Single Idea 9633

[catalogued under 6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / a. The Infinite]

Full Idea

No one shall drive us out of the paradise the Cantor has created for us.

Gist of Idea

No one shall drive us out of the paradise the Cantor has created for us

Source

David Hilbert (On the Infinite [1925], p.191), quoted by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics

Book Reference

Brown,James Robert: 'Philosophy of Mathematics' [Routledge 2002], p.65


A Reaction

This is Hilbert's famous refusal to accept any account of mathematics, such as Kant's, which excludes actual infinities. Cantor had laid out a whole glorious hierarchy of different infinities.