2020 Theses Doctoral

Brentanian continua and their boundaries

Heller Britto, Arthur

This dissertation focuses on how a specific conceptual thread of the history of mathematics unfolded throughout the centuries from its original account in Ancient Greece to its demise in the Modern era due to new mathematical developments and, finally, to its revival in the work of Brentano. In particular, we shall discuss how the notion of continuity and the connected notion of continua and boundaries developed through the ages until Brentano's revival of the original Aristotelian account against the by then established mathematical orthodoxy. Thus, this monograph hopes to fill in a gap in the present state of Brentanian scholarship as well as to present a thorough account of this specific historical thread.