![]() ![]() In contemporary usage, the terms microcosm and macrocosm are also employed to refer to any smaller system that is representative of a larger one, and vice versa. However, the terms microcosm and macrocosm refer more specifically to the analogy as it was developed in ancient Greek philosophy and its medieval and early modern descendants. The view itself is ancient, and may be found in many philosophical systems world-wide, such as for example in ancient Mesopotamia, in ancient Iran, or in ancient Chinese philosophy. Design/methodology/approach This paper builds on a theoretical approach that includes three levels of analysis: the actor level (micro), business-network level (meso) and society and government. For example, the cosmological functions of the seven classical planets were sometimes taken to be analogous to the physiological functions of human organs, such as the heart, the spleen, the liver, the stomach, etc. Hence, it was sometimes inferred that the human mind or soul was divine in nature as well.Īpart from this important psychological and noetic (i.e., related to the mind) application, the analogy was also applied to human physiology. Moreover, this cosmic mind or soul was often thought to be divine, most notably by the Stoics and those who were influenced by them, such as the authors of the Hermetica. One important corollary of this view is that the cosmos as a whole may be considered to be alive, and thus to have a mind or soul (the world soul), a position advanced by Plato in his Timaeus. is that microcosm is human nature or the human body as representative of the wider universe man considered as a miniature counterpart of divine or universal. ![]() ![]() The ideas were commonplace during the Renaissance and early modern times but lost their plausibility when a mechanistic model of the universe became dominant in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Analogy between man and cosmos Illustration of the analogy between the human body and a geocentric cosmos: the head is analogous to the cœlum empyreum, closest to the divine light of God the chest to the cœlum æthereum, occupied by the classical planets (wherein the heart is analogous to the sun) the abdomen to the cœlum elementare the legs to the dark earthy mass ( molis terreæ) which supports this universe. These analogies enjoyed a long life, first in the Mediterranean region during antiquity and later throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. Microcosm, (from Greek mikros kosmos, little world), a Western philosophical term designating man as being a little world in which the macrocosm. Comparisons between society and the human being, as well as society and the universe, were varieties of microcosmic theory. Kosmos at this time meant "order" in a general sense and implied a harmonious, and therefore beautiful, arrangement of parts in any organic system hence it also referred to order in human societies, reflected in good government. Modern science now knows that fluctuations in the quantum vacuum gave rise to the great primordial explosion (humorously termed the. Macrocosm/microcosm is a Greek compound of - Macro- and - Micro-, which are Greek respectively for large and small, and the word kósmos which means order as well as world or ordered world. Total energy is unvarying and originated with the birth of the Cosmos. These early thinkers viewed the individual human being as a little world ( mikros kosmos) whoseĬomposition and structure correspond to that of the universe, or great world ( makros kosmos, or megas kosmos). Energy is governed by the laws of thermodynamics, and is therefore not created or destroyed, merely transformed. Microcosm and macrocosm are two aspects of a theory developed by ancient Greek philosophers to describe human beings and their place in the universe. ![]()
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