Symbol and Knowledge: ‘Absolute Infinity’ in Georg Kantor and Pavel Florensky

The research theme is the reception of Georg Cantor's ideas in Russia. Russian philosopher Pavel Florensky have been influenced by Georg Cantor’s ideas and wrote a paper “On the symbols of infinity” in 1904. In this paper he says that transfinite mathematics of Georg Cantor is an example of symbolic vision of God. Cantor’s idea from the "Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre” is that “absolute can only be acknowledged but never known”. The absolutely infinite sequence of numbers thus seems to him to be an appropriate symbol of the absolute. Symbol, as Pavel Florensky wrote in his memoirs, was the most important concept in his philosophy throughout his life. Symbol has distinctive ontological modus of existence and its property is to be the reference for the higher being, namely God. It could also be associated with the concept of minimax by Nicolaus of Cusa. I analyze the meaning of symbol in Cantor and Florensky and juxtapose them with the understanding of the symbol by later Florensky and other interpreters. I also examine the view of theologian Christian Tapp, who researched Cantor’s interest in theology. He understands symbol as a minimal in the theory of Cantor. Johanna Van der Ween and Leon Horsten represent Cantor's conception in the context of European philosophers, whom Cantor read. The main problem of the paper is how symbol and absolute infinity could be connected and whether the meaning of symbol implies understanding of the higher being or it is not necessarily incorporated into the concept.