ABSTRACT
In general, the infinite exists through one thing being taken after another, what is taken being always finite, but ever other and other.
(Aristotle)
1 Preliminaries
Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC) is a touch-stone for this whole enquiry. Born in Stagira, he lived most of his life in Athens, where he studied under Plato in the Academy that he (Plato) had founded. He was a remarkable polymath. He made major contributions to logic, metaphysics, the natural sciences (above all biology), psychology, ethics, politics, and literary criticism; and some of these disciplines he can even be said to have founded. His entry into our particular drama in many respects marks the end of the prologue and serves to inaugurate the action proper. Many of the concepts that have shaped and informed subsequent discussion, indeed much of what has actually been discussed, originated with Aristotle.
