ZusammenfassungDer Artikel stellt die Methodik zur Erforschung einer „Bibliosphäre“ vor, also der Gesamtheit der literarischen Dokumente einer bestimmten Kultur. In diesem Fall geht es um die Bibliosphäre der Antike, und hierbei insbesondere um deren wissenschaftlich-philosophischen Bereich. Es wird die Auffassung vertreten, dass wir die Inhalte von Werken durch ihre Position in der Bibliosphäre begreifen können. Der Gegensatz zwischen Mathematik und Literatur wird detailliert dargestellt und der Übergangscharakter der Medizin hervorgehoben.

After explaining general characteristics such as overspecification, found in the diagrams of Greek manuscripts of Euclid’s Elements, diagrams in some propositions of Book III are examined in detail. Codex P (Vat. gr. 190) and b (Bologna) are common in avoiding overspecification in a couple of propositions. However, further examination of diagrams of Book III in other manuscripts including those in the Arabic tradition, and collation of the text suggest that the common feature in the diagrams of codex P and b (...) is rather due either to independent efforts to avoid overspecification or to contamination of traditions. It is codex F (Florence, Laurenziana 28.3) that most often coincides with codex P in Book III. (shrink)

In his paper ‘The wrong text of Euclid: on Heiberg's text and its alternatives', published in 1996, W.R. Knorr resuscitated the debate which had taken place in the 1880s between the orientalist M. Klamroth and the editor of Euclid's Elements, J.L. Heiberg. In nuce the debate concerned the fundamental question of which manuscript tradition of the Elements should be assigned textual anteriority: the Greek tradition or the Arabic tradition. Whereas Klamroth argued for the latter position, Heiberg, whose view became the (...) prevailing one, endorsed the anteriority of the Greek tradition. (shrink)

The “common notions” prefacing the Elements of Euclid are a very peculiar set of axioms, and their authenticity, as well as their actual role in the demonstrations, have been object of debate. In the first part of this essay, I offer a survey of the evidence for the authenticity of the common notions, and conclude that only three of them are likely to have been in place at the times of Euclid, whereas others were added in Late Antiquity. In the (...) second part of the essay, I consider the meaning and uses of the common notions in Greek mathematics, and argue that they were originally conceived in order to axiomatize a theory of equivalence in geometry. I also claim that two interpolated common notions responded to different epistemic needs and regulated diagrammatic inferences. (shrink)