[lit-ideas] Re: As far as I know, there are infinitely many stars
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:15:43 -0400 (EDT)
On the other hand, there's Witters.
Wittgenstein made an impassioned attack upon axiomatic set theory, and upon
the idea of the actual infinite, during his "middle period".
Boldly, he further claims:
"Space of sight is infinite, even if, in fact I can only see as far as the
walls of my room."
----
From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_(philosophy)
"Unlike the traditional empiricists, [Witters]thought that the infinite was
in some way given to sense experience.
Witters writes:
"I can see in space the possibility of any finite experience."
"We recognise the essential infinity of space in its smallest part."
"Time is infinite in the same sense as the three-dimensional space of sight
and movement is infinite, even if in fact I can only see as far as the
walls of my room."
"What is infinite about endlessness is only the endlessness itself."
Note that Grice's sentence:
"As far as I know, there are infinitely many stars"
should be properly distinguished from:
"As far as I know, there are INFINITELY INFINITE stars"
Grice classifies all numbers into three sets: enumerable, innumerable, and
infinite.
Each of these was further subdivided into three orders:
Enumerable: lowest, intermediate and highest.
Innumerable: nearly innumerable, truly innumerable and innumerably
innumerable.
Infinite: nearly infinite, truly infinite, infinitely infinite.
Cheers,
Speranza
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