10 Pillars of Knowledge is a systematic map of human knowledge.
10 Pillars. Human knowledge is composed of 10 pillars (main parts) that include all the fields that establish our cultural and scientific heritage. The 10 pillars are: Knowledge | Supernatural | Matter & Energy | Space & Earth | Non-human Organisms | Body & Mind | Society | Thought & Art | Technology | History.
Knowledge – Supernatural – Universe – Humans. The 10 pillars are organized into four groups, which explore four super-phenomena: knowledge (pillar 1; gray), supernatural (pillar 2; blue), universe (pillars 3-4-5; green), and humans (pillars 6-7-8-9-10; red).
Living world. On top of the intersection between the universe and humans a fifth super-phenomenon emerges, the living world (pillars 5-6; orange). The order of the 10 pillars makes it possible to represent the religious approach, which separates apes and humans, and the scientific approach, which treats both of them as part of the living world.
Library of human knowledge. Every pillar is composed of relevant categories (e.g., theory). Every category includes the relevant fields (e.g., philosophy of knowledge). Imagine that the Map mirrors a library. The pillars are bookcases, the categories are shelves, and the fields are books. The Library of Human Knowledge has an impressive collection of thousands of books (fields). They are stored in ten bookcases (pillars), which are divided into relevant shelves (categories). The map above presents the key categories and fields.
Images: (1) The Bookworm, Carl Spitzweg, ca. 1850, oil on canvas, 49.5 × 26.8 cm (19.5 × 10.5 in), Museum George Schäfer, Germany; (2) Sacrifice of Isaac, Caravaggio (or Bartolomeo Cavarozzi), ca. 1603, 116 × 173 cm (46 × 68 in), private collection; (3) Front: E = MC2; Background: The Ninth Wave, Ivan Aivazovsky, 1850, 221 × 332 cm (87 × 131 in), State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia; (4) The Sea of Ice, Caspar David Friedrich, 1823-24, oil on canvas, 96.7 × 126.9 cm (38 × 49.9 in), Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany; (5) Anguish, August Friedrich Schenck, 18876-80, oil on canvas, 151 × 251.2 cm (59.45 × 98.9 in), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; (6) Sorrowing Old Man ('At Eternity's Gate'), Vincent van Gogh, 1890, oil on canvas, 81 × 65 cm (31.9 × 25.6 in), the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands; (7) The Night Watch, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1642, oil on canvas, 363 × 437 cm (142.9 × 172.0 in), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; (8) The Death of Socrates, Jacques-Louis David, 1787, oil on canvas, 130 × 196 cm (51 × 77.2 in), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; (9) Flying Carpet, Viktor Vasnetsov, 1880, oil on canvas, 165 × 297 cm (65 × 116.9 in), Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum, Russia; (10) Gassed, John Singer Sargent, 1919, oil on canvas, 231 × 611 cm (91 × 240.5 in), Imperial War Museum, London, England.
10 Pillars of Knowledge: Map of Human Knowledge, 4th edition, 2017
Chaim Zins, PhD.
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