18084
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When successive variable values approach a fixed value, that is its 'limit' [Cauchy]
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Full Idea:
When the values successively attributed to the same variable approach indefinitely a fixed value, eventually differing from it by as little as one could wish, that fixed value is called the 'limit' of all the others.
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From:
Augustin-Louis Cauchy (Cours d'Analyse [1821], p.19), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.4
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A reaction:
This seems to be a highly significan proposal, because you can now treat that limit as a number, and adds things to it. It opens the door to Cantor's infinities. Is the 'limit' just a fiction?
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16618
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Intellectual and moral states, and even the soul itself, depend on prime matter for their existence [Blasius, by Pasnau]
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Full Idea:
Blasius argued that prime matter is the subject of all our intellectual and moral states. This implies that such states cannot exist apart from the body, which seems to imply further that the soul itself cannot exist apart from the body.
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From:
report of Blasius of Parma (Les quaestiones de anima (lectures on the soul) [1385], I.8 p.65) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 06.3
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A reaction:
It seems that, under pressure, Blasius recanted this view in lectures given eleven years later.
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