Early Writing (Topoi D-III-2)

With our point of departure in the concept of cultural technology/technologies, the work of our research group strives first to gain an understanding of the conditions which make the description and representation of spatiality under other media conditions (geometric, algebraic, verbalized, as well as in drawings, models, and “diagrams”) possible in the first place, and secondly, to analyze the role of the recording medium (in this case textuality) in these processes. With an eye toward the problematic of research group D-III (Spatial Models and Spatial Thinking) and that of Area D (Theory and Science) in the broadest terms, we seek on the basis of concrete case studies to describe the earliest instances of textuality both the interdependence of materiality and object-form as well as the influence of textuality on the shaping and development of analytical thinking and the systematic acquisition of knowledge. The main focus is on the cuneiform civilizations of the Ancient Near East.earch group “Place, Space and Motion” investigates ancient and late ancient philosophical concepts of space/place (gr. topos) and their relation to movement and change. Research projects cover discussions on place/space ranging from Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s Physics IV 1-5 to late ancient texts such as the two Corollaries on place written by the Neoplatonists and Simplicius and Philoponus. Against this background, we focus on the interrelation between physical and metaphysical concepts of space/place, different theories of movement including the emergence of the impetus theory in late Antiquity, and, finally, the problem of void space or vacuum.