Microcosm and Macrocosm - Origins, Plato, The Body Politic, Hellenism And Late Antiquity, Jewish And Muslim Theories In The Middle Ages
Microcosm and macrocosm are two aspects of a theory developed by ancient Greek philosophers to describe human beings and their place in the universe. These early thinkers viewed the individual human being as a little world (mikros kosmos) whose
composition and structure correspond to that of the universe, or great world (makros kosmos, or megas kosmos). Kosmos at this time meant "order" in a general sense and implied a harmonious, and therefore beautiful, arrangement of parts in any organic system; hence it also referred to order in human societies, reflected in good government. Comparisons between society and the human being, as well as society and the universe, were varieties of microcosmic theory. These analogies enjoyed a long life, first in the Mediterranean region during antiquity and later throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. The ideas were commonplace during the Renaissance and early modern times but lost their plausibility when a mechanistic model of the universe became dominant in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
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In the Philebus (28d–30d), Plato argued that human beings and the universe are both composed of an elemental body and a rational soul, and that just as the human body derives from the universe's body, the human soul must derive from the universe's soul. The universe is, therefore, not only an orderly system but an intelligent organism as well. Plato expounded this theme at gre…
In the Republic (Book 4), Plato united the microcosmic theme with the pre-Socratic tendency to view cosmology in political terms when he discussed his model of an ideal city-state in order to explore the nature of the human soul. The structure of each is tripartite and hierarchical. The class of philosopher-kings corresponds to reason (located in the head), the warrior class corresponds to irascib…
Arabic influence may have inspired two Jewish philosophers, Ibn Gabirol (Avicebron, c. 1021–c. 1058) in his Fountain of Life, and Ibn Saddiq (1075–1149) in his Microcosm, to combine microcosmic speculation with the Delphic maxim, "Know thyself"; both demonstrated how self-knowledge leads to knowledge about the universe. Although Maimonides (1135–1204) found fault…
Although the ancient idea of the microcosm appealed to many Christian thinkers, their view of the macrocosm as an inanimate structure created by God ex nihilo at the beginning of time led to major alterations of the ancient theory. Most conspicuously, the world-soul was omitted or interpreted allegorically as a reference to God's providential care for the created world. Although Greek Chris…
Latin terminology generally assumed comparative forms—"lesser world" (minor mundus) and "greater world" (maior mundus) —although it also adopted the Greek loanwords microcosmus and macrocosmus (or more commonly megacosmus). Latin treatments of the microcosm were generally superficial until the twelfth century, but certain distinctive features did appear be…
The scholasticism of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had little use for highly malleable metaphors, and it was not until the Platonic revival of the Renaissance that the microcosm again received substantial attention. Although Ernst Cassirer argued that Renaissance thinkers significantly redefined the microcosm (The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, trans. 1964), one mus…
Bernardus Silvestris. The Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris. Translated by Winthrop Wetherbee. New York: Columbia University Press, 1973. Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works, with Letters and Songs. Edited by Matthew Fox. Santa Fe, N.M.: Bear and Company, 1987. Ibn Saddiq, Joseph. The Microcosm of Joseph Ibn Saddiq. Critically edited by Saul Horovitz; translat…
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