I have not read that book but it looks interesting. I must check it out.
I have a copy,
but I haven't read it yet.
It reminds me of
Berkeley finding fault
with infinitesimals. *
I don't know why, but
I always feel great
frustration looking back at
these kind of debates
since almost always
one side seems to offer up
bogus arguments
that, for some reason,
people take seriously
at the time. And then,
generations on,
when the issue is settled,
the damage is done.
I have to sort of
brace myself and gear up to
get into the book.
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* "In addition to his contributions to philosophy, Bishop Berkeley was also very influential in the development of mathematics, although in a rather negative sense. In 1734 he published The Analyst, subtitled A DISCOURSE Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician. The infidel mathematician in question is believed to have been either (English astronomer who used Newton's laws of motion to predict the period of a comet (1656-1742)) Edmond Halley, or Isaac Newton himself, although the discourse would then have been posthumously addressed as Newton died in 1727. The Analyst represented a direct attack on the foundations and principles of calculus, and in particular the notion of fluxion or infinitesimal change which Newton and (German philosopher and mathematician who thought of the universe as consisting of independent monads and who devised a system of the calculus independent of Newton (1646-1716)) Leibniz had used to develop the calculus.
"Berkeley regarded his criticism of calculus as part of his broader campaign against the religious implications of Newtonian mechanics – as a defence of traditional Christianity against deism, which tends to distance God from His worshippers.
"As a consequence of the resulting controversy, the foundations of calculus were rewritten in a much more formal and rigorous form using limits. It was not until 1966, [!!] with the publication of Abraham Robinson's book Non-standard Analysis, that the concept of the infinitesimal was made rigorous, thus giving an alternative way of overcoming the difficulties which Berkeley discovered in Newton's original approach."