Mapping Uncertain Knowledge
2024 Special Issue
Edited by Djoeke van Netten
Image: Gereduceerde Kaart van 't Zuid-Land, Door den Hr. Bellin (1758). Courtesy Barry Ruderman Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford Libraries. https://purl.stanford.edu/mp72
How to present uncertain knowledge? What did mapmakers do when they were not sure about things? This special issue of the Journal for the History of Knowledge puts cartography center stage – not as mere illustrations, but as epistemic objects, carrying and ordering knowledge. Mapmakers, especially in early modern times – the so-called ‘age of exploration’ – had to deal with many uncertainties: disputed discoveries, questionable coastlines, islands beyond the imagination, where and how to insert whole new continents? What if the experiences of explorers contradicted age-old narratives? And how to present the yet unexplored parts of the world?
