On Location: Aristotle's Concept of Place (Oxford Aristotle Studies)

203 Pages·2002·1.26 MB·English

by  Benjamin Morison

On Location
Oxford Aristotle Studies
General Editors
Julia Annas and Lindsay Judson
Other titles in the series
Aristotle on Meaning and Essence
David Charles
Aristotle's Theory of Substance
The Categories and Metaphysics Zeta
Michael V. Wedin
Order in Multiplicity
Homonymy in the Philosophy of Aristotle
Christopher Shields
Aristotle's De Interpretatione
Contradiction and Dialectic
C. W. A. Whitaker
On Location
Aristotle's Concept of Place
Benjamin Morison
CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD
2002
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1.Aristotle.Physics2. Place(Philosophy)3. Physics—Philosophy.I.TitleII.Series.
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Acknowledgements
This book is a revised version of my doctoral thesis. It simply would not exist were it not for my supervisor Michael
Frede. His guiding overview and gentle encouragement while overseeing the work, and afterwards, have been
inspirational. I have a longer-standing and ever increasing debt to Jonathan Barnes. He taught me how to do
philosophy, and in particular showed me how to read Aristotle. Anyone familiar with ancient philosophy will know
how fortunate I am to have had these two great men as teachers.
It was while staying with Jonathan and Jennifer Barnes at Les Charmilles that I first resolved to write about places; I
want to take this opportunity to thank them for their hospitality then and on many other occasions.
My two doctoral examiners, Edward Hussey and David Sedley, were kind enough to provideme with many pages of
suggestionsfor improvement, all of which were wide-reaching. I hope I have done their comments justice, as well as
thosemadebyananonymousreaderatOxfordUniversityPress.Latterly,HendrikLorenzhasgreatlyhelpedmeclarify
and improve my ideas. Others to whom I have incurred debts during thewriting of this book include Corine Besson,
George Boys-Stones, Kevin Mulligan, Hanna Pickard, Ian Rumfitt, Richard Sorabji, Christopher Taylor, the
participants in my seminar on Physics IV at the University of Geneva, and the audiences at Oxford, Durham, and
London who heard and picked apart the Reader's Digest version.
The bulk of the revision of the thesis was done while I was a Postdoctoral Fellowof the British Academy. I held the
fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, as a non-stipendiary Junior Research Fellow. I should like to thank the
President and Fellows of both institutions for bringing about the perfect conditionsfor work, and my Academy
mentor,SusanneBobzien,forherhelp,encouragement,andbeautifultrills.Thefinaltouchestotherevisionweredone
at The Queen's College, Oxford, and I should like to thank the Provost and Fellows for their generous welcome.
Finally, I must thank my family, and Frederika, for theirconstant support during rather difficult
times. They know how much I owe them.
BCAM
August 2001
Contents
Introduction 1
1. Places, Natural Places, and the Power of Place 11
The importance of motion 11
Somewhere 15
The existence of places (1): replacement 20
The existence of places (2): natural motion and the elements 25
The six dimensions (1): preliminaries 35
The six dimensions (2): the ‘dimensions’ in nature 41
The six dimensions (3): conclusion 46
The parts and kinds of place 47
The power of place 49
2. Being In 54
Introduction: being in a place 54
Being in something in its own right, and being in something derivatively 55
One thing is said to be in another in many ways 67
Ways of being in 71
Having and being in 76
Conclusion: being in a place 78
3. Zeno's Paradox of Place 81
Introduction 81
The form of the puzzle 82
The problem 88
Aristotle's solution 96
4. Three Possibilities for Place: Matter, Form, and Space 103
Introduction 103
Form and matter 105
viii CONTENTS
Place as form or matter 107
Plato's Timaeus,48E–53C 113
Why is place not form or matter? 119
Space 121
5. Aristotle's Concept of Place 133
Introduction 133
The body which surrounds 134
The limit at which it is in contact with what it surrounds 139
The individuation of limits 142
Places 146
The immobility of places 148
The standard objections to Aristotle's definition of place 154
The meaning of akinētos (‘immobile’) 155
Relaxing and refining the account 161
Objections 164
Rotation and the place of the universe 166
Relative and absolute place 169
Conclusion 171
Bibliography 175
Index Locorum 185
General Index 189
Introduction
Not very many people have defended Aristotle's account of place. Virtually no ancient or medieval philosopher
accepted it, although nearly all of them felt the need to refute it—implicitly or explicitly—when giving their own
theory. EventheloyalTheophrastus, Aristotle's pupil and successor as head ofthePeripatos, perceivedan easytarget
1
and trained his guns on it, or so the story goes. And if scholars have been quick to believe that story, it is precisely
2
because they have thought that Aristotle's account is inadequate. In this book I aim to set out Aristotle's account of
place in Physics IV 1–5 as clearly as possible, hoping to rehabilitate it as a piece of philosophy.
As a pieceofphilosophy, however, itbelongstoAristotle'sPhysics, andhencemustbeunderstoodinthecontextofthe
general aim of thatbook. The keyessays on cause (orexplanation),chance, teleology, change, infinity, place, void, and
time, which form the core of Physics II–IV, are supposed to articulate rather precisely what these basic concepts are,
sincetheyarethosewhichascientistmightuseinsystematizingtheknowledgehegainsaboutthenaturalworld.Inthis
sense, ‘the Physicsranks itself not with physics, in our sense of the word, but with philosophy’. These elucidations are
3
conducted in part using empirical data, in part from a more philosophical standpoint. For instance, Aristotle takes
certain facts about the natural motionsof the elements (earth goes down, fire goes up) as conditions on his account of
place, such that
1 SeeSorabji[26],199–200,forthegeneralinfluenceofAristotle'saccountonotherphilosophers;foritsinfluenceonEpicurusseeInwood[60],withSedley[61].Forthe
MiddleAgesseeGrant[68]andLang[70].
2 SeeSorabji[59]and[26],chs.11–12.Algra[56]and[21]contributefurthertothedebate.MyownviewisthatTheophrastusdidnotcriticize Aristotle'saccount—cf.Sedley
[65],140n.1,andSharples[15].FormoreonthereceptionofAristotle'stheoryofplacebyPeripateticphilosophers,seethebibliography,under‘Peripateticplaces’.
3 Owen[75],88.PartofOwen'sargumentisthatAristotleworkswithpuzzlesstemmingfromPlato'sTimaeus andParmenides, andZenoofElea—thesesources(especially
thelattertwo)arehardlyempiricalscientificstudies.Wieland[79]defendstheviewthatthePhysics isaworkofconceptualanalysis.