On the Theory of the Infinite in Modern Thought

Part 1

ON THE THEORY OF THE INFINITE IN MODERN THOUGHT

ON THE THEORY OF THE INFINITE IN MODERN THOUGHT

TWO INTRODUCTORY STUDIES

E. F. JOURDAIN

DOCTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS VICE-PRINCIPAL, ST. HUGH’S HALL, OXFORD

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1911

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Of the two papers here reproduced, the first was given in 1905 to a meeting of the women science students in Oxford; the second, in 1908, to the Philosophical Society of this College. They are printed by request, with the author’s apologies for their incompleteness. The lecture form has been retained. I am indebted to my brother, Mr. P. Jourdain, for help in preparing the first lecture, and for his revision of the text.

E. F. JOURDAIN.

ST. HUGH’S HALL, OXFORD, January, 1911.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE PROBLEM OF THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE 1

PRAGMATISM AND A THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE 31

THE PROBLEM OF THE FINITE AND THE INFINITE

The influence of mathematics on philosophy and vice versâ can be inferred from the historical progress of both studies, though it has not been possible till about within the last fifteen years to give a logical explanation for the relations between them. As long as it was believed, according to the Kantian view, that the science of mathematics was based on intuitions of time and space, the alliance between philosophy and mathematics could not be proved to be closer than that between philosophy and experimental science, although the historical fact remained that philosophy and mathematics exercised a mutual stimulus, and developed at the same periods of history.

But mathematics, as now defined, is independent of intuitions of space and time, and also of axioms and hypotheses. Mathematics, as now understood, is based, like formal logic, on the prerequisites of thought, not on the notions of space and time. Here there is no definition of number or space, but the conception of number and space, which is more complicated, can be derived from them. All other complicated mind processes can, in the same way, be reduced to the simple elements of the prerequisites of thought.

Such a science might exist out of conditions of time and space as we know them. It is a science of relations rather than of mere number. Founded, then, on the laws of symbolic logic, it is a valuable aid and illustration to philosophy; philosophy, on the other hand, can imagine lines for the exercise of the constructive power involved in mathematics. It is the object of this paper to show that the close though apparently accidental union of philosophy and mathematics throughout the history of thought can now be explained, and that the problems with which pure mathematics is now concerned are those which lie at the core of philosophic thought and speculation. (Symbolic logic has developed to meet the new demands made upon it. It does not now reduce itself to the syllogism, as Aristotle thought it did; the prerequisites of thought are shown to be manifold instead of single.)

The use of the word philosophic in this connection suggests a necessity for further definition. Philosophy is held to include at least two great branches--Metaphysics and Ethics. The influence of mathematics is most evident on the metaphysical side of philosophy; in fact, the grouping of mathematics and metaphysics as allied sciences tends to bring out the essential distinction between metaphysics and ethics, and--though not by any means to imply a break in their real relation--to show where this has been misunderstood. No philosophy has been equally strong on both sides; they represent different forms of activity of the human mind; but it is still true, and from the conditions always must be, that an ethical system grows out of metaphysics as practice follows precept and conduct implies belief. The new definition of mathematics does not touch these consequences; it merely marks the limits within which philosophy on the metaphysical side can submit to, or rest upon, the conclusions of mathematics.

As to the historical relation between metaphysics and mathematics, the subject is so vast that we shall only attempt a very rapid generalisation of its results on the growth of the conception of the Finite and the Infinite. (Of course, there are many other sides of the relation which might be studied.) The general result of the inquiry has been, as far as we can judge, that metaphysics has exercised an inspiring force on mathematics, and mathematics has defined and strengthened the conceptions of metaphysics at every critical stage in the history of philosophy. But where metaphysics has been treated as the proof of science, where it has been laid down as the foundation for exact knowledge, the results have not corresponded with the truth of experience, and the quality of thought has become degenerate. Progress depends on the right perception of the relations between the sciences and parts of philosophy.

Such progress is especially evident in the early Greek and in the modern periods, while the large period from the Christian era to the Renaissance gives examples of the unfortunate reversal of the parts of metaphysics and science and consequent confusion of thought.

The problems of the metaphysician are no doubt in a sense always the same; but this is equally true of the problems of any other science. The methods by which the problems are attacked and the adequacy of the solutions they receive vary, from age to age, in close correspondence with the general development of science. Every great metaphysical conception has exercised its influence on the general history of science, and in return every important movement in science has affected the development of metaphysics. The metaphysician could not if he would, and would not if he could, escape the duty of estimating the bearing of the great scientific theories of his time upon our ultimate conceptions of the nature of the world as a whole. Every fundamental advance in science thus calls for a restatement and reconsideration of the old metaphysical problems in the light of the new discovery.

* * * * *

During the Greek period mathematics was the only branch of science which was at all developed, and its development coincided with the age of the philosophers. Thus when Plato spoke of science he always meant mathematics. And even later, when the physical sciences had begun to develop, Aristotle put mathematical ideas into close connection with metaphysical ones when he stated that they occupied the middle term between the ideal and the sensible. Both Plato and Aristotle referred to and depended upon mathematical proofs and illustrations of philosophical questions. During this Greek period the conception of Infinity took shape. The pre-Platonic notion, reproduced again later in the decline of Socratic theory by the Stoics, was that the Infinite was the aggregate of the Finite; the Platonic and Aristotelian theory, that, namely, of the most vigorous moment of Greek thought, was that the Infinite was more than the aggregate of the Finite; that it had a self-determined existence from which the Finite had been derived. Existence, as known to man, was treated as a compromise between the Finite and the Infinite.

Neo-Platonism altogether separated the Infinite from the Finite. In the Alexandrine metaphysics, which represented a decadent stage of philosophy and its deviation from the sciences, the conception of the Infinite became less clear and logical; it diverged from the view which had been affected by mathematical thought, and tended to assimilate to itself the ideas of perfection and universality, which, philosophically speaking, are conceptions distinct from that of Infinity--universality referring to a common principle of unity, and perfection involving the moral ideal. Real progress was deferred by the too rapid coherence of ideas only partially analysed and understood. Thinkers passed quickly from the exclusive contemplation of subject to that of object and back again, each new period negativing all previous experience, till the result was the exclusion of an imperfectly analysed Relative and Finite from an insufficiently apprehended Absolute and Infinite.

After the Christian era Greek philosophy drifted off into scholasticism and lost touch of reality, the grammar of Aristotelian logic replacing the vital connection of ideas. St. Anselm, it is true, attempted to find a rational proof of the existence of God, and identified Him with the Infinite of Greek thought; but St. Thomas Aquinas led away the argument to a discussion as to how far form and matter, separately considered, shared in the quality of Infinity. (He thought form did, but not matter.) An overpowering sense of mystery, joined to a premature desire for definition without scientific analysis, sapped the vigour of mediæval thought.

Throughout the middle ages, then, we see the conditions of the Greek period reversed: philosophy during the second period is not, as in the first, engaged in giving a stimulus to the efforts of pure reason; rather the intuitions of philosophy are treated as axiomatic, and a false superstructure of knowledge, alien to experience and reality, is erected upon these foundations. Philosophy, in fact, is used as a general basis for science. The parts of philosophy and mathematics, correctly though imperfectly seen by the Greeks, are in the second period exchanged, and the result is confusion of idea. The notion of the Infinite, as in the Alexandrine metaphysics, is held to include perfection and universality, and does not exist as a conception apart from these.

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