Two Words, One Answer.
infinitesimal
 The Continuous and the Infinitesimal in Mathematics and Philosophy $59.00 This book has a double purpose. First, to trace the historical development of the concepts of the continuous and the infinitesimal; and second, to describe the ways in which these two concepts are treated in contemporary mathematics. So the first part of the book is largely philsophical, while the second is almost exclusively mathematical. In writing the book I have found it necessary to thread my way through a wealth of sources, both philosophical and mathematical; and it is inevitable that a number of topics have not received the attention they deserve. Still, the thread itself, if tangled in places, has been luminous. "Only connect... Live in fragments no longer," says E. M. Forster, and that is what I have striven for here. (John L. Bell)  Infinitesimal Differences: Controversies between Leibniz and his Contemporaries $98.00 The essays offer a unified and comprehensive view of 17th century mathematical and metaphysical disputes over¸Ŗ¤?status of infinitesimals, particularly the question whether they were real or mere fictions. Leibnizs development of the calculus and his understanding of its metaphysical foundation are taken as both a point of departure and a frame of reference for the 17th century discussions of infinitesimals, that involved Hobbes, Wallis, Newton, Bernoulli, Hermann, and Nieuwentijt. Although the calculus was undoubtedly successful in mathematical practice, it remained controversial because its procedures seemed to lack an adequate metaphysical or methodological justification. The topic is also of philosophical interest, because Leibniz freely employed the language of infinitesimal quantities in the foundations of his dynamics and theory of forces. Thus, philosophical disputes over the Leibnizian science of bodies naturally involve questions about the nature of infinitesimals. The volume also includes newly discovered Leibnizian marginalia in the mathematical writings of Hobbes.  The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus (Guenon, Rene. Works.) $19.95 Gu¸«±non's early and abiding interest in mathematics, like that of Plato, Pascal, Leibnitz, and many other metaphysicians of note, runs like a scarlet thread throughout his doctrinal studies. In this late text published just five years before his death, Gu¸«±non devotes an entire volume to questions regarding the nature of limits and the infinite with respect to the calculus both as a mathematical discipline and as symbolism for the initiatic path. This book therefore extends and complements the geometrical symbolism he employs in other works, especially The Symbolism of the Cross, The Multiple States of the Being, and Symbols of Sacred Science. According to Gu¸«±non, the concept 'infinite number' is a contradiction in terms. Infinity is a metaphysical concept at a higher level of reality than that of quantity, where all that can be expressed is the indefinite, not the infinite. But although quantity is the only level recognized by modern science, the numbers that express it also possess qualities, their quantitative aspect being merely their outer husk. Our reliance today on a mathematics of approximation and probability only further conceals the 'qualitative mathematics' of the ancient world, which comes to us most directly through the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition. |
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