3 ideas
10855 | Actual infinities are not allowed in mathematics - only limits which may increase without bound [Gauss] |
Full Idea: I protest against the use of an infinite quantity as an actual entity; this is never allowed in mathematics. The infinite is only a manner of speaking, in which one properly speaks of limits ...which are permitted to increase without bound. | |
From: Carl Friedrich Gauss (Letter to Shumacher [1831]), quoted by Brian Clegg - Infinity: Quest to Think the Unthinkable Ch.7 |
15143 | Kind essences are the categorical bases of a thing's causal powers [Bhaskar, by Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Bhaskar identifies kind essences with underlying properties, often called 'categorical bases', of the causal powers of things. | |
From: report of Roy Bhaskar (A Realist Theory of Science [1975], p.212) by Anjan Chakravarrty - Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences 1 | |
A reaction: The problem with this, it always seems to me, is the something inherently passive is said to give rise to something which is inherently active. Couldn't two individuals with a kind have slightly different categorical bases? |
1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |
Full Idea: The Egyptians were the first to claim that the soul of a human being is immortal, and that each time the body dies the soul enters another creature just as it is being born. | |
From: Herodotus (The Histories [c.435 BCE], 2.123.2) |