Juan Acevedo

Juan Acevedo is a post-doctoral researcher with the ERC Rutter Project at the Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia, University of Lisbon.

Practically and concretely, he is researching and trying to ascertain the Arab nautical contacts and knowledge which made possible the India Run (Carreira da Índia). This means exploring Arabic manuscripts and secondary literature on Indian Ocean navigation and related topics.

Up in the clouds, drawing on previous work in ancient and medieval alphanumeric cosmology, Juan will also be studying fundamental relations between nautical reference networks (geodetic or control networks) and the conceptual appropriation of the globe. Was there a profoundly axiomatic epistemological change that made possible the development of a global world view in the 16th century? and how profound? or was it simply the result of an age-old axiology brought into interplay with emerging technology? to what extent and in which ways are the roots of global thinking metaphysical?