| Title | Conceptions of Topos in Aristotle |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1995 |
| Published in | Concepts of space in Greek thought |
| Pages | 121-191 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Editor(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Translator(s) |
| The investigations of the present chapter took the different concepts of place (topos) as they appear in the Corpus Aristotelicum as their starting point. First, in sections 4.1-4.3, I discussed the relationship between the concept of topos which appears in the course of the discussion of the category poson in the Cat. and the famous definition of topos established in Phys. A. Though scholars like Duhem and Jammer, and more recently, King and Mendell have taken these passages seriously as containing an unambiguous account of physical place¹⁵¹—and have consequently tried their hardest to establish in what way these passages were related to the account in Phys. A—I concluded that they present enough problems of their own to invalidate such claims. If we take the now more or less universally accepted relative chronology of the surviving school works as established—and I have not been able to find reasons for not doing so—and if we may thus assume that the Cat. was written some five or ten years earlier than Phys. A, we may conclude that insofar as we might speak of a development of Aristotle’s philosophy of place between the Cat. and Phys. A, this development should not be described as the substitution of one articulate view by another, but rather as a growing awareness of the problems inherent in the common-sense notions of place and space. This seemed to be confirmed by the findings of section 4.4. There I investigated Aristotle’s dialectical method in general and in Phys. A in particular. Against Owen on the one hand, and Morsink on the other, I argued that the data from which Aristotle’s dialectical procedure in Phys. A took its start were for the most part what might be called the ‘theoretical terms’ of the ‘physical system’ of everyday thought. Concerning such a theoretical physical term as topos, which is not directly linked to experience, Aristotle took apparent facts, i.e., views endorsed by the world at large or by some individual philosophers, as his starting point. We might call this, with Morsink¹⁵², a process of ‘conjectures and refutations,’ as long as it is kept in mind that in Aristotelian dialectic such ‘conjectures’ usually do not spring forth from the genius of the individual physicist, but are largely determined by the conventions of everyday thought and common parlance¹⁵³. We saw that the whole further process boiled down to the scrutinizing and refining of these ‘apparent features.’ A number of them were rejected for involving insoluble aporiai. Those features that survived the dialectical investigation were incorporated in Aristotle’s eventual ‘physical’ concept of place. All this involved the recognition that ordinary thought and common parlance did not use the term topos in a very coherent manner and that the actual task of the physicist was to eliminate those connotations of the term which, for all their prima facie plausibility, turned out to be of no use in the context of physical theory as a whole. Thus, the relation between the account of topos in the Cat. and that of Phys. A could be explained. In the Cat., Aristotle was using topos in one of the at-first-sight plausible senses of common parlance, which were reviewed and rejected in Phys. A. On the other hand, as section 4.5 showed, this unorthodox concept of topos as a three-dimensional self-subsistent extension crops up in a number of passages in the more sophisticated physical writings as well, probably because, as an inveterate façon de parler, it was still hard to banish altogether, and probably also because Aristotle’s own orthodox concept did not prove to be useful in all circumstances. As a whole, the present chapter seems to corroborate our thesis of chapter 1, viz., that Greek philosophical theories of space and place were closely linked to—and indeed started off from—the ways in which spatial terms might be used in ordinary language. As I concluded in chapter 3, it was a more or less unreflective use of some of the ambiguities of common parlance which was partly responsible for the obscurities in Plato’s receptacle account. In the present chapter, we noticed that in the course of his philosophical career, Aristotle did develop an awareness of the ambiguities and equivocations of everyday thinking and speaking and that for him, the conventions of ordinary language and the difficulties they involved constituted the raw material for his dialectical inquiries into the nature of such theoretical entities as place and space. [conclusion p. 189-191] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/Vx1GYydMNj4awhc |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"1158","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1158,"authors_free":[{"id":1731,"entry_id":1158,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":28,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","free_first_name":"Keimpe A.","free_last_name":"Algra","norm_person":{"id":28,"first_name":"Keimpe A.","last_name":"Algra","full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115110992","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2348,"entry_id":1158,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":28,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","free_first_name":"Keimpe A.","free_last_name":"Algra","norm_person":{"id":28,"first_name":"Keimpe A.","last_name":"Algra","full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115110992","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Conceptions of Topos in Aristotle","main_title":{"title":"Conceptions of Topos in Aristotle"},"abstract":"The investigations of the present chapter took the different concepts of place (topos) as they appear in the Corpus Aristotelicum as their starting point. First, in sections 4.1-4.3, I discussed the relationship between the concept of topos which appears in the course of the discussion of the category poson in the Cat. and the famous definition of topos established in Phys. A. Though scholars like Duhem and Jammer, and more recently, King and Mendell have taken these passages seriously as containing an unambiguous account of physical place\u00b9\u2075\u00b9\u2014and have consequently tried their hardest to establish in what way these passages were related to the account in Phys. A\u2014I concluded that they present enough problems of their own to invalidate such claims.\r\n\r\nIf we take the now more or less universally accepted relative chronology of the surviving school works as established\u2014and I have not been able to find reasons for not doing so\u2014and if we may thus assume that the Cat. was written some five or ten years earlier than Phys. A, we may conclude that insofar as we might speak of a development of Aristotle\u2019s philosophy of place between the Cat. and Phys. A, this development should not be described as the substitution of one articulate view by another, but rather as a growing awareness of the problems inherent in the common-sense notions of place and space. This seemed to be confirmed by the findings of section 4.4.\r\n\r\nThere I investigated Aristotle\u2019s dialectical method in general and in Phys. A in particular. Against Owen on the one hand, and Morsink on the other, I argued that the data from which Aristotle\u2019s dialectical procedure in Phys. A took its start were for the most part what might be called the \u2018theoretical terms\u2019 of the \u2018physical system\u2019 of everyday thought. Concerning such a theoretical physical term as topos, which is not directly linked to experience, Aristotle took apparent facts, i.e., views endorsed by the world at large or by some individual philosophers, as his starting point.\r\n\r\nWe might call this, with Morsink\u00b9\u2075\u00b2, a process of \u2018conjectures and refutations,\u2019 as long as it is kept in mind that in Aristotelian dialectic such \u2018conjectures\u2019 usually do not spring forth from the genius of the individual physicist, but are largely determined by the conventions of everyday thought and common parlance\u00b9\u2075\u00b3. We saw that the whole further process boiled down to the scrutinizing and refining of these \u2018apparent features.\u2019 A number of them were rejected for involving insoluble aporiai. Those features that survived the dialectical investigation were incorporated in Aristotle\u2019s eventual \u2018physical\u2019 concept of place.\r\n\r\nAll this involved the recognition that ordinary thought and common parlance did not use the term topos in a very coherent manner and that the actual task of the physicist was to eliminate those connotations of the term which, for all their prima facie plausibility, turned out to be of no use in the context of physical theory as a whole. Thus, the relation between the account of topos in the Cat. and that of Phys. A could be explained. In the Cat., Aristotle was using topos in one of the at-first-sight plausible senses of common parlance, which were reviewed and rejected in Phys. A.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, as section 4.5 showed, this unorthodox concept of topos as a three-dimensional self-subsistent extension crops up in a number of passages in the more sophisticated physical writings as well, probably because, as an inveterate fa\u00e7on de parler, it was still hard to banish altogether, and probably also because Aristotle\u2019s own orthodox concept did not prove to be useful in all circumstances.\r\n\r\nAs a whole, the present chapter seems to corroborate our thesis of chapter 1, viz., that Greek philosophical theories of space and place were closely linked to\u2014and indeed started off from\u2014the ways in which spatial terms might be used in ordinary language. As I concluded in chapter 3, it was a more or less unreflective use of some of the ambiguities of common parlance which was partly responsible for the obscurities in Plato\u2019s receptacle account. In the present chapter, we noticed that in the course of his philosophical career, Aristotle did develop an awareness of the ambiguities and equivocations of everyday thinking and speaking and that for him, the conventions of ordinary language and the difficulties they involved constituted the raw material for his dialectical inquiries into the nature of such theoretical entities as place and space. [conclusion p. 189-191]","btype":2,"date":"1995","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Vx1GYydMNj4awhc","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":28,"full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":28,"full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1158,"section_of":232,"pages":"121-191","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":232,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Concepts of space in Greek thought","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Algra1995c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1995","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1995","abstract":"Concepts of Space in Greek Thought studies ancient Greek theories of physical space and place, in particular those of the classical and Hellenistic period. These theories are explained primarily with reference to the general philosophical or methodological framework within which they took shape. Special attention is paid to the nature and status of the sources. Two introductory chapters deal with the interrelations between various concepts of space and with Greek spatial terminology (including case studies of the Eleatics, Democritus and Epicurus). The remaining chapters contain detailed studies on the theories of space of Plato, Aristotle, the early Peripatetics and the Stoics.\r\nThe book is especially useful for historians of ancient physics, but may also be of interest to students of Aristotelian dialectic, ancient metaphysics, doxography, and medieval and early modern physics.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Goiwos39VOpY6H9","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":232,"pubplace":"Leiden \u2013 New York \u2013 K\u00f6ln","publisher":"Brill","series":"Philosophia Antiqua","volume":"65","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1995]}
| Title | Problems in Aristotle's Theory of Place and Early Peripatetic Reactions |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1995 |
| Published in | Concepts of space in Greek thought |
| Pages | 192-260 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Editor(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Translator(s) |
| In the present chapter, I have discussed several early Peripatetic attempts to come to terms with Aristotle’s theory of place. These were studied against the background of Aristotle’s theory of place itself and the obscurities and problems it involved. As was already noted in the previous chapter, Aristotle’s dialectical discussion in Phys. A exhibited a number of rough edges and loose ends. Thus, he nowhere explicitly reconciled his own two claims that place should have some power and that it should not be counted as one of the four familiar causes. In section 5.1, it was shown, or so I hope, that it is possible to reconstruct his position by a closer study of the dialectical structure of the discussion of topos in Phys. A and by adducing a number of other relevant passages from elsewhere in the Physics and the De Caelo. In the course of this chapter, it became clear that the resulting picture of the non-dynamic character of Aristotelian place was confirmed by the few remarks on this issue that have come down to us from Theophrastus and Eudemus. Two other problems left open by Aristotle—viz., the interrelated problems of the immobility of place and its ontological status—seem to have been more difficult to solve, as I have tried to show in section 5.2. They were discussed—together with a number of other problems, such as the problem of the emplacement of the heavens—by both Eudemus and Theophrastus. It appears—if we are allowed to draw some general conclusions from the scanty fragments that have come down to us—that each of these two pupils of Aristotle continued his master’s work in his own way: Theophrastus by continuing Aristotle’s critical dialectical approach, which involved his feeling free to sometimes add some rather radically alternative suggestions, and Eudemus by mainly filling out Aristotle’s own suggestions by adducing material from elsewhere in his work or by rephrasing Aristotle’s arguments in clearer terms. But even if Eudemus appears to have been the more ‘orthodox’ of the two, we should not overestimate the strength and the extent of Theophrastus’ dissent from Aristotle. It appears to have consisted mainly in his leaving the aporia of fr. 146 unanswered while putting forward the contents of fr. 149 as hardly more than a suggested alternative. Moreover, it is worth noting that, in a way, the conception of place as a relation between bodies—suggested in fr. 149—may be regarded as constituting a sensible elaboration rather than a complete rejection of the Aristotelian position. For insofar as it still defines the place of a thing in terms of its surroundings rather than in terms of a SidaxTijxa (whether in the Platonic or in the atomist sense), it remains on the Aristotelian side of the line drawn by Aristotle himself at Phys. A 209b1-7.¹⁴⁴ And unlike the alternative proposed by Strato, this conception of place could, in principle, be taken over ceteris paribus, leaving the rest of the system of Aristotelian physics intact. At the same time, it should be clear that Theophrastus’ solution, however hesitantly put forward, is far superior from a systematic point of view. It might even be claimed that it transforms Aristotle’s (and Eudemus’) rather naïve theory of place (focusing on the location of individual substances) into what we might call a theory of space (in principle allowing an account of the sum total of spatial relations within the cosmos).¹⁴⁵ This brings us to the curious fact that this novel conception of place did not have a wider appeal. As we saw, we actually have to wait for Damascius to take up Theophrastus’ suggestion. This is probably partly due to the fact that Theophrastus omitted to elaborate his point and that, as a consequence, it did not become widely known. In addition, the relational conception of place suggested by Theophrastus, if worked out properly, was much more technical and much farther removed from everyday usage and ordinary experience than its contemporary rivals. We need only look at Aristotle’s theory of topos and the way in which it was taken seriously in antiquity (and beyond) to see to what extent lack of technicality and closeness to common thinking and speaking were commonly counted as virtues. This, in turn, leads us to the question of the influence of (Eudemus and) Theophrastus in general. To some extent, the doubts, criticisms, and refinements of Aristotle’s theory put forward by Eudemus and Theophrastus may have proved seminal. At any rate, later critics of the Aristotelian position, such as Simplicius, found it worthwhile to refer to their ideas or to add quotations from their work. And the mere fact that Aristotle’s theory of place had come under attack within the Peripatos and that even a relatively faithful pupil like Eudemus had felt obliged to advocate some changes may have encouraged the much bolder dissent of a philosopher like Strato of Lampsacus. Yet, it should be stressed that the precise extent of the influence of these early Peripatetics is impossible to determine.¹⁴⁶ At any rate, there is no positive evidence that any of the later critics of Aristotle was directly influenced by Theophrastus or Eudemus, and it should be kept in mind that these critics probably did not even need their examples. Indeed, Aristotle himself provided enough ammunition—for example, by failing to answer the question of the ontological status of place, by failing to provide a more technical account of immobility,¹⁴⁷ and by attacking the most obvious rival view (place as a three-dimensional extension) with very unsatisfactory arguments. [conclusion p. 258-260] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/JNlEob1OVl4sohO |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"1159","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1159,"authors_free":[{"id":1735,"entry_id":1159,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":28,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","free_first_name":"Keimpe A.","free_last_name":"Algra","norm_person":{"id":28,"first_name":"Keimpe A.","last_name":"Algra","full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115110992","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2347,"entry_id":1159,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":28,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","free_first_name":"Keimpe A.","free_last_name":"Algra","norm_person":{"id":28,"first_name":"Keimpe A.","last_name":"Algra","full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115110992","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Problems in Aristotle's Theory of Place and Early Peripatetic Reactions","main_title":{"title":"Problems in Aristotle's Theory of Place and Early Peripatetic Reactions"},"abstract":"In the present chapter, I have discussed several early Peripatetic attempts to come to terms with Aristotle\u2019s theory of place. These were studied against the background of Aristotle\u2019s theory of place itself and the obscurities and problems it involved. As was already noted in the previous chapter, Aristotle\u2019s dialectical discussion in Phys. A exhibited a number of rough edges and loose ends. Thus, he nowhere explicitly reconciled his own two claims that place should have some power and that it should not be counted as one of the four familiar causes.\r\n\r\nIn section 5.1, it was shown, or so I hope, that it is possible to reconstruct his position by a closer study of the dialectical structure of the discussion of topos in Phys. A and by adducing a number of other relevant passages from elsewhere in the Physics and the De Caelo. In the course of this chapter, it became clear that the resulting picture of the non-dynamic character of Aristotelian place was confirmed by the few remarks on this issue that have come down to us from Theophrastus and Eudemus.\r\n\r\nTwo other problems left open by Aristotle\u2014viz., the interrelated problems of the immobility of place and its ontological status\u2014seem to have been more difficult to solve, as I have tried to show in section 5.2. They were discussed\u2014together with a number of other problems, such as the problem of the emplacement of the heavens\u2014by both Eudemus and Theophrastus.\r\n\r\nIt appears\u2014if we are allowed to draw some general conclusions from the scanty fragments that have come down to us\u2014that each of these two pupils of Aristotle continued his master\u2019s work in his own way: Theophrastus by continuing Aristotle\u2019s critical dialectical approach, which involved his feeling free to sometimes add some rather radically alternative suggestions, and Eudemus by mainly filling out Aristotle\u2019s own suggestions by adducing material from elsewhere in his work or by rephrasing Aristotle\u2019s arguments in clearer terms.\r\n\r\nBut even if Eudemus appears to have been the more \u2018orthodox\u2019 of the two, we should not overestimate the strength and the extent of Theophrastus\u2019 dissent from Aristotle. It appears to have consisted mainly in his leaving the aporia of fr. 146 unanswered while putting forward the contents of fr. 149 as hardly more than a suggested alternative. Moreover, it is worth noting that, in a way, the conception of place as a relation between bodies\u2014suggested in fr. 149\u2014may be regarded as constituting a sensible elaboration rather than a complete rejection of the Aristotelian position.\r\n\r\nFor insofar as it still defines the place of a thing in terms of its surroundings rather than in terms of a SidaxTijxa (whether in the Platonic or in the atomist sense), it remains on the Aristotelian side of the line drawn by Aristotle himself at Phys. A 209b1-7.\u00b9\u2074\u2074 And unlike the alternative proposed by Strato, this conception of place could, in principle, be taken over ceteris paribus, leaving the rest of the system of Aristotelian physics intact.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, it should be clear that Theophrastus\u2019 solution, however hesitantly put forward, is far superior from a systematic point of view. It might even be claimed that it transforms Aristotle\u2019s (and Eudemus\u2019) rather na\u00efve theory of place (focusing on the location of individual substances) into what we might call a theory of space (in principle allowing an account of the sum total of spatial relations within the cosmos).\u00b9\u2074\u2075\r\n\r\nThis brings us to the curious fact that this novel conception of place did not have a wider appeal. As we saw, we actually have to wait for Damascius to take up Theophrastus\u2019 suggestion. This is probably partly due to the fact that Theophrastus omitted to elaborate his point and that, as a consequence, it did not become widely known. In addition, the relational conception of place suggested by Theophrastus, if worked out properly, was much more technical and much farther removed from everyday usage and ordinary experience than its contemporary rivals.\r\n\r\nWe need only look at Aristotle\u2019s theory of topos and the way in which it was taken seriously in antiquity (and beyond) to see to what extent lack of technicality and closeness to common thinking and speaking were commonly counted as virtues.\r\n\r\nThis, in turn, leads us to the question of the influence of (Eudemus and) Theophrastus in general. To some extent, the doubts, criticisms, and refinements of Aristotle\u2019s theory put forward by Eudemus and Theophrastus may have proved seminal. At any rate, later critics of the Aristotelian position, such as Simplicius, found it worthwhile to refer to their ideas or to add quotations from their work.\r\n\r\nAnd the mere fact that Aristotle\u2019s theory of place had come under attack within the Peripatos and that even a relatively faithful pupil like Eudemus had felt obliged to advocate some changes may have encouraged the much bolder dissent of a philosopher like Strato of Lampsacus. Yet, it should be stressed that the precise extent of the influence of these early Peripatetics is impossible to determine.\u00b9\u2074\u2076\r\n\r\nAt any rate, there is no positive evidence that any of the later critics of Aristotle was directly influenced by Theophrastus or Eudemus, and it should be kept in mind that these critics probably did not even need their examples. Indeed, Aristotle himself provided enough ammunition\u2014for example, by failing to answer the question of the ontological status of place, by failing to provide a more technical account of immobility,\u00b9\u2074\u2077 and by attacking the most obvious rival view (place as a three-dimensional extension) with very unsatisfactory arguments. [conclusion p. 258-260]","btype":2,"date":"1995","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/JNlEob1OVl4sohO","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":28,"full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":28,"full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1159,"section_of":232,"pages":"192-260","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":232,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Concepts of space in Greek thought","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Algra1995c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1995","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1995","abstract":"Concepts of Space in Greek Thought studies ancient Greek theories of physical space and place, in particular those of the classical and Hellenistic period. These theories are explained primarily with reference to the general philosophical or methodological framework within which they took shape. Special attention is paid to the nature and status of the sources. Two introductory chapters deal with the interrelations between various concepts of space and with Greek spatial terminology (including case studies of the Eleatics, Democritus and Epicurus). The remaining chapters contain detailed studies on the theories of space of Plato, Aristotle, the early Peripatetics and the Stoics.\r\nThe book is especially useful for historians of ancient physics, but may also be of interest to students of Aristotelian dialectic, ancient metaphysics, doxography, and medieval and early modern physics.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Goiwos39VOpY6H9","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":232,"pubplace":"Leiden \u2013 New York \u2013 K\u00f6ln","publisher":"Brill","series":"Philosophia Antiqua","volume":"65","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1995]}
| Title | Concepts of space in Greek thought |
| Type | Monograph |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1995 |
| Publication Place | Leiden – New York – Köln |
| Publisher | Brill |
| Series | Philosophia Antiqua |
| Volume | 65 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
| Concepts of Space in Greek Thought studies ancient Greek theories of physical space and place, in particular those of the classical and Hellenistic period. These theories are explained primarily with reference to the general philosophical or methodological framework within which they took shape. Special attention is paid to the nature and status of the sources. Two introductory chapters deal with the interrelations between various concepts of space and with Greek spatial terminology (including case studies of the Eleatics, Democritus and Epicurus). The remaining chapters contain detailed studies on the theories of space of Plato, Aristotle, the early Peripatetics and the Stoics. The book is especially useful for historians of ancient physics, but may also be of interest to students of Aristotelian dialectic, ancient metaphysics, doxography, and medieval and early modern physics. |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/Goiwos39VOpY6H9 |
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| Title | Conceptions of Topos in Aristotle |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1995 |
| Published in | Concepts of space in Greek thought |
| Pages | 121-191 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Editor(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Translator(s) |
The investigations of the present chapter took the different concepts of place (topos) as they appear in the Corpus Aristotelicum as their starting point. First, in sections 4.1-4.3, I discussed the relationship between the concept of topos which appears in the course of the discussion of the category poson in the Cat. and the famous definition of topos established in Phys. A. Though scholars like Duhem and Jammer, and more recently, King and Mendell have taken these passages seriously as containing an unambiguous account of physical place¹⁵¹—and have consequently tried their hardest to establish in what way these passages were related to the account in Phys. A—I concluded that they present enough problems of their own to invalidate such claims. If we take the now more or less universally accepted relative chronology of the surviving school works as established—and I have not been able to find reasons for not doing so—and if we may thus assume that the Cat. was written some five or ten years earlier than Phys. A, we may conclude that insofar as we might speak of a development of Aristotle’s philosophy of place between the Cat. and Phys. A, this development should not be described as the substitution of one articulate view by another, but rather as a growing awareness of the problems inherent in the common-sense notions of place and space. This seemed to be confirmed by the findings of section 4.4. There I investigated Aristotle’s dialectical method in general and in Phys. A in particular. Against Owen on the one hand, and Morsink on the other, I argued that the data from which Aristotle’s dialectical procedure in Phys. A took its start were for the most part what might be called the ‘theoretical terms’ of the ‘physical system’ of everyday thought. Concerning such a theoretical physical term as topos, which is not directly linked to experience, Aristotle took apparent facts, i.e., views endorsed by the world at large or by some individual philosophers, as his starting point. We might call this, with Morsink¹⁵², a process of ‘conjectures and refutations,’ as long as it is kept in mind that in Aristotelian dialectic such ‘conjectures’ usually do not spring forth from the genius of the individual physicist, but are largely determined by the conventions of everyday thought and common parlance¹⁵³. We saw that the whole further process boiled down to the scrutinizing and refining of these ‘apparent features.’ A number of them were rejected for involving insoluble aporiai. Those features that survived the dialectical investigation were incorporated in Aristotle’s eventual ‘physical’ concept of place. All this involved the recognition that ordinary thought and common parlance did not use the term topos in a very coherent manner and that the actual task of the physicist was to eliminate those connotations of the term which, for all their prima facie plausibility, turned out to be of no use in the context of physical theory as a whole. Thus, the relation between the account of topos in the Cat. and that of Phys. A could be explained. In the Cat., Aristotle was using topos in one of the at-first-sight plausible senses of common parlance, which were reviewed and rejected in Phys. A. On the other hand, as section 4.5 showed, this unorthodox concept of topos as a three-dimensional self-subsistent extension crops up in a number of passages in the more sophisticated physical writings as well, probably because, as an inveterate façon de parler, it was still hard to banish altogether, and probably also because Aristotle’s own orthodox concept did not prove to be useful in all circumstances. As a whole, the present chapter seems to corroborate our thesis of chapter 1, viz., that Greek philosophical theories of space and place were closely linked to—and indeed started off from—the ways in which spatial terms might be used in ordinary language. As I concluded in chapter 3, it was a more or less unreflective use of some of the ambiguities of common parlance which was partly responsible for the obscurities in Plato’s receptacle account. In the present chapter, we noticed that in the course of his philosophical career, Aristotle did develop an awareness of the ambiguities and equivocations of everyday thinking and speaking and that for him, the conventions of ordinary language and the difficulties they involved constituted the raw material for his dialectical inquiries into the nature of such theoretical entities as place and space. [conclusion p. 189-191] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/Vx1GYydMNj4awhc |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"1158","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1158,"authors_free":[{"id":1731,"entry_id":1158,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":28,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","free_first_name":"Keimpe A.","free_last_name":"Algra","norm_person":{"id":28,"first_name":"Keimpe A.","last_name":"Algra","full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115110992","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2348,"entry_id":1158,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":28,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","free_first_name":"Keimpe A.","free_last_name":"Algra","norm_person":{"id":28,"first_name":"Keimpe A.","last_name":"Algra","full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115110992","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Conceptions of Topos in Aristotle","main_title":{"title":"Conceptions of Topos in Aristotle"},"abstract":"The investigations of the present chapter took the different concepts of place (topos) as they appear in the Corpus Aristotelicum as their starting point. First, in sections 4.1-4.3, I discussed the relationship between the concept of topos which appears in the course of the discussion of the category poson in the Cat. and the famous definition of topos established in Phys. A. Though scholars like Duhem and Jammer, and more recently, King and Mendell have taken these passages seriously as containing an unambiguous account of physical place\u00b9\u2075\u00b9\u2014and have consequently tried their hardest to establish in what way these passages were related to the account in Phys. A\u2014I concluded that they present enough problems of their own to invalidate such claims.\r\n\r\nIf we take the now more or less universally accepted relative chronology of the surviving school works as established\u2014and I have not been able to find reasons for not doing so\u2014and if we may thus assume that the Cat. was written some five or ten years earlier than Phys. A, we may conclude that insofar as we might speak of a development of Aristotle\u2019s philosophy of place between the Cat. and Phys. A, this development should not be described as the substitution of one articulate view by another, but rather as a growing awareness of the problems inherent in the common-sense notions of place and space. This seemed to be confirmed by the findings of section 4.4.\r\n\r\nThere I investigated Aristotle\u2019s dialectical method in general and in Phys. A in particular. Against Owen on the one hand, and Morsink on the other, I argued that the data from which Aristotle\u2019s dialectical procedure in Phys. A took its start were for the most part what might be called the \u2018theoretical terms\u2019 of the \u2018physical system\u2019 of everyday thought. Concerning such a theoretical physical term as topos, which is not directly linked to experience, Aristotle took apparent facts, i.e., views endorsed by the world at large or by some individual philosophers, as his starting point.\r\n\r\nWe might call this, with Morsink\u00b9\u2075\u00b2, a process of \u2018conjectures and refutations,\u2019 as long as it is kept in mind that in Aristotelian dialectic such \u2018conjectures\u2019 usually do not spring forth from the genius of the individual physicist, but are largely determined by the conventions of everyday thought and common parlance\u00b9\u2075\u00b3. We saw that the whole further process boiled down to the scrutinizing and refining of these \u2018apparent features.\u2019 A number of them were rejected for involving insoluble aporiai. Those features that survived the dialectical investigation were incorporated in Aristotle\u2019s eventual \u2018physical\u2019 concept of place.\r\n\r\nAll this involved the recognition that ordinary thought and common parlance did not use the term topos in a very coherent manner and that the actual task of the physicist was to eliminate those connotations of the term which, for all their prima facie plausibility, turned out to be of no use in the context of physical theory as a whole. Thus, the relation between the account of topos in the Cat. and that of Phys. A could be explained. In the Cat., Aristotle was using topos in one of the at-first-sight plausible senses of common parlance, which were reviewed and rejected in Phys. A.\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, as section 4.5 showed, this unorthodox concept of topos as a three-dimensional self-subsistent extension crops up in a number of passages in the more sophisticated physical writings as well, probably because, as an inveterate fa\u00e7on de parler, it was still hard to banish altogether, and probably also because Aristotle\u2019s own orthodox concept did not prove to be useful in all circumstances.\r\n\r\nAs a whole, the present chapter seems to corroborate our thesis of chapter 1, viz., that Greek philosophical theories of space and place were closely linked to\u2014and indeed started off from\u2014the ways in which spatial terms might be used in ordinary language. As I concluded in chapter 3, it was a more or less unreflective use of some of the ambiguities of common parlance which was partly responsible for the obscurities in Plato\u2019s receptacle account. In the present chapter, we noticed that in the course of his philosophical career, Aristotle did develop an awareness of the ambiguities and equivocations of everyday thinking and speaking and that for him, the conventions of ordinary language and the difficulties they involved constituted the raw material for his dialectical inquiries into the nature of such theoretical entities as place and space. [conclusion p. 189-191]","btype":2,"date":"1995","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Vx1GYydMNj4awhc","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":28,"full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":28,"full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1158,"section_of":232,"pages":"121-191","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":232,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Concepts of space in Greek thought","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Algra1995c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1995","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1995","abstract":"Concepts of Space in Greek Thought studies ancient Greek theories of physical space and place, in particular those of the classical and Hellenistic period. These theories are explained primarily with reference to the general philosophical or methodological framework within which they took shape. Special attention is paid to the nature and status of the sources. Two introductory chapters deal with the interrelations between various concepts of space and with Greek spatial terminology (including case studies of the Eleatics, Democritus and Epicurus). The remaining chapters contain detailed studies on the theories of space of Plato, Aristotle, the early Peripatetics and the Stoics.\r\nThe book is especially useful for historians of ancient physics, but may also be of interest to students of Aristotelian dialectic, ancient metaphysics, doxography, and medieval and early modern physics.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Goiwos39VOpY6H9","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":232,"pubplace":"Leiden \u2013 New York \u2013 K\u00f6ln","publisher":"Brill","series":"Philosophia Antiqua","volume":"65","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Conceptions of Topos in Aristotle"]}
| Title | Concepts of space in Greek thought |
| Type | Monograph |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1995 |
| Publication Place | Leiden – New York – Köln |
| Publisher | Brill |
| Series | Philosophia Antiqua |
| Volume | 65 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Editor(s) | |
| Translator(s) |
Concepts of Space in Greek Thought studies ancient Greek theories of physical space and place, in particular those of the classical and Hellenistic period. These theories are explained primarily with reference to the general philosophical or methodological framework within which they took shape. Special attention is paid to the nature and status of the sources. Two introductory chapters deal with the interrelations between various concepts of space and with Greek spatial terminology (including case studies of the Eleatics, Democritus and Epicurus). The remaining chapters contain detailed studies on the theories of space of Plato, Aristotle, the early Peripatetics and the Stoics. The book is especially useful for historians of ancient physics, but may also be of interest to students of Aristotelian dialectic, ancient metaphysics, doxography, and medieval and early modern physics. |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/Goiwos39VOpY6H9 |
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| Title | Problems in Aristotle's Theory of Place and Early Peripatetic Reactions |
| Type | Book Section |
| Language | English |
| Date | 1995 |
| Published in | Concepts of space in Greek thought |
| Pages | 192-260 |
| Categories | no categories |
| Author(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Editor(s) | Algra, Keimpe A. |
| Translator(s) |
In the present chapter, I have discussed several early Peripatetic attempts to come to terms with Aristotle’s theory of place. These were studied against the background of Aristotle’s theory of place itself and the obscurities and problems it involved. As was already noted in the previous chapter, Aristotle’s dialectical discussion in Phys. A exhibited a number of rough edges and loose ends. Thus, he nowhere explicitly reconciled his own two claims that place should have some power and that it should not be counted as one of the four familiar causes. In section 5.1, it was shown, or so I hope, that it is possible to reconstruct his position by a closer study of the dialectical structure of the discussion of topos in Phys. A and by adducing a number of other relevant passages from elsewhere in the Physics and the De Caelo. In the course of this chapter, it became clear that the resulting picture of the non-dynamic character of Aristotelian place was confirmed by the few remarks on this issue that have come down to us from Theophrastus and Eudemus. Two other problems left open by Aristotle—viz., the interrelated problems of the immobility of place and its ontological status—seem to have been more difficult to solve, as I have tried to show in section 5.2. They were discussed—together with a number of other problems, such as the problem of the emplacement of the heavens—by both Eudemus and Theophrastus. It appears—if we are allowed to draw some general conclusions from the scanty fragments that have come down to us—that each of these two pupils of Aristotle continued his master’s work in his own way: Theophrastus by continuing Aristotle’s critical dialectical approach, which involved his feeling free to sometimes add some rather radically alternative suggestions, and Eudemus by mainly filling out Aristotle’s own suggestions by adducing material from elsewhere in his work or by rephrasing Aristotle’s arguments in clearer terms. But even if Eudemus appears to have been the more ‘orthodox’ of the two, we should not overestimate the strength and the extent of Theophrastus’ dissent from Aristotle. It appears to have consisted mainly in his leaving the aporia of fr. 146 unanswered while putting forward the contents of fr. 149 as hardly more than a suggested alternative. Moreover, it is worth noting that, in a way, the conception of place as a relation between bodies—suggested in fr. 149—may be regarded as constituting a sensible elaboration rather than a complete rejection of the Aristotelian position. For insofar as it still defines the place of a thing in terms of its surroundings rather than in terms of a SidaxTijxa (whether in the Platonic or in the atomist sense), it remains on the Aristotelian side of the line drawn by Aristotle himself at Phys. A 209b1-7.¹⁴⁴ And unlike the alternative proposed by Strato, this conception of place could, in principle, be taken over ceteris paribus, leaving the rest of the system of Aristotelian physics intact. At the same time, it should be clear that Theophrastus’ solution, however hesitantly put forward, is far superior from a systematic point of view. It might even be claimed that it transforms Aristotle’s (and Eudemus’) rather naïve theory of place (focusing on the location of individual substances) into what we might call a theory of space (in principle allowing an account of the sum total of spatial relations within the cosmos).¹⁴⁵ This brings us to the curious fact that this novel conception of place did not have a wider appeal. As we saw, we actually have to wait for Damascius to take up Theophrastus’ suggestion. This is probably partly due to the fact that Theophrastus omitted to elaborate his point and that, as a consequence, it did not become widely known. In addition, the relational conception of place suggested by Theophrastus, if worked out properly, was much more technical and much farther removed from everyday usage and ordinary experience than its contemporary rivals. We need only look at Aristotle’s theory of topos and the way in which it was taken seriously in antiquity (and beyond) to see to what extent lack of technicality and closeness to common thinking and speaking were commonly counted as virtues. This, in turn, leads us to the question of the influence of (Eudemus and) Theophrastus in general. To some extent, the doubts, criticisms, and refinements of Aristotle’s theory put forward by Eudemus and Theophrastus may have proved seminal. At any rate, later critics of the Aristotelian position, such as Simplicius, found it worthwhile to refer to their ideas or to add quotations from their work. And the mere fact that Aristotle’s theory of place had come under attack within the Peripatos and that even a relatively faithful pupil like Eudemus had felt obliged to advocate some changes may have encouraged the much bolder dissent of a philosopher like Strato of Lampsacus. Yet, it should be stressed that the precise extent of the influence of these early Peripatetics is impossible to determine.¹⁴⁶ At any rate, there is no positive evidence that any of the later critics of Aristotle was directly influenced by Theophrastus or Eudemus, and it should be kept in mind that these critics probably did not even need their examples. Indeed, Aristotle himself provided enough ammunition—for example, by failing to answer the question of the ontological status of place, by failing to provide a more technical account of immobility,¹⁴⁷ and by attacking the most obvious rival view (place as a three-dimensional extension) with very unsatisfactory arguments. [conclusion p. 258-260] |
| Online Resources | https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/JNlEob1OVl4sohO |
{"_index":"sire","_id":"1159","_score":null,"_source":{"id":1159,"authors_free":[{"id":1735,"entry_id":1159,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":28,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","free_first_name":"Keimpe A.","free_last_name":"Algra","norm_person":{"id":28,"first_name":"Keimpe A.","last_name":"Algra","full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115110992","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2347,"entry_id":1159,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":28,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","free_first_name":"Keimpe A.","free_last_name":"Algra","norm_person":{"id":28,"first_name":"Keimpe A.","last_name":"Algra","full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/115110992","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Problems in Aristotle's Theory of Place and Early Peripatetic Reactions","main_title":{"title":"Problems in Aristotle's Theory of Place and Early Peripatetic Reactions"},"abstract":"In the present chapter, I have discussed several early Peripatetic attempts to come to terms with Aristotle\u2019s theory of place. These were studied against the background of Aristotle\u2019s theory of place itself and the obscurities and problems it involved. As was already noted in the previous chapter, Aristotle\u2019s dialectical discussion in Phys. A exhibited a number of rough edges and loose ends. Thus, he nowhere explicitly reconciled his own two claims that place should have some power and that it should not be counted as one of the four familiar causes.\r\n\r\nIn section 5.1, it was shown, or so I hope, that it is possible to reconstruct his position by a closer study of the dialectical structure of the discussion of topos in Phys. A and by adducing a number of other relevant passages from elsewhere in the Physics and the De Caelo. In the course of this chapter, it became clear that the resulting picture of the non-dynamic character of Aristotelian place was confirmed by the few remarks on this issue that have come down to us from Theophrastus and Eudemus.\r\n\r\nTwo other problems left open by Aristotle\u2014viz., the interrelated problems of the immobility of place and its ontological status\u2014seem to have been more difficult to solve, as I have tried to show in section 5.2. They were discussed\u2014together with a number of other problems, such as the problem of the emplacement of the heavens\u2014by both Eudemus and Theophrastus.\r\n\r\nIt appears\u2014if we are allowed to draw some general conclusions from the scanty fragments that have come down to us\u2014that each of these two pupils of Aristotle continued his master\u2019s work in his own way: Theophrastus by continuing Aristotle\u2019s critical dialectical approach, which involved his feeling free to sometimes add some rather radically alternative suggestions, and Eudemus by mainly filling out Aristotle\u2019s own suggestions by adducing material from elsewhere in his work or by rephrasing Aristotle\u2019s arguments in clearer terms.\r\n\r\nBut even if Eudemus appears to have been the more \u2018orthodox\u2019 of the two, we should not overestimate the strength and the extent of Theophrastus\u2019 dissent from Aristotle. It appears to have consisted mainly in his leaving the aporia of fr. 146 unanswered while putting forward the contents of fr. 149 as hardly more than a suggested alternative. Moreover, it is worth noting that, in a way, the conception of place as a relation between bodies\u2014suggested in fr. 149\u2014may be regarded as constituting a sensible elaboration rather than a complete rejection of the Aristotelian position.\r\n\r\nFor insofar as it still defines the place of a thing in terms of its surroundings rather than in terms of a SidaxTijxa (whether in the Platonic or in the atomist sense), it remains on the Aristotelian side of the line drawn by Aristotle himself at Phys. A 209b1-7.\u00b9\u2074\u2074 And unlike the alternative proposed by Strato, this conception of place could, in principle, be taken over ceteris paribus, leaving the rest of the system of Aristotelian physics intact.\r\n\r\nAt the same time, it should be clear that Theophrastus\u2019 solution, however hesitantly put forward, is far superior from a systematic point of view. It might even be claimed that it transforms Aristotle\u2019s (and Eudemus\u2019) rather na\u00efve theory of place (focusing on the location of individual substances) into what we might call a theory of space (in principle allowing an account of the sum total of spatial relations within the cosmos).\u00b9\u2074\u2075\r\n\r\nThis brings us to the curious fact that this novel conception of place did not have a wider appeal. As we saw, we actually have to wait for Damascius to take up Theophrastus\u2019 suggestion. This is probably partly due to the fact that Theophrastus omitted to elaborate his point and that, as a consequence, it did not become widely known. In addition, the relational conception of place suggested by Theophrastus, if worked out properly, was much more technical and much farther removed from everyday usage and ordinary experience than its contemporary rivals.\r\n\r\nWe need only look at Aristotle\u2019s theory of topos and the way in which it was taken seriously in antiquity (and beyond) to see to what extent lack of technicality and closeness to common thinking and speaking were commonly counted as virtues.\r\n\r\nThis, in turn, leads us to the question of the influence of (Eudemus and) Theophrastus in general. To some extent, the doubts, criticisms, and refinements of Aristotle\u2019s theory put forward by Eudemus and Theophrastus may have proved seminal. At any rate, later critics of the Aristotelian position, such as Simplicius, found it worthwhile to refer to their ideas or to add quotations from their work.\r\n\r\nAnd the mere fact that Aristotle\u2019s theory of place had come under attack within the Peripatos and that even a relatively faithful pupil like Eudemus had felt obliged to advocate some changes may have encouraged the much bolder dissent of a philosopher like Strato of Lampsacus. Yet, it should be stressed that the precise extent of the influence of these early Peripatetics is impossible to determine.\u00b9\u2074\u2076\r\n\r\nAt any rate, there is no positive evidence that any of the later critics of Aristotle was directly influenced by Theophrastus or Eudemus, and it should be kept in mind that these critics probably did not even need their examples. Indeed, Aristotle himself provided enough ammunition\u2014for example, by failing to answer the question of the ontological status of place, by failing to provide a more technical account of immobility,\u00b9\u2074\u2077 and by attacking the most obvious rival view (place as a three-dimensional extension) with very unsatisfactory arguments. [conclusion p. 258-260]","btype":2,"date":"1995","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/JNlEob1OVl4sohO","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":28,"full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":28,"full_name":"Algra, Keimpe A.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":1159,"section_of":232,"pages":"192-260","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":232,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":1,"language":"en","title":"Concepts of space in Greek thought","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Algra1995c","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1995","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1995","abstract":"Concepts of Space in Greek Thought studies ancient Greek theories of physical space and place, in particular those of the classical and Hellenistic period. These theories are explained primarily with reference to the general philosophical or methodological framework within which they took shape. Special attention is paid to the nature and status of the sources. Two introductory chapters deal with the interrelations between various concepts of space and with Greek spatial terminology (including case studies of the Eleatics, Democritus and Epicurus). The remaining chapters contain detailed studies on the theories of space of Plato, Aristotle, the early Peripatetics and the Stoics.\r\nThe book is especially useful for historians of ancient physics, but may also be of interest to students of Aristotelian dialectic, ancient metaphysics, doxography, and medieval and early modern physics.","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Goiwos39VOpY6H9","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":232,"pubplace":"Leiden \u2013 New York \u2013 K\u00f6ln","publisher":"Brill","series":"Philosophia Antiqua","volume":"65","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":["Problems in Aristotle's Theory of Place and Early Peripatetic Reactions"]}