Existence vs. Conceivability in Aristotle: Are Straight Lines Infinitely Extendible?

Ugaglia, Monica

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-93342-9_14

Cited by 3 publications

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References 11 publications

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“…Whereas a medieval scholar like Bonaventura could still associate the future with God’s foreknowledge, the incorporation of the word into English took place in a European context which was in the grip of the transition to modernity. A crucial element of this consequential development was the abandonment of the constraining ancient finitism in favour of infinity (Dantzig, 2007; Ugaglia, 2018). The moderns not only readily identified with this radically new context-transcendent and forward-looking perspective, but enthusiastically also grasped and actively pursued the opportunities opened up by it.…”

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confidence: 99%

Towards a sociology of the future: An exploration in cognitive social theory

Strydom

2024

European Journal of Social Theory

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The aim of this article is a sociology of the future. Since the standard sociological practice of extrapolating from everyday semantics of the future and the time-consciousness of modernity is inadequate, an integrated cognitive sociological perspective allied to critical theory is introduced. It makes visible an essential dimension of social life that is either largely taken for granted, misunderstood or ignored by identifying different levels of cognitive structures organising minds, institutions and culture and following their role in societal dynamics. This perspective mediates the sociocultural and naturalistic approaches and introduces the concept of space-time. Centrally, a modal analysis of the key present-past-future sequence is presented, with the focus on the distinct status of the future. It is modally conceptualised, not simply in terms of possibility as is usual, but rather in terms of its modality as a necessary formal generic cultural model that makes the future in the first place conceivable and enables an orientation towards it to be established and maintained. The resulting cognitive sociological account offers a novel theoretical understanding of the future which could facilitate thorough sociological and critical theoretical analyses in the societal space-time field.

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confidence: 99%

Towards a sociology of the future: An exploration in cognitive social theory

Strydom

2024

European Journal of Social Theory

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Possibility vs Iterativity: Leibniz and Aristotle on the Infinite

Ugaglia¹

2022

Thinking and Calculating

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Competing Roles of Aristotle’s Account of the Infinite

Finley

2023

Apeiron

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There are two distinct but interrelated questions concerning Aristotle’s account of infinity that have been the subject of recurring debate. The first of these, what I call here the interpretative question, asks for a charitable and internally coherent interpretation of the limited pieces of text where Aristotle outlines his view of the ‘potential’ (and not ‘actual’) infinite. The second, what I call here the philosophical question, asks whether there is a way to make Aristotle’s notion of the potential infinite coherent and rigorous with modern tools that can stand as a rival to the widely-accepted view of the infinite as characterized in a mathematical theory of sets. In this paper, I argue that the theoretical roles that Aristotle intends his account of the potential infinite to fulfill lead to a deep and irresoluble tension that can help explain the persistence of debates on both of these questions. I do so by turning to the places where Aristotle attempts to argue for or against the existence of particular infinite processes to show that he slides between different underlying notions of when changes are possible. Making these underlying notions clear can help us better understand the role of Aristotle’s account in the history of philosophy, the possible pitfalls for a contemporary theory of the potential infinite, and what each of these debates might learn from each other.

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Existence vs. Conceivability in Aristotle: Are Straight Lines Infinitely Extendible?

Cited by 3 publications

References 11 publications

Towards a sociology of the future: An exploration in cognitive social theory

Towards a sociology of the future: An exploration in cognitive social theory

Possibility vs Iterativity: Leibniz and Aristotle on the Infinite

Competing Roles of Aristotle’s Account of the Infinite

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