From Ignoramus to "Empty Maps": how Harari's Sapiens can be related to 16th century celestial cartography

Abstract

In his work Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity, Israeli historian Yuval Harari divides humanity's progress into three major revolutions: cognitive, agricultural and scientific. In relation to the latter, he lists some factors that, together, were determined so that modern science has become the most adopted method to define and explain the world in which we live. However, although modern humans have developed a fervent progression in their new characteristics, Harari points out that the kick-off of the Scientific Revolution was much simpler: humans became aware of their ignorance, that they almost always do not answer the most important questions. As an example, Harari cites several world maps with empty spaces that emerged over the 15th and 16th centuries - an embarrassing statement where Europeans admitted their ignorance of large parts of the world. In this work we summarize Harari's speech ─ from the discovery of ignorance to "empty maps", in addition to adding a new example: 16th century celestial maps.