Re: The Origins of Continents

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

more accurately, I can imagine that the ancient Greeks saw the area north of the Black Sea as some sort of barrier dividing "continents" (along with the Black Sea itself and the Bosphorus) -- and later thinkers simply followed their lead without thinking. But I remember reading that the ancient Greeks considered Ionia (part of today's Turkey) to be part of Europe.
Jim Devine 

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Devine, James 
	Sent: Wed 5/26/2004 6:43 AM 
	To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Origins of Continents
	
	

	am I right to say that the division between Europe and Asia (which aren't separate continents, strictly speaking) simply reflects the "us" vs. "them" attitudes of the ancient Greeks?
	Jim Devine
	
	        -----Original Message-----
	        From: Shane Mage [mailto:shmage@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
	        Sent: Tue 5/25/2004 9:23 PM
	        To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
	        Cc:
	        Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The Origins of Continents
	       
	       
	
	        Jayson Funke asks:
	       
	        "Can anyone tell me of [the] origin of the term continents?"
	       
	        The term is of Greek origin, *epeiros*.  It seems to have been first
	        used in the sense of "continent" by Herodotos.  Plato, at Timaios 25A,
	        speaks of the American  continent:  "...all that we have
	        here, lying within the Pillars of Herakles, is evidently a bay with
	        a narrow entrance [in Phaedo he compares the Mediterranean  to a frog
	        pond] but that yonder [the Atlantic] is a real ocean, and the land
	        surrounding it may most rightly be called, in the fullest and truest
	        sense, a continent."
	       
	        Shane Mage
	       
	        "When we read on a printed page the doctrine of Pythagoras that all
	        things are made of numbers, it seems mystical, mystifying, even
	        downright silly.
	       
	        When we read on a computer screen the doctrine of Pythagoras that all
	        things are made of numbers, it seems self-evidently true."  (N.
	        Weiner)