The Limits of Reason

Cantor's discoveries encountered vitriolic opposition among his contemporaries. Religious objections, ironically, were based on the principle of mediocrity. They characterized attempts to understand and work with infinity as an encroachment on god’s prerogatives. The best explanation of anything eventually involves universality, and therefore infinity. But if you believe that there are bounds on the domain in which reason is the proper arbiter of ideas, then you believe in unreason or the supernatural. Similarly, if you reject the infinite, you are stuck with the finite. And the finite is parochial, so there is no way of stopping there. So dies every branch of philosophy.