Beichler Scientific Thought I Fall 1981

The Ancient Greek Concept of Space

James E. Beichler
The development of the concept of space was an evolutionary process in early Greek history.
Four major periods have been identified (historically and philosophically) by shifts in the way that
the Greek Philosophers as a whole looked at the role of space in physical reality. Within each of
these periods, the Mythopoeic, the Material, the Non-Definite and the Definite, those philosophers
who made contributions to the overall development of the concept of space are discussed. The
major themes discussed throughout this essay deal with defining and refining the concept of space
and differentiating space from the concepts of time and matter, while keeping track of the influence
of the concept of mathematical as opposed to physical spaces.

Introduction
In order to trace the origins of the concept of space in Greek antiquity, we should first define
our own the concept of space. Our problem for defining space for this purpose is that we have
modern prejudices concerning our own modern concept of space and we must look back in history
to a time when the concept of space, as we have come to know it, was at the most rudimentary and
barely recognizable if it existed at all. In this way we first look for familiar signs due to our own
concept of space, and follow this by looking for other signs with which we are not quite familiar. We
are thus able to get a rough idea of how our concepts of space developed historically and
philosophically. It is always best to remember in such an investigation that the concept of space is
ours, and not necessarily what the Greek philosophers thought it to be, so that we may try and see
through their eyes while differentiating between those trends from which our own concept of space
developed.
The simplest and most useful definition of space for tracing the development has been given
by Smart.
“When we naively begin to think about space we most naturally think of it as though it
were either some all-pervading stuff or some sort of receptacle.” (Smart, p.5).
This seems to be approximately the point where the Greeks began their inquiry and is quite different
from our own present concept of space, but serves us well if we consider that the evolution of the
concept can be considered as a constant defining and refining of the terms and properties which we
have come to use to characterize space. Schmuel Sambursky (p.173) has attributed to the physical
world three basic notions: Space, time and matter. In the earliest known concept of space, the
‘chaos’ of Hesiod, these three notions of the physical world were combined. The process of
developing space, from its earliest notion, is separating space, time and matter. Another form which
this evolutionary process takes is the separation of the notions of physical and mathematical space.
F.M. Cornford has referred to this as the Pre-Euclidean common sense as opposed to the Euclidean

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common sense, although the separation and development of these two concepts is far more subtle
and complicated than Cornford has stated. It is a shame that so few attempts have been made to
trace the development of the concept of space. The major sources on space in Greek antiquity
(primarily pre-Socratic) are Cornford’s and Max Jammer’s work. Although their papers are excellent,
they still lack a thorough analysis of the developmental or evolutionary process, while implying areas
for further investigation.
The evolution of the first abstract concept of space proceeded over a period of roughly three
centuries, from 600 to 300 B.C. (Cornford, p.4). There was no single point in Greek history where
the concept of space just came into being with space having a complete set of characteristics. The
process can be represented as a continuous transition of different ideas, each defined by their own
terms (i.e. chaos, change, non-being, place and etc.) as presented by individual philosophers.
However, this process can also be seen as a sequence of shifts in the thought or direction of Greek
philosophy as a whole. In this way, the problem for Greeks, represented as “an abstraction and
concentration of the idea of pure extension” (Jammer, p.8) which ultimately qualified space as a
fundamental entity within physical reality, was to refine, differentiate and separate the notions of
space, time and matter which were vaguely referred to as a single entity beginning with the earliest
thoughts of mankind. It is therefore instructive to hypothesize four major philosophical trends or
periods representing the developments in Greek thought concerning the concept of space:

1. Mythopoeic concepts of space.

2. Material concepts of space.
3. Non-Definite concepts of space.
4. Definite concepts of space.

Although these periods roughly follow a specific time line, since we are dealing with the
development of thought patterns and attitudes, these periods overlap in time. Philosophers
following one trend of thought lived and worked during the same time intervals, so we cannot
strictly speak of one period immediately following another in a linear sequence.
The Mythopoeic period was characterized by a space with human properties. In other words, it
was anthropomorphic. There was no differentiation of space, time and matter, and any idea or
allusion to space was vague and rudimentary. In the Material period we still have vague and
rudimentary concepts of space, but time has begun to separate from space and matter. The
properties that we have attributed to space were also attributed to some stuff or type of matter,
which was both all-pervading and a container for the universe, as exemplified by the Monists. In
neither of these periods has the concept of a mathematical space yet been formulated. In Cornford’s
terms, these two periods could be characterized by a Pre-Euclidean common sense
It was not until the Non-Definite period that an abstract mathematical space became
important. This change in perspective happened not only as a result of the growing Euclidean
common sense, but perhaps to a greater extent because of the development of a dichotomy between
the discrete and continuous views of space as well as the parallel dilemma presented by the discovery
of irrational numbers within Pythagoreanism. These changes resulted in the adoption of a
geometrical view of space and nature rather than an arithmetical view. The changes in thought

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affected not only the Pythagorean view of space but also the atomistic view of space. This trend was
further characterized by a loss of the vagueness of earlier periods in that the concept of space gave
way to the attempts to analyze ‘change’ made by Parmenides, Melissus and Zeno.
In a sense, these three philosophers mixed the notions of space and time in their arguments
against change. The adverse reaction to the Parmenidean School gave rise to the early Atomists who
then began to separate the notions of matter and space by introducing the void. All of these ideas
represent the beginnings of a true concept of space, but the notion of space was still in a state of
conceptual flux and not completely defined in the manner that we have come to accept space today.
It was not until the final period, in which we have Definite (or Definitive) concepts of space, that
space was finally separated from matter and time to the extent thatg we can begin to recognize it as
an individual physical quantity or quality. This period was also characterized by the Euclidean
common sense. The concepts of space were analyzable in their own rights, whether they were called
the void of the later atomists, the ‘chora’ of Plato or the ‘topos’ of Aristotle. These three concepts of
space have greatly influenced all subsequent concepts of space.
The earliest ideas of space, lost in the pre-history of the Greeks, probably dealt with Gods or
the forces of nature. This was the Mythopoeic period in which the concept of space had not yet
been abstracted in the human mind, although men must have had a vague notion of their own place
within their surroundings. Therefore, any physical being which we might perhaps attribute to space
would have to be fulfilled by a nature which was seen as possessing human qualities and was ruled
over by the Gods: Nature and the Gods surrounded man and man was contained in nature. As the
Gods had human natures, so did space. We can say that space was anthropomorphic. Hesiod’s idea
of ‘chaos’ can be taken “as the earliest poetical expression of the idea of a universal space” and is
mixed with emotion (Jammer, p.8). In Hesiod’s mythology, chaos existed before the world order
came into being and was therefore more fundamental than the skies and earth:

“First of all chaos was born;

Then, after him, wide-bosomed Earth,
a sure, eternal dwelling-place
for all the deathless gods who rule
Olympus’ snowy peaks.” (Robinson, p.4)

Here is the association of chaos to the Gods. But we can also see the earliest beginnings of an idea
of space as an eternal dwelling place (or container) for all things.
The separation of the universe as a rational construction from the idea of a capricious nature
has been credited to Thales. Thales offered the first philosophical refinement from which we can
trace our own of the concept of space. Whatever space was in Thales conception, it was stripped of
its anthropomorphized emotion. Thales also introduced another factor of importance by assuming
that water was the fundamental stuff out of which everything came. In his view of water as the
fundamental element, Thales expressed two different constructions of the world; (1) In the mixture
view, water and sand were mixed to give various forms of matter, and (2) In the emergence view,
water also gave rise to sand and hence to all things. If we assume the mixture view, then we have a

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possible precursor to the separation of space (water) and matter (sand) as fundamental notions.
However, if we take the emergence view, then matter and space are one and

The concept of space in Greek antiquity

This section is based on a research essay that was written for an upper level graduate course on
the Philosophy of Science at the University of Maryland at College Park in 1982. The essay
represents a survey and summary of historians and philosophers’ commonly held interpretations and
views regarding the early development of the Greek concept of space. As such, the essay, now
partially rewritten for this book, laid the groundwork for this author’s later work and research into
the past and present physical foundations of the scientific concept of space. Since little research has
been conducted in this area of historical inquiry over the intervening decades, the ideas expressed in
the following section are still valid and current.

What a revolting idea!

The development of an abstract concept of space is essential to physics and science as a whole
and marks one if not the most important contribution of the Greek natural philosophers to science.
Yet the development of an abstract rudimentary concept of space was not an easy or uneventful
evolutionary and interpretive process of thought in early Greek history. In fact, four distinguishable
major periods in Greek philosophical thought have been identified by shifts in the way that the
Greek Philosophers defined space (or the lack thereof) and interpreted the role of space within the
logical context of physical reality.
Each of these periods is characterized by the major themes of defining and refining at least a
rudimentary concept of space even if the concept is not called ‘space’ as well as differentiating space
from the Greeks equally rudimentary concepts of time and matter. In some cases these three
concepts were still mixed together in different ratios and configurations. The distinction between
mathematical and physical concepts of space also began its evolutionary path during these periods.
Since science and culture now share a fairly common concept of space it becomes necessary to
first define our own the concept of space before searching for the roots of that concept in ancient
Greek thought. The essential problem in locating any precursors to our modern concept of space
then becomes one of distinguishing how different aspects of our present concept formed during
Greek antiquity without imposing our present concepts of space over early Greek thought. In other
words, it is necessary to look at lines of thought that did not completely contribute to our own
concept of space while considering those that did. We have to look at the original concepts in Greek
antiquity just as the Greeks themselves looked at them because we have modern prejudices
concerning our modern concept of space and we must look back in history to a time when the
concept of space, as we have come to know it, was at the most rudimentary and barely recognizable
if it existed at all.
So a diligent and thorough historian must first look for familiar signs that appear in our own
concept of space and follow this by looking for other signs with which we are not quite familiar. We
are thus able to get a rough idea of how our present concepts of space developed historically and
philosophically. It is also necessary to remember that the concept of space is ours, and not
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necessarily what the Greek philosophers thought it to be, so that we can attempt to see the concepts
through their eyes while differentiating between those trends from which our own concept of space
developed.
The simplest and most useful definition of space that we can use for tracing the development
was given by J.J.C. Smart.
When we naively begin to think about space we most naturally think of it as though it were
either some all-pervading stuff or some sort of receptacle. (Smart, 5)
This ‘definition’ seems to indicate the point at which the Greeks began their inquiry and is quite
different from our own present scientific concept of space, but serves us well if we consider that the
evolution of the concept can be considered as a constant defining and refining of the terms and
properties that we have come to use to characterize space.
On the other hand, Schmuel Sambursky attributed three equivalent basic notions to the physical
world – space, time and matter (Sambursky, 173) – rather than singling out space alone. In the
earliest recognizable approximation of space, the ‘chaos’ of Hesiod (Greek poet, ~750-650 BCE),
these three notions of the physical world were combined as one organic-like ‘thing’ or body. The
process of developing a concept of space, from its earliest notion, must therefore have been
separating space, time and matter as individual quantities or qualities.
Another form that this evolutionary process took was the separation of the notions of physical
and mathematical space. F.M. Cornford referred to this as the Pre-Euclidean common sense as
opposed to the Euclidean common sense, although the separation and development of these
conceptual differences is far more subtle and complicated than Cornford implied by these names.
To whatever degree they thought of space as an abstract concept, if they did at all, all of the Greek
natural philosophers subscribed to the notion that space was part of an organic whole that could not
be separated from the events that took place within it.
Unfortunately, very few attempts have been made to trace the development of the concept of
space in antiquity, Greek or otherwise. The major modern historical sources on the concept of space
in pre-Socratic Greek antiquity (Socrates, Greek philosopher, 469-399 BCE) are Cornford and Max
Jammer’s work. Although their attempts are excellent, they still lack a thorough analysis of the
developmental or evolutionary process, which implies that there still exist areas for further
investigation.
The evolution of the first abstract concept of space proceeded over a period of roughly three
centuries from 600 to 300 B.C. (Cornford, p.4) There was no single identifiable point in Greek
history when the concept of space just came into being or the concept could be associated with a
complete set of characteristics. The evolutionary process can be represented as a continuous
transition of different ideas, each defined by its own terms (i.e. chaos, change, non-being, place and
etc.) by individual philosophers. However, this process can also be seen as a sequence of shifts in the
thought related to the overall direction of Greek philosophy.
The problem for Greeks can be represented as “an abstraction and concentration of the idea of
pure extension,” (Jammer, 8) which ultimately qualified space as a fundamental entity within physical
reality. The Greek natural philosophers still needed to refine, differentiate and separate the notions

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of space, time and matter, all of which were vaguely referred to as a single entity beginning with the
earliest thoughts of mankind.
It is therefore instructive to differentiate between four major philosophical trends or periods
representing developments in Greek thought that are at least peripherally concerned the concept of
space: The Mythopoeic period, Material period, Non-Definite period and the Definite period.
Although these periods roughly follow a specific time line, we are dealing with a more complex
development of thought patterns and attitudes, so these periods overlap each other in time. The
Greek philosophers following one trend of thought lived and worked during the same time intervals,
so we cannot strictly speak of one period immediately following another in a perfectly linear
sequence.
The Mythopoeic period (early mythologies were first written as poems) was characterized by an
extremely rudimentary concept if not an intuition of space with human properties. In other words, it
was anthropomorphic. Space was not differentiated from time and matter, and any idea or allusion
to space was vague and rudimentary. In the Material period a vague and slightly less rudimentary
concept of space in itself had begun to form under different names and time began to separate from
space and matter. The properties that we commonly attribute to space were also attributed to some
form of ‘stuff’ or type of matter, which were both all-pervading and a container for the universe as
exemplified by the Monists.
The Monists were philosophers who interpreted the entire world as consisting of a single
universal substance. In neither of these periods had a concept of a mathematical space yet been
formulated although a rudimentary geometry for land measurement and partitioning of space into
parts had already been developed. In Cornford’s terms, these two periods could be characterized by
a pre-Euclidean (Euclid of Alexandria, geometer, 325-265 BCE) common sense. The notion of an
abstract mathematical space only began to form during the Non-Definite period.
This change in perspective happened as a result of the growing Euclidean common sense, but
also perhaps due to a greater extent because of the development of a dichotomy between the
discrete and continuous views of space as well as the parallel dilemma presented by the discovery of
irrational numbers within Pythagoreanism. These changes resulted in the adoption of a geometrical
view of space and nature rather than an arithmetical view. These changes in thought and perspective
affected not only the Pythagorean view of space but also the atomistic view of space. Since atoms
were countable ‘things’ (arithmetic could be used to model them) or discrete bits of matter.
This trend was further characterized by a loss of the vagueness that characterized the earlier
periods in that the concept of space gave way to the attempts to analyze ‘change’ by Parmenides of
Elea (early 5th century BCE), Zeno of Elea (490-430 BCE) and Melissus of Samos (5th century
BCE). In a sense, these three philosophers mixed the notions of space and time in their arguments
against change. The adverse reaction to the Parmenidean or Eliatic School, which argued against the
reality of motion, gave rise to the early Atomists who then began to separate the notions of matter
and space by introducing the void. All of these ideas contributed to the beginnings of a true modern
concept of physically active space, but the notion of space was still in a state of conceptual flux and
not completely defined in the manner that we have come to accept today.

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It was not until the final period, in which Definite (or definitive) concepts of space were
developed, that space was finally separated from matter and time to the extent that we can begin to
recognize it as an individual physical quantity or quality. This period was also characterized by a
Euclidean common sense and a distinct geometric worldview. The new non-material concepts of
space are analyzable in their own rights, whether they were called the void of the later atomists, the
‘chora’ of Plato or the ‘topos’ of Aristotle. These three concepts of space have greatly influenced all
subsequent concepts of space.

The pre-Euclidean sense of space

The earliest notions of an abstract space, lost in the pre-history of the Greeks, probably dealt
with Gods or the forces of nature. This subconscious concept of space characterized the
Mythopoeic period in which the concept of space had not yet been abstracted in the human mind,
although men must have had a vague notion of their own place within and relative to their
surroundings. Therefore, any notion of the actual physical existence which we would now attribute
to space would have been filled by an organic-like nature that was seen as possessing human
qualities and was ruled over by the Gods: Nature and the Gods surrounded man and man was
contained in nature. Since the gods had human natures, so did space.
Space was undeniably anthropomorphic relative to any given individual. Hesiod’s idea of ‘chaos’
represented “the earliest poetical expression of the idea of a universal space”, but it was mixed with
human emotion. (Jammer, 8) In Hesiod’s mythology, chaos existed before the world order came into
being and was therefore more fundamental than the skies and earth. Hesiod wrote that

First of all chaos was born;

Then, after him, wide-bosomed Earth,
a sure, eternal dwelling-place
for all the deathless gods who rule
Olympus’ snowy peaks. (Hesiod quoted in Robinson, 4)

There is clearly an association of chaos with the Gods in this passage, but we the earliest beginnings
of an idea of space as an eternal dwelling place (or container) for all things, an idea that would also
appear later in Newtonian science, is also clear in this passage.
The separation of the universe as a rational construction from the idea of a capricious nature
has been credited to Thales. Thales offered the first philosophical refinement from which we can
trace our own of the concept of space. Whatever ‘space’ was present in Thales’ conception, it was
stripped of its anthropomorphized emotional content. Thales also introduced another important
factor by assuming that water was the fundamental stuff out of which everything came. In his view
of water as the fundamental element, Thales expressed two different constructions of the world; (1)
In the mixture view, water and sand were mixed to give various forms of matter, and (2) In the
emergence view, water also gave rise to sand and hence to all things. If the mixture view is assumed,
then we have a possible precursor to the separation of space (water) and matter (sand) as
fundamental notions. However, if the emergence view is taken instead, then matter and space were

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one and the same thing and water (as space) is not only the contained, but the all-pervading
substance.
Whatever the case may be, Thales is normally categorized as a Monist for his singular belief in
water as the primary substance of the universe. The other Monists, Anaximander with the Indefinite
(apeiron), Anaximenes with air and Heraclitus with fire, also contributed in their own ways to the
refinement of the concept of space. A single element representing the fundamental principle was all-
pervading and contained all else, thus fulfilling the functions which space later came to fill in each of
these cases. In a later period, air came to be associated with the void by the Pythagoreans. As J.
Burnet said,
The Pythagoreans, or some of them, certainly identified ‘air’ with the void. This is the
beginning of the conception of abstract space or extension. (Jammer, 9)
Although Burnet credited the Pythagoreans with the first concept of space, it is impossible to avoid
Anaximenes’ concept of air. According to Anaximenes,
Just as our soul (being air) controls us, so breath and air encompass the whole world order.
(Robinson, 47; Sambursky, 174)
If air encompasses the whole world order, then as a container of all it fulfills a prerequisite for our
concept of space. Furthermore,
Anaximenes had fixed on air simply as having no character peculiar to itself, ‘when it is
most evenly distributed’. (Robinson, 90)
Later concepts of space also show space to have no characteristics peculiar to itself as a container
which is isotropic and homogeneous throughout, or rather evenly distributed. So Anaximenes’
concept of air could be considered a prototypical form of space.
Heraclitus’ concept of fire as the primary element and Anaximander’s indefinite are also of
significant importance. Not only did Heraclitus’ fire encompass the universe, but he also noted the
significance and importance in the concept of change. Fire was just the most visible and consuming
form of change. So, fire was the fundamental principle for Heraclitus because it was fundamentally
different from other elements – it was in constant motion.
Heraclitus, in insisting in the fluidity of everything, virtually rejected the existence of any
unchanging substrate or vehicle of motion. (Capek, “Change”, 96)
So Heraclitus associated space directly with ‘change’ and it was fluidic.
The extent to which Parmenides was later aware of Heraclitus’ ideas is inconsequential.
Parmenides took the opposite point of view and denied the role of change (at a later date). Space
was obviously compounded with the notions of matter and time in the minds and thoughts of both
Parmenides and Heraclitus. It was not until the notion of time was differentiated from space that
space could come into its own. Thales and Anaximenes had only mixed the notions of space and
matter and had not dwelled as much on the concept of change, or at least they did not specify
‘change’ as fundamental whether they actually believed so or not.

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Anaximander also introduced a new and important concept with his concept of the indefinite.
We have for the first time an abstraction from the material with the indefinite. Although
Anaximander believed that all matter emerged from the indefinite, the indefinite itself couldn’t be
anything that could be experienced. He therefore placed the fundamental underlying reality of the
origin of the physical world beyond our senses.
He says that it is neither water nor any or the so-called ‘elements,’ but of another nature
which is infinite, from which all the heavens and the world-orders in the world arise.
(Robinson, 24)
Only later was space itself abstracted from material existence in a similar manner, but surely
Anaximander had set the precedent for that particular advance.
The Monists of the Material period, for the most part, began to separate time from matter and
space. Heraclitus, of course, did not, by emphasizing change as the only reality. In doing so he began
a process carried out by Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus (the Eleatic school), to completely separate
time from space as distinct notions of physical reality. It should also be noted that throughout all of
pre-history the precursors to the concept of space were all qualitative. Quantity, in either of its
arithmetic (counting) or geometry (measuring) forms, had not yet been associated with the concept
of space although both arithmetic and geometry already existed as a far less than formal system of
mathematics. This is primarily what is meant by a Pre-Euclidean common sense. It thus became
necessary for the Greek mindset to develop a Euclidean common sense to complete the pre-modern
view of space.

The Euclidean sense of space

In the next period, the Non-Definite, several new themes contributed to the overall conceptual
development of space. The Pythagoreans introduced the void as an abstracted view of a space
characterized by natural numbers. The Pythagorean association of space with natural numbers
eventually led to crucial paradox regarding the unthinkable or ir-rational numbers such as radical two
(the square root of two) and began a controversy resulting in the Greek adoption of geometry, as
opposed to arithmetic, to describe nature.
With regard to physical concepts of space, this debate is analogous to the opposing views of the
discrete (the Atomists) versus the continuous (Aristotle’s plenum) views of nature and matter. Also,
the problems defined by the Parmenidean (Eleatic) school regarding change, dealing with Being and
Non-Being, resulted in the Atomist adoption of the void and the subsequent separation of time,
space and matter from each other. So this period is marked by the first concepts of space as a
separate but vague ‘thing’ or entity as well as and the first signs of a Euclidean common sense.
A great deal of these advances is owed to the Pythagoreans regarding the development of the
concept of space. The concept of a void made its first appearance with them and mathematics
became important with regard to physical reality. Numbers were the fundamental stuff of the
Pythagoreans. In some mysterious way, numbers came together to make the universe, and, by
equating air and the void, they gave philosophers a means of thinking of matter and space as
separate.

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The Pythagoreans, too, said that void exists, and that it enters the universe from the infinite
breath as if it were being inhaled. It is the void which keeps things distinct, being a kind of
separation and division of things that are next to each other. This is true first and foremost
of numbers; for the void keeps them distinct. (Aristotle in Robinson, 75)
According to the Pythagorean worldview, numbers were discrete pieces of stuff, analogous in some
way to atoms, in the void of the air. Such a void was obviously necessary within their ‘spiritual’
framework, thus a certain amount of spatiality was attributed to the simple counting numbers or
integers and their ratios. (Jammer, 9) There can be no doubt Pythagoras meant something spatially
extended in his concept of the Unlimited, whether he identified it with air, night or the void. And, of
course, his followers would also have thought of the Unlimited as extended. Aristotle certainly
regarded this to be true. (Burnet, 289)
Associating spatiality with numbers, however, resulted in a fundamental crisis for the
Pythagoreans. Using the Pythagorean Theorem for a right triangle with sides of magnitude one, the
number radical two represents the hypotenuse. The Pythagoreans had no problem with this until it
was logically ‘proven’ that radical numbers were irrational, i.e., they could not be represented as the
ratio of two whole numbers or integers. Radical two is not expressible in any manner that would not
render it unthinkable and thus impossible for the Pythagoreans to include in their theory of the
universe.
This failure of arithmetic in so fundamental an aspect of physical reality caused a dilemma for
other Greek philosophers as well as the Pythagoreans. If anyone wished to represent physical reality
then they must accept the fact that not all magnitudes of distance can be expressed arithmetically as
numbers. However, such distances could be measured and expressed geometrically, even those that
could only be represented by radical numbers, so geometry became the preferred mathematical
model for explaining nature and physical space for the Greek philosophers.
The problem of the discrete (as in counting numbers) versus the continuous (as in geometry)
still haunts science and mathematics, as noted by Bernhard Riemann in his essay “Hypotheses which
lie at the Bases of geometry.” (Riemann, 1854) These fundamental ideas were first debated by the
Greeks and contributed to the Euclidean common sense, but it cannot be said that the Greeks had
yet entered the era of Euclidean common sense with the Pythagoreans. They only set the problem
for geometers to later clarify. Thus, this period represents an era of transition from non-Euclidean
to Euclidean common sense.
The transitional nature of this period is further and better confirmed by the fact that a true
Euclidean common sense only came with the later institutionalization of geometry in its axiomatic
form by Euclid. While the Pythagoreans were noted for their proofs of geometrical axioms such as
the Pythagorean Theorem, they had not yet fully understood the consequences of the geometry that
they helped to form.
Jammer gives credit to the Pythagorean Archytas for distinguishing between place (topos), or
space and matter. (Jammer, 10) However, Sambursky believed that the fragments attributed to
Archytas in the Aristotelis Categorias Commentarium concerning ‘topos’ were in fact derived from an
unknown Neo-Pythagorean philosopher. (Sambursky, 175) If it were true that Archytas had
emphasized the idea of place he would played an important role in influencing Aristotle’s ideas of

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place and thus space. Whichever view is true, it still remains that the Pythagoreans separated matter
from space while retaining time as separate. With them, an important step was made toward coming
to grips with the concept of space as a distinct aspect of physical reality.

The paradoxical nature of motion

Parmenides argued that Non-Being was impossible - Being was the only possibility. He
reasoned that ultimate reality is unchanging, a view diametrically opposed to Heraclitus. Parmenides’
arguments brought the Monist tradition to a conclusion by demonstrating that a single fundamental
element was insufficient to completely explain our universe and thereby implied that separate
notions of substance (matter) and space were necessary to explain change, although that was not his
intention. The Parmenidean arguments also represent a total rejection of a void.
Since Non-Being could not possibly exist, the void cannot exist, and every volume of space
could only contain what is or exists. To Parmenides, the universe was a compact plenum,
undifferentiated and completely homogenous, and as such, motion, in the form of change, was
impossible. However, Parmenides’ denial of motion as change resulted in questions concerning the
relationship between time and space, a problem that Parmenides did not take into account in his
rejection of the reality of motion.
If something exists in space without motion or change then time is constant and does not
change, at least in a relational if not a modern relativistic sense (if I may so use the modern term).
We could not experience time without something changing relative to something else. Therefore,
Parmenides either subconsciously rejected time at the expense of space or simply failed to take time
into consideration. Parmenides’ strictly philosophical arguments were taken to the next level by his
student Zeno’s paradoxes, which attempt to prove that motion and change were impossible by
applying the concepts to more realistic situations.
Take for example Zeno’s example of Achilles and the tortoise. Achilles and the tortoise start a
foot race. Achilles gives the tortoise a head start. Once Achilles starts moving he must cover the
distance to where the tortoise was when he started before he can cover the distance to where the
tortoise is when he reached that point. Achilles must then repeat this procedure, but in so doing he
will never catch the tortoise even though his rate of motion is greater. For Achilles, it would always
be a game of catch up with the tortoise, so motion must be impossible.
Today we would just say that Achilles average speed is higher than that of the tortoise so he
would indeed pass the tortoise after a specific length of time, but the Greeks had no concept of
speed in the terms that people think of speed today, so the Greeks could not reason in that manner.
However, thinking as we do today does not alleviate the problem, because Achilles still had to get to
where the tortoise was before he could move further on to where the tortoise was, so he would still
never catch and pass the tortoise. This result seems paradoxical and counterintuitive to experience,
but that did not stop Zeno’s paradoxes from exerting a great deal of negative influence over natural
philosophy and the development of a real philosophical (or mathematical) model of motion for
nearly two millennia.
To Zeno’s way of thinking and reasoning, using change of position or motion to prove its own
impossibility could only be done if motion or rate of change of position remains constant. In a

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second example, a person moves toward an object such as a doorway. Before the person reaches the
doorway, he must cover half of the distance to the door, then half of the remaining distance, and
half of that remaining distance and so on, forever, never reaching the door. Halving the distance
with each succeeding interval would mean halving the corresponding time interval, so space and
time have become indistinguishable from each other, but Zeno only spoke of ‘change of position’
without invoking the corresponding amount of time during which the ‘change of position’ occurred.
As far as Zeno’s logical argument was concerned, there was no qualitative difference between space
and time. Perhaps time was just not taken into account, but it must be taken into account to fully
consider motion if not all possible forms of ‘change’.
Thus, Parmenides and his followers, Zeno and Melissus either regarded time and space as one
single inseparable organic ‘thing’ or just denied (or ignored) the existence of time altogether. Zeno’s
paradoxes certainly do not seem to take time into account. If Being alone (without Becoming) was
thought to be substantial (or material), then they considered only a duality of matter and space
(including time with space) in their analysis of physical reality. The debates regarding questions of
change, motion, Being and Non-Being were crucial for the development of future concepts of space
because they introduced and forced Greek philosophers to consider the ideas of place and change of
place for further analysis.
Not only did Parmenides believe and so argue that motion, void and change were impossible,
but he further held that the universe was spherical and solid.
The whole of being, he declares, ‘since it has a furthest limit, is complete on every side, like
the mass of a rounded sphere, equally poised from the center in every direction. (Cornford,
11)
Beyond the sphere of the universe was an absolute nothing, more like to a ‘no-thing’ at all than a
simple ‘nothing’ because a ‘void’ or ‘nothingness’ became a ‘thing’ that was ‘nothing’ just through
the act of naming it and Parmenides did not believe in a ‘void’. Nothing or ‘no-thing’ can exist that
is Non-Being, outside of the universe of Being. Therefore, the whole of the universe, everything that
could possibly be, was within the spherical plenum. The question of ‘what is beyond the Plenum’ did
not even occur to Parmenides, and if it had it would have been put out of his mind as irrelevant, but
it did occur to his student Melissus, (Capek, xix) who could then vie for credit with the Atomists for
discovering spatial infinity.
The Atomistic school of thought was founded, at least in part, as a reaction to Parmenides
philosophical arguments. The early atomists Leucippus (founder of atomism, first half of 5th century
BCE) and Democritus (460-370 BCE) rejected Parmenides argument that Non-Being was nothing
by admitting that Non-Being ‘was’ or existed in a certain sense and this ‘thing’ that was nothing was
the void in which atoms moved. They also claimed that the ultimate reality is not one, but the many,
in the form of solid atoms, so the universe could not be a single plenum.
Within this idea historians can find the clearest notion of space and matter existing independent
of one another that came out of Greek philosophy. The Atomists were thus able to account for
motion in the form of atoms moving through the void and consequently separating time from space
and matter. Space, as void, was complementary to the idea of matter, as atoms, and they were

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mutually exclusive. The term ‘kenon’ was used synonymously as ‘the empty,’ with space. (Jammer,
11)
So the Atomists were the first to break down “the ancient boundaries of the universe and set
before mankind, for the first time, the abhorrent and really unimaginable picture of a limitless void”.
(Cornford, 6) However, there is ample evidence that the early Atomists, Democritus and Leucippus,
as well as Epicurus (341-270 BCE), thought of space (the void) as ending at the boundaries of the
atom. In other words, atoms were the opposite of space (the void) and yet moved through space
(the void), but they did not occupy space (the void) as we understand the concept today because
they were the opposite of the void. Evidence of this can be found in Leucippus’ use of the term
‘manon’ (porous) to describe the structure of space. (Jammer, 11)
A similar problem of thought and reasoning exists in modern physics and cosmology when
scientists talk about the expanding universe. They speak about the observation that the distances
between galaxies is increasing and assume that the distances between all material objects within
galaxies are also expanding at the same rate. This idea implies that the gravitational and other natural
forces that hold particles, planets, stars and all other material bodies in the universe together are
weakening as the universe expands.
But this conclusion assumes that the fundamental material particles that form all material bodies
are not themselves (the space within material particles) expanding at the same rate as the expanding
universe external to the particles, which could compensate for the weakening of attractive forces
between material particles. Most modern scientists seem to be every bit as unaware of this problem
as the ancient Greek philosophers were unaware of the differences between space and time relative
to the abstract concept of ‘change’.

Distinguishing something from ‘no-thing’

The early atomists idea of space, although infinite and the infinite container of all atoms, was
not extended through the bodies of atoms, and cannot be accepted as space in its later sense as
being both contained and all-pervading as a background for motion in the universe. This concept of
the void instead developed from the concepts of the Pythagoreans and Parmenides.
The Pythagoreans had spoken of the void, which kept units apart; but they had not
distinguished it from atmospheric air ... Parmenides, indeed, had formed a clearer idea of
space, but only to deny its reality. Leucippus started from this. (Burnet, 337)
This line of development as well as the notion that their limited concept of space was not complete
allows the Atomists (at least the early Atomists) to be classified in the Non-Definite period. We can
also take into account the fact that Democritus was a contemporary of Socrates (Plato’s teacher),
which would mean that he had lived before either Eudoxus or Euclid, the two philosophers most
responsible for developing pre-modern or classical geometry. Therefore, a definitive Euclidean
geometry did not yet exist and these philosophers would still be considered under the influence of a
Pre-Euclidean common sense.
The same is not true for the later Atomists, Lucretius and Epicurus (who was a contemporary
of Euclid). In every sense, those men were Euclidean in common sense and their concept of space

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reached a new level of sophistication and complexity. The later Atomists belong to the Definite
period. For Lucretius, space became the infinite receptacle of the atoms and it was just as real as the
atoms and matter. Since space was infinite it had no center and thus no circumference. It was with
Lucretius that the Atomists’ final concept of space had matured until,
Geometrical space was seen to be continuous, not a pattern of empty gaps interrupted by
solid things; it penetrates the solids that partly occupy its continuous medium. (Cornford,
12)
Space now penetrated all material bodies (as atoms); it had literally become the all-pervading
background for motion.
Regarding the Euclidean nature of this all-pervading space, Cornford stated that
If this summary is correct, the space framework finally accepted by physical science in the
Euclidean era is simply the void of Lucretius. (Cornford, 6)
Only during this last period had the Greeks abstracted their notion of space to the point that they
could begin analyzing space. Both Plato and Aristotle belong to the Definite period. For Plato the
idea of ‘agora,’ as space or form, fulfills our modern requirements of a simple notion of space.
Aristotle, on the other hand, seems to have dodged the problem of empty space by defining his
notion of space in the terms of ‘topos’ or place. The ideas of both of these philosophers on space, as
well as the later Atomists, form the basis of nearly all the modern physical theories of space.

Plato’s cave and Aristotle’s plenum

Plato reduced matter to space rather than the other way around in his abstract analysis of
physical reality. He did not equate or mix them as earlier philosophers had done. Plato had clear
notions of both and retained these notions consistently throughout his writings. Nor did he hold
them together as a single fundamental ‘stuff,’ but merely used space to interpret or explain matter.
Everything for Plato existed in three categories: Being, space and Becoming. The Realm of Being
consisted of the perfect Forms and the Realm of Becoming consisted of the imperfect copies of the
Forms, which the Demiurge (a non-religious philosophical god-like figure) had made from the
Receptacle. Plato equated Becoming to the world of sensation or what we would refer to as physical
reality, but to Plato the ultimate reality existed only in the Realm of Being. This picture was
incomplete, so it became necessary to hypothesize the ‘agora’ as space or form.
Whatever he called it, space was Euclidean for Plato. The Euclidean nature of his concept of
space is easily demonstrated by his attempt to reduce matter to the five perfect Euclidean solids.
Matter became a geometrical extension in space and space itself was geometrized. The faces of the
five perfect solids were two-dimensional surfaces (either regular triangles or squares). These surfaces
would come together to form three-dimensional geometric solids and thus matter. But in reality they
enclosed nothing but empty space. Matter was therefore not a type of ‘stuff’, but rather a three-
dimensional extension of the ideal geometric solids in space. It would also be fair to conclude that
Plato’s idea of the Receptacle was intermingled with his idea of space as well as his idea of matter.

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The Demiurge had created the world of sensation, the Realm of Becoming, by using the
Receptacle to copy the Forms. Since the Receptacle had no internal discontinuities, it must have
been embodied in some way or have had something to do with the space enclosed within the perfect
solids that constitute matter. It can also be shown that Aristotle’s later notion of matter as potency
and stuff was included in the Receptacle. Although Plato reduced matter to forms within space, the
fundamental connection between the Receptacle and space that was not completely clear and thus
open to conjecture by Aristotle and others.
However, Plato’s space did have some well-defined fundamental properties. Plato mentioned
place as having a degree of importance, but there were no predetermined places corresponding to
Aristotle’s concept of a natural place for all things in Plato’s model. Motions in space were governed
by the attraction of like to like (Timeaus, 53a, 57c) and by the internal weight-like properties of
bodies. (Timeaus, 63a-e) John C. Graves claims that Plato’s space, or ‘chora,’ is isotropic, finite but
unlimited and non-homogenous. So, even though some ambiguities existed in Plato’s concept of
space, it still had identifiable definite properties.
Plato took two important steps that influenced the overall notion of space in deriving his
concept. He attempted to solve the problem of place and he was the first to ask why it was necessary
to even formulate a concept of space. Aristotle gave Plato credit for “the first attempt to solve the
fundamental problem of place and movement”. (Duhem, 24) Plato identified matter and space in
the Timaeus, but also identified ‘what participates’ with ‘space’. Yet in his so-called ‘unwritten
teachings’, he also gave a different account of ‘what participates’. At any rate, he identified ‘place’ (or
position in modern terms) with ‘space’, implying a simple internal relativity of sorts in that ‘space’
was determined by the positions (places) of the bodies occupying it. Everyone agreed that ‘place’ is
something, but only Plato claimed to state the actual true relationship between place and space.
(Aristotle, Book IV, Chap. II, 9)
Place rather than space became the important factor for Aristotle and in this matter Plato’s
influence on Aristotle was most important. It is also of extreme importance that Plato was the first
to attempt to answer why a concept of space was needed at all. This, of course, could not have been
done unless Plato had a clear idea of space other than just developing a completely vague and
ambiguous notion of space as had been done in the past, if not merely dismissing it as something
else. According to Pierre Duhem,
Why is it necessary to admit the existence of this space? Because whatever is subject to
generation and corruption ‘is continually in local movement; it comes into being in a
certain place and then vanishes from this same place’. (Duhem, 21)
Also, according to Graves,
The real ‘whatness’ of the sensible world must thus be something completely neutral,
which cannot be identified with any of these local properties. At this point, it’s only real
property as a whole must be its ability to support change without being affected by any
such change. (Graves, 67)

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It should be quite evident to anyone studying the historical record that Plato played a necessary role
in filling a gap in the evolution of the concept of space through his philosophical analyses and
reasoning.
On the other hand, two different lines of thought characterized Aristotle’s ideas on space – The
void was impossible while the concept of place was used to define space. Aristotle was an observer,
not a geometrician, and as such he could only come to conclusions as to the nature of space through
what he observed. Aristotle’s universe was a spherical continuous plenum. All material objects
within the universe occupied a place that was defined in relation to everything else in the universe
and the nature of every object was to strive toward its natural place of its own volition if it did not
already occupy that place.
Place was the part of space which coincided with the outmost limit or surface of the object
occupying that place. If all of the places of all of the things in the universe were added together, their
sum total would define space. Therefore space only extended to the edge of the universe and not
beyond. The universe as a whole had no place in relation to anything else, since there was nothing
else to which the universe could be related.
Aristotle rejected any notion that Place could be a Form, matter or the interval or dimension
between the sides of a container (Grant, 136) as Plato thought. Instead, Aristotle argued that
Place must be defined in such a way that it provides fixed points in relation to which one is
able to discern local motion. This is the fundamental thought which guides Aristotle in his
search for a definition of place. (Duhem, 29)
In order to define place, Aristotle listed the following qualities as essential to the concept of place:
... a place surrounds that whose place it is; a place is not a part of that which it surrounds; a
thing’s primary place is neither smaller not greater than it; a place can be left behind by a
thing and be dissociated from it; and every place is either up or down, since each of the
simple bodies moves up or down to come to rest in its resident place. (Aristotle, Book IV,
Chap. 4, 63)
From these essential qualities of place, Aristotle clearly defined place as “the first unmoved
boundary of what surrounds” anything in its place. The notion of space that Aristotle put forward in
the Physics and the Categories is completely relational if not a simple form of relative. Except for the
brief mention of place by Plato, whose definition of place Aristotle did not accept, and the
possibility that Archytas had considered place previously, Aristotle was the first to consider the
importance of place (position) instead of a more complete concept of space.
Aristotle’s rejection of the void is also important in his physics. The void was defined as the
privation of all conceivable properties and as such the void could not be differentiated directionally.
In other words, the void was non-dimensional because it was ‘nothing’ and had no properties. If
there were no objects or things to determine a relational space, then even direction would be absent
from space. This basic argument or a derivative of the argument was used by Aristotle to point out
the impossibility of the void. Aristotle also proved that motion was impossible in the void, at least to
his own satisfaction.

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So great was the danger of void space to his world system that he also formulated a variety
of arguments to show that motion in a separate void space was either impossible or that
the consequences of such motion were absurd and contrary to nature. (Grant, 6)
Arguments on the existence of the void continued for many centuries after Aristotle, and Aristotle’s
repudiation of the void was very influential during that long period of time. Both Aristotle’s and
Plato’s conceptions of space were “the prototypes, with only minor changes, of all theories of
space” until the fourteenth century. (Jammer, 23) And, like Aristotle’s rejection of the void, they
raised many questions and arguments.
Except for later Neo-Platonic revisions, most philosophers throughout the middle ages held
Aristotle’s concepts as truth. Plato associated perfect circular motion with the motion of heavenly
bodies and Aristotle elaborated upon this notion. Eventually, this cosmological view was advanced
and geometrized by Claudius Ptolemy (c.90CE to c.168CE). The Ptolemaic geometrical system of
calculational astronomy was wedded with Aristotle’s cosmology and physics and held sway over
natural philosophy and science until the seventeenth century. The Catholic Church officially adopted
the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic system as part of its own religious teachings in the thirteenth century,
which greatly added to its influence and hold over all of science.
Even Copernicus, in his enunciation of a heliocentric cosmology, as opposed to the
Aristotelian/Ptolemaic geocentric cosmology, claimed that he was only trying to return to the
Platonic doctrine that all heavenly motions were perfectly circular. These concepts were not
completely replaced until the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century when more accurate
concepts of space, time and matter were developed. Atomism was also revived during the Scientific
Revolution by Newton, Robert Boyle (1627-1691) and others. But even the concept of atoms did
not reach their full potential until the nineteenth (in chemistry) and twentieth centuries (in physics).
To this extent, the foundation laid by the Greek philosophers influenced the concepts of physical
reality and the sciences that even modern scientists have developed based upon their own concept
of physical reality.

Conclusion: The Greek heritage

From the earliest beginnings of man’s concept of space, the slow emergence of an abstract
concept of space progressed until it reached its zenith in ancient Greece with the ideas of the
Atomist Lucretius, Plato and Aristotle. Each of these philosophers held different views on what
space was and how to interpret space physically, yet they all thought of space geometrically. The
views of these philosophers shaped the theories of space from their own times until the present. The
Greek concept of space began a new period of scientific maturity only when Plato asked ‘why do we
need space?’ At that point in time, the concept of space became necessary for the further
development of a physics of reality. The special recognition that space existed as an independent
physical ‘thing’ was a necessary prerequisite to study and understand motion and thus played an
important role in man’s view of the universe about him.
The concept of space was needed to provide a constant background by which motion and
change could be defined. Until the ancient Greeks were able to develop a concrete notion of space,
many problems arose concerning motion, change, Being, Non-Being, the discrete, continuity and so

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on. These qualities of physical reality can only be defined and understood against some constant
physical reality which we call space. It would be ludicrous to think that the Greeks solved all of the
problems concerning the concept of space, since even today scientists and philosophers are not sure
whether space is discrete or continuous in reality. However, it is to the credit of the Ancient Greek
philosophers and their civilization that they were able to define space as well as they did.

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