[FOM] The lure of the infinite

[Gabriel Stolzenberg]

   In a message of February 15, Martin Davis noted, about Bishop
Berkeley,

>                           Berkeley's devastating critique of
> the nascent calculus was entirely correct, but it failed to deter
> mathematicians from using and expanding it while a minimally
> satisfactory foundation was two centuries away.

   I'm not sure if it effects Davis's point but isn't it true that
Berkeley did not mean his criticism to be devastating?  Wasn't he
just offering an intellectual defense of religion by pointing out
that, conceptually, religious belief was in no worse shape than the
calculus?


    Gabriel Stolzenberg