Oceans of the Mind

Oceans are real environments, but also ideas in the human mind. This chapter considers the metaphysics of oceans in the early modern era, focusing on how different communities thought about marine environments and spaces. It provides context for understanding the environmental history of the oceans, as humans interacted with the oceans according to their varied understandings of its metaphysical properties. This chapter establishes a sharp contrast between modern conceptions of the ocean – which frame seas as inert spaces, or as sites of recreation – with more complex early modern thinking. It then considers how ideas about the ocean changed during the upheaval of the early modern era. The remainder of the chapter explores questions of faith, fear, superstition, art, literature, and music. Throughout, the chapter notes the ways that metaphysics reflects environmental thinking and how ideas about space, the divine, and culture shaped the activities outlined elsewhere in this book.