The twofold role of diagrams in Euclid's plane geometry.

Proposition I.1 is, by far, the most popular example used to justify the thesis that many of Euclid's geometric arguments are diagram-based. Many scholars have recently articulated this thesis in different ways and argued for it. My purpose is to reformulate it in a quite general way, by describing...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Synthese Vol. 186; no. 1; pp. 55 - 103
Main Author: Panza, Marco
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature May2012
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
fields @attributes:
  recordID: 1
pdfLink:
plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=76459500&site=ehost-live
header:
  @attributes:
    shortDbName: hlh
    uiTerm: 76459500
    longDbName: Humanities International Complete
    uiTag: AN
  controlInfo:
    bkinfo:
    jinfo:
      jid:
        00397857
        4LI
      jtl: Synthese
      issn: 00397857
      maglogo: N
    pubinfo:
      dt: May2012
      vid: 186
      iid: 1
      pid: 237
      pub: Springer Nature
    artinfo:
      ui:
        76459500
        10.1007/s11229-012-0074-2
      ppf: 55
      ppct: 48
      formats:
        fmt:
          @attributes:
            type: P
            size: 1.1MB
      tig:
        atl: The twofold role of diagrams in Euclid's plane geometry.
      aug:
        au: Panza, Marco
        affil: CNRS, IHPST (UMR 8590 of CNRS, University of Paris 1, and ENS Paris), Paris France
      su:
        Plane geometry
        Charts, diagrams, etc.
        Euclidean algorithm
        Graphic methods
        Scholars
      sug:
        subj:
          Plane geometry
          Charts, diagrams, etc.
          Euclidean algorithm
          Graphic methods
          Scholars
      keyword:
        Diagrams
        Euclid
      ab: Proposition I.1 is, by far, the most popular example used to justify the thesis that many of Euclid's geometric arguments are diagram-based. Many scholars have recently articulated this thesis in different ways and argued for it. My purpose is to reformulate it in a quite general way, by describing what I take to be the twofold role that diagrams play in Euclid's plane geometry (EPG). Euclid's arguments are object-dependent. They are about geometric objects. Hence, they cannot be diagram-based unless diagrams are supposed to have an appropriate relation with these objects. I take this relation to be a quite peculiar sort of representation. Its peculiarity depends on the two following claims that I shall argue for: ( i) The identity conditions of EPG objects are provided by the identity conditions of the diagrams that represent them; ( ii) EPG objects inherit some properties and relations from these diagrams.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
    refInfo:
    copyright:
      @attributes:
        flag: Y
      custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2012. All Rights Reserved.
      item: Synthese
      holder: Springer Nature
      dt:
        @attributes:
          year: 2012
    holdings:
      @attributes:
        islocal: N