Re: Slow Read -- Kaina Stoicheia -- The Title
Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>
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[repost of an earlier note] Peircers, I have a distant memory of being told or reading somewhere that the root meaning of “stoicheia” is “steps” and that it was akin to “stoa” for “porch”. But I couldn't find any confirmation of that pleasing tidbit at Perseus, so I guess I'll have to regard it as a folk etymology until I can find out whether it's true. Here are a couple of glosses on “stoicheion, stoicheia” -- • http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dstoixei%3Don Στοιχεία , ἡ, epith. of Athena at Epidaurus, IG42(1).487. • http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D*stoixei%2Fa As far as their original meanings go, we need to distinguish atoms, elements, and categories. Although the Greeks had their four elements, and theories of atoms go back as far as Epicurus, the modern theory of chemical elements that used to be regarded as unsplittable entities bears only the slightest resemblance to a combination of those two ideas. And categories, ancient to Peircean, are a different beast altogether. Unless one takes the juridical meaning of “categorize”, to accuse in court, to dress down a person in public assembly, since even today judges will instruct juries in the “elements of the crime” at issue. • http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dkathgore%2Fw But Moriarty aside, Watson, that would take us pretty far afield from mathematics. All in all, I think the sense of “elements” in Euclid's geometry was more likely “elements of doctrine or instruction”, the basic building blocks of knowledge that are the business of elementary school. Regards, Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache _______________________________________________ Inquiry mailing list [email protected] http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/inquiry