Space is a Material Thing

We may distinguish generally between predicating B of A because:

• A is itself and something else
• A is in 2 kinds of places

1. A common place

This is where all bodies are. [location or position]

2. A special place

This is occupied by each body. [area or space]

For instance, you are now in the heavens because:

• you are in the air
• the air is in the heavens

You are in the air because you are on the earth.

You are on the earth because you are in this place which contains you.

Place [space] is what primarily contains each body.

• It is a limit.
• The place would be the shape of each body by which the area is defined.
  • This area is the limit of each body.

Thus, place has:

• a form or shape
• a material area

The shape bounds the indeterminate material space.

When the boundary and attributes of a sphere are removed, only its indeterminate material space is left.

This is why Plato in the Timaeus says that matter and space are the same, because the ‘participant’ and space are identical.*

(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.)

((< n n=“This is the basis of Descartes’ 2nd ELement and our qosts. The big difference with Aristotle is that the space of Plato, Descartes, and Superphysics are all virtual and not real nor material. This matches the virtual forms or shapes that bounds the virtual space.” >))

I mention Plato because, while all hold place to be something, he alone tried to say what it is.

Place is either material space or bounding shape.

The shape and the material space are not separate from the thing. Whereas, the place can be separated.

Where air was, water comes to be. The one replaces the other, similarly with other bodies.

Hence the place of a thing is neither a part nor a state of it, but is separable from it.

Place is like a vessel which is a transportable place. But the vessel is not part of the thing.

In so far then as it is separable from the thing, it is not the form or shape.

As containing, then it is different from the matter.

A thing that is anywhere would be a something. There would be a different thing outside it.

(Plato should tell us why the form and the numbers are not in place, if ‘what participates’ is place whether what participates is the Great and the Small or the matter, as mentioned in the Timaeus.)

How could a body be carried to its own place, if place was the matter or the form?

It is impossible that what has no reference to motion or the distinction of up and down can be place.

So place must be looked for among things which have these characteristics.

If the place is in the thing (it must be if it is either shape or matter) place will have a place: for both the form and the indeterminate undergo change and motion along with the thing, and are not always in the same place, but are where the thing is. Hence the place will have a place.

When water is produced from air, the place has been destroyed, for the resulting body is not in the same place.

What sort of destruction then is that?

This is why space must be something.