Abstract
The notion of indivisibles and atoms arose in ancient Greece. The continuum—that is, the collection of points in a straight line segment, appeared to have paradoxical properties, arising from the ‘indivisibles’ that remain after a process of division has been carried out throughout the continuum. In the seventeenth century, Italian mathematicians were using new methods involving the notion of indivisibles, and the paradoxes of the continuum appeared in a new context. This cast doubt on the validity of the methods and the reliability of mathematical knowledge which had been regarded as established by the axiomatic method in geometry expounded by Aristotle’s younger contemporary Euclid. The teaching of indivisibles was banned within the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. In England, indivisibles were used by the mathematician John Wallis, and there was an acrimonious and extended feud between Wallis and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes over legitimate methods of argument in mathematics. Notions of the infinitesimal were used by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, and were attacked by Bishop Berkeley for the vagueness of the concept and the illegitimate reasoning applied to it. This article discusses aspects of these events with reference to the book Infinitesimal by Amir Alexander and to other sources. Also discussed are wider issues arising from Alexander’s book including: the changes in cultural sensibility associated with the growth of new mathematical and scientific knowledge in the seventeenth century, the changes in language concomitant with these changes, what constitutes valid methods of enquiry in various contexts, and the question of authoritarianism in knowledge. More general aims of this article are to widen the immediate mathematical and historical contexts in Alexander’s book, to bridge a gap in conversations between mathematics and the humanities, and to relate mathematical ideas to wider human and contemporary issues.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Foucault (2010, pp. 51-52). An earlier version in French is available online as La fonction politique de l’intellectuel, at http://1libertaire.free.fr/MFoucault133.html.
Aristotle (2004, p. 5).
Alexander (2014).
See Jesseph (1999) for the clash between Hobbes and Wallis, but also a later section in this article.
On the confusions over divisibility arising from a blurring of the distinction between the actual and the potential, see Waterfield’s further comments in Aristotle (2008, pp. lii-liii). The distinction mentioned by Waterfield was recognised by Aristotle (1995, 316b lines 19-21, p. 517). Also, note that historically there are notions of the infinitesimal that include entities other than points. However, whereas a point has a comfortable geometric interpretation as a ‘nothing’ indicating (perhaps) position, an infinitesimal, as an entity that is not a point but has infinitesimal length, resists geometric intuition.
Aristotle, (1975, pp. x-xi).
Aristotle, (1975, p. 17).
Alexander, (2014, p. 64).
Tamvakis, (2014, p. 703).
On Clavius see Alexander (2014, Chapter 2). Concerning Clavius and the Ratio Studiorum see also Feldhay (1995, Chapter 11). The status of mathematical knowledge was in wider dispute over this period. See Schöttler (2012), where he regards the issue as ‘...the incompatibility of Euclidean geometry with the Aristotelian understanding of science’. A major issue was the apparent lack of ‘cause’ in mathematics.
Alexander (2014, pp. 67–68 and 119–120). On the value placed on Euclid by the Jesuits see also H. Bosmans (1927, p. 77), where we read ‘... le grand nombre des mathématicians de la Compagnie de Jésus resta jusqu’à la fin du XVIII siècle profondément attaché aux méthodes euclidiennes. Par un respect un peu outré, un peu suranné, pour la belle géométrie des Grecs, la plupart dentre eux ne surent, ou ne vouleront pas évoluer.’
Alexander (2014. pp. 112, 317), where Alexander mentions the originator of the paradox as Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647).
See Alexander (2014, pp. 90, 124), and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry Continuity and Infinitesimals, available at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/continuity.
Palmerino (2003, p. 188.)
Alexander (2014, pp. 154–157).
Sherry (2018, p. 368).
Redondi (1987, pp. 157–165, 333–335).
Sherry (2018, p. 368), regards as hypothetical the two main views of the reasons behind Jesuit opposition to indivisibles. One is stated by Alexander as the struggle of the Jesuits to impose ‘..... a true, eternal, and unchallengeable order upon a seemingly chaotic reality’, Alexander (2014, p. 67). The other is ‘A different hypothesis ..... a conflict between the method of indivisibles and the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist’, Sherry (2018, p. 368). Whereas there is direct evidence that the Jesuits opposed indivisibles because of their perceived challenge to Eucharistic doctrine, the extent to which the challenge posed by indivisibles to Euclidean-style reasoning in mathematics was significant in this opposition is less clear. One possible reason for the importance of Euclid for the Jesuits might be the influence of Clavius, given his high regard for Euclid. But in the absence of direct evidence, one is inclined to agree with Radelet-de Grave (2018, p. 602) who says: ‘Did Clavius impose Euclidean mathematics on the Jesuits and prevent them from learning the the new mathematics of indivisibles in order to maintain the hierarchy within the Company? I don’t think so.’ One of the points at issue in this discussion is the importance at the time of any distinction between infinitesimals and indivisibles. However, noting the subtlety of any such distinction, noting the resistance of infinitesimals to geometric intuition, and noting that the term ‘infinitesimal’ was not really current until later, it seems unlikely that the Jesuits were interested in the finer distinctions that might be made between indivisibles that were a threat to Eucharistic doctrine and those that might not be. However, note Sherry (2018, p. 16): ‘...it is not out of the question that a handful of Jesuit mathematicians understood that there was a middle ground between Euclid and Cavalieri, one that did not invoke the horror of indivisibles’.
For the differing interpretations of the Galileo affair see Feldhay (1995), especially Chapter 1.
Drake (2001), Introduction.
Galileo (1957, pp. 206–210).
Alexander (2014, pp. 218, 255–256, 277–278).
Quoted in Jesseph (1999, p. 135).
Berkeley, (1734, p. 8).
Jesseph (1999, pp. 199–200 and 226–230).
Hacking (2004).
Galileo (1914, p. 194) reveals an awareness by Galileo of the limitations of the new science.
Newton (1846, p. 384) (from Rule III in the ‘Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy’). Newton’s principle of the ‘consonance of Nature with itself’ is fundamental to scientific knowledge, as it underlies the derivation of general behaviour from only particular observations of that behaviour.
Collingwood (1992, pp. 81–85).
Hume (1854, chapter LXXI, p. 476), also available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/793 p. 542. See also Hume’s Newtonianism and Anti-Newtonianism in The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, available at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-newton, section 4.2: ‘Hume ..... does not view Newton’s achievement as a decisive advance in knowledge of nature but, instead, as decisive evidence for the claim that nature will remain unknowable in principle’. See also Chomsky, (2002, pp. 52–53) where, in referring obliquely to the body-mind dualism of René Descartes he says: ‘Newton exorcised the machine, he left the ghost intact’. Chomsky comments on the criticism of Newton on the grounds that gravitation was ‘occult’, and notes that Newton’s defence involved the acceptance of a ‘weaker model of intelligibility’.
Nikolai Lobachevsky and János Bolyai independently discovered non-Euclidean geometries in the 1820s. They are important in Einstein’s theory of general relativity, according to which space is ‘curved’ in the presence of matter, so enabling elliptical motion to be perceived as ‘normal’.
Cantor (1955).
There is a discussion of changing notions of mathematical proof and certainty in mathematics in Vavilov (2019). Euclid provides an example where there is an incomplete axiom system—in 1882 M. Pasch identified an assumption used in some of Euclid’s proofs that could not be derived from the axioms. On this, see Davis and Hersch (1981, pp. 159–161).
Alexander (2014, p. 276).
Alexander (2014, pp. 289–294).
Butterfield (1931).
Cronin (2012).
Lewis, (2004, pp. 92–94). Lewis quotes the Middle English from Chaucer’s Hous of Fame, II, lines 730– 736. The translation here is by A. S. Kline. Lewis also says ‘ ..... this is the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organisation of their theology, science, and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental Model of the Universe ..... They are bookish. They are indeed very incredulous of books. They find it hard to believe that anything an old auctour has said is simply untrue.’ Lewis’ comments are pertinent for considering the response of the Jesuits and the Aristotelian philosophers to the new ideas that could not be accommodated by the old synthesis. Also pertinent is Foucault (1981 p. 58): ‘It was indispensable, in the Middle Ages, that a text should be attributed to an author, since this was an index of truthfulness. A proposition was considered as drawing even its scientific value from its author. Since the seventeenth century this function has steadily been eroded in scientific discourse.’
Galileo (1914, p. 194.)
Sprat, (1667, pp. 111–113). It is perhaps worth noting that Sprat’s own prose remains intermediate and not infrequently rhetorical, and bears marks of the more florid style he is rejecting as inimical to knowledge.
Arnold (1964, pp. 235-260.)
Eliot (1975, pp. 64-65).
Robinson (1982, pp. 260–272).
On the problem of non-objectifying language see Ott (1967). Although set in a Christian and religious context, it has secular relevance concerning language and its objects and also indicates possibilities for thinking about metaphysical (non-objective) entities. On language and its effect upon our conceptual range see also Robinson (2018), especially in the chapter on The Divine.
Barnes, Bloor and Henry (1996, p.193).
Foucault (1981). This is from an inaugural lecture given at the Collège de France in 1970. The lecture contain sharp historical and analytic insights, but in this brief section the analytic and descriptive tone changes abruptly and becomes more strident and rhetorical. Whereas the word constrainte had been used to refer to the constraints discourses impose, the word now used is the stronger assujettisements, translated in English as ’subjection’ or sometimes ‘subjugation’. It’s as though Foucault has suddenly suddenly decided to reveal his ‘true’ agenda, or is it simply a lapse that has that effect? In any case, it gives a strong indication of the place from which Foucault speaks. The lecture in French is at https://litterature924853235.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/ebook-michel-foucault-l-ordre-du-discours.pdf.
Varying epistemological profiles are recognised in Foucault (2010, p. 51).
Hanna and Jahnke (1996, p. 890).
Hanna and Jahnke (1996, pp. 890–892). The point about proof not demanding any particular view of mathematics is important, for proof is compatible with an ‘absolutist’ or Platonic concept of mathematics but also with one that regards mathematical knowledge as socially constructed. In any case, ‘socially constructed’ knowledge can have a high degree of objectivity, depending on the type of knowledge and the constructive process.
This point is also made in Hacking (1999, p. 89): ‘..... As real as anything we know. People who have never experienced a mathematical proof (the feeling of, as Wittgenstein puts it, “the hardess of the logical must”) seldom grasp what Platonistic mathematicians are on about.’
Berlin (1958, p. 26). It is not clear that this is Berlin’s own view, as he is describing a certain philosophical attitude towards liberty. But that it was his view seems likely from the context.
The issue is examined in Plato (1956), in which Socrates argues, in effect, that mathematical knowledge is latent in every individual.
Weil (2002, p. 69).
Burke, (1999, pp. 288–289).
References
Alexander A (2014) Infinitesimal. Oneworld, London
Alexander A (2018) On Indivisibles and Infinitesimals: a Response to David Sherry, “The Jesuits and the Method of Indivisibles.” Found Sci 23:393–398
Aristotle (1995) On Generation and Corruption. In: Jonathan Barnes (ed) The Complete Works of Aristotle, The Revised Oxford Translation., volume I, Oxford
Aristotle (2004) The Nichomachean Ethics, Translated by J. A. K. Thomson, Revised with Notes and Appendices by Hugh Tredinnick, with an Introduction by Jonathan Barnes. Penguin Books, London
Aristotle, (2008) Physics, translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford World Classics, Oxford
Aristotle, (1975) Posterior Analytics, translated by Jonathan Barnes. Clarendon Aristotle Series, Oxford
Arnold M (1964) The Study of Poetry. In: Allott Kenneth (ed) Essays in Criticism. J.M. Dent, London
Barnes B, Bloor D, Henry J (1996) Scientific knowledge: a sociological analysis. Athlone, London
Barnes J (1987) Early Greek Philosophy. Penguin Classics
Berkeley G (1734) The analyst; or, a discourse, addressed to an infidel mathematician. J. Tonson, London. The text is available at https://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Berkeley/Analyst/Analyst.pdf
Berlin I (1985) Two concepts of liberty: an inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 31 October 1958. Clarendon, Oxford
Bosmans H (1927) André Tacquet (S. J.) et son traité d’Arithmétique théorique et practique. Isis 9(1): 66-8
Boyer CB (1949) The History of the Calculus and its Conceptual Development. Dover, New York
Burke E (1999) A Letter to the Sherriffs of Bristol on the Affairs of America. In: I. Kramnick, (ed), The Portable Edmund Burke, Penguin Books, New York. The Letter was originally published in 1777
Butterfield H (1931) The whig interpretation of history. G. Bell and Sons, London
Cajori F (1919) A History Of The Conceptions Of Limits And Fluxions In Great Britain From Newton to Woodhouse. Open Court Publishing, Chicago and London
Cantor G (1955) Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers, translated with an Introduction and Notes by Philip E. B. Jordan. Dover, New York. Originally published in 1895 and 1897
Chomsky N (2002) On Nature and Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Collingwood RG (1992) The idea of history. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992. Originally published 1946
Cronin W (2012) Two Cheers for the Whig Interpretation of History. Perspectives on History (Newsletter of the American Historical Association: September, 2012
Davis PJ, Hersch R (1981) The Mathematical Experience. The Harvester Press, Brighton
Drake S (2001) Galileo: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Eliot TS (1975) The Metaphysical Poets. In: F. Kermode (ed), Selected Prose of T. S. Eliot, Faber and Faber, London. The original essay was published in 1921
Feingold M (ed) (2003) The New Science and Jesuit Science: seventeenth Century Perspectives. Springer, Dordrecht
Feldhay R (1995) Galileo and the Church: political Inquisition or Critical Dialogue? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Foucault M (1981) The Order of Discourse, translated by Ian McCleod. In: Young R (ed) Untying The Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader. Routledge, Boston
Foucault M (2010) Truth and Power. In: Paul Rabinow (ed) The Foucault Reader. Vintage Books, New York
Galileo G (1914) Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, translated by Henry Crew and Alfonso De Salvo. Dover. Originally published as Discorsi e Dimonstrazioni Matematiche Intorno à Due Nuove Scienze. Leiden,1638
Galileo G (1957) Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, translated with an Introduction and Notes, by Stillman Drake. Doubleday Anchor Books, New York
Gaskin JCA (ed) (1996) Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. In: Oxford world’s classics. Oxford
Grant H (1966) Hobbes and Mathematics. In: Sorell T (ed) The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Grattan-Guiness I (1997) The Fontana history of mathematics: the rainbow of mathematics. Fontana Press, Harper Collins, London
Hacking I (1999) The Social Construction of What? Harvard University Press, Cambridge mass, London
Hacking I (2004) Leibniz and Descartes: Proof and Eternal Truth. In: Hacking I (ed) Historical Ontology Harvard University Press. Cambridge Mass, London
Hanna G, Niels Jahnke H (1996) Proof and Proving. In: Bishop AJ, Clements K, Keitel C, Kilpatrick J, Laborde C (eds) International Handbook of Mathematics Education, Part Two. Kluwer, Netherlands
Heilbron JL (2010) Galileo. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Hellyer M (2005) Catholic physics: Jesuit natural philosophy in early modern Germany. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame
Hume D (1854) The History of England, Volume VI. George Bell, London. Originally published 1757
Jesseph DM (1993) Berkeley’s Philosophy of Mathematics. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Jesseph DM (1999) Squaring the circle: the war between Hobbes and Wallis. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Jesseph DM (2018) Geometry, Religion and Politics: context and Consequences of the Hobbes-Wallis Dispute. Notes Rec 72:469–486
Katz M, Sherry D (2012) Leibniz’s laws of continuity and homogeneity. Notices Am Math Soc 59(11):1550–1558
Lewis CS (2004) The Discarded Image. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Originally published 1964
Macpherson CB (ed) (1985) Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan. In: Penguin classics. London
Newton I (1846) Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, translated by Andrew Motte as The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Daniel Adee, New York, 1846 (first American edition). Originally published 1687
Ott H (1967) The Problem of Non-objectifying Thinking and Speaking in Theology. In: Käsemann E et al (eds) Distinctive protestant and catholic themes reconsidered. Harper & Row, New York
Palmerino CM (2003) Two Jesuit responses to Galileo’s science of motion: Honoré Fabri and Pierre Le Cazre. In: Mordechai Feingold (ed) The New Science and Jesuit Science: seventeenth century perspectives. Springer, Dordrecht
Plato (1956) The Meno. In: Protagoras and Meno, translated by W K C Guthrie. Penguin Classics, London
Pourciau B (2001) Newton and the Notion of Limit. Hist Math 28:18–30
Radelet-de Grave P (2018) Comments on Indivisibles and Infinitesimals: a Response to David Sherry, by Amir Alexander. In View of the Original Book. Found Sci 23:597–602
Redondi P (1987) Galileo Heretic (Galileo Eretico). Princeton University Press, Princeton
Robinson I (1982) Prose and the Dissociation of Sensibility. In: Boris Ford (ed) The New Pelican Guide to English Literature (revised and expanded), volume 3: from Donne to Marvell. Penguin, Hammondsworth
Robinson M (2018) What Are We Doing Here?: essays. Virago, London
Sherry D (2018) The jesuits and the method of indivisibles. Found Sci 23(2):367–392
Schöttler T (2012) From causes to relations: the emergence of a non-Aristotelian concept of geometrical proof out of the quaestio de certitudine mathematicarum. Soc Polit 6(2):29–47
Skinner Q (1969) Thomas hobbes and the nature of the early royal society. Hist J 12:217–239
Sprat T (1667) The history of the royal-society of London for the improving of natural knowledge. Printed by T. R. for J. Martyn and J. Allestry, Printers to the Royal Society. The full text is available at https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A61158.0001.001/1:2?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
Tamvakis H (2014) Mathematics is a quest for truth. Notices Amer Math Soc 61:703
Vavilov N (2019) Reshaping the Metaphor of Truth. Phil Trans Roy Soc A 377:20180279
Weil S (2002) The Need for Roots: prelude to a declaration of duties towards mankind translated by Arthur Wills. Routledge. Originally published as L’enracinement. Prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l’être humain, Éditions Gallimard, Paris, 1949
Acknowledgements
I thank Amir Alexander for his account in Infinitesimal of a fascinating period of seminal mathematical and intellectual history. His work has provided motivation for this article. I am also indebted to the other scholars whose work I have consulted. I am indebted to Philip Broadbridge, Michael Cwikel and Neil Powers for encouragement and helpful suggestions. Parts of this paper were presented as work in progress to members of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia in Sydney and Canberra, and their interest is appreciated.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nillsen, R. Infinitesimal Knowledges. Axiomathes 32, 557–583 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-021-09540-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-021-09540-z