"Viewing the Globe from a Mountain Top: Between the Perspectives of Al-" by John T. Giordano
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Abstract

In this article, I wish to examine the manner we imagine our place in the cosmos by contrasting it with earlier techniques for mapping and measuring the globe. I will pay particular attention to the work of Abū Rayḥān Al-Bīrūnī and demonstrate that the assumptions which allowed for his advances in the measurement of the globe were based upon a certain understanding of the relationship of place within the sacred order of the cosmos and the role of reason in this connection. This understanding carries over to his anthropological works which consider the history of other religions and cultures. It shows an approach where objectivity in scientific investigation can stand alongside a diversity of religious faiths or visions. I wish to use these insights to consider the positions of such Western writers on the philosophy of globe formation, such as Carl Schmitt and especially Peter Sloterdijk. Sloterdijk understands the development of our imagination of the globe as a singular history which was achieved primarily through conquest. Comparing these thinkers is important because our understanding of geopolitics and globalization often involves imposing one definition of humanity, reality or the sacred, which marginalizes or vilifies those with differing views. I hope to demonstrate by these contrasts that a unified imagination of the earth through globalization poses extreme dangers, and that the fragmentation of the globe through many religious and secular and artistic projections is the only possibility for a future. That is: the possibility of a future is dependent upon many opposing images of a future. It is only by a return to the initial impulses which led such scientists as Al-Bīrūnī, that a true relationship of the human to the earth can be preserved.

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