Re: Hot, Cold, and Temperature

Quoting John Cowan <cowan@...>:

> Philippe Caquant scripsit:
>
> > - why should a scalar concept be oriented one way and
> > not the other one ? For ex, for a temperature scale,
> > why should "cold" be at the lowest end, and "hot" at
> > the highest ? If we naturally think so, that means
> > that we think that the concepts or "hot / cold" and
> > "high / low" are alike, and that if we consider those
> > 2 pairs, "hot" is similar to "high" and "cold" similar
> > to "low". Why is it so ?
>
> Sheer history.  When Anders Celsius proposed the centigrade scale in 1742,
> he set 0 to the boiling point of water and 100 to the freezing point.
> It was probably Carolus Linnaeus (the biological taxonomist) who suggested
> reversing the scale's direction to agree with the existing Fahrenheit
> (32 to 212, 1724) and Reamur (0 to 80, 1731) scales.
Never thought of it before, but that oughta indicate people didn't speak
of "high" and "low" temperatures 'fore the 18th century?

                                                    Andreas