure Reason.

ReferencesArendt, H. (1958) The Human Condition, Chicago, Ill: Chicago University Press.Barnes, J. (1982) The Presocratic Philosophers, London: Routledge.Colli, G. (1978) La sapienza greca, II, Milano: Adelphi,Derrida, J. (1962) Introduction, in: Husserl, E., L'origine de la gèométrie, Paris: P.U.F., 3 -171 .Diels-Kranz, H.-W. (1985) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, I, Zürich-Hildesheim: Weidmann.Eco, U. (1997) Kant e l'ornilorinco, Milano: Bompiani.


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Farinelli, F. (1987) Epistemologia e geografia, in: C orna Pellegrini, G. (ed.) Aspelti e problemi della geografia,Milano: Marzorati, 1-38.

Farinelli, F. (1992) Certezza del rappresentare, in: Farinelli, F., I segni del mondo. Immagine cartografica ediscorso geografico in età moderna, Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 55-70.

Farinelli, F. (1994) Squaring the circle, or the nature of political identity, in: Farinelli, F., Olsson, G.Reichert, D. (eds) Limits of Representation, München: Accedo, 11-28.

Farinelli, F. (1996) Von der Natur der Moderne: eine Kritik der kartographischen Vernunft, in: Reichert, D.(ed.) Räumliches Denken, Zürich: ETH, 267-302.

Foucault, M. (1966) Les mots et les choses, Paris: Gallimard.Heidegger, M. (1947) Platons Lehre von der Wahrheit. Mit einem Brief über den 'Humanismus', Bern:

Francke.Heidegger, M. (1950) Holzwege, Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann.Heidegger, M. (1954) Vorträge und Aufsätze, Pfullingen: Neske.Heidegger, M. (1957) Der Satz vom Grund Pfullingen: Neske.Heidegger, M. (1983) Einführung in die Metaphysik, Gesamtausgabe, 40, Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann.Heidegger, M. (1987) Zollikoner Seminare, Boss, M. (ed.), Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann.Husserl, E. (1954) Die Krisis der Europäischen Wissenschaften und die Transzendentale Phänomenologie,

Gesammelte Werke, VI, Haag: Nijhoff.Ivins, W.M. (1985) La rationalisation du regard, Culture Technique, 14, 31-37.Jacob, C.H. (1992) L'Empire des Cartes, Paris: Michel.Kahn, C.H. (1960) Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, New York: Columbia University Press.Leibniz, G.W. (1989) Opera Omnia, II, Hildesheim: Olms.Léveq ue, P. Vidal-Naquet, P. (1964) Clisthène l'Atenien, Besançon: Macula.Meier, C.H. (1980) Die Entstehung des Politischen bei den Grieken, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.Müller, C. (ed.) (1965) Geography Graeci Minores, II, Hildesheim: Olms.Olsson, G. (1998) Towards a critique of cartographical reason, Ethics, Place and Environment, 1(2).Onians, R.B. (1951) The Origins of European Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Reinhardt, K. (1960) Tradition und Geist, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.Richardson, W.J. (1967) Heidegger. Through Phenomenology to Thought, The Hague: Nijhoff.

Serres, M. (1993) Les origines de la géométrie, Paris: Flammarion.Strabo (1949-1954) The Geography of Strabo, trans. H.L. Jones, London: Heinemann.Vernant, J.P. (1985) Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs, Paris: Maspero.Workmann, A. (1953) La terminologie sculpturale dans la philosophie présocratique, Actes du Xlème Congrès

International de Philosophie, Bruxelles, 20-26 août 1953, XII, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 45-50.


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Documents

FARINELLI (1998), Did Anaximander Ever Say (or Write) Any Words_ the Nature of Cartographical Reason