Topoi on Topos: The Development o f Aristotle's Concept of Place

Abstract

Aristotle's notion of place receives its fullest development in Physics A 1-5, where he argues that place is the inner limit of a containing body. The common opinion which leads him to this view is an old one.' In the Parmenides (138A2-B6) Plato assumes that if the one is somewhere (.nov), it is in something. This, he recognizes, must be a distinct container.2 For otherwise the one would contain itself (nEQLEFXov). Therefore the container (@6 nEQLExov) and the contained (@o nLEX0IEV0V) must be different, so that if the one is somewhere, there would be two. The argument of Plato has a predecessor in Gorgias, On Not Being,3 where Gorgias argues from the premiss that if something is somewhere it is in something else to the conclusion that the infinite (of Melissus, according to de Gorgia) cannot be anywhere, and so must be nothing. For the container (X0 iMEpLExov) must be greater than the contained (6o iu-