Infinity, Continuity, and Composition: The Contribution of Gregory of Rimini

Abstract

Gregory of Rimini (1300–1358) occupies an important place in the fourteenth-century indivisibilist controversy, offering by far the most sophisticated accounts of both infinity and continuity to emerge from scholasticism.I refer to Gregory’s Sentence commentary [= S], ed. A. Damasus Trapp et al., Spätmittelalter und Reformation: Texte und Untersuchungen, 6–(Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1979–). On Gregory’s life, see S, 1:XI–XVII. The Sentence commentary is based on lectures Gregory delivered in Paris during the academic year 1343–1344. As is well known, Gregory holds that a continuum is composed of an actual infinity of parts.On this, see Anneliese Maier, Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14.Jahrhundert: Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik, Storia e Letteratura: Raccolta di Studi e Testi, 22 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1949), pp. 172–73, 176–77; John E. Murdoch, “Infinity and Continuity,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg, (Cambrige: Cambriige University Press, 1982) pp. 572–73; J. M. M. H. Thijssen, “Roger Bacon (1214–1292/1297): A Neglected Source in the Medieval Continuum Debate,” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences 34 (1984): 25–34 (p. 31); Thijssen, “Het Continuum-Debat bij Gregorius van Rimini (1300–1358),” Algemeen Nederlands Tijdscrhift voor Wijsbegeerte 77 (1985): 109–19; A. W. Moore, The Infinite, The Problems of Philosophy: Their Past and Their Present (London and New York: Routledge, 1990), pp. 51–54. Less well known, however, are Gregory’s motivations for accepting this view, and indeed how precisely he understands it.