Georg Cantor — Infini et inconscient images
Book in French — English title: Georg Cantor: Infinity and the Unconscious
Georg Cantor (1845–1918) is the father of set theory, which has today become the universal framework for presenting mathematics. Yet his most revolutionary contribution is the discovery that the real numbers are uncountable, which implies that there is not just one infinity, contrary to widespread belief. This dizzying leap towards an infinity of infinities concerns not only mathematics but philosophy and theology as well, and forms part of the advent of modernity.
With Cantor, a new quality asserts itself in the field of mathematics: the freedom that he claimed in the face of his detractors. Following the course of his work, this book traces the balance he had to maintain between logical truth and freedom, a conjunction that may seem paradoxical.
Were these real difficulties the cause of the psychosis that welled up over the years?
A mathematician and psychoanalyst, Nathalie Charraud draws on a study of the historical documents to follow the inner aspects of Cantor’s creative work. She succeeds in dissecting his mathematical activity in Lacanian terms, without depriving his mathematical reflections of their scientific significance.
Nathalie Charraud
After completing her doctorate in the algebra of categories at the Université Paris VI, Nathalie Charraud taught mathematics at the Université Paris XIII for more than twenty years. At the same time, she trained in psychoanalysis and wrote numerous articles linking psychoanalysis and mathematics, in the spirit of Jacques Lacan.
In 1999, together with Pierre Cartier, she organised the Cerisy conference on “le Réel en mathématiques”, which brought many mathematicians and psychoanalysts into dialogue.
Nathalie Charraud is a psychoanalyst and a member of the ECF (École de la Cause Freudienne) and the AMP (Association Mondiale de Psychanalyse).
@book{Charraud_Cantor_2019,
title = {{Georg Cantor --- Infini et inconscient}},
author = {Charraud, Nathalie},
year = {2019},
series = {Spartacus Sup{\'e}rieur},
publisher = {Spartacus-Idh},
ISBN = {978-2-36693-046-7},
pages = {318},
url = {https://spartacus-idh.com/liseuse/046/}
}
