(15685284 - Phronesis) Did Theophrastus Reject Aristotle's Account of Place

Phronesis 55 (2010) 68-103 brill.
nl/phro
Did Theophrastus Reject Aristotle’s

Account of Place?
Ben Morison
Philosophy Department, Room 208 – 1879 Hall, Princeton University,
Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
bmorison@princeton.edu
Abstract
It is commonly held that Theophrastus criticized or rejected Aristotle’s account of place.
The evidence that scholars put forward for this view, from Simplicius’ commentary on
Aristotle’s Physics, comes in two parts: (1) Simplicius reports some aporiai that Theophras-
tus found for Aristotle’s account; (2) Simplicius cites a passage of Theophrastus which is
said to ‘bear witness’ to the theory of place which Simplicius himself adopts (that of his
teacher Damascius) – a theory which is utterly different from Aristotle’s. But the aporiai
have relatively straightforward solutions, and we have no reason to suppose that Theophras-
tus didn’t avail himself of them (and some reason to think that he did). Moreover, the text
which Simplicius cites as bearing witness to Damascius’ view on closer inspection does not
seem to be inconsistent with Aristotle’s account of place or natural motion.
Keywords
Aristotle, Theophrastus, Simplicius, Damascius, place
In the first volume of their edition of Theophrastus’ works, Fortenbaugh,

Huby, Sharples and Gutas (FHS&G) assemble four texts under the head-
ing ‘Place’:1
146 Simplicius, In Physica (604, 5-11)
ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι καὶ ὁ Θεόφραστος ἐν τοῖς

Φυσικοῖς ἀπορεῖ πρὸς τὸν ἀποδοθέντα τοῦ τόπου λόγον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀριστο-
1)
[1992], 302-5. Quotations from Simplicius In Physica are from Diels [1882] and [1885].
My conventions for citation differ slightly from FHS&G, but not dramatically.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI: 10.1163/003188610X12589452898840
Downloaded from Brill.com02/21/2020 05:35:35AM

via East Carolina University
B. Morison / Phronesis 55 (2010) 68-103 69
τέλους τοιαῦτα· ὅτι τὸ σῶμα ἔσται ἐν ἐπιφανείᾳ, ὅτι κινούμενος ἔσται

ὁ τόπος, ὅτι οὐ πᾶν σῶμα ἐν τόπῳ (οὐδὲ γὰρ ἡ ἀπλανής), ὅτι ἐὰν
συναχθῶσιν αἱ σφαῖραι, καὶ ὅλος ὁ οὐρανὸς οὐκ ἔσται ἐν τόπῳ, ὅτι τὰ ἐν
τόπῳ ὄντα μηδὲν αὐτὰ μετακινηθέντα, ἐὰν ἀφαιρεθῇ τὰ περιέχοντα αὐτά,
οὐκέτι ἔσται ἐν τόπῳ.
One should know that Theophrastus too,2 in his Physics, raises difficulties like the fol-
lowing against the account that Aristotle gives of place: (1) that body will be in a sur-
face, (2) that place will be moving, (3) that not every body will be in a place – for the
(sphere of ) the fixed (stars) will not –, (4) that if (all) the spheres are taken together,
even the whole heaven will not be in a place, (5) that the things which are in a place
will no longer be in a place if the things which surround them are removed, (even
though) they have not been moved themselves.
ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸ ἀκίνη-

τον εἶναι τὸν τόπον ὁ μὲν Θεόφραστος καὶ Εὔδημος ὡς ἀξίωμα καὶ αὐτὸ
προσλαμβάνουσιν, ὁ δὲ Ἀριστοτέλης τῷ ὁρισμῷ προστίθησι λέγων “ὥστε
τὸ τοῦ περιέχοντος πέρας πρῶτον ἀκίνητον τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ὁ τόπος”.
But that place is unmoved Theophrastus and Eudemus add (to the list of attributes of
place), regarding this too as axiomatic in itself, while Aristotle adds it to the definition,
saying, “so that place is the first unmoved boundary of what surrounds.”
148 Simplicius (quoting Proclus), In Physica (612, 1-7)
εἰ δὲ
σῶμά ἐστιν, ἢ ἀκίνητον ἢ κινούμενόν ἐστιν· ἀλλ’ εἰ κινούμενον ὁπωσοῦν,
ἀνάγκη καὶ κατὰ τόπον αὐτὸ κινεῖσθαι· δέδεικται γὰρ ὅτι πᾶν τὸ ὁπωσοῦν
κινούμενον δεῖ κατὰ τόπον κινεῖσθαι· ὥστε πάλιν ὁ τόπος δεήσεται τόπου.
τοῦτο δὲ ἀδύνατον, ὡς καὶ Θεοφράστῳ δοκεῖ καὶ Ἀριστοτέλει μέντοι. φησὶ
γοῦν τὸ μὲν ἀγγεῖον τόπον εἶναι κινητόν, τὸν δὲ τόπον ἀγγεῖον ἀκίνητον
ὡς ἂν ἀκινήτου τοῦ τόπου κατὰ φύσιν ὄντος.
If (place) is a body, it is either unmoved or moved. But if it is moved in any way, it is
necessary that it also be moved in place; for it has been shown that everything that is
moved in any way at all must be moved in place. Accordingly, place will again need
(another) place. And this is impossible, as both Theophrastus and indeed Aristotle
think. At any rate (Aristotle) says that a vessel is a movable place, and place is an
immovable vessel, regarding place as immovable in its nature.
2)
FHS&G suggest an alternative translation in a note: ‘Or “even Theophrastus”.’

70 B. Morison / Phronesis 55 (2010) 68-103
καὶ γὰρ καὶ Θεόφρα-

στος ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς φαίνεται τὴν ἔννοιαν ταύτην ἐσχηκὼς περὶ τόπου,
ἐν οἷς φησιν ὡς ἐν ἀπορίᾳ προάγων τὸν λόγον· “μήποτε οὐκ ἔστι καθ’
αὑτὸν οὐσία τις τόπος, ἀλλὰ τῇ τάξει καὶ θέσει τῶν σωμάτων λέγεται
κατὰ τὰς φύσεις καὶ δυνάμεις, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ζῴων καὶ φυτῶν
καὶ ὅλως τῶν ἀνομοιομερῶν εἴτε ἐμψύχων εἴτε ἀψύχων, ἔμμορφον δὲ τὴν
φύσιν ἐχόντων. καὶ γὰρ τούτων τάξις τις καὶ θέσις τῶν μερῶν ἐστι πρὸς
τὴν ὅλην οὐσίαν. διὸ καὶ ἕκαστον ἐν τῇ αὑτοῦ χώρᾳ λέγεται τῷ ἔχειν
τὴν οἰκείαν τάξιν, ἐπεὶ καὶ τῶν τοῦ σώματος μερῶν ἕκαστον ἐπιποθήσειεν
ἂν καὶ ἀπαιτήσειε τὴν ἑαυτοῦ χώραν καὶ θέσιν.”
And Theophrastus too, in his Physics, clearly had this conception of place, where he
says, as one who in an impasse tries to advance the argument: “May it not be that place
is not something that exists in its own right, but is spoken of according to the arrange-
ment and position of bodies, with reference to their nature and capacities? And simi-
larly in the case of animals and plants and in general all things with a differentiated
structure, whether living or not, provided that their nature involves a shape. For in
these too there is an arrangement and position of the parts with reference to the whole
being. And for this reason each thing is said to be in its own space by virtue of its hav-
ing its proper ordering; for each of the parts of the body, too, might (be said to) desire
and require its own space and position.”
These passages all come from the digression of forty-odd pages – dubbed
‘Corollarium de loco’ by Diels – found between Simplicius’ commentary
on Physics IV 1-5 (Aristotle’s account of place) and 6-9 (his account of
void).3 In these pages, Simplicius provides a brief history of the other views
on place developed since Aristotle (a project he affirms would have pleased
Aristotle himself4), and rejects Aristotle’s view (which presumably would
have pleased him rather less). Amongst those other views on place can-
vassed, Simplicius endorses that of his teacher Damascius,5 and wants
to point to precursors, forerunners, or anticipations of it: Theophrastus is
one of two philosophers to whom he appeals (see 149 above, with 639,
10-13); Iamblichus is the other (642, 14-18; cf. also 639, 22-3). Thus
3)
In Physica 601, 1-645, 19. There is an English translation, Urmson [1992]. For some
discussion, see Hoffmann [1979].
4)
601, 5-7.
5)
Simplicius’ official exposition of the view occupies 624, 37-628, 23, although much of
the remainder of the Corollarium is devoted to answering various possible objections to the
view, and clarifying aspects of it.

where Simplicius’ commentary on Physics IV 1-5 concentrates largely on

exegetical matters and is relatively neutral or non-evaluative, the Corollary
is concerned with assessing Aristotle’s theory (which is found wanting),
and providing the correct account in its place.6 Picture a Clarendon Aris-
totle volume, say, a commentary on Nicomachean Ethics VII, with an
appendix after the commentary on chapters 1-10 in which the author
points to misapprehensions and shortcomings in Aristotle’s account of
akrasia and proclaims some recent theory – Davidson’s, inevitably – to be
superior to Aristotle’s because it corrects those shortcomings, and then
points to germs of Davidson’s view in some remarks of the Stoics (taken
out of context) and G. E. M. Anscombe. Eerily plausible, isn’t it?
Some time ago, Max Jammer stated that Theophrastus had produced
objections to Aristotle’s account of place (in 146) and had proposed a new
view of his own (in 149): ‘Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus criticizes the mas-
ter’s theory [. . .], and comes to the conclusion that space is no entity in
itself but only an ordering relation that holds between bodies and deter-
mines their relative positions’.7 Since Aristotle’s view is that the place of
something is the inner surface of its container, that alleged ‘conclusion’ is
clearly radically different from Aristotle’s view. Recently, there has been
renewed interest in Theophrastus’ theory: Richard Sorabji8 raised the dis-
cussion to a new level with some serious examination of the texts, then
Keimpe Algra9 developed a more nuanced view by looking at these and
other texts (of which more below). All commentators agree on one thing:
Theophrastus criticised Aristotle’s account of place. Moreover, all agree
that Theophrastus proposed a new view of place; they differ only in the
extent to which they think Theophrastus endorsed it. So Jammer presents
Theophrastus as ‘coming to a conclusion’ about the nature of space (see
above), and Sambursky describes Theophrastus’ words in 149 as ‘a clear
statement of the purely relational character of space’;10 more circumspectly,
Sorabji says that Theophrastus ‘put forward [a] suggestion’ which he
thought worthy of ‘serious consideration’,11 and Algra characterises what
6)
I am grateful to Christoph Helmig for this observation.
7)
[1954], 23.
8)
[1988b], chapters 11 and 12 (a reworking of his [1988a]).
9)
[1992] and, for a slightly different view, [1994], 231-48.
10)
[1962], 2.
11)
[1988b], 204. He thinks Theophrastus is making a suggestion about natural places
only.

Theophrastus says as a ‘cautious suggestion’.12 Nonetheless, in 1988 Sor-

abji states that Theophrastus’ ‘counter-attack enabled later Greeks to take
a more Newtonian view of space than their medieval successors’, and in
1998 he still holds firm that ‘Theophrastus’ treatment of place was
undoubtedly clever, and a major departure from Aristotle’, although he
acknowledges that ‘whether it was also influential depends on the interpre-
tation taken’.13 One notable sceptic is Sharples, who, in his 1998 commen-
tary on Theophrastus’ Physical fragments, advisedly says ‘it is not clear
how far Theophrastus himself intended to suggest a new and radically dif-
ferent theory’,14 but the orthodoxy still persists today that Theophrastus
rejected Aristotle’s theory of place: ‘On place, a two-dimensional surface
for Aristotle, Simplicius follows the criticism of Theophrastus who wants a
dynamic instead of a static concept’ (Baltussen [2008], 163).
In this paper, I hope to show that our texts do not support Sorabji’s
important claims about Theophrastus, nor do they even support Algra’s
watered-down version. In fact, the texts cited above are consistent with the
hypothesis that Theophrastus accepted Aristotle’s account. Text 149, the
one in which Theophrastus is alleged to have put forward a new view of
place, can be seen – when read carefully – to do no such thing. It is just not
true that in that fragment Theophrastus offers a new or competing theory
of place. Even the pleasingly sceptical Sharples is still prepared to write that
in 149 ‘Simplicius cites Theophrastus as raising the question whether place
may be [. . .] the position of a thing as part of an ordered whole’ (54; my
emphasis). He still takes the question to be to what extent Theophrastus is
endorsing this new view of what a place is. But let me be clear: in 149,
Theophrastus makes no suggestion as to what a place might be. A fortiori,
he does not make a cautious, tentative, shy, bold, or ground-breaking one,
let alone one which liberated later Greeks from Aristotle’s cruel conceptual
tyranny. (Although it remains possible, I suppose, that some misunder-
standing of what Theophrastus said might have set them free.)
If none of the texts in which Theophrastus’ views on place are explicitly
discussed suggests that he offered a new theory of place (new, that is, with
respect to Aristotle’s), then on the basis of those texts, we have no reason to
think that he offered a new one. Moreover, other texts offer some support
12)
Algra [1994], 243 (following Zeller and Regenbogen – see his references ad loc). He
thinks Theophrastus is making a (cautious) suggestion about places tout court.
13)
[1988b], ix; [1998], 211.
14)
[1998], 48.

for the view that Theophrastus in fact shared Aristotle’s view of what a
place is. Admittedly, these texts are not decisive. Part of the problem is
that, apart from Simplicius, who cites Theophrastus’ remarks about place
and puts them to a rather special use, no one seems particularly interested
in reporting what Theophrastus had to say about places (tellingly enough).
But even in Simplicius, there are contexts where it would be natural to
refer to Theophrastus as having had a new view of place, if indeed he did
have one, and yet in those contexts no mention is made of such a view.
This leads me to think that Theophrastus did in fact share Aristotle’s con-
ception of place. But whatever one’s view is of these other texts, what one
cannot continue to do is to accept the orthodoxy that Theophrastus rejected
Aristotle’s conception of place and offered – however tentatively – a com-
peting one in its place. There just isn’t the evidence.
One source of the misunderstanding is the perennial danger of taking
the passages from Simplicius out of context. It is important to remember
that even though these texts yield fragments of Theophrastus, they are none-
theless not fragments of Simplicius. And in fact, there is rather an impor-
tant piece of context for fragment 149 which we shall have to discuss,
namely, the immediately preceding lines in Simplicius, which FHS&G
understandably don’t print (since those lines do not contain any mention
of Theophrastus). However, those lines put a somewhat different complex-
ion on Simplicius’ report of what Theophrastus said.
Some Essential Background

Since Theophrastus is commonly taken to be criticising, attacking, reject-
ing, or replacing Aristotle’s account of place, it is worth sketching out that
account to prepare our minds.15 Aristotle opens his discussion of place by
explaining why the student of Nature should investigate places: it is because
it is commonly thought that everything is somewhere, and because the cen-
tral notion of κίνησις applies most properly to changes of place.16 He
argues that there are good reasons for supposing that places do actually
exist and are important,17 for places cannot be identified with their occu-
pants, but are indispensable for explanations of certain physical phenomena,
15)
I follow closely Morison [2002].
16)
Phys. IV 1, 208a27-32.
17)
208b1-27.

e.g. the movements of the elements: an element is said to go to its ‘own’

(αὑτοῦ) place, or ‘fitting’, ‘rightful’ (οἰκείος) place.18 Nonetheless, the
hypothesis that places do exist gives rise to several ἀπορίαι, which Aristotle
lays out near the start of his exposition (at the end of IV 1). A typical
example of one of these ἀπορίαι derives from Zeno’s paradox of place and
runs like this: if places exist and everything which exists has a place, then
places themselves must have places, and so on to infinity.19 In all, Aristotle
raises six such preliminary ἀπορίαι,20 which he construes as philosophical
challenges: ‘We must try to conduct the enquiry in such a way that it is
explained what the thing is, so that the puzzles are solved’ (IV 4, 211a7-8).
And indeed, he explicitly comes back to the puzzles at the end of his
account in order to solve them.21
Throughout his account, Aristotle makes a number of basic assump-
tions about what a place is, which he collects together as a group of six
‘axioms’ just over halfway through his discussion (IV 4, 210b34-211a6).
The most prominent of these assumptions is that since something is said to
be in a place (ἐν τόπῳ), something’s place is something in which it is – or
something which surrounds it, surrounding being taken as the converse of
being in. Aristotle seems to opt for the view that, given the relevant sense
of ‘in’, anything in which something is counts as one of its places. Hence
the universe, being something in which I am, is one of my places, and
indeed is the common place of everything.22 However, I have other places:
the air, for instance, or this room. They are more precise or exact places
than the universe. The notion of exactness here is easily defined: x is a more
exact place for me than y if I am in x and in y and anything in x is in y but
not vice versa.23 Thus I am in Schröderstraße 11 and I am in Berlin, but
Schröderstraße 11 is a more exact place for me than Berlin.
Roughly speaking, then, Aristotle identifies something’s place with its
surroundings. But Aristotle supposes that there is such a thing as the most
exact place of something, namely, that which surrounds nothing more than
18)
For the locution involving αὑτοῦ, cf. 208b11 etc.; for the locution involving οἰκείος,
cf. 211a5 etc. These places have become known as ‘natural’ places, but this is not Aristotelian.
19)
209a23-5; see also the long discussion of IV 3.
20)
209a2-30.
21)
Intriguingly, he only takes up four of the six (IV 5, 212b22-9).
22)
IV 2, 209a32: κοινός.
23)
I paraphrase and elaborate the argument of 209a31ff.

it. He calls this its ‘proper’ place.24 Imagine a fish in a tank of water: it is
surrounded by all the water of the tank. But the water is not the most pre-
cise place for the fish, because if you take an ‘envelope’ of water 5cm thick
around the fish, that part of the water is a more precise place of the fish
than all the water in the tank. This sort of reasoning leads you ultimately
to take the proper place of something as the inner boundary of its sur-
roundings: Aristotle’s preliminary definition of the proper place of some-
thing will thus turn out to be ‘the limit of the surrounding body <at which
it is in contact with the thing surrounded>’.25
Much of the second chapter of Aristotle’s discussion is taken up with
arguments against the identification of the place of something with its
form or with its matter. Aristotle conducts his argument by showing that
these identifications are in conflict with certain of the basic assumptions
we make about places, most notably that when something moves, it leaves
its place behind for something else to take up, whereas when something
moves, its matter and form come with it.26
The third chapter is then taken up with a long discussion of Zeno’s
paradox of place (see above). In working out a solution to this puzzle,
Aristotle lays the ground for an analysis of what it is for something to be
somewhere. Some things are in a place, such as the objects in the sublunary
world; other things are not in a place, such as beauty or wisdom. You can
still find beauty and wisdom somewhere – for instance in someone beautiful
and in someone wise. But things which are not in a place gain their status
of being somewhere from the fact that they are in things which are in a
place. To be somewhere is to be either in a place, or appropriately related
to something in a place, so ‘in a place’ is the primary meaning of ‘some-
where’.27 (Aristotle’s account of place can thus be seen more broadly as an
24)
209a33: ἴδιος.
25)
IV 4, 212a6-6a. The angled brackets enclose an addition made by Ross, on the basis of
the Arabic translation and the Greek commentators.
26)
Cf. IV 2, 209b22-4.
27)
The thought is familiar from other texts of Aristotle’s: to be healthy is to be something
which has health, or stand in some appropriate relation or other to something which has
health (‘to have health’ is the primary meaning of ‘to be healthy’), and to be is to be a sub-
stance, or appropriately related to a substance (‘to be a substance’ is the primary meaning of
‘to be’). Matters are in fact slightly more complicated in the case of places themselves,
because the primary places themselves are in the universe (since they are the limits where
the universe meets the place’s occupant), which notoriously lacks a place. However, the
universe is somewhere (in another sense), and this might be enough to confer the property

account of being somewhere – an account of what it is for something to be

located.) The upshot is that proper places can be somewhere without
themselves having places, and this saves Aristotle from the regress which
Zeno’s puzzle appeared to generate:28 everything is somewhere, but this
does not mean that everything has a place.
Chapter 4 begins with a statement of the axioms, the basic assumptions
which any account of place must respect.29 The chapter reads like a fresh
start in Aristotle’s discussion, and heralds a slightly more formal treatment
of the question. As I have indicated, Aristotle had already advanced quite
far in his discussion by relying on certain basic assumptions about places;
these reappear here as axioms. So the first axiom is that the proper place of
something is the first thing which surrounds it,30 but this had already sur-
faced in the second chapter when Aristotle supposed that for something to
be x’s place, x must be in it, and that x’s proper place is its most exact place.
Similarly, the fourth axiom is that the place of something is separable from
it,31 but this had already been used to refute the identification of some-
thing’s place with its form or matter.
During chapter 4, Aristotle most notably does battle with a particular
conception of place which he finds unacceptable, namely that the place of
something is the independently existing extension which it occupies, i.e.
that lying between the inner boundaries of its surroundings. Aristotle’s
argument is obscure,32 but his rejection of that definition, plus his rejec-
tion of the identification of something’s place with its form or matter, leads
him to adopt that definition to which his account was in any case leading:
that the proper place of something is ‘the limit of the surrounding body
<at which it is in contact with thing surrounded>’.33
However, as soon as he gives this preliminary definition, Aristotle realises
that it needs to be refined, or at least interpreted in a particular way, for
of being somewhere on the primary places of the items in the universe. (I’m grateful to
Jacob Rosen for bringing this issue to my attention.)
28)
The question of why Aristotle thought the regress was vicious is an extremely difficult
one, but fortunately not one which is important for the argument I am pursuing here. For
detailed discussion, see Morison [2002], chapter 3.
29)
210b34-211a6. Aristotle does not actually call them ‘axioms’, but he starts the list with
ἀξιοῦμεν.
30)
210b34-211a1.
31)
211a2-3.
32)
211b14-29. For detailed discussion, see Morison [2002], 121-32.
33)
212a6-6a.

when something’s more immediate surroundings are in motion, then it is

more appropriate to regard them as a sort of vessel rather than as a place.
So, for instance, the water which surrounds a boat on a river and which
moves with it when the boat drifts downstream, carries the boat, whereas
the whole river, which is immobile, locates the boat; the boat moves around
within the whole river (considered as a ‘geographical entity’34) rather as
moving things move around within the universe. The way things move
around in the universe is by displacement, for the universe, being immo-
bile, cannot move with the things which move within it, but rather its
contents ‘rearrange themselves’ around moving objects. Anything which
surrounds something x and in which x moves in the way x moves in the
universe, is used as a place by x. But it is those things which are themselves
immobile – like the universe – which will be used in this way as a place by
the things they surround. This prompts Aristotle to propose a refined defi-
nition of something’s proper place: ‘the first unmoving limit of what sur-
rounds’.35
In the rest of chapter 4 and much of chapter 5 Aristotle works out a few
cosmological details of this account. Solutions to some of the ἀπορίαι of
the first chapter are advanced, and the discussion ends rather darkly with
Aristotle trying – and, on his own admission, failing – to elucidate further
why it is that things tend to remain in their rightful or fitting (οἰκείος)
place.
FHS&G 146
(a) Introduction
The first of our fragments of Theophrastus outlines five ἀπορίαι that he
offered against Aristotle’s account of place. Before we look at their content
in detail, we need to examine their context in Simplicius’ text. In the first
main part of the Corollary, Simplicius offers a sequence of considerations
for rejecting Aristotle’s account of place. Some of these considerations are
philosophically sophisticated arguments. So, for example, much the most
important of Simplicius’ complaints is that the outer part of the heavens is
not in a place (because it has no surroundings); on the other hand, it
34)
Burnyeat [1984], 232 n. 15.
35)
IV 4, 212a20.

moves locally (that is, it rotates), yet what moves locally must be in a place.
Another objection Simplicius comes up with is that some things have
places but do not move, whereas Aristotle seems to say that only moving
things have a place.36 Again, Simplicius points out that the things in the
sublunary (but presumably superterrestrial) world have fluid surroundings,
i.e. air or water. Hence things in the sublunary world do not normally have
surroundings with a stationary inner limit. There are many other objec-
tions Simplicius assembles, many of them rather trivial ‘point-scoring’ as
he finds inconsistencies in Aristotle’s text.37 The report of Theophrastus’
ἀπορίαι stands alone as a self-contained consideration against Aristotle’s
theory.
FHS&G 146 starts: ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι καὶ ὁ Θεόφραστος ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς
ἀπορεῖ πρὸς τὸν ἀποδοθέντα τοῦ τόπου λόγον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους
τοιαῦτα (604, 5-7), following which is the list of five ἀπορίαι. The most
obvious way to take these lines is that they are saying that Theophrastus
too (καί) – as well as Simplicius – mentioned some difficulties with Aris-
totle’s account. (I shall say something later about FHS&G’s alternative
translation of ‘even’.) Presumably, we need to know this (ἰστέον) in order
not to get the wrong impression that Simplicius is the first person to have
raised questions about Aristotle’s account. The phrase τὸν ἀποδοθέντα τοῦ
τόπου λόγον ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους refers to Aristotle’s account of place, as
FHS&G rightly see, translating it as ‘the account that Aristotle gives of
place’.38
36)
Cf. IV 4, 212a6a-7; IV 5, 212b28-9. In fact, Aristotle says that something in a place is
κινητόν, which means in this context ‘movable’ rather than ‘moving’, and should probably
be understood as meaning ‘has room to move’ – which every body has, except the uni-
verse.
37)
I owe this nice phrase to Christoph Helmig. See for instance 603, 17-22. The practice
of finding doctrinal inconsistencies in Aristotle goes back at least to Xenarchus: see (e.g.)
Simplicius, In De Caelo VII 23, 31-24, 12, in which Xenarchus uses Aristotle’s own doc-
trine that water and air have two natural motions (since they can both move naturally both
up and down) to argue that on Aristotle’s own account, fire could also have two natural
motions (namely, up and in a circle). (I’m grateful to Anita Ljubic for help with Xenarchus.)
38)
Rather perplexingly, in their critical note to this sentence (FHS&G 146, note to lines
1-2) they interpret this as a reference to Aristotle’s final – and most refined – definition of
place, at Physics IV 4, 212a20-21, namely ‘the first unmoving limit of what surrounds’. On
my understanding of what an ‘account’ is, everything which Aristotle says – definition and
all – constitutes his account of what a place is. Simplicius in any case uses ὁρισμός for
‘definition’: cf. 606, 34 etc.

What does ἀπορεῖ πρός mean? FHS&G have translated ‘raises difficul-
ties . . . against’. Is this Theophrastus ‘criticiz[ing] the master’s theory’ (Jam-
mer [1954], 23), ‘assembling [. . .] doubts’ (Sorabji [1988b], 213), or
‘attacking’ some aspect of Aristotle’s theory (Algra [1994], 237)? Or are
they just difficulties which arise from what Aristotle says and which need
to be discussed and solved?39 The expression ἀπορεῖ πρός alone will not
settle this question, for it is obvious that a philosopher may raise ἀπορίαι
during a discussion, without implying that these ἀπορίαι will not, or can-
not, be solved. Indeed, as we have seen, in Physics IV 1-5, Aristotle gives six
ἀπορίαι to do with place which he solves at the end of his discussion, and
which he regards as important to solve. Moreover, in this very Corollary,
Simplicius sets Damascius’ account of place no less than ten ἀπορίαι,
which he promptly goes on to solve; he even describes himself as having set
out ten ἀπορίαι πρός the conception of Damascius, mirroring the lan-
guage he used of Theophrastus (639, 11-12). So the fact that Simplicius
uses the expression ἀπορεῖ πρός does not show that he wants to represent
Theophrastus as intending his ἀπορίαι to be devastating.
What we know, then, is that Theophrastus, in his Physics, raised difficul-
ties for Aristotle’s account of place. Presumably, then, Theophrastus must
have first given an exposition of Aristotle’s account of place, and then
turned to these difficulties. This means that Theophrastus’ ἀπορίαι are not
like the ἀπορίαι Aristotle raises in Physics IV 1, which are raised before the
account is offered, and which play the role of constraints on the account (a
successful account of place must solve them). Rather, Theophrastus’ ἀπορίαι
must have been raised after Aristotle’s account had been laid out.40
Why does Simplicius mention the fact that Theophrastus assembled
these ἀπορίαι? Presumably it is important to him that others have raised
difficulties for Aristotle, and that he (Simplicius) is not the first. The pic-
ture he is trying to give is that he is not some hot-headed upstart, but that
others have raised difficulties before him. Now, you might go further and
think that he is pointing out that even Aristotle’s loyal supporter pupil and
successor, Theophrastus, raised difficulties. And indeed, FHS&G suggest
in a note to these lines that καί ὁ Θεόφραστος could be translated ‘even
39)
As Sorabji seems prepared to admit might be the case ([1988b], 199).
40)
I am grateful to István Bodnár for bringing this home to me. It is in any case clear that
Theophrastus’ Physics took the form of laying out Aristotle’s doctrines, considering difficul-
ties and objections to them, and then offering solutions (see below, on Themistius’ descrip-
tion of Theophrastus’ Physics).

Theophrastus’. But even if this is what Simplicius intended, there is still no

reason to assume that Theophrastus must have thought the ἀπορίαι insol-
uble. It is enough for Simplicius to make his point by drawing our atten-
tion to the fact that Aristotle’s account raises certain difficulties which even
Theophrastus (so soon after Aristotle, and despite his loyalty) was able to
see. But, to repeat, this does not mean that Theophrastus thought them
insoluble. To offer an analogy: Simplicius raises ten ἀπορίαι against Dam-
ascius’ account of place, to all of which he offers answers. If I, now, were to
write a monograph refuting Damascius’ account of place, I might easily
say: ‘Look, even Simplicius, devoted follower of Damascius, found ten
objections against it’. We couldn’t infer from this that I thought Simplicius
rejected Damascius’ account, nor would it be right to say that I was repre-
senting Simplicius as having rejected it. So all we know so far is that Theo-
phrastus raised some difficulties, and that Simplicius feels the need to draw
our attention to this as a self-standing consideration for the weakness of
Aristotle’s theory.
If we are to make progress with the question of whether Theophrastus
intended these objections or difficulties to be insuperable or unanswerable,
we should look more closely at the ἀπορίαι themselves. For instance, if any
turns out to be insoluble according to Aristotle’s theory, then we should
have a prima facie reason for thinking that Theophrastus intended them, or
some of them, to be an embarrassment for Aristotle. Or if Theophrastus in
any other text appears to have offered a solution to any of the difficulties,
then we should have some evidence that he thought they, or some of them,
were soluble.
(b) The ἀπορίαι Themselves

Each ἀπορία is reported with a ὅτι: Theophrastus raised the difficulty (or
objection or whatever) ὅτι such-and-such. After ἀπορεῖ, you might expect
an indirect question, introduced by ‘whether’, but the thrust of Theophras-
tus’ ἀπορίαι is clear: if Aristotle’s account is correct, then what are we to say
about the proposition ὅτι P, which leads us into difficulties? It is also strik-
ing that the ἀπορίαι as they stand are very brief and baldly stated: Theo-
phrastus’ own text must surely have continued with a fuller explanation of
why these various propositions are supposed to be puzzling, but Simplicius
does not see fit to cite that explanation.41
41)
Cf. e.g. Topics 104b13-4 for an ἀπορία formulated with ‘whether’. I am grateful to

Now, the propositions embedded in the first, third and fourth ἀπορίαι
are all views more or less explicitly espoused by Aristotle. The fifth draws
out a consequence of Aristotle’s account, but nowhere drawn by Aristotle.
The second, by contrast, seems to be something explicitly denied by Aris-
totle, and for this reason I propose to treat it last.
ἀπορία 1
The first ἀπορία is ‘that a body will be in a surface’. Now, it is indeed true
that on Aristotle’s account of place, a body will be in a surface, because
something’s proper place will be a surface. Theophrastus is right to point
this out. The proper place of something is the inner limit of its surround-
ings, and since its surroundings are corporeal, this inner limit will be the
limit of a body, i.e. a surface. Aristotle himself underlines this at Physics IV
4, 212a28-9, where he points out that his definition shows why it is that a
(proper) place is thought to be a surface, and like a vessel, and something
which surrounds. It is important that these attributes be shown to belong
to place, because Aristotle had set himself the challenge earlier on in the
chapter to conduct his enquiry in such a way that various important
assumptions about places he lists in 210b34-211a6 will hold of whatever
he identifies as being places (IV 4, 211a9). But the first of these assump-
tions was that a (proper) place is the first thing which surrounds some-
thing, and the third is that a proper place is the same size as its occupant.
These assumptions together suggest that a place is a surface, and this is why
Aristotle is keen to show that his account entails that. But why should
Theophrastus have thought that it is puzzling that something be in a
surface?
The ἀπορία is worded in such a way as to bring out the contrast between
the two relata of the ‘in’ relation, suggesting that the problem Theophras-
tus sees is one of dimensionality.42 Bodies have length, breadth and depth;43
surfaces have length and breadth but no depth. Now, as I stated above, we
are not told what is supposed to be puzzling about the consequence that
Christof Rapp for raising this point, and emphasising the brevity of the ἀπορίαι. It is worth
pointing out that Themistius comments on Theophrastus’ concision and brevity (see below,
page 89).
42)
I’m grateful to Pavel Gregoric for pointing out that ἀπορίαι 1, 3, and 4, even though
they seize on views actually espoused by Aristotle, are worded in such a way as to bring out
what is meant to be puzzling about those views.
43)
Indeed, they could be defined as such. Cf. Physics IV 1, 209a4-6.

bodies are in surfaces. Hence, we have to do some work in providing an

explanation of why such a proposition might be puzzling. To my mind,
there are two rather different explanations one might give:44
(i) If bodies are in surfaces, then it appears that things of dimension n are in
things of dimension n-1, and the following rather pressing question arises:
what will points (which are of dimension 0) be in? In what are points
located? Now, points are classic material for an ἀπορία about places.45 Aris-
totle himself sets the following problem, at IV 1, 209a7-13: if bodies have
places, then surfaces, lines and points seem to have places; but points are
their own places; so lines, surfaces and bodies must be their own places, in
which case, places are trivially to be identified with their occupants. Aris-
totle offers his solution at IV 5, 212b24-5: points do not have places. But
this solution is not yet complete: even if points do not have places, this still
leaves unanswered the question of what they are in. Theophrastus’ ἀπορία
could well have been intended to get us to see that this problem still needs
answering (as indeed it does). If this is right, then Theophrastus’ ἀπορία is,
as it were, the converse of Aristotle’s ἀπορία. Aristotle’s took as its starting-
point the alleged equality of the dimensionality of the place of a point with
that of the point itself, and generalised this to saying that the dimensional-
ity of the place of any thing is equal to that of the thing itself, i.e. that
entities of dimension n seem to have place of dimension n. Theophrastus’
would be taking as its starting-point Aristotle’s seeming commitment to
the view that an entity of dimension n is in an entity of dimension n-1, in
order to direct our attention to the specific case of a point and the apparent
lack of an entity which they could be in.
On this interpretation, the ἀπορία can be answered rather straightfor-
wardly. Points do not have places, as Aristotle says. Hence if they are to
be somewhere, they must be in something in some other way of being in.
The way in which bodies are in surfaces (viz. by being contained by them)
is not the way in which points are in something. Once one has seen that,
one can find a good candidate for what they must be in, namely the lines
of which they are the limits. Aristotle himself points out that places are
44)
Sharples ([1998], 50 n. 119) suggests that perhaps ‘the absurdity of what has more
dimensions being contained in what has less is supposed to be immediately self-evident’.
I confess I don’t see how this could be so.
45)
The question of the location of points had exercised Plato in the Parmenides. See Owen
[1961], 92ff.

somewhere in virtue of being in the thing of which they are the limit (IV
5, 212b28); the same will presumably be true for any limit, including
points and lines. Now, Aristotle does not spell this out. I take Theophras-
tus to be raising his ἀπορία in order to signal that there is a gap in Aristo-
tle’s exposition, which leaves open a rather important question, namely,
where are points. The solution, to reiterate, is straightforward, but it is a
good point to raise, because of the lack of an answer in Aristotle’s own
exposition.
(ii) Another possible interpretation of what Theophrastus was trying to get at
has been suggested by Sorabji, followed by Algra.46 They think that the
identification of a proper place with a surface is troublesome because Aris-
totle’s third axiom or guiding assumption is that proper places must be the
same size as their occupants,47 but surfaces can never be the same size as a
body. If this is the correct interpretation of the ἀπορία, it would, I take it,
also be easily solved: the size of the surface should be calculated in this
instance as being not its area but the volume it encloses. The place of some-
thing is the same size as it in the same way that we talk of my coat being
my size, meaning that it encloses me snugly. But it is true that Aristotle
does not explain how the proper place of something is the same size as it,
and so this would be fertile ground for Theophrastus to introduce the
question as some sort of problem in Aristotle’s account. Once again, the
solution would be straightforward, but the ἀπορία would pretty clearly
arise from Aristotle not spelling things out, rather than a doctrinal incon-
sistency or inadequacy.
On the first interpretation, the problem is that Aristotle’s claim that bodies
are in a surface appears to entail that points cannot be in anything, and
hence cannot be anywhere; on the second interpretation, the problem is
that Aristotle’s candidate for what a body’s place is (a surface), cannot be
the same size as that body, even though he insists that a place must be the
same size as its occupant. On the first interpretation, the ἀπορία is solved
by adverting to different senses of ‘in’; on the second interpretation, the
46)
Sorabji [1988b], 192-3: cf. Algra [1994], 234-5. Sorabji thinks that there is evidence for
his interpretation from the fact that Simplicius himself and Philoponus both object to
Aristotle’s account on the grounds that a surface cannot be the same size as a body. How-
ever, it should be obvious that this fact could also work against the suggestion –- if this was
Theophrastus’ ἀπορία, why didn’t they say so?
47)
IV 4, 211a1-2.

ἀπορία is solved by pointing out that a surface can be (in a way) the same
size as the body it encloses.
I have a light preference for the first option, on the grounds that its solu-
tion calls for the thoroughly Aristotelian device of adverting to different
senses of ‘in’, but the important point is this: on either interpretation,
Theophrastus’ first ἀπορία turns out to be an apparent difficulty in Aristo-
tle’s account which needs solving, but on neither interpretation is there any
reason to think that this ἀπορία was intended to be devastating. On either
interpretation, it is relatively easily solved in the context of Aristotle’s the-
ory. On either interpretation, Theophrastus has put his finger on a propo-
sition to whose truth Aristotle is committed, and yet whose consequences
need further elucidation, which Aristotle didn’t provide.
ἀπορίαι 3 and 4
Theophrastus points out that on Aristotle’s account, neither the outer
sphere of the heavens is in a place (ἀπορία 3), nor the universe as a whole
(ἀπορία 4). These are straightforward consequences of Aristotle’s assump-
tions, and Aristotle happily accepts them: the universe as a whole has no
place (IV 5, 212b8-10), and the outer sphere of the universe has no place
(IV 5, 212b20-22).48 One must ask the same question as before: why are
these puzzles for Aristotle’s account, given that he himself is prepared to
uphold them?
Well, they are puzzling for two different reasons. The fact that the uni-
verse is not in a place is puzzling because Aristotle is committed to think-
ing that everything is somewhere. Aristotle sketches a solution to this
apparent problem: the universe is not in a place, i.e. not somewhere per se,
but it is somewhere derivatively (i.e. it is somewhere in some extended
sense of ‘somewhere’). It is somewhere in virtue of the fact that its parts are
all in a place. If you divide up the universe in a certain way, all of its parts
will be in a place. The universe itself then ‘inherits’ the property of being
located. Aristotle does not assert fallaciously that the universe has a place
because its parts all do: rather, the universe can be thought of as being
somewhere, in virtue of the fact that all its parts are in a place. (This clearly
needs some elucidation: for instance, much depends on how you divide up
the universe, i.e. which parts you have in mind.) Aristotle recognised the
48)
Things are a little confusing because Aristotle uses the same word for both the universe
as a whole, and the outer sphere of the universe, viz. οὐρανός.

problem, and thought a solution was possible, so Theophrastus is right to

take up the challenge, and it is indeed one of the problems of Aristotle’s
account that he does not spell out in detail how this works. But it is pos-
sible, and again nothing indicates that Theophrastus meant this to be a
devastating objection.
The outer sphere of the universe raises initially the same problem, for it
too has nothing outside of it. However, there is a further puzzle about it: it
is actually in motion – it rotates – and so (apparently) must actually have a
place, rather than just being somewhere. In his attempt to explain this,
Aristotle makes the following rather dark remark: ‘Inasmuch as it moves,
in this way there is a place for its parts, for the parts are in contact one with
another’ (IV 5, 212b10-11). The basic idea seems to be that the parts of
the outer sphere do have a place (because they do have surroundings, at
least partially). An account of how the outer sphere is somewhere can appeal
to this. Moreover, an account of this sort is in any case needed to explain
how the rotation of an object, which does not itself change place, is none-
theless due to a change of place of its parts. So the whole of the outer
sphere is somewhere in virtue of having parts which are in a place, and yet
can rotate, because its parts all move round in a circle. I do not wish to
argue that a solution along these lines is straightforward. Some problems
remain: (i) it is not immediately clear how it is that a part of the universe
which, so to speak, stretches right to the edge of the universe, can be said
to have a place, given that there is nothing outside of it; (ii) Aristotle does
not think that a part of a body which is continuous with the rest of the
body actually has a place (only a potential place); (iii) one might well won-
der whether this account of rotation (that the rotation of x is a matter of
x’s parts engaging in circular locomotion) allows the rotation of x to belong
to x as a whole, non-derivatively.49 Theophrastus has put his finger on a
problem which needs spelling out explicitly – a problem which is recog-
nised and tackled by Aristotle, but unsatisfactorily.
ἀπορία 5
Theophrastus raises the point that if you take away all the surroundings
of something, then – without that thing moving – it will no longer be in a
place. This is a natural consequence of what Aristotle says, although noth-
ing corresponds to it in Aristotle’s text. It is an entirely original problem
49)
I’m grateful to Jacob Rosen for raising this third problem.

with no precursor in Aristotle’s discussion. The argument is, presumably,

that a body whose surroundings are removed will no longer be in its place,
but it will not have moved; hence, this account of place will not allow an
analysis of motion as change of place. It is a rather ingenious puzzle. Could
this be evidence for Theophrastus thinking that Aristotle’s account of place
is doomed?
Well, I do not think so, for there is an answer to this puzzle: we are not
dealing with a change of place, since the body has not exchanged one place
for another. Rather, it is a question of x’s switching from being located to
no longer being located, and there is no reason to think that x must move
in order to lose that status. (Yet another way in which it could happen is if
x goes out of existence, although this does of course involve some change
on the part of x.) The solution seems to be that you should not say ‘x has
moved from place p if x is no longer in place p’, but rather ‘x has moved
from place p if x is no longer in place p but in place q’.
This is a rather subtle point, and Theophrastus deserves great credit for
it. Once more, however, we should not think that Theophrastus’ raising of
this ἀπορία shows he thought Aristotle’s theory to be weak or flawed in
some way. His ἀπορία seems to show us an unexpected consequence of
Aristotle’s theory, rather than a weakness.
Sorabji has a rather different interpretation of this ἀπορία ([1998],
208-9). He argues that Theophrastus is referring to the following problem:
imagine that x is sitting perfectly happily, but that suddenly x’s immediate
surroundings start moving, while x remains still (perhaps you are sitting in
a room, but then someone inconsiderately opens the door and lets a draft
in, so the air which surrounds you is suddenly in motion). Then, argues
Sorabji, without x moving, x will lose its place, because the air, being in
motion, will no longer constitute x’s place, as it did before. Something’s
place must be motionless, so the air, which is now moving, cannot consti-
tute x’s place. As Sorabji says: ‘In my interpretation, I am taking it that the
surroundings of the person are removed, only in the sense that the air flows
past the person, not in the sense that the person is left with no surround-
ings at all’ (209). Sorabji is led to this interpretation, because he thinks it
is difficult to see what it would mean for someone to be ‘left with no sur-
roundings at all . . . unless it meant creating a vacuum around the person’
(ibid.), and he rightly thinks that it would be dialectically unsuccessful for
Theophrastus to be raising a puzzle presupposing the existence of void,
since Aristotle rejects the void’s very existence.

The problem with Sorabji’s interpretation is that Theophrastus really

does ask us to imagine the situation where something’s surroundings are
removed (ἐὰν ἀφαιρεθῇ τὰ περιέχοντα αὐτά), and not the situation where
something’s surroundings are in motion. Theophrastus is raising a concep-
tual point which arises from Aristotle’s definition of something’s place in
terms of its surroundings; in imagining what would happen if x is deprived
of its surroundings, we don’t have to imagine that x comes to be surrounded
by void, only that x comes to be surrounded by nothing, just as nothing
surrounds the outer sphere of the heavens. So there is no difficulty in fol-
lowing Theophrastus’ thought-experiment through, and the most natural
interpretation (where the surroundings are removed and not merely in
motion) does not involve positing the void. On that natural interpreta-
tion, Theophrastus is alerting us to a rather unexpected consequence of
Aristotle’s theory (namely, that x’s no longer having a place does not entail
x’s having moved) – a consequence which we should be happy to embrace,
and which we have no reason to suppose Theophrastus didn’t embrace too.
ἀπορία 2
I have left this ἀπορία to last because it is of a completely different charac-
ter to the others. Theophrastus raises the difficulty that a place will be
moving. Now, Theophrastus cannot be saying that, according to Aristotle’s
definition, some or all places are moving. For according to the definition,
no place is moving. Nor can Theophrastus mean that in fact, places are
moving, contra Aristotle. For we have independent evidence that Theo-
phrastus did not think this: FHS&G 148 states that Theophrastus agreed
with Aristotle that places cannot move50 because if they did, there would
be a place of a place etc.
Perhaps Theophrastus is objecting that, say, one or other or several of
Aristotle’s examples of places are, in fact, in motion, so Aristotle was wrong
to identify them as places. Much more likely, however, is the following.
Text 147 shows us that Theophrastus and Eudemus pointed out an omis-
sion in Aristotle’s axioms. Aristotle does not list amongst his axioms the
axiom that places are unmoving. Theophrastus and Eudemus objected to
the late arrival in Aristotle’s discussion of the condition that places be
immobile. They thought that it should be one of the axioms, i.e. added to
50)
I find it perplexing that Jammer should state that Theophrastus ‘speaks of the possibility
of a motion of space’ ([1954], 23).

the list of six axioms given at the start of Physics IV 4, 210b32-211a7. It is

when he comments on this passage that Simplicius first says that Theo-
phrastus and Eudemus added the condition that a place be immobile to
the axioms (566, 18-9). Then, later, when commenting on Aristotle’s use
of the condition that places be immobile to refine (at IV 4, 212a20-21) his
preliminary definition of a place (given at 212a6-6a), Simplicius says again
that Theophrastus and Eudemus added this condition to the axioms (583,
10-12). The point is that by having the condition of immobility as one of
the axioms, you will not simply add it onto your definition, as Aristotle
appeared to do: you will not rather inelegantly propose a definition and
then suddenly refine it. (Simplicius says a third time that Theophrastus
and Eudemus made this addition; FHS&G 147 corresponds to this third
passage.)51
So Theophrastus, I suggest, raised as a difficulty for Aristotle the fact
that it is not one of his axioms that places be immobile, and hence he lays
himself open to having moving places. Now, Theophrastus agreed with
Aristotle that there cannot be moving places: see FHS&G 148. The solu-
tion, explicitly proposed by Theophrastus in 147 and the other corre-
sponding passages, is that the condition of immobility become an axiom.
One further point needs to be noticed. 147 shows that Theophrastus
thought the condition of immobility should be an axiom governing the
whole account of place. He does not merely think that Aristotle should
have added it as axiom; he thinks it should be an axiom, tout court. Theo-
phrastus and Eudemus are not just proposing a friendly emendation to
Aristotle’s view, designed to improve Aristotle’s exposition; they are endors-
ing the condition as an axiom (along with the other six axioms). Theo-
phrastus and Eudemus add the condition to their lists of axioms. This is a
point to which I shall return.
(c) Assessment of the ἀπορίαι

Up until now, therefore, we have seen that Theophrastus’ ἀπορίαι are good
puzzles, aimed squarely at Aristotle’s account and in at least two cases,
namely ἀπορίαι 3 and 4, hitting sensitive areas where Aristotle recognised
a problem, tried to give a solution, but failed to do so satisfactorily. But we
51)
The editors give full references to the other two passages in their critical notes. In the
previous edition of Theophrastus’ fragments and testimonia, all three were listed (Wimmer
[1862], XXIIa-c).

do not have any reason to suppose that Theophrastus believed them insol-
uble. They are just the points that you would expect someone to raise if
they were following Aristotle’s theory closely. Thus, I think that a picture
emerges of Theophrastus’ ἀπορίαι, as follows. Theophrastus points out
that Aristotle’s account of place raises certain difficulties. One of these dif-
ficulties is to do with a question of philosophical presentation (viz. ἀπορία
2); two stem from the fact that Aristotle inadequately addresses a particular
issue raised by his account (ἀπορίαι 3 and 4); the other two are to do with
problems not explicitly raised by Aristotle but which concern natural con-
sequences of his account (ἀπορίαι 1 and 5). However, all can be given
Aristotelian answers. Thus, there is no indication that Theophrastus thought
that the ἀπορίαι were insurmountable. On the contrary, if I am right about
ἀπορία 2, there even survives the solution which he and Eudemus proposed.
Themistius, in his commentary/paraphrase of the De Anima (108, 8-10 =
FHS&G 307A, 17-20), comments that he is not going to set out all of
what Theophrastus said about the potential intellect in the second book of
his De Anima (which is also the fifth of his Physics):
καὶ τὰ ἐφεξῆς μακρὸν ἂν εἴη παρατίθεσθαι καίτοι μὴ μακρῶς εἰρημένα,

ἀλλὰ λίαν συντόμως τε καὶ βραχέως τῇ γε λέξει· τοῖς γὰρ πράγμασι
μεστά ἐστι πολλῶν μὲν ἀποριῶν, πολλῶν δὲ ἐπιστάσεων, πολλῶν δὲ λύσεων.
It would take too long to add what follows, although it is not stated at length, but too
concisely and shortly, in expression at least; for with regard to the facts, it is full of
many ἀπορίαι, many careful enquiries, and many solutions.
What is important here is what Themistius tells us about the nature of

Theophrastus’ Physics: in it, Theophrastus set difficulties and then solved
them. I assume that Theophrastus not only assembled ἀπορίαι at the start
of his discussions (as Aristotle did), but also set difficulties for the various
accounts which Aristotle offered (as we have seen he does in the case of
place). But the implication of Themistius’ statement is that Theophrastus
solved these ἀπορίαι without departing from Aristotle’s doctrines. The aim
was clarification and justification. The ἀπορίαι set by Theophrastus in 146
can certainly be solved without departing from Aristotelian doctrine, and
certainly serve well as clarificatory devices: they are directly aimed at philo-
sophically important questions raised by Aristotle himself but not dealt
with satisfactorily by him. Thus, from what Simplicius tells us, we have
no reason to assume that Theophrastus intended his ἀπορίαι concerning
place to be devastating. Rather, from the fact that we know Theophrastus

himself solved one of them (concerning the immobility of place), from the
fact that the others are solvable within Aristotle’s own theory, and from
Themistius’ helpful description of Theophrastus’ Physics, we have reason to
think that Theophrastus did think them solvable.52
FHS&G 149
And Theophrastus too, in his Physics, clearly had this conception of place, where he
says, as one who in an impasse tries to advance the argument: “May it not be that place
is not something that exists in its own right, but is spoken of according to the arrange-
ment and position of bodies, with reference to their nature and capacities? And simi-
larly in the case of animals and plants and in general all things with a differentiated
structure, whether living or not, provided that their nature involves a shape. For in
these too there is an arrangement and position of the parts with reference to the whole
being. And for this reason each thing is said to be in its own space by virtue of its hav-
ing its proper ordering; for each of the parts of the body, too, might (be said to) desire
and require its own space and position.”
No doubt there are many readers who have been itching to interject and
point to FHS&G 149. “There”, they will say, “Simplicius says unequivo-
cally that Theophrastus had a particular conception of place which bears
no resemblance at all to Aristotle’s, and surely if this is the case, it is fair to
assume that the ἀπορίαι set out in 146 are among the reasons for which he
rejected Aristotle’s account.” But the interjection is misguided. Whatever
Simplicius might say, Theophrastus’ own words in FHS&G 149 do not
report a conception of what a place is which differs from Aristotle’s.
Context
Consider first of all the context of 149. Immediately before the passage,
and after a long exposition of Damascius’ theory of place, Simplicius says
(639, 10-13):
52)
I rather like Sedley’s characterisation of the ἀπορίαι as ‘purely exploratory’ ([1987], 144
n. 1).

Ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ καὶ ταύτην τὴν περὶ τοῦ τόπου ἔννοιαν ὡς ἦν ἐμοὶ
δυνατὸν διήρθρωσα, καὶ τάς τε ἀπορίας τὰς πρὸς αὐτὴν ἐξεθέμην καὶ τὰς
τῶν ἀποριῶν λύσεις ἐπήγαγον, ὅτι μὴ πάντῃ καινοπρεπής ἐστι μηδὲ τοῖς
κλεινοῖς τῶν φιλοσόφων ἀγνοηθεῖσα βούλομαι δεῖξαι.
Now that I have set out this concept of place so far as I am able, and now that I have
set out the difficulties raised against it, and adduced the resolution of the difficulties,
I wish to show that the concept is neither novel in all respects nor unknown to famous
philosophers.
Simplicius wishes to show that Damascius’ account, although difficult, is

neither completely outlandish nor one which came ex nihilo. Simplicius
takes Theophrastus to have anticipated in some way elements of Damas-
cius’ position. Just after he has cited Theophrastus, Simplicius says that he
will show that Iamblichus too ‘bears witness to the same position’ (τὸ
δὲ αὐτὸ δείξω τὸν θεῖον Ἰάμβλιχον μαρτυρόμενον; 639, 22-3). This last
expression is reused at 642, 17-8, of both Theophrastus and Iamblichus:
they bear witness to Damascius’ position (Damascius’ account is ὑπὸ τοῦ
Θεοφράστου καὶ τοῦ θείου Ἰαμβλίχου μαρτυρούμενον). Now, Simplicius
obviously does not mean that Theophrastus and Iamblichus had the same
conception of place as Damascius, otherwise there would be no point in
persisting to attribute the view to Damascius, which is in any case charac-
terised by Simplicius as ‘novel’ (καινοπρεπές; 625, 2). Moreover, Iambli-
chus’ position, described in detail by Simplicius, could not be mistaken for
anything Theophrastus might have said. Rather, the idea is that each of
Theophrastus’ and Iamblichus’ writings betrays elements of Damascius’
position; the goal, after all, is to show that Damascius’ theory is not new in
every respect (μὴ πάντῃ; 639, 12). We will of course have to examine in
what way Theophrastus’ statements do anticipate Damascius’ position, but
the key point is that Simplicius is only trying to say that Theophrastus
anticipated some element of Damascius’ position, not that he actually
held it.
This simple point is obscured by the opening phrase of 149 where Sim-
plicius says that Θεόφραστος . . . ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς φαίνεται τὴν ἔννοιαν
ταύτην ἐσχηκὼς περὶ τόπου. To be sure, τὴν ἔννοιαν ταύτην refers to Dam-
ascius’ conception of place. Urmson translates this passage ‘Theophrastus
appears to have held this position’ ([1992], 72); FHS&G in their transla-
tion of 149 render it ‘Theophrastus clearly had that conception’. Now, in
this passage, Simplicius is certainly representing Theophrastus as having

held the same conception as Damascius.53 After all, what better way to
convince people that Damascius’ conception of place was anticipated by
some previous philosopher than by stating that a previous philosopher
actually held it? But the other passages we have just looked at suggest that
this is something of an overstatement of Simplicius’ own view; elsewhere,
he suggests only that Theophrastus anticipated some element or elements
of Damascius’ conception.
Obviously, the best way of settling the matter is to compare what Theo-
phrastus says to what Damascius said. So let us go through 149 in detail.
Content
At this point in his Physics, Theophrastus is speaking ‘as one who in an
impasse tries to advance the argument’ (FHS&G). He is not producing
ἀπορίαι against something as he did in passage 146; rather, it is as if he is
in ἀπορία, and ‘advancing the argument’ (προάγων τὸν λόγον). Now, this
is not difficult to interpret. The structure of the quotation from Theo-
phrastus is of the form ‘perhaps it is not the case that P, but rather it is the
case that Q’. You are in ἀπορία when you are considering a question, and
have considered and rejected all the answers which strike you as possible;
you then have nowhere to go in your enquiry, unless of course you bring
into play a new set of possible answers (unless you ‘advance the argument’).
This describes our passage perfectly. Theophrastus is considering the onto-
logical status of places. He has found that the view that place is, καθ’αὑτόν,
some kind of οὐσία runs into difficulties (μήποτε οὐκ ἔστι καθ’αὑτὸν
οὐσία τις τόπος), and so ‘advances the argument’ by making some other
suggestion about place (ἀλλὰ τῇ τάξει καὶ θέσει τῶν σωμάτων λέγεται
κατὰ τὰς φύσεις καὶ δυνάμεις).
It is no surprise that Theophrastus is considering the ontological status
of places. After all, when Aristotle himself introduced his account of places,
he stated that he wanted to find out whether places exist or not, and if they
do, how they exist and what they are.54 Thus it is no surprise to find Theo-
phrastus wondering whether places are some kind of self-subsisting entity,
or whether they are something else. Presumably the possibility that they
53)
Urmson’s translation is an undertranslation, I think. For similar uses of ἔννοια, cf. e.g.
Simplicius In Physica 288, 34; 537, 26; 607, 36; etc.
54)
Phys. IV 1, 208a28-9.

might be self-subsisting has been rejected for similar reasons to the ones
Aristotle himself gives for relegating places to mere epiphenomena. Places
can’t be like bodies because then they would have places, and there would
be two things in the same place (this is the first ἀπορία Aristotle puts for-
ward concerning places, at IV 1, 209 3-7). Moreover, Aristotle argued that
places cannot be some sort of independently existing extension: this pos-
sibility he dismisses at IV 4, 211b14-29.55 The argument he gives for this
is difficult, but it turns on the conclusion that we will have too many coin-
cident places in our ontology (211b24-5).
So one rather obvious observation one should make here is that in say-
ing ‘may it not be that place is not something that exists in its own right’,
Theophrastus is not rejecting, or considering an alternative to, Aristotle’s
theory itself. For Aristotle’s theory does not hold that places are indepen-
dently existing entities. Something’s place is the inner surface of its sur-
roundings, and so it owes its existence to the thing of which it is the surface.
Therefore, we should assume that Theophrastus had been considering, like
Aristotle, the possibility that places be independently existing entities, but
had come up with reasons for thinking this is not the case. But then what
are places? A fresh consideration concerning their ontological status is
needed to advance the argument.
It is the second limb of Theophrastus’ opening remark which offers us
this fresh consideration. If places are not independently existing entities,
perhaps place ‘is spoken of according to the arrangement and position of
bodies, with reference to their natures and capacities’ (τῇ τάξει καὶ θέσει
τῶν σωμάτων λέγεται κατὰ τὰς φύσεις καὶ δυνάμεις; FHS&G’s transla-
tion). Algra translates it as follows: ‘We speak of [place] because bodies
have an order and position in conformity with their natures and powers’
([1994], 237). I hope I am not the only reader to find the Greek rather
obscure. We have two adverbial phrases, the dative phrase τῇ τάξει καὶ
θέσει τῶν σωμάτων and the prepositional phrase κατὰ τὰς φύσεις καὶ
δυνάμεις, but only one verb (λέγεται). Now, I assume that the phrase κατὰ
τὰς φύσεις καὶ δυνάμεις actually modifies τῇ τάξει καὶ θέσει τῶν σωμάτων,
telling us which order and position Theophrastus has in mind. We are
55)
Cf. 211b19-20: ‘But if there was some interval existing of such a nature as to exist inde-
pendently (καθ᾽αὑτὸ πεφυκὸς εἶναι) and remain behind . . .’. I do not wish to insist on the
correspondence in wording between Theophrastus’ text and Aristotle’s, since the passage is
corrupt in Aristotle, and the text which I have cited is a suggestion by Laas, following The-
mistius’ paraphrase (see Ross [1936], 572-3).

talking about the order and position of bodies which they have relative to
each other when you consider their natures and capacities. In other words,
we are considering the order and position of bodies when they are ordered
naturally, i.e. (as we might put it) when they are in their natural places.
Place is said ‘because of ’ or ‘in virtue of ’ this order and position.
Now what does λέγεται with the dative mean here? I can see three pos-
sibilities. (i) λέγεται means ‘is talked about’, and the dative phrase gives the
reason why place is talked about. We might translate: ‘place is talked about
because of the position and order of bodies’, and paraphrase: ‘we have
occasion to talk about places because bodies order themselves in a certain
way, and we want to capture that fact with our talk about places’. (ii) εἶναι
is supplied with λέγεται, and we translate: ‘place is said to exist because of
the position and order of bodies’. This could be paraphrased in the same
way as proposal (i). (iii) We supply the predicate ‘such-and-such’ with
λέγεται, and translate: ‘place is called such-and-such because of the posi-
tion and order of bodies’, and paraphrase: ‘a place – up, as it might be – is
so-called because of the order and position of bodies’. The idea is that places
are called whatever they are called, and differentiated from one another,
because of the behaviour of bodies ordering themselves naturally.56
One thing which is striking about these interpretations is that on none
of them does Theophrastus make any suggestion about what a place is.
Virtually all commentators think that Theophrastus is identifying some-
thing’s place with its position in an ordered whole, even Sharples ([1998],
54). But I don’t see how the Greek could mean this. Theophrastus does not
seem to be saying what a place is. To say that place is spoken of or identified
because of or in virtue of the order and position of bodies is hardly to iden-
tify the places of bodies with their position and order. At most, Theophras-
tus’ idea seems to be that places are not self-subsisting entities but rather
are features of the world that owe their existence in some way to the behav-
iour of bodies and their order and position.57
56)
I owe this last suggestion to Jacob Rosen, who also helped with the next note.
57
I am grateful to Christian Pfeiffer for insisting that Theophrastus, although not stating
what a place is, is nonetheless making a proposal, however vague, as to the ontological
status of places. (It is worth pointing out, however, that there may well be a way of deve-
loping the third interpretation of the previous paragraph in the text according to which
Theophrastus is not even making a suggestion about the ontological status of places, but
only about the way in which the different places of the elements differ from one another.)

At this point in our text, Theophrastus goes into an analogy (ὁμοίως,

17) designed to help us understand how it is that places are talked about
(or whatever; we still have not settled what this means) because of the
order and position of bodies. In the case of animals, plants and other things
which have a ‘differentiated structure’ (τῶν ἀνομοιομερῶν, 18), both ani-
mate and inanimate, their parts are in a certain arrangement with reference
to the whole (πρὸς τὴν ὅλην οὐσίαν, 19-20). Theophrastus is pointing out
that animals such as you and me have parts, and those parts have an
arrangement within us: my arms are either side of my body, my head is on
top of my torso, etc. How is this analogy supposed to help us understand
places? Well, Theophrastus then asserts that because of this (διό, 20) each
thing quite generally is said to be in its own place through having its appro-
priate order, since each of the parts of the body too (καί, 21) might be said
to desire and require (ἐπιποθήσειεν ἂν καὶ ἀπαιτήσειε, 21-22) its own
place and position. The ‘since’ clause reverts to the analogy, for the hand
desires or requires to be at the end of the arm, and the head desires or requires
to be on top of the body. Moreover, the head can be at the top of the body
but in a variety of different positions, some of them more comfortable
than others. A head which is pulled right back or lolling to one side is not
in the position it should be; a raised arm is not in its most natural position,
nor is a raised leg. Thus, as Theophrastus says, the parts of an animate body
desire or require very particular arrangements and positions within that
body. But now we can see why this helps us understand places: just as my
arm or head requires a position and arrangement within my body, so does
each thing quite generally desire or require a position and arrangement
within the universe. Theophrastus is helping us to see how talk of places
emerges from thinking about the order and position of bodies within the
universe, in just the same way as we talk about the place of our limbs
within our own bodies, and how those limbs desire and require their own
place.
What has this to do with the ontology of places? Well, it seems to be
downgrading places from being self-subsistent substances, and instead
speculating that places are spoken of because we need to say where things
are within the natural order of things. We want to be able to say where our
limbs are, and where they should be, or need to be. This is because our
limbs have a natural arrangement and position within our bodies. Simi-
larly, we need to be able to say where bodies in the universe are, and where
they should be, or need to be. Theophrastus seems to be pointing out that

places need to play a certain theoretical role, namely as a means for saying
where things are and where things should be;58 they are not simply items
which exist in their own right, but rather items whose role in the ontology
is to serve in explanations of the behaviour of other things. Of course,
to say this is to remain neutral as between several possibilities for what
exactly places are. For instance, as far as I can tell, it is consonant with what
he says that the place of something is its form (i.e. its nature, which deter-
mines what its place in the order of things is), or even the bodies which
surround it, whose natures then act on it to move it to its fitting place
amongst them.
This neutrality is important. Theophrastus’ explanation of the theoreti-
cal role that places have to play is consonant with Aristotle’s conception of
place. The sole difference from Aristotle that I can detect in what Theo-
phrastus says is that he canvasses rather more explicitly than Aristotle the
though that the universe is a whole of which you and I and all other sub-
stances are parts. Aristotle’s own explanation of natural motion, difficult
though it is, appeals to how an object behaves in its surroundings (i.e.,
according to him, its place). But since the surroundings of an object,
broadly speaking, are the universe itself, this is very close to saying that the
natural motion of an object is explained by its position or arrangement in
the universe. As Algra says, tellingly and correctly: ‘In fact if we compare
Thphr. Fr. 149 FHSG with the texts in which Aristotle discusses the
dynamics of natural motion, we shall have to conclude that there were no
substantive disagreements on this subject between the two thinkers’.59
“Well,” you may say, “Simplicius tells us that Theophrastus had the same
conception – or appeared to have the same conception – as Damascius.
This surely means that Simplicius at least interpreted Theophrastus as hav-
ing held a different view from that of Aristotle. I prefer Simplicius’ author-
ity to your polemical reconstruction.”
58)
Sorabji is thus mistaken to think that 149 is only about ‘natural’ places ([1988b],
202ff.). In talking of the place and position which the parts of a whole desire and require,
Theophrastus obviously provides the means for characterising both ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’
places: the natural place is the one the limb desires, an unnatural place is any other place
the limb is in (e.g. a dislocated arm).
59)
[1994], 242.

Damascius
At this point, we have to tackle the question of whether Theophrastus’ text
actually puts forward a view which resembles Damascius’ conception of
place. Now, Damascius’ theory is obscure. But the following points emerge:
there are two types of place for him.60 First, we talk of the place of x where
we wish to speak of x’s relation to the whole of which x is a part (head to a
man, or a man to the universe). Second we talk of the place of x in the
sense of the arrangement of x’s own parts. According to this rather unex-
pected second sense, a body is εὔτοπον, i.e. ‘well placed’ (631, 19; a hapax
legomenon) when its parts are all in their rightful place within it. This word
is modelled on εὔθετον (‘well-arranged’, also at 631, 19); the precedent for
putting a prefix in front of τόπος to make an adjective is the adjective
ἄτοπος. The intuition behind this double conception of place is the follow-
ing. For most bodies, to be well-placed is a matter of two things: (a) to have
your parts in good order, and (b) to be in the right place in the universe.
Think of a sniper about to make a shot: for him to be ‘in place’ is not just
for him to be in the correct place relative to other objects (high on the hill
above his target, behind the grassy knoll, or whatever), but also for his
parts to be correctly disposed (so that he is lying down, with his gun out-
stretched in front of him, etc.). Notice that in this second sense, something
could keep its place even when it moves around, as long as its parts remain
well-ordered. This is not an unwelcome consequence for Damascius, for it
is in this sense that the universe, even though it does not move around, has
a place, and one which remains the same because its parts are always in the
right order (631, 24-6).61
Even though it is clear that Damascius wants to distinguish these two
types of place, his account is still not complete. Place (tout court) is that
which brings about both something’s correct position in the universe, and
the coherence of its parts (626, 18-28), and so Damascius characterises
place as ‘a measure of the position of things which have a position’ (μέτρον
εἶναι τῆς τῶν κειμένων θέσεως; 627, 14-5), or as ‘a determination and
measure of position’ (τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀφορισμὸν καὶ μέτρον εἶναι θέσεως; 644,
14). The details of Damascius’ account become very difficult here, but the
60)
See e.g. Simplicius, In Physica 627, 28-32.
61)
This is one substantial difference between Damascius and Aristotle, who denies that the
universe has a place, although Aristotle’s idea that the universe is somewhere because its
parts are all in a place is not dissimilar.

idea seems to be that the world would never resemble the intelligible para-
digm unless place (tout court) played its role in situating everything in its
rightful place and keeping them internally ordered in the right way (626,
32-4). So place as well as measuring something’s position, also plays a role
in getting them to the right position. Now, doubtless this sketch of Dam-
ascius’ difficult and ambitious theory does not do it justice. But even from
this sketch it should be obvious that Theophrastus does not share Damas-
cius’ conception of place, to judge from FHS&G 149. Of course, I have
argued that Simplicius did not really mean us to see all of Damascius’ con-
ception in Theophrastus’ short text. So the question remains, what aspect
of Damascius’ theory do we find anticipated by Theophrastus? Do we see
anything of the idea that there is something called ‘place’ tout court which
acts to bring about the coherence of parts within their wholes? No. Do we
see anything of the idea that place is a measure of the position of bodies?
No. Do we see anything of the crucial second type of place, according to
which a body counts as well-placed if its own parts are in order? No.
What we do see in Theophrastus is the important idea that a given body
not only has parts of its own which ‘desire and require’ a certain position
and order within the whole, but also is itself a part of a wider whole, the
universe, so that it is reasonable to suppose that it also ‘desires and requires’
a certain position and order within that whole. It is in this sense that Theo-
phrastus bears witness to a part of Damascius’ theory. But this thought is
in itself totally Aristotelian. Moreover, and more importantly, it says noth-
ing about what a place is. Thus in 149 Theophrastus does not give or sug-
gest or refer to the same theory of place as Damascius. Simplicius should
not and cannot be understood as saying that he does; what he wants to
show is that Damascius’ theory has precedents in previous philosophers.
Theophrastus clearly gave voice to a particular conception of how bodies
relate to the universe, which can be used in explaining the idea of natural
and unnatural place, namely, the conception whereby bodies like you and
me are parts of the universe, which are arranged and positioned in the
universe in a certain way, like our parts are arranged and positioned within
us. But such an explanation of the idea of natural and unnatural place falls
short of saying what these places are, and – as far as I can see – is perfectly
consistent with any number of definitions of place, including Aristotle’s.

Theophrastus on Place
Let us return to FHS&G 147. Theophrastus and Eudemus did not object
to Aristotle’s condition that a place be immobile. Rather, they thought that
it was bad presentation on Aristotle’s part not to have said in his axioms
that places were immobile. They added it to the axioms. Theophrastus and
Eudemus were not saying what Aristotle should have said had he thought
harder: they were not patching up the train of thought in the Aristotle’s
Physics, on Aristotle’s behalf, as it were. Rather, when Theophrastus and
Eudemus wrote their respective Physics, the condition of immobility got
promoted to the status of axiom. Theophrastus and Eudemus, when giving
the axioms for place, added this as one of them: they had a list of axioms
which presumably consisted of all six of Aristotle’s plus this as the seventh
(if they had rejected any of the axioms, presumably Simplicius would have
told us, and presumably also he would have told us if they had added any
others). Perhaps they also had a note to the effect that Aristotle should
have done this too. In any case, if Theophrastus added the immobility of
place to the axioms, and (as is clearly the implication) kept the rest of the
axioms, then we can be sure of this: he subscribed to Aristotle’s axioms
concerning place. And it is pretty clear that if one subscribes to those axi-
oms, one is going to end up with a conception of place rather close to
Aristotle’s. One is certainly not going to end up with a conception of place
where the place of something is its position in an ordered whole, or some-
thing like that.
This is in any case what we should expect. We know that Theophrastus
corrected in his own Physics presentational errors or infelicities he detected
in Aristotle’s Physics. So, for instance, FHS&G 144A and B offer very clear
evidence that in his Physics Theophrastus filled in a ‘missing’ argument
from Aristotle, Physics I 1: where Aristotle simply states that natural bodies
have principles (ἀρχαί), Theophrastus chose, at the equivalent point in his
exposition, to argue for it. The impression we get is that Theophrastus’
Physics shadows Aristotle’s, but with adjustments to the exposition in the
interests of clarity and philosophical cogency – dotting the philosophical
‘i’s and crossing the presentational ‘t’s, as it were.62 In fact, later in his com-
62)
Much the same is true of the picture we get of Eudemus’ Physics, which Simplicius tells
us was very similar to Aristotle’s: Eudemus ‘imitates Aristotle’s work’ (τὰ τοῦ Ἀριστοτέλους
παραξέων; 924, 18 = Wehrli [1969] fr. 98), and had ‘followed up to that point [sc. book
VII of the Physics] pretty closely the headings of the treatise’ (μέχρι τοῦδε σχεδὸν τοῖς ὅλης
τῆς πραγματείας κεφαλαίοις παρακολουθήσας; 1036, 13-4 = Wehrli [1969] fr. 109).

mentary on Aristotle’s Physics, when discussing the reception by his succes-

sors of Aristotle’s theory of time, Simplicius characterises Theophrastus as
‘one who followed Aristotle in just about everything’ (τοῦ πάντα σχεδὸν
ἀκολουθήσαντος τῷ Ἀριστοτέλει; 789, 1-2). Of course, one could argue
that σχεδόν is all important here, and that Theophrastus’ account or doc-
trine of place is exactly the exception. But that would be to ignore the
context of this remark. Simplicius is contrasting Theophrastus with Strato
of Lampsacus, who is being praised for criticising (αἰτιασάμενος; 788, 36)
the definition of time given by Aristotle, despite being a pupil of Theo-
phrastus, who followed Aristotle in just about everything. Simplicius never
used a word like αἰτιασάμενος of Theophrastus in 149, nor did he praise
Theophrastus for breaking free of Aristotle’s conception of place, or any-
thing like that. Moreover, Simplicius’ discussion of Aristotle on time comes
pretty swiftly after his discussion of place (obviously, only the discussion of
the void separates them), so it would be very strange to contrast Strato
with Theophrastus in this way so soon after the discussion of place if Sim-
plicius had intended us to think that Theophrastus actually suggested or
offered a rival account of place to Aristotle’s.
There is one more text which I want to mention. When Simplicius starts
his Corollary on Place, he reports on the various views on place which had
been proffered in Antiquity (601, 601, 14-24; Urmson’s translation, my
italics):
Let it be known, then, that of those who have written about place some have held the
theory that place is body, others that it is incorporeal. Proclus, the Lycian philosopher,
for example, held that it is body. Of those who said that it is incorporeal, some said
that it is altogether unextended, others that it is extended. Of those who said that it is
altogether unextended some said that it is a substrate for bodies, like Plato, who calls
the basic stuff place; others said that it brought bodies to completion, like our own
Damascius. Of those who said that it is extended, some said that it is two-dimensional,
like Aristotle and all the Peripatos, some that it is three-dimensional. Of these, some
said that it is absolutely homogeneous and sometimes remains without any body, like
the followers of Democritus and Epicurus, some that it is an interval, always contain-
ing body and fitted to each, like the well-known Platonists and Strato of Lampsacus.
‘All the Peripatos’ or ‘the whole Peripatos’ (ὁ Περίπατος ἅπας, 20) shared
Aristotle’s conception of place. Whom does Simplicius mean? It is difficult
to suppose that he does not mean at least Theophrastus and Eudemus.
Algra claims that we must take what Simplicius says ‘cum grano salis’
([1994], 247) and it is true that, at the end of the list, a different view of

place is attributed to Strato of Lampsacus (head of the Peripatos after

Theophrastus), so we need to be a little cautious about the meaning of
ἅπας (and perhaps about the meaning of Περίπατος). But if the attribution
to Strato is correct, this surely rules out completely the possibility that Theo-
phrastus held a different view.63 If Simplicius thinks that both Theophras-
tus and Strato – the two direct successors of Aristotle and the most
prominent Aristotelians after him – held a different view from Aristotle,
how could he have said that the whole Peripatos followed him? The only
reasonable view to take is that Simplicius did not after all intend to repre-
sent Theophrastus as having a different conception of place from Aristot-
le’s, and we have seen that this is right, on the basis of the other texts we
examined.
In the light of this, I think that there is good reason to suppose that
Theophrastus held the same view as Aristotle, that place (proper place, that
is) is the inner surface of something’s surroundings. He used the ἀπορίαι
set out in 146 as a means of clarifying and defending this position. 149
states that there are problems with the view that places are independently
existing entities, and that they are talked about because bodies have an
arrangement and position in the universe, analogous to the way that parts
of wholes have an arrangement and position in those wholes. This is con-
sonant with Aristotle’s position.
Scholars have never been particularly impressed by Aristotle’s account of
place (I think they have been too hasty). But this has, it seems to me, influ-
enced their assessment of the evidence about Theophrastus, making them
more ready to think of Theophrastus’ remarks as critical: they see objec-
tions where it is entirely possible that Theophrastus saw problems to be
cleared up by a conscientious Aristotelian. Theophrastus could have been
doing nothing more than trying to make Aristotle’s thought clearer. There
is no evidence that he rejected Aristotle’s conception of place and thereby
started or anticipated a revolution in thinking about what it is for some-
thing to be somewhere.64
63)
Here I agree entirely with David Sedley ([1987], 140 n.1), who says that the phrase ‘the
entire Peripatos’ (as he translates it) ‘must include’ Theophrastus.
64)
Jonathan Barnes heard versions of this paper once too often, but always made invaluable
comments, for which I am very grateful. Thanks also to Francis Wolff, Maddalena Bonelli
and the other members of the ‘Paris-Genève’ group, and audiences in Oxford and Berlin,
particularly István Bodnár, Pavel Gregoric, Christoph Helmig, Malcolm Lowe, Christian
Pfeiffer, Christof Rapp, and Jacob Rosen (who also offered invaluable criticisms of an

Bibliography
Texts and Translations

Diels, H. [1882] Simplicii In Aristotelis Physicorum libros quattuor priores commentaria
(Commentaria in Aristotelem græca, vol. IX; Berlin).
—— [1885] Simplicii In Aristotelis Physicorum libros quattuor posteriores commentaria,
(Commentaria in Aristotelem græca, vol. X; Berlin).
Fortenbaugh, W. W., Huby, P., Sharples, R. W. and Gutas, D., [1992], [1993] Theophrastus
of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought and Influence (Philosophia Antiqua 54;
2 vols., Leiden).
Ross, W. D. [1936], Aristotle’s Physics, text with introduction, commentary and analysis
(Oxford).
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Aristotle; London).
Wimmer, F. [1862] Theophrasti Eresii Opera quae supersunt omnia, vol. 3: Fragmenta
(Leipzig).
Wehrli, F. [1969] Eudemos von Rhodos (Die Schule des Aristoteles vol. viii; Basel).
Other
Algra, K. [1992] ‘“Place” in Context: On Theophrastus Fr. 21 and 22 Wimmer’, in W. W.
Fortenbaugh and D. Gutas (eds.), Theophrastus: His Psychological, Doxographical and Sci-
entific Writings (Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities 5; New Brunswick
and London), 141-65.
—— [1994] Concepts of Space in Greek Thought (Philosophia Antiqua 65; Leiden).
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tor (London).
Burnyeat, M. [1984] ‘The Sceptic in his Place and Time’, in R. Rorty, J. B. Schneewind and
Q. Skinner (eds.), Philosophy in History (Cambridge), 225-54.
Hoffmann, Philippe [1979] ‘Simplicius: Corollarium de loco’, in L’Astronomie dans
l’Antiquité classique (Acts of the Conference held at the University of Toulouse – Le
Mirail, 21-23 October 1977; Paris), 143-61.
Jammer, M. [1954] Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics (Cambridge,
Mass.).
Morison, B. [2002] On Location: Aristotle’s Concept of Place (Oxford).
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lèmes de méthode (Louvain), 83-103. Reprinted in his Logic, Science and Dialectic: Col-
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Sambursky, S. [1962] The Physical World of Late Antiquity (London).
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as a Senior Fellow of the Topoi Excellence-Cluster in Berlin. My thanks to both institutions
for their support.

Sedley, D. [1987] ‘Philoponus’ Conception of Space’, in R. Sorabji (ed.), Philoponus and

the Rejection of Aristotelian Science (London), 140-53.
Sharples, R. W. [1998] Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought and
Influence; Commentary Volume 3.1: Sources on Physics (Leiden).
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Phronesis 55 (2010) 68-103 brill.

Did Theophrastus Reject Aristotle’s

In the ﬁrst volume of their edition of Theophrastus’ works, Fortenbaugh,

146 Simplicius, In Physica (604, 5-11)

ἰστέον δὲ ὅτι καὶ ὁ Θεόφραστος ἐν τοῖς

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τέλους τοιαῦτα· ὅτι τὸ σῶμα ἔσται ἐν ἐπιφανείᾳ, ὅτι κινούμενος ἔσται

147 Simplicius, In Physica (606, 32-5)

ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸ ἀκίνη-

148 Simplicius (quoting Proclus), In Physica (612, 1-7)

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149 Simplicius, In Physica (639, 13-22)

καὶ γὰρ καὶ Θεόφρα-

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where Simplicius’ commentary on Physics IV 1-5 concentrates largely on

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Theophrastus says as a ‘cautious suggestion’.12 Nonetheless, in 1988 Sor-

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Some Essential Background

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e.g. the movements of the elements: an element is said to go to its ‘own’

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account of being somewhere – an account of what it is for something to be

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when something’s more immediate surroundings are in motion, then it is

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Theophrastus’. But even if this is what Simplicius intended, there is still no

(b) The ἀπορίαι Themselves

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bodies are in surfaces. Hence, we have to do some work in providing an

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problem, and thought a solution was possible, so Theophrastus is right to

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with no precursor in Aristotle’s discussion. The argument is, presumably,

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The problem with Sorabji’s interpretation is that Theophrastus really

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the list of six axioms given at the start of Physics IV 4, 210b32-211a7. It is

(c) Assessment of the ἀπορίαι

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καὶ τὰ ἐφεξῆς μακρὸν ἂν εἴη παρατίθεσθαι καίτοι μὴ μακρῶς εἰρημένα,

What is important here is what Themistius tells us about the nature of

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Simplicius wishes to show that Damascius’ account, although diﬃcult, is

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At this point in our text, Theophrastus goes into an analogy (ὁμοίως,

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mentary on Aristotle’s Physics, when discussing the reception by his succes-

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