Aristotle: The Complete Works. Aristotle
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it exists.
(8) In the strictest sense of all, as a thing is ‘in’ a vessel, and generally ‘in’ place.
One might raise the question whether a thing can be in itself, or whether nothing can be in itself-everything being either nowhere or in something else.
The question is ambiguous; we may mean the thing qua itself or qua something else.
When there are parts of a whole-the one that in which a thing is, the other the thing which is in it-the whole will be described as being in itself. For a thing is described in terms of its parts, as well as in terms of the thing as a whole, e.g. a man is said to be white because the visible surface of him is white, or to be scientific because his thinking faculty has been trained. The jar then will not be in itself and the wine will not be in itself. But the jar of wine will: for the contents and the container are both parts of the same whole.
In this sense then, but not primarily, a thing can be in itself, namely, as ‘white’ is in body (for the visible surface is in body), and science is in the mind.
It is from these, which are ‘parts’ (in the sense at least of being ‘in’ the man), that the man is called white, &c. But the jar and the wine in separation are not parts of a whole, though together they are. So when there are parts, a thing will be in itself, as ‘white’ is in man because it is in body, and in body because it resides in the visible surface. We cannot go further and say that it is in surface in virtue of something other than itself. (Yet it is not in itself: though these are in a way the same thing,) they differ in essence, each having a special nature and capacity, ‘surface’ and ‘white’.
Thus if we look at the matter inductively we do not find anything to be ‘in’ itself in any of the senses that have been distinguished; and it can be seen by argument that it is impossible. For each of two things will have to be both, e.g. the jar will have to be both vessel and wine, and the wine both wine and jar, if it is possible for a thing to be in itself; so that, however true it might be that they were in each other, the jar will receive the wine in virtue not of its being wine but of the wine’s being wine, and the wine will be in the jar in virtue not of its being a jar but of the jar’s being a jar. Now that they are different in respect of their essence is evident; for ‘that in which something is’ and ‘that which is in it’ would be differently defined.
Nor is it possible for a thing to be in itself even incidentally: for two things would at the same time in the same thing. The jar would be in itself-if a thing whose nature it is to receive can be in itself; and that which it receives, namely (if wine) wine, will be in it.
Obviously then a thing cannot be in itself primarily.
Zeno’s problem-that if Place is something it must be in something-is not difficult to solve. There is nothing to prevent the first place from being ‘in’ something else-not indeed in that as ‘in’ place, but as health is ‘in’ the hot as a positive determination of it or as the hot is ‘in’ body as an affection. So we escape the infinite regress.
Another thing is plain: since the vessel is no part of what is in it (what contains in the strict sense is different from what is contained), place could not be either the matter or the form of the thing contained, but must different-for the latter, both the matter and the shape, are parts of what is contained.
This then may serve as a critical statement of the difficulties involved.
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4
What then after all is place? The answer to this question may be elucidated as follows.
Let us take for granted about it the various characteristics which are supposed correctly to belong to it essentially. We assume then—
(1) Place is what contains that of which it is the place.
(2) Place is no part of the thing.
(3) The immediate place of a thing is neither less nor greater than the thing.
(4) Place can be left behind by the thing and is separable. In addition:
(5) All place admits of the distinction of up and down, and each of the bodies is naturally carried to its appropriate place and rests there, and this makes the place either up or down.
Having laid these foundations, we must complete the theory. We ought to try to make our investigation such as will render an account of place, and will not only solve the difficulties connected with it, but will also show that the attributes supposed to belong to it do really belong to it, and further will make clear the cause of the trouble and of the difficulties about it. Such is the most satisfactory kind of exposition.
First then we must understand that place would not have been thought of, if there had not been a special kind of motion, namely that with respect to place. It is chiefly for this reason that we suppose the heaven also to be in place, because it is in constant movement. Of this kind of change there are two species-locomotion on the one hand and, on the other, increase and diminution. For these too involve variation of place: what was then in this place has now in turn changed to what is larger or smaller.
Again, when we say a thing is ‘moved’, the predicate either (1) belongs to it actually, in virtue of its own nature, or (2) in virtue of something conjoined with it. In the latter case it may be either (a) something which by its own nature is capable of being moved, e.g. the parts of the body or the nail in the ship, or (b) something which is not in itself capable of being moved, but is always moved through its conjunction with something else, as ‘whiteness’ or ‘science’. These have changed their place only because the subjects to which they belong do so.
We say that a thing is in the world, in the sense of in place, because it is in the air, and the air is in the world; and when we say it is in the air, we do not mean it is in every part of the air, but that it is in the air because of the outer surface of the air which surrounds it; for if all the air were its place, the place of a thing would not be equal to the thing-which it is supposed to be, and which the primary place in which a thing is actually is.
When what surrounds, then, is not separate from the thing, but is in continuity with it, the thing is said to be in what surrounds it, not in the sense of in place, but as a part in a whole. But when the thing is separate and in contact, it is immediately ‘in’ the inner surface of the surrounding body, and this surface is neither a part of what is in it nor yet greater than its extension, but equal to it; for the extremities of things which touch are coincident.
Further, if one body is in continuity with another, it is not moved in that but with that. On the other hand it is moved in that if it is separate. It makes no difference whether what contains is moved or not.
Again, when it is not separate it is described as a part in a whole, as the pupil in the eye or the hand in the body: when it is separate, as the water in the cask or the wine in the jar. For the hand is moved with the body and the water in the cask.
It will now be plain from these considerations what place is. There are just four things of which place must be one-the shape, or the matter, or some sort of extension between the bounding surfaces of the containing body, or this boundary itself if it contains no extension over and above the bulk of the body which comes to be in it.
Three of these it obviously cannot be:
(1) The shape is supposed to be place because it surrounds, for the extremities of what contains and of what is contained are coincident. Both the shape and the place, it is true, are boundaries. But not of the same thing: the form is the boundary of the thing, the place is the boundary of the body which contains it.
(2) The extension between the extremities is thought to be something, because what is contained and separate may often be changed while the container remains the same (as water may be poured from a vessel)-the assumption being that the extension is something over and above the body displaced. But there is no such extension. One of the bodies which