THE METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLES OF THE INFINITESIMAL CALCULUS IBD

Sinopse

René Guénon (1886-1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religiousápraxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization.GuénonâÇÖs early and abiding interest in mathematics, like that of Plato, Pascal, Leibniz, and many other metaphysicians of note, runs like a scarlet thread throughout his doctrinal studies. In this late text, published just five years before his death, Guénon devotes an entire volume to questions regarding the nature of limits and the infinite with respect to the calculus both as a mathematical discipline and as symbolism for the initiatic path. According to Guénon,áinfinity is a metaphysical concept at a higher level of reality than that of quantity, where all that can be expressed is theáindefinite, not theáinfinite. But although quantity is the only level recognized by modern science, the numbers that express it also possessáqualities, their quantitative aspect being merely their outer husk. Our reliance today on a mathematics of approximation and probability only further conceals the âÇÖqualitative mathematicsâÇÖ of the ancient world, which comes to us most directly through the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition. This book therefore extends and complements the geometrical symbolism he employs in other works, especiallyáThe Symbolism of the Cross,áThe Multiple States of the Being, andáSymbols of Sacred Science. According to Guénon, the concept âÇÖinfinite numberâÇÖ is a contradiction in terms.