Cusanus and Leibniz: Symbolic Explorations of Infinity as a Ladder to God

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11620%2F19%3A10419816" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11620/19:10419816 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004385689_018" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004385689_018</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004385689_018" target="_blank" >10.1163/9789004385689_018</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Cusanus and Leibniz: Symbolic Explorations of Infinity as a Ladder to God

Original language description

An ancient axiom claims that there is no proportion between the finite and the infinite. In the context of the Christian tradition, which considers nature as creation, creation as the image of the Word of God, and God as ens infinitum, this raises a problem. For, it seems that it is forbidden for human thought, which is necessarily finite in character, to contemplate the infinite origin, reveal its footprints in nature, and, consequently, find (and found) the true science. The only way to escape this paradox is paradoxically to enter inside it and come to understand reality as symbolic. For both Cusanus and Leibniz, access to the inaccessible understanding of the infinite consists in symbols. Since mathematics traditionally represents the privileged science of symbolic expression, the core of their inquiry consists in a mathematical treatment of symbols. Through their exploration of the related concepts of horizon and limit both thinkers offer an analogical approach to the symbolic nature of quantity, and this in turn profoundly shapes their conceptions of continuity, infinity and God. Moreover, their reflections on infinity not only raise the question of the role of a symbolic understanding of nature in the rise of mathematical science, but also show the importance of this notion in the wider reform of human knowledge and praxis

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Nicholas of Cusa and the Making of the Early Modern World

ISBN

978-90-04-34301-6

Number of pages of the result

35

Pages from-to

450-484

Number of pages of the book

536

Publisher name

Brill

Place of publication

Leiden - Boston

UT code for WoS chapter

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