Literary notes about Cosmology (AI summary)
The term "cosmology" in literature has been used in varied and rich ways that go beyond its modern scientific connotation. In works such as Santayana’s The Life of Reason, for example, it is interwoven with philosophical and historical inquiries, linking Hebrew philosophy to Platonic ideas [1, 2]. Durkheim similarly expands the term’s scope in The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by associating it with totemism and religious thought, suggesting that every religion inherently speculates upon its divine order [3, 4]. Epictetus, on the other hand, offers a more nuanced application by critiquing the superficial treatment of physics and cosmology [5, 6], while even literary narratives like Eliot’s Middlemarch weave in discussions of Biblical Cosmology to reflect on character and society [7]. Chesterton further illustrates a contrast by framing the absence of proper cosmological grounding as a departure from ethical foundation [8], and Jesse Henry Jones uses cosmology to address conceptual difficulties in understanding motion and rest [9]. Together, these examples show that "cosmology" has served as a versatile term in literature, one that bridges ideas of science, philosophy, religion, and ethics.