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The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

Titel: The Complete Aristotle (eng.) Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Aristotle
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first. At least he says:
    ‘First of all things came chaos to being, then broad-breasted
earth,’ implying that things need to have space first, because he
thought, with most people, that everything is somewhere and in
place. If this is its nature, the potency of place must be a
marvellous thing, and take precedence of all other things. For that
without which nothing else can exist, while it can exist without
the others, must needs be first; for place does not pass out of
existence when the things in it are annihilated.
    True, but even if we suppose its existence settled, the question
of its nature presents difficulty-whether it is some sort of ‘bulk’
of body or some entity other than that, for we must first determine
its genus.
    (1) Now it has three dimensions, length, breadth, depth, the
dimensions by which all body also is bounded. But the place cannot
be body; for if it were there would be two bodies in the same
place.
    (2) Further, if body has a place and space, clearly so too have
surface and the other limits of body; for the same statement will
apply to them: where the bounding planes of the water were, there
in turn will be those of the air. But when we come to a point we
cannot make a distinction between it and its place. Hence if the
place of a point is not different from the point, no more will that
of any of the others be different, and place will not be something
different from each of them.
    (3) What in the world then are we to suppose place to be? If it
has the sort of nature described, it cannot be an element or
composed of elements, whether these be corporeal or incorporeal:
for while it has size, it has not body. But the elements of
sensible bodies are bodies, while nothing that has size results
from a combination of intelligible elements.
    (4) Also we may ask: of what in things is space the cause? None
of the four modes of causation can be ascribed to it. It is neither
in the sense of the matter of existents (for nothing is composed of
it), nor as the form and definition of things, nor as end, nor does
it move existents.
    (5) Further, too, if it is itself an existent, where will it be?
Zeno’s difficulty demands an explanation: for if everything that
exists has a place, place too will have a place, and so on ad
infinitum.
    (6) Again, just as every body is in place, so, too, every place
has a body in it. What then shall we say about growing things? It
follows from these premisses that their place must grow with them,
if their place is neither less nor greater than they are.
    By asking these questions, then, we must raise the whole problem
about place-not only as to what it is, but even whether there is
such a thing.
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2
    We may distinguish generally between predicating B of A because
it (A) is itself, and because it is something else; and
particularly between place which is common and in which all bodies
are, and the special place occupied primarily by each. I mean, for
instance, that you are now in the heavens because you are in the
air and it is in the heavens; and you are in the air because you
are on the earth; and similarly on the earth because you are in
this place which contains no more than you.
    Now if place is what primarily contains each body, it would be a
limit, so that the place would be the form or shape of each body by
which the magnitude or the matter of the magnitude is defined: for
this is the limit of each body.
    If, then, we look at the question in this way the place of a
thing is its form. But, if we regard the place as the extension of
the magnitude, it is the matter. For this is different from the
magnitude: it is what is contained and defined by the form, as by a
bounding plane. Matter or the indeterminate is of this nature; when
the boundary and attributes of a sphere are taken away, nothing but
the matter is left.
    This is why Plato in the Timaeus says that matter and space are
the same; for the ‘participant’ and space are identical. (It is
true, indeed, that the account he gives there of the ‘participant’
is different from what he says in his so-called ‘unwritten
teaching’. Nevertheless, he did identify place and space.) I
mention Plato because, while all hold place to be something, he
alone tried to say what it is.
    In view of these facts we should naturally expect to find
difficulty in determining what place is, if indeed it is one of
these two things, matter or form. They demand a very close
scrutiny,

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