Abstract

Since the concept of reality has been dominated by the methods of modern natural science, the criteria of precision have been restricted to exact measurement, i.e. quantification required by experimental science and technology. In premodern times, however, the paradigm according to which reality was conceived, designed a universal correspondence of substances and processes by the construction of analogies. These had a kind of ‘semantical’ precision, though different from mathematical, nevertheless in the end leading to mathematical proportionality. This premodern type of precision is explained by examples from Anaximenes and Plato