Mathematics & Physics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis

by D. F. M. Strauss

Publisher:

Paideia Press

, 2021

Overview

The attempt to reduce what is truly unique to something else leads to the deification of something or some aspect within creation, normally accompanied by imperialistic “all”-claims such as, “everything is number,” “everything is matter,” “everything is feeling,” “everything is historical” or “everything is interpretation.” The distortions thus created inevitably result in insoluble anti-nomies.

A Christian approach to scholarship, directed by the central biblical motive of creation, fall and redemption and guided by the theoretical idea that God subjected all of creation to His Law-Word, delimiting and determining the cohering diversity we experience within reality, in principle safe-guards those in the grip of this ultimate commitment and theoretical orientation from absolutizing anything within creation.

Key Features

• Confronts the supposedly “exact” sciences, mathematics and physics
• Seeks to challenge positivism (objectivity and neutrality) and postmodernism (historicism and relativism)
• Asserts that a Christian approach to scholarship safe-guards from absolutizing anything within creation

Contents

Mathematics

• Are there different standpoints in mathematics?
• Two apparently simple questions with ‘self-evident’ answers
• Starting-points for a third alternative?
• Numerical and spatial addition in the context of the law-subject distinction
• Distance: highlighting the mutual coherence between number and space
• Back to space
• What is presupposed in space?
• What is the interrelation between space and number?
• The irreducible meaning of space underlying Hilbert’s primitive terms
• The theory of modal aspects
• The impasse of arithmeticism

Physics

• Historical perspective on the concept of matter
• The mystery of matter
• The problem of individuality
• Systematic distinctions
• Physical entities exceed the limits of physics
• Concluding remark

Product Details

• Title: Mathematics & Physics: A Historical and Systematic Analysis
• Author: D. F. M. Strauss
• Publisher: Paideia Press
• Print Publication Date: 2021
• Pages: 88
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• ISBNs: 9780888153012, 0888153015
• Resource ID: LLS:MTHMTCSPHYNLYSS
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-09-24T01:54:05Z

About D. F. M. Strauss

D.F.M. Strauss was born in 1946 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. At the University of the Free State (Bloemfontein, South Africa) he obtained the B.A., B.A. Honours and M.A. Degrees [the M.A. Thesis - on Philosophy and the Special Sciences - was published in 1970 (358 pp.)]. He then went to the Free University of Amsterdam where he completed the theoretical doctoral examination (cum laude) in November 1970 (main subject: systematic philosophy; other subjects: (a) modern philosophy and (b) General Theory of Law and Dutch Penal Law). On December 7, 1973 he defended his Ph.D. dissertation at the Free University - on the distinction between Concept and Idea. (Prof H. Van Riessen was his promoter.) In 1971 he was appointed as Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the then UFS and in October 1978 he became Head of the Department of Philosophy. From 1994 to 1996 he lived in Canada as the First Director of the Dooyeweerd Centre, assuming at once the position of General Editor of the Collected Works of the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd. Since April 1, 1998 until December 31, 2001 he was Dean of the newly merged Faculty of Humanities (incorporating the former Faculties of Arts, Education and Social Sciences). Besides 15 publications, presenting papers at 38 International Conferences and contributing 19 chapters to independent works, more than 200 articles from him appeared in National and International Journals.