Philoponus’ reconceptualization of prime matter was connected with his reconceptualization of place (see Sedley 1987), though here he was less innovating. In Physics IV, Aristotle made place ‘‘the limit of the containing body which is in contact with the contained body’’ (212a6-7) or ‘‘the first immovable limit of that which contains the <body>’’ (a20). Like most philosophers in antiquity, Philoponus rejected this concept of place. Instead he defended a view of place as threedimensional spatial extension, which is distinct from the bodies that occupy it (Corollary on Place 563,23). More interestingly, Philoponus treated place as coextensive with the concept of void (563,21). In effect, place is seen as empty space (empty with respect to its definition but never actually devoid of bodies):
> We may come to see well enough from these considerations that place is not the boundary of the container. That it is a certain extension in three dimensions, different from the bodies that come to be in it, bodiless with respect to its own proper account [to, oikeioi /og(3,] - dimensions alone, empty of body (for void and place are in reality the same in subject [hupokeimenon]) (567,29-35 Furley transl. with modification).
> Of course I do not mean that this extension either ever is or can be empty of all body. Not at all. But I do claim that it is something different, over and above the bodies that come to be in it, and empty by its own definition, although never without body. In the same way we claim that matter is different from the forms, but can never be without form. In this way, then, we conceive the extension to be different from all body and empty in its own definition (569,7-13 Furley transl.).
World History
