 | Georg Cantor's Metaphysical Correspondence
Claire Hill and Walter Tydecks, eds
Georg Cantor (1845–1918), the creator of set theory and explorer of the transfinite, is regarded as one of the most significant mathematicians of the modern era. Yet behind the revolutionary thinker lies a largely unknown personality: a deeply religious man who felt equally drawn to Catholic theology, Platonic philosophy, and the occult currents of his time.
At the same time, Cantor stood at the center of those crossroads of twentieth-century philosophy where it separated itself from theological and metaphysical thought and polarized into phenomenology and analytic philosophy. Both movements emerged in profound engagement with his work (Bertrand Russell, Husserl). From his perspective, it becomes possible to better understand the current state of philosophy and to give it new direction.
This volume presents, in English translation, a comprehensive selection of Cantor's metaphysical letters – including 54 documents newly or for the first time transcribed from the handwritten originals, supplemented by letters from Cantor's father to him as well as a few letters to family members. The 123 letters to clergymen, philosophers, mathematicians, and occultists reveal the deep spiritual struggles of a man who understood his mathematical discoveries as divine revelation and who throughout his life fought for their recognition.
The reader encounters Cantor as a passionate defender of the philosophia perennis, as an admirer of Thomas Aquinas whom he sought to reconcile with the Church – and at the same time as an initiate into the secrets of the Rosicrucians and a sharp critic of Freemasonry. His letters to the French occultist Papus, to the Jesuit Cardinal Franzelin, to the mathematician Charles Hermite, and to many others, paint the picture of a tormented genius who sought his way between metaphysical calling and scientific isolation, between deep faith and growing madness.
With an introduction by Claire Ortiz Hill, who illuminates Cantor's religious background, his failure as a philosopher, and the hitherto underestimated role of the occult in his thought, as well as an afterword by Walter Tydecks, who places Cantor's work in a philosophical context: "Cantor's Hidden Conclusion to the Divine."
August 2026
978-1-84890-516-0
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