Encyclopedias
ENCYCLOPEDIAS. Most generally, there are two ways of understanding encyclopedia (from Greek kúklos, "circle," and paideía, "education"), namely: (1) after Hippias of Elis, a Sophist of the fifth century BCE, as a term denoting a universal education, subsequently the everyday education that prepares for the universal education (Isocrates, 436–338 BCE). Since Marcus Terentius Varro (116–17 BCE) the encyclopedia is organized within the system of the artes liberales as a preparation and introduction to philosophy, in the Middle Ages also to theology (already in Jerome's Chronicon (380 CE). Rabelais, in Pantagruel (1532), still referred to encyclopedia as a formal education and complete system of learning. From the seventeenth century onward—mainly through the influence of the French encyclopedists—it was used to denote the entirety of human knowledge. (2) Encyclopedia is also common to indicate a presentation of the contents of knowledge, either in certain fields of interest or in a general way, along with a detailed description of respective subjects. While in earlier times the systematic encyclopedia was more prominent—that is, an encyclopedia structured according to themes and issues—since the eighteenth century the alphabetical encyclopedia gained the upper hand. The latter is often referred to as a "General" or "Universal Encyclopedia"; in German as Realenzyklopädie, Reallexikon, Sachwörterbuch, or Konversationslexikon.
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