Infinity (philosophy)

In philosophy, infinity can be attributed to infinite dimensions, as for instance in Kant's first antinomy. In both theology and philosophy, infinity is explored in articles such as the Ultimate, the Absolute, God, and Zeno's paradoxes. In Greek philosophy, for example in Anaximander, 'the Boundless' is the origin of all that is. He took the beginning or first principle to be an endless, unlimited primordial mass (ἄπειρον, apeiron). The Jain metaphysics and mathematics was the first to define and delineate different "types" of infinities (see history), including the difference between countably infinite and uncountably infinite - a difference which came into being much later in modern mathematics by the work of Georg Cantor. In Judeo-Christian theology, for example in the work of theologians such as Duns Scotus, the infinite nature of God invokes a sense of being without constraint, rather than a sense of being unlimited in quantity. In ethics infinity plays an important role designating that which cannot be defined or reduced to knowledge or power.