The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Den matematiska punkten

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

THE POINT has its point of departure in the indivisible point of mathematics. In Swedenborg's Principia rerum naturalium (1734) the mathematical points are given an ontological significance. The world appears when God, like an artist drawing with his pencil, gives motion to the point. The world consists of circulating points. With spider metaphors Swedenborg postulated that the world is built on mathematics, and with labyrinth metaphors he formulated the philosophers' feeling of disorientation in the chaos of nature. The mind is often described as a journey in a labyrinth in darkness, striving to find the plan of the labyrinth and to see the light. Behind this is a conception of the creation of the world as an exercise in geometry. The world is geometry. The mathematical point is a dot conceptualized as something that has no substantiality. Around 1730 he began sketching a second version of a theory of matter, in the work commonly called the Minor Principia. It differs considerably from the published work of 1734. In 1730, however, he had still not come across the philosophical terminology of the German philosopher Christian von Wolff.

Publishing year

2004

Language

Swedish

Document type

Book

Publisher

Skandinaviska Swedenborgsällskapet

Topic

  • History of Ideas

Keywords

  • history of mathematics
  • natural philosophy
  • history of science

Status

Published