[Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 48] Frederik a. Bakker, Delphine Bellis, Carla Rita Palmerino - Space, Imagination and the Cosmos From Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (2018, Springer Internati

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 48
Frederik A. Bakker
Delphine Bellis
Carla Rita Palmerino Editors
Space, Imagination
and the Cosmos from
Antiquity to the Early
Modern Period
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
Volume 48
Series Editor
Stephen Gaukroger, University of Sydney, Australia
Advisory Board
Rachel Ankeny, University of Adelaide, Australia
Peter Anstey, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Steven French, University of Leeds, UK
Ofer Gal, University of Sydney, Australia
Clemency Montelle, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Nicholas Rasmussen, University of New South Wales, Australia
John Schuster, University of Sydney/Campion College, Australia
Koen Vermeir, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France
Richard Yeo, Griffith University, Australia
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5671
Frederik A. Bakker • Delphine Bellis
Carla Rita Palmerino
Editors
Space, Imagination
and the Cosmos
from Antiquity to the Early
Modern Period
Editors
Frederik A. Bakker Delphine Bellis
Center for the History of Philosophy and Department of Philosophy
Science Paul Valéry University
Radboud University Montpellier, France
Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Center for the History of Philosophy and
Science
Radboud University
ISSN 0929-6425 ISSN 2215-1958 (electronic)

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
ISBN 978-3-030-02764-3 ISBN 978-3-030-02765-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0
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© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018, corrected publication 2019

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Acknowledgments
This volume derives from an international conference organized by Frederik Bakker,

Delphine Bellis, and Carla Rita Palmerino and held at Radboud University,
Nijmegen, on June 9–10, 2016. The event was funded by the Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) through Delphine Bellis’ Veni grant
(275-20-042) and by the International Office of Radboud University.
We would also like to acknowledge the financial support we received for the
publication of this book through the translation subsidy fund of the Faculty of
Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies at Radboud University, as well as
through the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) with Delphine Bellis’ postdoc-
toral project (12O6516N).
We would like to express our gratitude to Bill Duba for the translation into
English of Olivier Ribordy’s chapter, to Hester van den Elzen for preparing the
index, and to Anke Timmermann (A T Scriptorium) for the particular care and pro-
ficiency with which she conducted the copy-editing of the volume.
v
Contents
1 Space, Imagination and the Cosmos, from Antiquity

to the Early Modern Period: Introduction  �� 1
Frederik A. Bakker, Delphine Bellis, and Carla Rita Palmerino
2 Aristotle’s Account of Place in Physics 4:
Some Puzzles and Some Reactions �� 11
Keimpe Algra
3 The End of Epicurean Infinity: Critical Reflections
on the Epicurean Infinite Universe �� 41
Frederik A. Bakker
4 Space and Movement in Medieval Thought:
The Angelological Shift  �� 69
Tiziana Suarez-Nani
5 Mathematical and Metaphysical Space
in the Early Fourteenth Century  �� 91
William O. Duba
6 Space, Imagination, and Numbers in John Wyclif’s
Mathematical Theology �� 107
Aurélien Robert
7 Francisco Suárez and Francesco Patrizi:
Metaphysical Investigations on Place and Space  �� 133
Olivier Ribordy
8 Giordano Bruno’s Concept of Space:
Cosmological and Theological Aspects �� 157
Miguel Á. Granada
vii
viii Contents
9 Libert Froidmont’s Conception and Imagination of Space

in Three Early Works: Peregrinatio cœlestis (1616),
De cometa (1618), Meteorologica (1627) �� 179
Isabelle Pantin
10 Questioning Fludd, Kepler and Galileo:
Mersenne’s Harmonious Universe �� 201
Natacha Fabbri
11 Imaginary Spaces and Cosmological Issues
in Gassendi’s Philosophy �� 233
Delphine Bellis
12 Space, Imagination and the Cosmos
in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence  �� 261
orrection to: The End of Epicurean Infinity:
C
Critical Reflections on the Epicurean Infinite Universe �� C1
Index  �� 285

Contributors
Keimpe Algra University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Frederik A. Bakker Center for the History of Philosophy and Science, Radboud
University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Delphine Bellis Department of Philosophy, Paul Valéry University, Montpellier,
France
William O. Duba Institut d’Études Médiévales, Université de Fribourg, Fribourg,
Switzerland
Natacha Fabbri Galileo Museum, Institute and Museum for the History of
Science, Florence, Italy
Miguel Ángel Granada University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Carla Rita Palmerino Center for the History of Philosophy and Science, Radboud
University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Isabelle Pantin Ecole Normale Supérieure – PSL Research University, Paris,
France
Olivier Ribordy University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
Aurélien Robert Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, CNRS,
Université de Tours, Tours, France
Tiziana Suarez-Nani University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
ix
Chapter 1
Space, Imagination and the Cosmos,
from Antiquity to the Early Modern
Period: Introduction
Frederik A. Bakker, Delphine Bellis, and Carla Rita Palmerino
Abstract In this introduction, we explain our choice to approach the topic of space
from a cosmological perspective, that is, by studying the conceptions of space that
were implicitly or explicitly entailed by ancient, medieval and early modern repre-
sentations of the cosmos, and the role that imagination played in those conceptions.
We compare our approach with those of Alexandre Koyré and Edward Grant, and
we present the two important issues this book intends to shed light on, namely the
continuity and discontinuity between ancient, medieval, and early modern concep-
tions of space and the cosmos; and the role that metaphysical, cosmological, and
theological considerations played in the elaboration of new theories of space in the
course of history. This chapter also presents the main, recurring themes of this book:
the relation between place and space; the notion of imaginary spaces; the role played
by thought experiments in discussions concerning the nature of space and the struc-
ture of the cosmos; the impact of the condemnation of 1277 on subsequent theories
of space; and the relation between God’s immensity and the infinity of space.
Since antiquity space has been the object of metaphysical and physical enquiry. If
space is the framework in which whatever exists is located, in what sense can space
itself then be said to exist? Is it a substance or an accident? Does it exist indepen-
dently of the objects contained in it? Can a part of space be emptied of matter? And
are space and time isomorphic magnitudes? These questions have also had a bearing
on cosmological speculations. Issues such as the origin and structure of the world,
the infinity or finiteness of the universe, or the possibility of a plurality of worlds,
could not be dealt with without addressing the question of the nature of space. As
F. A. Bakker (*) · C. R. Palmerino

Center for the History of Philosophy and Science, Radboud University,
e-mail: f.bakker@ftr.ru.nl; c.palmerino@ftr.ru.nl
D. Bellis
Department of Philosophy, Paul Valéry University, Montpellier, France
e-mail: delphine.bellis@univ-montp3.fr
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 1

F. A. Bakker et al. (eds.), Space, Imagination and the Cosmos from Antiquity to
the Early Modern Period, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 48,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_1
2 F. A. Bakker et al.
Milič Čapek insightfully noticed, a concept (like Aristotle’s) of the universe as

enclosed within boundaries marked the limits of the universe also as being “the
limits of space, not in space.”1
In this book, we approach the topic of space from a cosmological perspective, by
studying the conceptions of space that were implicitly or explicitly entailed by
ancient, medieval and early modern representations of the cosmos, and we examine
the role of imagination in those conceptions.2 Indeed, the acts of conceiving of
space as being independent of body, extending indefinitely or infinitely beyond the
limits of the cosmos or beyond our perception of the cosmos, and of contemplating
the relations space could have with divine immensity, often entailed specific cogni-
tive operations involving, in one way or another, imagination. With contributions on
periods from antiquity to the early eighteenth century, this book intends to shed
light on two important issues:
1. The first one is the continuity and discontinuity between ancient, medieval, and
early modern conceptions of space and of the cosmos. In his groundbreaking
study, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, Alexandre Koyré focused
on the link that, according to him, existed between the destruction of the ancient
cosmos initiated by Renaissance astronomers and the “geometrization of space,”
that is “the substitution of the homogeneous and abstract space of Euclidean
geometry for the qualitatively differentiated and concrete world-space concep-
tion of pre-Galilean physics.”3 As one of the first proponents of the idea of the
Scientific Revolution Koyré found it important to stress that early modern cos-
mology constituted an essential break with ancient and medieval representations
of the world. Admittedly, Koyré acknowledged that the Epicureans had already
advocated the conception of an infinite universe, but claimed that their theories
did not play a major role in the forging of the Scientific Revolution. Although
persuasively argued, Koyré’s view does not do justice to the scientific and philo-
sophical lines of influence that ran from antiquity to the early modern period. To
take but one example, it is indicative of Koyré’s biased approach that he down-
played the importance of Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) for the history of the
theories of space and the cosmos. It turns out, however, that Gassendi, who
explicitly acknowledged his debt towards Epicureanism and other ancient
sources, played a crucial role in promoting the idea of a cosmos deprived of any
boundary, and of space as an entity independent from all other beings. Even if
some research has been done to reassess Koyré’s picture, an important part of
existing scholarship still isolates the early modern period from its ancient and
medieval background.4 By bringing together contributions on ancient, medieval,
1
Čapek 1976, xxi.
2
For a broader approach in terms of disciplines see Vermeir and Regier 2016, whose edited volume
embraces not only cosmological approaches to space, but also perceptual, optical, geographical,
and chemical uses of spatial concepts.
3
Koyré 1957, viii.
4
See for example Mamiani 1979; Peterschmitt 2013; Miller 2014. For an approach that covers the
period from the 12th to the 16th centuries, and a closer approximation to the aims of this book, see
Suarez-Nani, Ribordy and Petagine 2017. See also Grant 1981, although he focuses on Aristotelian
1 Space, Imagination and the Cosmos, from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period… 3
and early modern philosophy and science this book intends to produce a histori-
cally more accurate picture of the variety of philosophical and scientific theories
of space in the period under consideration.5
2. The second issue addressed in this volume is the role which metaphysical, cos-
mological, and theological considerations played in the elaboration of new theo-
ries of space throughout history. In his fundamental work, Much Ado about
Nothing, Edward Grant stressed the remarkable continuity between scholastic
and non-scholastic theories of space, and argued that “the concepts and argu-
ments that were instrumental in the historical development of theories of space
and the vacuum […] form a remarkably cohesive and independent tradition that
was virtually immune to social, political, economic, educational and religious
change.”6 One of our aims is to put this interpretation to the test. As several chap-
ters in this volume document, natural philosophers addressing cosmological
questions often saw themselves forced to reshape their metaphysical conception
of space, as well as the ontological categories into which space could fit.7
Conversely, metaphysical and theological concerns deeply influenced the way in
which both scholastic and non-scholastic natural philosophers dealt with cosmo-
logical issues.8 Take for example the concept of an infinite, extra-cosmic void
space that, as Grant notes, the scholastics identified with God’s immensity.9 In
our view this concept was appropriated and modified by early modern authors
not in spite of, but thanks to its theological underpinnings. Amos Funkenstein
has already insisted on the intimate connection between physical and theological
arguments by stressing the emergence of a specific type of secular theology in
the seventeenth century. Central to this theology was the issue of God’s omni-
presence, which became “an almost physical problem for some.”10 As Funkenstein
points out, “continuity and innovation” are not “mutually exclusive predicates.”11
Concepts inherited from antiquity or the Middle Ages (like the Stoic extra-cos-
mic void or the scholastic imaginary spaces) could be appropriated and reshaped
in order to produce new conceptions of space and the cosmos. We consider
Funkenstein’s approach particularly fruitful, especially insofar as it emphasizes
and scholastic influences in the early modern period and somewhat neglects the import of other
traditions such as Epicureanism. Albert Einstein, in his foreword to Max Jammer’s Concepts of
Space, insists on the lineage between ancient atomist theories and Newton’s absolute space:
Jammer 1954, xv. See also Čapek 1976, xx, xxiii.
5
Although its scope is broader, as it is not solely focused on space, Machamer and Turnbull 1976
can be seen as an attempt, albeit somewhat tentative, to address related topics, in terms of a long-
term integrated history and philosophy of science.
6
Grant 1981, xii.
7
On a mostly metaphysical approach to the topic in the early modern period, see Peterschmitt
2013.
8
This was already noted by Max Jammer, although his approach centered on the relations between
the concept of space and investigations in physics: Jammer 1954, vi, 2, 25–50.
9
Grant 1981, xi.
10
Quotation from Funkenstein 1986, 10. On God’s omnipresence see ibid., 23–116.
11
Ibid., 14.
the specific role that imagination came to play in speculations which were at the
same time cosmological, philosophical, and theological. However, we do not
share Funkenstein’s view that medieval speculations on space and God’s immen-
sity, as well as medieval imaginary experiments related to the creation of possi-
ble worlds in extra-cosmic space, were of a purely theological nature.12 As we
hope to show in this volume, it was not only in the seventeenth century, but also
in the ancient and medieval period, that theological, metaphysical, physical, and
cosmological considerations converged to produce reflections on space.
In his book Representing Space in the Scientific Revolution David M. Miller, while
adopting a part of Koyré’s framework of the Scientific Revolution, pleads for a shift
in research from a metaphysics of space to an epistemology of space.13 He embraces
an interpretative approach centered on physical theories from Copernicus to Newton,
and on the implicit representative framework they involve, rather than on the philo-
sophical speculations bearing on the ontology of space. His claim is that the period
from Copernicus to Newton is characterized by a crucial shift in the scientific rep-
resentations of space, from a circular, center-oriented, anisotropic space to a recti-
linear, isotropic space with a self-parallel orientation. Miller thus advocates a new
focus on representations and conceptions of space that constitute the explicit or
implicit background of early modern scientific theories. We believe that such an
approach, which tightly links the history of science with the conceptual analysis of
the notion of space, is particularly fruitful and can be extended to a wider historical
scale. However, isolating scientific practices and theories from their philosophical
context does not do justice to the actual intertwinement of science and philosophy
which runs throughout the history of Western thought, at least up to the eighteenth
century. Our approach therefore consists in tackling cosmological issues as an indis-
solubly scientific, theological, and philosophical unit. As a consequence, the various
contributions to this book not only deal with an explicit metaphysics of space, but
also address the conceptual function that space played in scientific and theological
reflections.
In this introduction we shall not provide a summary of the individual chapters, as
they are all preceded by an abstract. We shall rather try to shed light on a number of
specific topics, apart from the two main themes discussed above, which link the
various contributions to this book.
An issue which is addressed in most chapters is the relation between place, con-
ceived as the location of individual substances, and space. From Keimpe Algra’s
chapter we learn that there were three rival conceptions of place in antiquity.
According to the first view, which goes back to Plato’s Timaeus, place can be identi-
fied with the extension of the located body. The second conception is found in
Aristotle’s Physics 4, 1–5, where place is defined as the “first immobile limit of the
surrounding body.” The third view was defended by Epicurus and the Stoics,
according to whom place must be conceived as an independent three-dimensional
12
See, for example, ibid., 63.
13
Miller 2014, 1–2, 19–20.
portion of space, coextensive with the emplaced body. Most ancient commentators
endorsed Aristotle’s position and stressed that the notion of a self-subsistent three-
dimensional extension which is neither an accident nor a substance was ontologi-
cally untenable. There were, however, also commentators like Philoponus who, “in
the face of the strong arguments in favour of the existence of space as a three-
dimensional extension,” concluded that “there is something wrong with the
Aristotelian ontology, in particular with the idea that a quantity cannot subsist by
itself” (Algra p. 24).
In the medieval period Aristotle’s treatment of place also gave rise to interesting
discussions. The chapters by Aurélien Robert, William Duba, and Tiziana Suarez-
Nani show that fourteenth-century philosophers had various reasons to depart from
Aristotle’s notion of place. Robert’s article draws attention to the connection
between the theory of place and atomism. It shows that Wyclif, like other fourteenth-
century atomists, identified place with a three-dimensional space composed of sur-
faces, lines and points. According to Robert, this theory was based on a
Neopythagorean interpretation of Plato’s theory of place in the Timaeus. Duba’s
chapter explains how fourteenth-century philosophers dealt with a paradoxical con-
sequence of Aristotle’s notion of place, namely the fact that it is possible for a thing
(e.g. a boat) to remain at rest while the surrounding body (e.g. the water of a river)
moves. John Duns Scotus, Peter Auriol and Nicholas Bonet were not satisfied with
Aristotle’s own solution to the problem of mobile place (sketched out in section 6 of
Algra’s article) and proposed alternative views that relied on a distinction between
a physical, a metaphysical, and a mathematical meaning of place. Suarez-Nani’s
chapter documents that medieval theories of place and space were strongly depen-
dent on metaphysical and theological reflections. Fourteenth-century thinkers found
the Aristotelian notion of place inadequate to account for the localization of imma-
terial substances, and conceived of place as a “mathematical position” (Henry of
Ghent) or as a “mathematical quantity” (John Duns Scotus), rather than as a physi-
cal property (Suarez-Nani p. 76). Early modern scholastics such as Francisco Suárez
also dealt with the localization of immaterial substances. As Olivier Ribordy
explains, Suárez rejected Aristotle’s definition of place in Physics IV in favor of a
notion of ubi as an intrinsic mode which could be used to account for the localiza-
tion of both corporeal and spiritual creatures. The notion of ubi intrinsecus made it
also possible to assign a place to the universe, which according to Aristotle’s defini-
tion is located nowhere, as there is no body surrounding it. Ribordy’s chapter also
deals with Francesco Patrizi, whose account of space and place bears interesting
similarities with that of Giordano Bruno (discussed in Miguel Ángel Granada’s
article) and Pierre Gassendi (which is the object of Delphine Bellis’ contribution).
Patrizi and Bruno, both influenced by Philoponus, conceived of place as a three-
dimensional physical quantity capable of receiving bodies. Moreover, both Patrizi
and Bruno took issue with Aristotle’s ontology, according to which a three-
dimensional extension can only be an attribute of corporeal bodies. Bruno argued
that space “is incorporeal, but has dimensions,” whereas Patrizi defined space as a
“corporeal non-body” and “incorporeal body.” It is well known that Patrizi’s
conception of space as a three-dimensional extension which transcends the catego-
ries of substance and accident strongly influenced Pierre Gassendi. Less well-known
is the fact that Gassendi also drew inspiration from scholastic theories of space. As
Delphine Bellis’ chapter shows, it was thanks to a re-elaboration of the scholastic
notion of ‘imaginary space’ that Gassendi came to regard space as an “incorporeal
entity,” thereby removing “the ontological confusion between space and body that
still pervaded Patrizi’s theory” (Bellis p. 246). Bellis speaks of “re-elaboration”
because Gassendi identified imaginary space with the three-dimensional extra-
cosmic void, whereas scholastic authors such as Suárez and the Conimbricenses
regarded it as a non-dimensional, virtual place capable of being filled by bodies
(Bellis p. 233).
From Isabelle Pantin’s, Natacha Fabbri’s and Carla Rita Palmerino’s chapters we
learn that the expression ‘imaginary space’ also figures, albeit with different mean-
ings, in Libert Froidmont’s Peregrinatio caelestis (1616), Marin Mersenne’s
Harmonie universelle (1636–1637) and in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence
(1715–1716). When Froidmont speaks of light elements spreading through imagi-
nary spaces it is not clear, according to Pantin, whether he wants to endorse, or
rather reject, the Stoic notion of an infinite extra-cosmic void. Mersenne maintains,
following Duns Scotus, that an ‘imaginary space’ would survive if God ceased to
conserve bodies. The existence of an extra-cosmic void space is one of the many
points of disagreement between Leibniz and Clarke. While Leibniz takes the adjec-
tive ‘imaginary’ to mean ‘non-existent,’ Clarke stresses that the ancients use the
adjective ‘imaginary’ to refer to an extramundane space which is real, but not acces-
sible to our knowledge.
As several chapters in this volume document, extra-cosmic space was often made
the theater of thought experiments. The most famous and influential example is that
of the man at the edge of the universe who tries to extend his hand. This scenario,
which was originally invoked by the Pythagorean philosopher Archytas to deny the
finitude of the universe, reappears time and again in the history of ancient, medieval,
and early modern philosophy.14 Frederik Bakker explains how Lucretius, in his De
rerum natura, proposed a modified version of Archytas’ thought experiment in
order to prove that the universe is unbounded. The De rerum natura was, in turn, a
source of inspiration for Giordano Bruno. As Granada recalls, in the introductory
epistle of De l’infinito, Bruno used the Lucretian thought experiment to argue for
the existence of an extra-cosmic space filled with other worlds. The scenario of the
man at the edge of the universe also plays an important role in Locke’s Essay
Concerning Human Understanding, where it is used to criticize the Cartesian iden-
tification of matter and extension. Palmerino explores why Leibniz in his New
Essays, which were written in response to Locke’s Essay, chose not to deal with this
famous thought experiment. A substantial part of Palmerino’s article is devoted to
another thought experiment which, as Algra’s chapter reveals, was first discussed by
the Stoic Cleomedes. In his Caelestia Cleomedes imagined that the whole cosmos
moved in an empty space. Such a scenario, which was of course incompatible with
the principles of Aristotle’s cosmology, reappears in a number of fourteenth-century
14
Ierodiakonou 2011.
philosophical works. As Algra, Duba, Bellis, and Palmerino recall, the medieval
revival of the thought experiment is a consequence of the famous condemnation
promulgated in 1277 by the bishop of Paris Étienne Tempier, which prohibited
Parisian professors from teaching that God could not move the heavens in a straight
line. Palmerino’s article documents how the Newtonian theologian Samuel Clarke
used this medieval thought experiment to challenge Leibniz’s theory of space.
Incidentally, the condemnation of 1277, just as the reaction of Church authorities to
heliocentrism which is mentioned in Pantin’s and Bellis’ chapters, provides a good
example of how a historical episode could influence the way in which natural phi-
losophers dealt with cosmological issues.
A thought experiment discussed in other chapters of the book consists of imagin-
ing what would happen if God annihilated the created bodies or ceased to conserve
them. Aurélien Robert recalls that the Council of Constance condemned Wyclif for
holding, among other things, that “God cannot annihilate, diminish or increase the
world,”15 whereas Bellis provides details of a number of medieval, late scholastic
and early modern authors who discussed the scenario of the annihilatio mundi.
Interestingly most of these authors agreed that the annihilation of the world would
lead to the formation of a vacuum of some sort, but disagreed as to whether the
world was created in a pre-existing space. As Delphine Bellis points out, most
fourteenth-century philosophers argued, in accordance with the condemnation of
1277, that the existence of a void space was not a necessary precondition for the
creation of the world. Fabbri’s chapter reveals that a similar position was endorsed
by Marin Mersenne who, following Duns Scotus, denied the existence of an empty
space prior to the creation of bodies, while claiming that an ‘imaginary space’
would survive if God ceased to conserve bodies. Patrizi, Gassendi and Roberval, by
contrast, invoked the annihilatio mundi thought experiment in support of the view
that space is an independent three-dimensional extension which exists prior to the
creation of the world (see Ribordy for Patrizi, Bellis and Fabbri for Roberval, and
Bellis for Gassendi).
The influence of the condemnation of 1277 on theories of space was not limited
to the two cases mentioned above. Tempier’s decree prohibited the teaching of the
theory that angels were not located in space, or that they were located only by their
operation. As Suarez-Nani explains, many authors writing in the wake of the con-
demnation “conceived the relationship to physical place as a necessary and intrinsic
condition of all creatures, both material and immaterial” (Suarez-Nani pp. 74–75).
Also very influential was the article of the condemnation which stated that God
could create as many worlds as he pleased. While most thirteenth-century natural
philosophers endorsed Aristotle’s proof of the unicity of our world, authors writing
after the condemnation regarded the existence of a plurality of worlds as possible
according to God’s absolute power (de potentia Dei absoluta). But this view had, of
course, ancient roots: as Bakker shows, the ancient atomists – first Democritus and
later Epicurus and his followers – already maintained that the infinite expanse of
extra-cosmic space also contains an infinity of atoms, which in turn gives rise to an
15
[Councils] 1973, 426.
infinite number of worlds. The step from infinite atoms to infinite worlds was justi-
fied with reference to the so-called principle of plenitude: given the infinity of time
and space, everything that is possible (like a world) will be actualized, and not just
once, but an infinite number of times. However, while for most authors writing after
the condemnation of 1277 the plurality of worlds was only a possibility, and neces-
sary to avoid limiting God’s power, for Bruno it was a reality: defending the infinity
of space and invoking the principle of plenitude as well as God’s infinite goodness,
Bruno concluded that infinite space not only contains an infinity of worlds but is, in
fact, always and everywhere completely filled with informed matter (Granada
pp. 163–164). As Fabbri explains, this view was criticized by Mersenne, who
adopted a voluntaristic stance: God could have created an infinite universe, but this
does not mean that he should have created it (Fabbri p. 213). A similar position was
also adopted by Gassendi; while accepting the Epicurean argument for the infinity
of space, and admitting that “the infinity of worlds could not be excluded on purely
logical or physical grounds,” (Bellis p. 239) for theological reasons he preferred to
adhere to the uniqueness of our world (Bellis pp. 239 and 244). The tension between
an intellectualist and a voluntarist stance is particularly evident in the correspon-
dence between Leibniz and Clarke. When Leibniz invokes the principle of sufficient
reason to argue in favor of the indefiniteness of the world, Clarke retorts that
sufficient reason is sometimes nothing else than God’s will, and that divine wisdom
may have good reasons for limiting the quantity of created matter (Palmerino
pp. 262–263 and 265).
Finally there is the issue of the relation between God’s immensity and the infinity
of space. In her article Suarez-Nani relates that the fourteenth-century philosopher
John of Ripa “introduced a radical distinction between God’s immensity and spatial
infinity that began to haunt natural philosophy” (Suarez-Nani pp. 71–72). Ripa’s
stance was analyzed at length by Paul Vignaux, who is mentioned in Suarez-Nani’s
article, and by Edward Grant. In his Much Ado about Nothing Edward Grant notices
that “to identify imaginary, infinite space with God’s immensity and also to assign
dimensionality to that space would have implied that God Himself was an actual
extended, corporeal being.” Grants observes that this stance, which was adopted by
Spinoza and Newton, “would have been completely unacceptable in medieval and
early modern scholasticism.”16 This explains, in Grant’s view, why those medieval
authors who identified God’s immensity with infinite space, thereby denying the cre-
ation of space, described the latter as non-dimensional. Elsewhere in his book Grant
observes that “the medieval fear that void space would be interpreted as an eternal,
uncreated positive entity independent of God was realized in the metaphysics of
Giordano Bruno,” who regarded infinite space “as coeternal with but wholly indepen-
dent of God.”17 Granada’s article explicitly challenges Grant’s interpretation and
shows that Bruno anticipated Spinoza in conflating God, extension, matter, and space.
With this volume we do not intend to cover all dimensions of the relations
between spatiality, cosmology, and the imagination involved in their conception.
16
Grant 1981, 164.
17
Ibid., 191.
However, we hope to have offered some results which can be gained through a
longue-durée approach in combination with scrupulous and close textual analysis,
and thereby to foster similar collaborative work on space between scholars special-
ized in different periods of the history of philosophy and science.
References
Čapek, Milič, ed. 1976. The Concepts of Space and Time: Their Structure and their Development.
Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
[Councils]. 1973. Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo et al., 3rd ed.
Bologna: Istituto per le scienze religiose.
Funkenstein, Amos. 1986. Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the
Seventeenth Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Grant, Edward. 1981. Much Ado About Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle
Ages to the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ierodiakonou, Katerina. 2011. Remarks on The History of an Ancient Thought Experiment. In
Thought Experiments in Methodological and Historical Contexts, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou
and Sophie Roux, 35–49. Leiden: Brill.
Jammer, Max. 1954. Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Koyré, Alexandre. 1957. From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins Press.
Machamer, Peter K., and Robert G. Turnbull, eds. 1976. Motion and Time: Space and Matter.
Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Mamiani, Maurizio. 1979. Teorie dello spazio da Descartes a Newton. Milan: Franco Angeli.
Miller, David Marshall. 2014. Representing Space in the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Peterschmitt, Luc, ed. 2013. Espace et métaphysique de Gassendi à Kant: Anthologie. Paris:
Hermann.
Suarez-Nani, Tiziana, Olivier Ribordy, and Antonio Petagine, eds. 2017. Lieu, espace, mouve-
ment: Physique, métaphysique et cosmologie (XIIe–XVIe siècles). Barcelona: Fédération
Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales.
Vermeir, Koen, and Jonathan Regier, eds. 2016. Boundaries, Extents and Circulations: Space and
Spatiality in Early Modern Natural Philosophy. Dordrecht: Springer.
Chapter 2
Aristotle’s Account of Place in Physics 4:
Some Puzzles and Some Reactions
Keimpe Algra
Abstract This contribution focuses on Aristotle’s account of place (not: space) as

it is developed in Physics 4, 1–5, a difficult text which has proved to be both influ-
ential and a source of problems and discussions in the ancient and medieval
Aristotelian tradition. The article starts out by briefly positioning this account within
the Corpus Aristotelicum, within the later ancient and medieval Aristotelian tradi-
tion, and within the tradition of theories of place and space in general. It goes on to
examine the argument of Phys. 4, 1–5, showing that proper attention to Aristotle’s
dialectical procedure is crucial for a correct understanding and evaluation of the
various claims that we find scattered throughout his text. It then zooms in on the
most important questions, problems and loose ends with which Aristotle’s theory
confronted his commentators (ancient, medieval and modern): the puzzling argu-
ments for the rejection of the rival conception of place as an independent three-
dimensional extension (and of the void); the supposed role of Aristotelian places in
the explanation of motion; the supposed role of Aristotelian natural places in the
explanation of natural motion; the problem of the required immobility of Aristotelian
places; and the problem of the emplacement of the heavens.
2.1 Introduction: Aristotle’s Account in Context
This paper offers a synthesizing discussion of Aristotle’s ‘classic’ account of place,

as the “first immobile limit of the surrounding body,” as it is worked out in Physics
4, 1–5, and of the main problems with which this account has saddled its interpret-
ers in antiquity and beyond.1 In passing, we will also be able to cast occasional
1
Although this paper offers a fresh, synthesizing perspective, it covers a number of items which I have
discussed, sometimes at greater length and in more detail, in earlier publications as well. Inevitably,
therefore, there will be some overlap (from slight to considerable) with my earlier work, in particular
with Algra 1995 in Sections 2.1 and 2.5, and with Algra 2014 in Sections 2.3, 2.4, 2.6 and 2.7.
K. Algra (*)
University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
e-mail: K.A.Algra@uu.nl

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_2
12 K. Algra
glances at how this text relates to some other parts of the Physics (in particular the
discussion of the void in Physics 4, 6–9 and the discussion of the dynamics of natu-
ral motion in Physics 8), as well as to some other texts from the Corpus Aristotelicum
(most notably the Categories).
Aristotle’s account of place in Physics 4 has had a long and varied reception his-
tory. It started with the early Peripatetics Eudemus of Rhodes and Theophrastus of
Eresus. Eudemus’ Physics basically appears to have been a paraphrasing commen-
tary that preserved the sequence of subjects of Aristotle’s work, whereas
Theophrastus’ similarly entitled treatise was more of an independent work.2 From
the fragments of these two works, preserved by Simplicius, it appears that they both
critically discussed Aristotle’s account of place, albeit without straightforwardly
rejecting it. Strato of Lampsacus, however, who succeeded Theophrastus as head of
the Lyceum, did in fact reject it and opted instead for the conception of place as a
three-dimensional extension.3 Sympathy for the latter conception can also be
detected in the testimonies on the work of the first century BC Peripatetic Xenarchus
of Seleucia, whom we know to have defused Peripatetic arguments against the Stoic
conception of the (extracosmic) void.4 Aristotle’s conception of place was further
discussed and criticized by other philosophers in the Hellenistic and early Imperial
periods, perhaps most notably by the sceptic Sextus Empiricus at the end of the
second century AD.5
The account of Physics 4, 1–5 first became ‘classical’ in later antiquity when the
Corpus Aristotelicum, of which the Physics was a prominent part, had become can-
onized and integrated into the standard philosophical curriculum. In order to be able
to function in such a context the Physics, like other difficult Aristotelian texts, had
to be opened up and explained in exegetical paraphrases (Themistius) and commen-
taries (Alexander of Aphrodisias, Simplicius, Philoponus).6 The same goes for the
subsequent practice of the study of Aristotle in the medieval Islamic world: we still
2
On the character of Eudemus’ work, see Gottschalk 2002 and Sharples 2002. On Theophrastus’
work and the nature of his Aristotelianism, see Gottschalk 1998 and Sharples 1998. Their reactions
to Aristotle’s theory of place are discussed in more detail in Algra 2014, 25–29 (Eudemus) and
29–38 (Theophrastus).
3
On Strato in general see the edition by Sharples (2011) and the studies collected in Desclos and
Fortenbaugh 2011. On his theory of space and void, see Algra 2014, 38–42.
4
On the evidence on Xenarchus on the void, see Algra 2014, 42–47. For the Stoic conception of
extracosmic void see Section 3.2 of Bakker’s Chapter 3 in this volume.
5
On the discussion of place in Sextus Empiricus, also in relation to the text of Physics 4, see Algra,
2015.
6
English translations of the commentaries on Physics 4 by Themistius, Simplicius and Philoponus
are available in Richard Sorabji’s invaluable series Ancient Commentators on Aristotle. For
Themistius, see Todd 2003; for Philoponus, see Furley and Wildberg 1991 and Algra and Van
Ophuijsen 2012; for Simplicius, see Urmson 1992 and Urmson and Siorvanes 1992. Alexander’s
commentary is no longer extant. Fragments are discussed and a reconstruction attempted in Rashed
2011. On the later ancient commentary tradition, in general and in relation to the school practice,
see Sorabji 1990. Some of the most important passages on (Aristotle’s conception of) place from
the ancient commentary tradition have been conveniently collected and translated, with brief intro-
ductions, in Sorabji 2004, 226–243. Much of this material has been discussed at greater length in
Sorabji 1988, esp. 125–218.
2 Aristotle’s Account of Place in Physics 4: Some Puzzles and Some Reactions 13
have commentaries on the Physics by, among others, Ibn Bajja (Avempace) and Ibn
Rushd (Averroes). It goes for the world of Latin late medieval scholasticism as well,
where the Physics was discussed in commentaries and series of quaestiones by
Thomas Aquinas, John Buridan, William Ockham and others.7 Part of the ancient
reception of Aristotle’s conception of place had been critical – apart from Strato and
Xenarchus, already referred to, we should in particular mention John Philoponus
(sixth century AD), who offered a sustained critique in the so-called Corollary on
Place, inserted in his commentary on Physics 4, while the commentary of his near-
contemporary Simplicius is quite critical as well.8 On the whole, however, the
Arabic and Latin commentators in the Middle Ages basically appear to have
attempted to defend Aristotle’s account of place and to work out solutions for the
problems it raised. Its strong presence in the late scholastic tradition may partly
explain its rather surprising reappearance, in the guise of the concept of locus exter-
nus, in Descartes’ Principia Philosophiae (II, 14), published in 1644.9 Also in more
recent times Aristotle’s theory of place has kept attracting the attention of philoso-
phers. Henri Bergson, for example, devoted his dissertation to it.10 In a more recent
and much more ambitious monograph on the subject Ben Morison put up a lively
defense and even claimed that the theory is “of enduring philosophical interest.”11
Those who are into postmodern feminist interpretations may enjoy the ‘total make-
over’ offered by Luce Irigaray (“The female sex organ is neither matter nor form but
vessel” – and so on).12
Back to Aristotle’s text. In so far as the account of Phys. 4, 1–5 is about the loca-
tion of individual substances rather than about a system of such locations, it presents
us with a theory of place rather than space.13 If we count out the specific metaphysi-
cal conceptions of space or place defended in late antiquity – in which place or
space figures as a channel, so to speak, through which being, order and unity are
conveyed to the physical world in a process of emanation from higher principles –
and confine ourselves to conceptions of physical place, we may see that in antiquity
as well as in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, such conceptions basi-
7
For the reception of the Physics in the Arabic world, see Lettink 1994. For the Latin medieval
tradition of interpreting Aristotle’s account of place (and his critical account of the void that fol-
lows), see Grant 1981a, b.
8
A translation of Philoponus commentary on Physics 4, 1-5 is available in Algra and Van Ophuijsen
2012. The philosophically more significant Corollary on Place has been translated separately by
Furley and Wildberg 1991. On the relation between the Corollary and the commentary proper, see
Algra 2012. Simplicius’s Corollary on Place is available in translation in Urmson and Siorvanes
1992.
9
Text quoted and discussed in Algra 1995, 17, n15.
10
Bergson 1889, a shortish and mainly paraphrasing study.
11
Morison 2002. “Enduring philosophical interest” is a quote from the somewhat over-excited
blurb text.
12
The quotation is from Irigaray 1998, 48 (English translation of a chapter from her 1983 Éthique
de la différence sexuelle).
13
On concepts of place versus concepts of space see see Algra 1995, 20–21.
14 K. Algra
cally came in three types.14 Place could be identified with matter, or the extension of
the emplaced body itself (a view that can be found in Plato’s Timaeus, certainly as
it was read by Aristotle15; another instance is Descartes’ notion of locus internus);
or with an independent extension (or part of space) coextensive with the located
body, in which bodies are located and through which they can move (Epicurus,
Newton); or place could be defined in terms of a body’s surroundings, either by
identifying it as a surrounding something (as in the case of Aristotle: a surrounding
surface) or by defining it as the relation between the emplaced thing and its sur-
roundings (a view suggested as an alternative to Aristotle’s by his pupil Theophrastus,
and famously defended by Leibniz in his correspondence with Clarke).
Unlike modern physics, early modern and pre-modern physics was still to a con-
siderable extent moored in common sense ways of thinking and speaking about
reality. And indeed, all three main conceptions of place just outlined are in their own
way rooted in the way spatial concepts are used in ordinary thinking and speaking.
We may be said to use the first, when we say that a thing ‘occupies so and so much
room.’ After all, we are, then, in fact focusing on the thing’s own extension, the
extension of its matter, and not necessarily implying that the room ‘occupied’ exists
in its own right. We use the second when we are talking about things moving
‘through space’ (their place then being the part of space they occupy at any given
moment). And we use the third conception, defining location in terms of surround-
ings, when we say that a fish is swimming ‘in’ the water or that I am presently ‘in’
the city of Utrecht. Aristotle acknowledges as much when he claims that the diffi-
culty of arriving at a coherent theory of place is precisely due to the fact that the
phainomena from which physics should take its start – and which for Aristotle
famously include the ways in which we ordinarily speak and think about reality –
point in different directions.16 He does so right at the start of his account:
Text 1. The question what place is, is beset with difficulties. For it does not appear as the
same thing, according as we consider the matter on the basis of the various available data
(Phys. 4, 208a32-34).17
14
This threefold typology is further worked out, with references to the relevant texts, in Algra 1995,
15–22. What I here call ‘metaphysical’ conceptions of place or space can be found in the works of
some Neoplatonists of late antiquity: Iamblichus, Proclus, Syrianus, Damascius, Simplicius. They
all somehow connect place or space with form, causation and creation (dêmiourgia). This is con-
sistent with the Neoplatonic tendency to claim that the lower hypostases are somehow ‘in’ the
higher and formative ones. Thus Iamblichus can claim that place is a power that “sustains bodies
and holds them apart, raising up those that have fallen [i.e. disintegrated into prime matter, KA]
and uniting those that are scattered, filling them up and surrounding them on every side”
(Iamblichus ap. Simplicium In Phys. 640, 2–6). On these theories, see Sambursky 1982, 11–29;
Sorabji 1988, 202–215, with comments in Algra 1992, 157–162.
15
Cf. Phys. 4, 209b11-13: “That is why Plato in the Timaeus says that matter and space (χώρα) are
the same thing.” On ancient and modern interpretations of the receptacle of the Timaeus as either
space or matter (or both), and on Aristotle’s critique, see Algra 1995, 72–120.
16
On Aristotle’s (dialectical) method in his Physics, see the seminal paper by Owen 1961; a more
detailed discussion in Algra 1995, 153–181.
17
Translations throughout this paper are my own, unless otherwise indicated. Of course I have
benefitted from consulting existing standard translations, such as Hussey 1983 and Waterfield and
Bostock 1996 for Aristotle’s Physics.
He is even more explicit in chapter 4, in a passage in which we recognize our three

main conceptions of place, with the identification of place as form added as a fourth
possibility (I have numbered the four candidates (i)–(iv))18:
Text 2. Place seems to be something profound and difficult to grasp, both because the
notions of (i) matter and (ii) form present themselves together with it (παρεμφαίνεσθαι),
and because of the fact that change of position of a moving body occurs within a surround-
ing body which is at rest; for [from this] it appears to be possible (ἐνδέχεσθαι γὰρ φαίνεται)
that there is (iii) an extension in between which is something other than the magnitudes
which move. Air, too, contributes to this suggestion, by appearing to be incorporeal; place
seems (φαίνεται) to be not only (iv) the limits of the vessel, but also (iii) that which is in
between, which is considered as being void (Phys. 4, 212a7-30).
According to the methodology laid out in the first chapter of Physics 1, the philoso-
pher, in his search for the principles of nature, should start out with “what is more
intelligible to us,” i.e. the phainomena, in order to arrive at these principles, which
are what is “more intelligible in itself.”.19 However, in the present case, or so
Aristotle claims, the phainomena at first sight seem to lead us to different conclu-
sions. The notions of matter and form are somehow intricately bound up
(παρεμφαίνεσθαι) with our experience of place. In addition, our experience of mov-
ing objects – especially things moving through air – seems to suggest that place
exists as a three-dimensional extension independent of the extension of the emplaced
bodies. So prima facie one might be inclined, on the basis of the phainomena, to
identify place with matter, form, or an independent three-dimensional extension. As
a matter of fact, the latter conception was apparently at first sight so appealing that
we even find Aristotle using it himself elsewhere, in less technical (or not strictly
physical) contexts within the Corpus Aristotelicum.20 In the Categories, for exam-
ple, place is presented as a continuous three-dimensional extension, ‘doubling,’ so
to speak, the continuous extension of the emplaced body:
Text 3. Place belongs to the quantities which are continuous. For the parts of a body which
join together at a common boundary occupy a certain place. Therefore also the parts of
place which are occupied by the several parts of the body join together at the same bound-
ary at which the several parts of the body do. Therefore also place is seen to be continuous.
For its parts join together at one common boundary (Cat. 5a8-14).
That Aristotle is here presenting place in this way is probably due to the fact that in
the Categories (a treatise dealing with the way in which we generally name things)
he tends to be speaking “in accordance with widespread usage” (secundum famosi-
tatem), to quote John Buridan quoting Averroes.21 Physics 4, 1–5 however, is the
18
On the reason why Aristotle thinks (perhaps, at first sight, surprisingly) that we might be tempted
to identify place with form, see below, p. 26 ff.
19
Phys. 4, 184a16-18. See above, n16.
20
See also below, text 7.
21
The quotation is from Buridan’s Questiones super octo Physicorum libros Aristotelis, Paris 1509
(first printed edition), f. lxxiii rb. Some modern scholars have suggested that the Categories pres-
ents us with an early view, and that Aristotle had changed his mind on the subject of place by the
time he was writing the Physics. This possibility cannot be excluded, but is less likely, since (i) the
underlying conception of place in Cat. does not appear to be very coherent anyway, and (ii) the
16 K. Algra
text in which he delivers his fullest philosophical discussion of all issues to do with
place, and in such a context he seems to see it as the philosopher’s task to disen-
tangle the various conceptions that are around and to show which one can be coher-
ently maintained after a careful dialectical investigation. And it is here (Phys. 4,
212a20) that he thus arrives at his ‘considered view’ of place as “the first immobile
surface of the surrounding body.”
The intrinsic difficulty of the subject is not the only problem with which Aristotle
confronts his reader. There is also the difficulty of his own presentation: the text of
Phys. 4, 1–5 is not as smooth and well organized as we might have wished it to be.
It is patchy and at times crabbed and obscure. It is a text which was meant for, or
which at least reflects, Aristotle’s classroom practice, where it could be elucidated
by the viva vox of the teacher. Nevertheless, it is not an unintelligible text, as I will
try to show in Section 2.2 of this paper, which offers an overview of its contents, and
the way they cohere.
Finally, and most importantly, the conception of place Aristotle ends up with is
puzzling, and has in fact puzzled commentators, in various respects. Sometimes the
puzzlement merely occurs if we look at things from a non-Aristotelian point of view
and (partly) disappears once we take the larger context of Aristotle’s physics and
ontology into account. In other cases we are dealing with problems which should
also bother an Aristotelian, but which Aristotle appears not to have solved or even
recognized in the Physics or anywhere else in what remains of the Corpus
Aristotelicum. In the present paper I will address what I think are the five most
prominent puzzling features, which all left their traces in later ancient, medieval and
even modern discussions of Aristotle’s theory: the strange arguments for rejecting
the rival theory of place as a three-dimensional extension (Section 2.3), the way in
which Aristotelian places are supposed to figure in the explanation of locomotion
(Section 2.4), the role of natural place in the explanation of the natural motion of the
elements (Section 2.5), the problem of securing the required immobility of place
(Section 2.6), and the problem of the emplacement of the heavens (Section 2.7).
By going through these difficulties, and through some possible solutions, we will
get a better grasp of Aristotle’s theory, and will be in a better position to understand
the way in which it was received in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. For, as
Simplicius already noted at the beginning of his own systematic Corollary on Place
(a rich and very informative excursus appended to his discussion of Phys. 4, 1–5),
Aristotle’s account contains “many difficulties and offered many lines of examina-
tion to those who came after him.”22
conception of place as three-dimensional extension also recurs in non-technical contexts in a later

work such as the Meteorology; see below, text 7. On this, on the relation between the two treatises
and their respective conceptions of place in general, and on some later interpretations of the differ-
ences, see Algra 1995, 121–153.
22
Simplicius In Phys. 601, 1–3. Here, and in the rest of this contribution, references to the texts of
Themistius, Philoponus and Simplicius use the page and line numbers of the standard editions in
the series Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (CAG).
2.2 The argument of Physics 4, 1–5
Physics 4, 1–5 covers various items that are all connected to the subject of place:
various possible conceptions of place, an intricate analysis of what it means to be
‘in’ something, a discussion of Zeno’s paradox of place, a discussion of proper and
derived (or ‘incidental’) senses of moving and a separate discussion of the way in
which the heavens with their eternal circular motion exhibit locomotion and can be
said to be in a place. However it does not explicitly connect these little mini-treatises
in a linear account that is easy to follow. Still, behind this patchy ‘surface structure’
there is an argumentative or dialectical ‘deep structure’ which Aristotle himself lays
out in the following passage (of course the numbering of the various items in this
‘dialectical programme’ is mine):
Text 4. We must try to make our inquiry in such a way that (i) the ‘what-it-is’ is provided,
(ii) the aporiai are solved, (iii) the apparent facts about place are accounted for, and, finally,
(iv) so that the reason for the difficulty and for the problems around it are clear. Any discus-
sion which achieves all this, on any topic, has succeeded admirably (Phys. 4, 211a3-11).
The passage is from chapter 4, and it is indeed there and in chapter 5 that Aristotle
actually can be seen to assemble his own theory, albeit with the help of the findings
of the slightly more aporetic chapters 1, 2 and 3. We can also see that he practices
what he preaches:
Ad (i): A definition is provided, in chapter 4, first at 212a6 (“the limit of the sur-
rounding body,” τὸ πέρας τοῦ περιέχοντος σώματος), and then again, with the
requirement of immobility added, at 212a20 (“the first immobile limit of what
surrounds,” τὸ τοῦ περιέχοντος πέρας ἀκίνητον πρῶτον).
Ad (ii): In the second half of chapter 5 a number of aporiai that had been set out in
the first three chapters – such as Zeno’s paradox of place – are shown to be solu-
ble for Aristotle’s own conception of place or not to apply to it (while it seems to
be assumed, though not explicitly stated, that they cannot be solved for, and thus
in fact demolish, the rival conceptions).
Ad (iii): The apparent facts are accounted for – that is, evidently not all apparent
facts, for as we saw in the previous section, the apparent facts (phainomena) seem
to support various different conceptions. In fact, it is presumably because the first
list of phainomena offered in chapter 1 contains various ways of speaking and
thinking about place that are on closer scrutiny untenable (e.g. the assumption
that there is such a thing as the void), that we are given a fresh list in the opening
section of chapter 4: the properties which appear truly to belong to place in its
own right (ὅσα δοκεῖ ἀληθῶς καθ’ αὑτὸ ὑπάρχειν αὐτῷ, 210b32-34).
Ad (iv): Finally, Aristotle manages to indicate the reason for the difficulties, also in
chapter 4, at 212a7-30, the passage quoted above as text 2.
In sum, the conception of place which can account for the list of true phainomena,
and for which the relevant aporiai can be solved or shown to be harmless, will be
the winner, which can and will be accurately defined, whereas it will be shown at the
same time why the rejected candidates could have been thought of as candidates in
18 K. Algra
the first place. With this general, unifying programme in mind we may now walk
through the text as a whole.
Chapter 1 starts out by setting out a number of apparent facts (phainomena) con-
cerning the existence of place, framed as a number of possible reasons for assuming
that place exists. But, as we saw, Aristotle does not think we are required to accept
all of these phainomena as true or even plausible. And indeed, a brief glance at the
list shows that it contains various ways of thinking and speaking about place that
will turn out to be wrong: the idea that place has three dimensions, the idea that
there is such a thing as void, the idea that place seems to be (ontologically) prior to
all things, as Hesiod is here said to have thought. This should be taken as a warning
that, if this same context contains the claim that the natural motions of the elements
show us that place “has a certain dunamis” (208b10-11), we should not too readily
take this at face value as something to which Aristotle is in the end firmly committed
himself. I will discuss the question of the exact role of place in the explanation of
natural motion below, in Section 2.5, and will there return to the question of how
this phrase should be interpreted.
Aristotle goes on (Phys. 4, 209a2-209a31) to list a number of aporiai on the
nature of place, which he claims may make us doubt in the end not just what place
is but even whether it exists at all. Some of these aporiai merely apply to the notion
of place as a three-dimensional extension. For example:
(i) how can place be three-dimensional, yet not be a body (209a4-7);
( ii) if bodies have a three-dimensional extension as their place, then surfaces, lines
and points must have underlying places too, which seems absurd (209a7-12).
Neither of these two aporiai will be solved, and hence they will continue to count
against the rival conception (as will be made explicit for (i) in chapter 4). Other
aporiai may be taken to apply to Aristotle’s own conception of place as well, for
example:
(iii) even if place is taken to have a certain dunamis, it is nevertheless not one of the
four causes (209a18-22);
(iv) Zeno’s paradox: if everything that exists is in a place, place itself, if existent,
will be in a place as well, and so on ad infinitum (209a23-25).
Some of the aporiai, such as (iv), are explicitly solved in the rest of Aristotle’s
account in Physics 4, others are not, or not very clearly and explicitly. Aporia (iii),
for example, left some uncertainty in the later Aristotelian tradition about the pre-
cise role of (natural) place in natural motion. As noted, this will be the subject of
Section 2.5 of this paper.
Chapter 2 (Phys. 4, 209a31-210a13) turns to the nature of place, by working out
two basic intuitions: place as a three-dimensional extension, and place as a sur-
rounding container, and explores and criticizes two definitions of place to which
these intuitions might be thought to give rise, viz. the identification of place as form
(surrounder) or as matter (extension). Aristotle’s most important objection to these
definitions is that both form and matter are intimately bound up with the substance
to which they belong, whereas the place of a substance should be separate.23 Later
on, in chapter 4, he will accordingly add two further candidates for consideration:
an independent surrounding container (the limit of the surrounding body) and an
independent three-dimensional extension, so that we then have four candidates.
Here, in chapter 2, the elimination of two of these four candidates (matter and form)
is already being prepared.
Chapter 3 has as its most important element a discussion of the different senses
of ‘being in,’ which is brought to bear upon the solution of Zeno’s paradox of place.
Interestingly, the first premise of this paradox – which in chapter 1 (209a23-25) had
been rendered as “everything that exists is in a place” – is now (210b22-23) rewrit-
ten as “everything that exists is in something.” Aristotle gives no explicit reason for
this reformulation, but various remarks in the context of Phys. 4, 1–5 suggest that he
thinks that the premise “everything that exists, is in a place” can only be accepted as
true if we take “everything that exists” to refer to (mobile) physical substances.24
And in that form the paradox loses its force against all the conceptions of place he
discusses, for none of these takes place itself as a physical substance or a mobile
body. However, in the form in which it has now been rephrased, the paradox can be
defused only for his own conception of place as a surface (which he has at this point
of the discussion not yet proven to be right), because such a place is indeed ‘in
something else’ (viz. in the substance of which it is the surface), though in a non-
local sense of ‘in’ – i.e. in the sense (outlined by Aristotle in what preceded) in
which a property is in a thing. No such defense is possible, we may realize (although
this is not spelled out explicitly), for the most important rival conception of place as
an independent three-dimensional extension.
Aristotle appears to have regarded the text of what we nowadays demarcate as
chapters 1, 2 and 3 as primarily aporetic.25 Chapter 4 returns to the main question –
“but what actually is place?” – and seems to make a fresh constructive start. In a
kind of prefatory section (210b32-211b5) we are presented, as we saw, with a
revised list of characteristics that seem to “genuinely belong to place” (210b33-34)–
i.e. presumably characteristics that do not involve the difficulties discussed in the
previous chapters.26 Aristotle then states his ‘research programme’ on place (quoted
23
A second, related objection is: “how could a thing move to its own place, if its place was its mat-
ter or its form” (210a2-3); presumably the idea is that, if a thing’s form or matter were its place, it
would always by definition be in its own place. A third objection (210a5-9) is that form and matter
move along with the thing of which they are the form and matter, which would mean that place
itself would be moving, and thus changing place.
24
See 208b28: “every perceptible body is in a place;” 209a26 “every body is in a place;” 212b28
“only a movable body is in a place, not everything.”
25
He concludes chapter 2 by claiming that “we have now reviewed the arguments which force us
to conclude that place exists, and also those which make it difficult to know what it is,” and chapter
3 by saying that “that concludes our discussion of the difficulties.”
26
They are, briefly: (i) that place is the first thing surrounding that which is in place; (ii) that it is
separate from the emplaced object; (iii) that it is neither larger nor smaller than the emplaced
object; (iv) that it can be left behind by the object and is separable; (v) that it exhibits the directions
‘above’ and ‘below;’ (vi) [that it helps to explain] that each body should naturally move to its own
20 K. Algra
as text 4 above), which, as we saw, gives the argumentative ‘deep structure’ under-
lying chapters 4 and 5. He goes on by squarely linking the notion of place to the
notion of locomotion, and appends some rather disjointed notes on real versus inci-
dental motion and on the difference between being in a place and being in a whole.
In the central section of chapter 4 (211b5-212a7) he then sets out his fourfold divi-
sion of possible conceptions of place and eliminates three of the four candidates
(form, independent three-dimensional extension, matter; 211b9-212a2). Hence
place must be the fourth and only remaining candidate: the limit of the surrounding
body (τὸ πέρας τοῦ περιέχοντος σώματος, 212a6).
Aristotle next (212a7-30) discusses the cause of the difficulty of the subject (our
text 2, quoted above) and goes on to elucidate the difference between a vessel and a
place, by claiming that a vessel is a mobile place and place an immobile vessel, thus
adding immobility as a further requirement for the correct conception of place,
partly with the help of an example – a boat on a river – which has puzzled most
subsequent commentators. The river example and the problem of immobility will be
discussed below, in Section 2.6. The chapter ends with some rather sketchy notes
(212a21-30) that may serve to show that the resulting final definition of place (i.e.,
with the feature of immobility added, the “first immobile limit of that which con-
tains” (212a20)) fits a number of the characteristics that belong to place according
to the common conception of it: (i) that the cosmos has an ‘above’ and a ‘below;’
(ii) that place is like a vessel and a surrounder; (iii) that place is together with the
object – after all, on this view “the limits are together with what is limited.”27
Chapter 5, finally, roughly consists of two parts. The first part (212a31–212b22)
deals with the question whether and to what extent the heavens and the cosmos as a
whole are in a place; this as well is a section of which both the wording and the
implications have puzzled commentators over the centuries. I will discuss the rele-
vant problems below, in Section 2.7. The second part of the chapter (212b22–
213a11) then finally shows that the (or rather: some) puzzles that were raised with
respect to place can be solved on Aristotle’s theory, and that the phenomenon of
natural motion in connection with natural places can be accounted for, although the
latter section is very sketchy and leaves much to be explained (I will briefly revert
to it in my discussion of the question of natural place and natural motion below, in
Section 2.5).
From this overview of the contents of Physics 4, 1–5 it will already transpire that
this text does provide us with a general idea of how Aristotle works and of the main
arguments that support his conclusions. However, there are many loose ends as
well: not all the aporiai that are brought up are explicitly discussed and solved,
some arguments are rather baffling in their brevity, important aspects of the argu-
place. Note, by the way that strictly speaking (i) has by this time not yet been established (the rival
conception of place as a separate three-dimensional extension is only eliminated in the course of
chapter 4). This illustrates what has been noted in the text above, viz. that the argument in Phys. 4,
1–5 is not ‘linear.’
27
Of course, as we saw, the common conception of place is not confined to the idea of place as a
‘vessel and surrounder.’ But Aristotle seems to be referring back to the revised list of phainomena
presented at the beginning of this chapter (and by now the rival conception of place as three-
dimensional extension has indeed been eliminated).
ment and of the theory are left implicit. Moreover, although Aristotle seems to think
that he has successfully eliminated the three possible rival theories by showing how
they lead to inconsistencies and irresolvable puzzles, questions can be raised about
the coherence and usefulness of his own theory as well. His own pupil Theophrastus
already produced a list of five puzzles generated by the conception of place defended
in Physics 4, 1–5, and later commentators repeat these puzzles and add others of
their own making.28 The interpretative and conceptual problems raised by Aristotle’s
text will be the subject of the remaining sections of this paper.
2.3 P
lace as Three-Dimensional Extension: A Puzzling
Rejection
By the time Sextus Empiricus was writing his sceptical account of physical theories
of place, at the end of the second century AD, there were only two main options
around: Aristotle’s conception of place as a surrounding surface, or the conception
of place as an independent three-dimensional extension, versions of which had in
the meantime been endorsed by Epicurus and the Stoics. Also for Aristotle himself
the conception of place as three-dimensional extension constituted the most formi-
dable rival view.29 Where form and matter could be rather easily disqualified as
suitable candidates for the identification of place, the conception of place as a three-
dimensional extension was one which had a more solid foundation in ordinary
thinking and speaking, and which possibly for that very reason even figured in
Aristotle’s own Categories, as we saw. In Physics 4 he intends to prove that, from
the strict point of view of philosophical physics, ordinary thinking and speaking are
wrong in this respect. Given that there is this much at stake, the arguments adduced
are surprisingly obscure and puzzling. This was in fact what triggered Philoponus’
insertion of a separate excursus (now known as his Corollary on Place) right in the
middle of his commentary on chapter 4. It starts out with a refutation of Aristotle’s
arguments (In Phys. 557, 12–563, 25) before turning to its main task: offering a
vindication of the rival conception of place as extension.
Let us first have a closer look at the two arguments Aristotle applies in chapter 4.
They can be paraphrased as follows:
(i) On this conception of place, there would be an infinity of places in the same
spot (ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ ἄπειροι ἂν ἦσαν τόποι, 211b20-21), for in a continuous
emplaced body we can distinguish an infinity of parts which will all have their
own places, so that we have an infinity of juxtaposed (and, we may presume, in
fact also overlapping) three-dimensional places ‘in the same spot;’ and
28
Theophrastus ap. Simplicium In Phys. 604, 5-11 (= Theophrastus fr. 146 FHSG). On
Theophrastus’ position and the interpretation of these aporiai, see Algra 2014, 29-38.
29
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) in his Short Commentary suggests that the main rival views of place as
either a surrounding surface or an extension should be presented as alternatives in a hypothetico-
disjunctive argument. See Lettink 1994, 313.
22 K. Algra
(ii) On this conception of place, place will be moving (ἅμα δὲ καὶ ὅ τόπος ἔσται
μεταβάλλων, 211b23).
Later on in the same book, in the course of his discussion of the void (which of
course is supposed to be the kind of self-subsistent three-dimensional extension we
are here discussing) in chapter 8, Aristotle uses another argument to reach the absurd
conclusion of an infinity (or at least: an indefinite number) of places ‘in the same
spot.’ This time he no longer seems to be thinking of a process of dividing, but rather
of a process of doubling the three-dimensional extension which can go on ad
infinitum:
(iii) “What will be the difference between the body of the cube and the void and
place which are equal to it? And if two things can behave like this, why cannot
any number of things coincide?” (216b9-11).
Arguments (i)–(iii) thus represent a threefold reductio ad absurdum of the view
that place is an independent three-dimensional extension. But do the alleged absurd
consequences really follow? In the case of (i) it is not prima facie clear what pre-
cisely the supposed absurdity consists in. That a continuous three-dimensional place
can be divided in a potentially infinite number of parts should not be particularly
objectionable, given that the same operation can be performed on the emplaced
body – in fact the possibility of infinite potential divisibility is part and parcel of
Aristotle’s own theory of infinity and the continuum as set out in Physics 3.30 What
seems to be suggested, therefore, is rather that the conception of place as a three-
dimensional extension would involve an actual infinity of overlapping or nested
places. That, however, is simply not true. The rival view would at most involve the
idea that the (only potentially infinite number of) parts of a continuous substance,
however specified, would occupy (a potential infinity of) correspondingly specified
parts of one and the same absolute extension, not that an actual infinity of places
‘co-exist.’
But perhaps the supposed absurdity should not primarily be located in the ele-
ment of infinity, but rather in the very idea of parts of a continuous substance having
a place of their own. After all, in Aristotle’s own theory the parts of continuous
substances do not move in their own right (but only incidentally, κατὰ συμβεβηκός),
and accordingly do not have a place in their own right: they move with the substance
of which they are part, and accordingly their place is the place of this substance as a
whole (211a17-22 and 211a29-34). Parts of a continuous substance, in other words,
are not the sort of things to be emplaced in any proper sense. However, apart from
the fact that it is in principle perfectly legitimate not to share this part of Aristotle’s
substance ontology and to think, by contrast, that a theory of place would do well to
be able to account for the emplacement of continuous parts of substances, it is just
not true that the rival conception of place as extension necessarily involves the idea
that such parts have places of their own. This is in fact shown by the example of
30
On which see his discussion in Physics 3, with the excellent introduction in Hussey 1983,
xviii-xxvi.
Philoponus’ own theory of place, which combines the conception of place as a self-
subsistent three-dimensional extension with a world view that for the rest preserves
Aristotle’s substance ontology, including the concomitant idea that what may count
as a place is only the extension occupied by a whole, separate, substance.31 A place,
for Philoponus, accordingly is a part of space occupied by a substance. So apart
from not involving the idea of an infinity of places of parts (except in the harmless
sense of a potential infinity), the rival conception of place here discussed by Aristotle
does not even necessarily involve the whole idea of places of parts to begin with. We
may conclude that argument (i) fails to produce the required absurd consequences,
however we choose to construct it.
The argument behind (ii) appears to rest on a misleading or mistaken interpreta-
tion of the words “some kind of extension between the limits” (διάστημά τι τὸ
μεταξὺ τῶν ἐσχάτων, 211b7-8), as if this ‘extension between the limits’ is part of
the vessel, wedged in between its limits and thus moving along with it when the
vessel moves. However, the view criticized here by Aristotle implies no such thing,
since it looks upon this extension as self-subsistent, or as we might say: absolute. As
Philoponus puts it in his Corrolary on Place:
Text 5. For the jar that moves does not move the internal extension that receives the water
along with it, but rather the whole thing changes its whole place. For the void is immovable
(Philoponus, In Phys. 562, 3-6).
On the rival view of place as extension, in other words, the notion of a moving place
makes no sense at all, let alone that it can be presented as one of its implications.
If we now turn to (iii), we may note, for a start, that it actually presupposes
Aristotle’s conviction that there is only one kind of three-dimensional extension,
viz. the extension of substances themselves. As he puts it in the context of chapter 4,
“what is in between a place is whatever body it may be, but not the extension of a
body” (σῶμα γὰρ τὸ μεταξὺ τοῦ τόπου τὸ τυχόν, ἀλλ᾿ οὐ διάστημα σώματος,
Phys. 4, 212b26-27). Once you admit, or so the argument seems to go, that this
extension can be ‘doubled’ by conceiving of a second separate extension, you can
go on repeating this move, so that you will end up with a (potential) infinity of coin-
ciding extensions, a conclusion which is supposedly absurd. In his Corollary (e.g.
at In Phys. 561, 27–562, 3) Philoponus defuses this argument as well. First of all, he
argues, the idea of a plurality of coinciding extensions or dimensions is not logically
absurd at all, as long as these extensions are not the extensions of bodies, for you
cannot have more than one body in the same place. Secondly, however, in physical
reality you will as a matter of fact always find two, and no more than two, coincid-
ing extensions: the extension that is intrinsic to body (substance) plus the extension
of place (which is in its own nature void).
Philoponus was not the first to be dissatisfied with Aristotle’s arguments here. As
we noted, in the third century BC the third head of the Lyceum, Strato of Lampsacus,
had simply swapped Aristotle’s conception for the rival conception of place as
extension, and in the first century BC the Peripatetic Xenarchus of Seleucia appears
31
See e.g. In Phys. 577, 32-578, 4; and Algra 2012, 9.
24 K. Algra
to have been prepared to do so as well. However, Sextus Empiricus’ accounts of

place in PH 3, 119–135 and M 10, 1–36, written down in the late second century
AD, show us that the late Hellenistic arsenal of sceptical (and in this case: originally
Peripatetic) arguments from which he could draw still used versions of Aristotle’s
unsatisfactory arguments against the conception of place as a three-dimensional
extension. So there were still people who took these arguments seriously. In general,
the at first sight slightly surprising fact that so many other commentators in antiq-
uity and in the medieval tradition were prepared to follow Aristotle in rejecting this
rival conception of place (and to accept his arguments) may well be largely due to
the fact that in the end this conception simply could not be integrated within an
Aristotelian ontology (and ultimately this may well have been the idea behind (iii)).
Being self-subsistent such a place or space could not be considered as an accident,
i.e. a quantity; but neither could it be seen as a substance in the sense of a combina-
tion of form and matter. It is not a point, by the way, which Aristotle explicitly
makes in Phys. 4, although it is probably implied in one of the aporiai in chapter 1,
which claims that it is unclear what genus we should ascribe to place: it has three
dimensions but is not a body (209a4-6).
Philoponus acknowledges the underlying ontological problem in his Corollary,
but argues that, in the face of the strong arguments in favour of the existence of
space as a three-dimensional extension, we should rather conclude that there is
something wrong with the Aristotelian ontology, in particular with the idea that a
quantity cannot subsist by itself (In Phys. 578, 5–579, 17).
2.4 Place and the Explanation of Motion
The explanation of motion, or change of place in general (which includes the quan-
titative changes of expansion and contraction), is explicitly adduced as the raison
d’être for the discussion of place within the context of the Physics.32 On closer view,
however, it is less clear how it is actually supposed to function in the context of the
explanation of locomotion. There are at least two problems. First, Aristotle’s theory
of place appears to be primarily a theory of the location of static bodies, whereas it
is not easy to use his conception of place to describe the trajectory of bodies in
motion. In fact, using Aristotle’s conception of place, we should describe a body in
motion as traversing an infinity of instantaneous two-dimensional places. In his
Corollary on Place Philoponus takes Aristotle to task for the element of
two-dimensionality:
Text 6. If place is the boundary of the container and is not some different extension between
the boundaries over and above the bodies that come to be in it, then clearly during my
motion from Athens to Thebes the parts of air that yield up their own place to me (for
motion is a change of places and a continuous exchange) yield up nothing but surfaces. But
32
See Phys. 3, 200b20: “Change seems to be impossible without place and void and time, and in
any case place, void and time are pervasive and common to all kinds of change, so for both these
reasons we shall obviously have to look into each of them” (transl. Waterfield).
when surfaces alone are put together, even an infinite number of them, coinciding with each
other they make the whole no bigger. So how can the moving body move forwards?
(Philoponus, In Phys. 567, 12–18).
It is perhaps no coincidence that in contexts like these, where we are describing the
trajectory of a moving body, Aristotle sometimes consciously or unconsciously
resorts to the very concept of place as a three-dimensional extension which in
Physics 4, 1–5 he rejects for theoretical reasons33:
Text 7. […] the celestial element is eternal and the spatial path (τόπος) through which it
moves is endless, though always complete, while the terrestrial bodies each have their dis-
tinct and limited regions (τόπους) (Meteor. 1, 339a25-28).
In spite of all this, we may note that the problem signaled by Philoponus will in
actual practice not have counted as fatal among ‘mainstream’ Aristotelians. Being
able to serve to indicate the location of static substances may well have been what
most Aristotelians expected from the theory of place, even within the context of a
theory of locomotion. After all, Aristotle and Aristotelians were used to analysing
changes, including locomotion, first and foremost in terms of their starting point
and end point. True, Aristotle claimed that change (whether of form, size or place)
is observed to proceed “from opposite to opposite and what is in between” (Cael. 4,
310a24-25), but the focus of the analysis was in general on the ‘from opposite to
opposite’ part. Think, for example, of the general analysis of change in Phys. 1 (esp.
chapters 1 and 5) as a process occurring between opposites. Within such a general
descriptive framework Aristotle’s conception of place sufficed to describe the situa-
tion at the outset as well as the situation at the end of a process of locomotion.
Or did it? Here we seem to encounter a second problem, next to the one that a
succession of two-dimensional surfaces does not make for a three-dimensional tra-
jectory. As Richard Sorabji has well brought out, the surrounding surfaces in the
course of such a trajectory are instantaneous.34 Hence, a boat moving through water
should be taken to traverse a series of instantaneous limits, so that strictly speaking
it could never return to a place, for once a place is left it no longer exists. In principle
this may not count as an odd result, if we recall the explicit claim (Phys. 4,
212a29-30) that “place is together with the object, for the limits are together with
what is limited” (ἅμα τῷ πράγματι ὁ τόπος· ἅμα γὰρ τῳ πεπερασμένῳ τὰ πέρατα).35
However, it does appear to be an odd result, if we take account of another require-
ment also introduced by Aristotle, namely that place should be something that can
be left behind, like a vessel: “the place where the thing is can be left by it, and is
therefore separable from it” (Phys. 4, 211a3).36 For then the problem is simply this:
33
Cf. Philoponus In Phys. 567, 8-29. On unorthodox conceptions of place in the Corpus
Aristotelicum see Algra 1995, 182–188.
34
Sorabji 1988, 190.
35
Here again, we may note, the focus seems to be on place as a ‘locator’ of static substances.
36
One may compare the earlier claims that place is “different from all the things that by replace-
ment come to be in it,” and something “which they alternately leave and enter” (Phys. 4, 208b1-8),
and the fact that Aristotle more than once describes place as a kind of vessel that can be filled, but
also left behind (212a14-15).
26 K. Algra
in what sense does Aristotle’s theory allow us specify the place I occupied this
morning while standing in the garden, or of the place where I will be tonight while
having dinner, if the relevant surrounding surfaces exist no longer or not yet?
Aristotle’s pupil Eudemus of Rhodes appears to have been sensitive to this
problem:
Text 8. Eudemus says that a further cause of the difficulty of the problem of place is that
[the notion of] place is not easy to grasp, because it altogether escapes us when the body in
it is removed, and it is not possible to apprehend it in itself, but, if at all, in combination with
something else, like the sounds of the so-called consonants. For with ‘a’ added the sound of
‘b’ and ‘c’ becomes clear (Simplicius In Phys. 523, 22–28; Eudemus fr. 73 Wehrli).
The early-twelfth-century Arabic commentator Ibn Bajja (Avempace) argued, along

the same lines, that place exists as long as the body that is in it exists, and that if a
body is removed from its place and no other body replaces it, the place “breaks
down.”37 For the rest, however, there is not much evidence that this problem greatly
bothered ancient or medieval commentators. And, once again, as long as we expect
Aristotelian places to provide the location of individual static (non-moving) sub-
stances, they will do fine. The problem merely arises as soon as we want to endow
place with a certain stability and see it as something that can be left and re-filled,
indeed like a vessel. Perhaps we should conclude that Aristotle’s suggestion that
place served as some kind of ‘vessel’ (ἀγγεῖον) was in this respect not a particularly
fortunate one after all.
2.5 Natural Place and the Explanation of Natural Motion
It is clear that for Aristotle in Physics 4, 1–5 the phenomenon of the natural motions
of the elements is something which any theory of place should help account for. Yet
his statements on the issue do not all unambiguously point in the same direction,
and this has given rise to divergent interpretations, both in the ancient and medieval
commentary tradition and among modern exegetes. In particular, it has proved dif-
ficult to square two of Aristotle’s statements, both made in chapter 1:
(i) place appears to have some sort of power (208b8-11; part of the initial list of
phainomena); and
(ii) place is not one of the four causes (209a18-22; part of the initial list of
aporiai).
Simplicius (In Phys. 533, 31–32) claims that the problem has been passed over by
previous commentators. This may well have been the case because they saw that
Aristotle, especially if we also take into account what he says about the dynamics of
natural motion in Physics 8, provides enough indications that (i) is not to be taken
at face value, whereas (ii) is to be taken very seriously. This, at any rate is how
37
Lettink 1994, 303.
Simplicius himself and Philoponus saw things, and it is also what I am going to
argue in this section.
Some medieval and modern readers, by contrast, have ignored or explained away
(ii) and interpreted (i) in the sense that Aristotle saw natural place as the formal,
final or even moving cause of natural motion.38 Quite apart from the fact that
Aristotle nowhere says such a thing, it is doubtful whether it would make any philo-
sophical sense. For in what sense can we imagine a surface working as a cause? As
a final cause? But, to quote John Philoponus:
Text 9. It is quite ridiculous to say that place has any power in its own right; it is not through
desire of a surface that things desire that station in the order that they have been given by
the creator (Philoponus, In Phys. 581, 17–21).
Moreover, as both Simplicius (In Phys. 533, 26–30) and Philoponus (text 15 below)
point out, a final cause is something the changing object strives to become, and in
that sense it is internal to the changing object, whereas place, even an object’s natu-
ral place, is not what the object strives itself to become: it remains external to it.
Should we then assume that place is a formal or a moving cause? But a formal cause
and a moving cause are supposed to precede, or at least to be contemporaneous,
with the change they cause, whereas as we have just seen, during the trajectory of
natural motion the eventual natural place in an important sense does not yet exist.
Fortunately, it turns out that if we give due attention to all the pointers in the text
of Physics 4 and if we adduce the account of the dynamics of natural motion pro-
vided in Physics 8, we can reconstruct a much more plausible position on Aristotle’s
part concerning the role of place in the explanation of natural motion. So let us have
a closer look. As I have indicated in Section 2.2 of this paper, (i) need not be taken
at face value (since Aristotle is not automatically committed to the truth of the
phainomena he mentions in chapter 1). Moreover the cautious phrasing (ἔχει τινὰ
δύναμιν) should make us pause before being prepared to ascribe to place any kind
of full-blown causal status. Next, (ii) cannot be simply dismissed or played down as
“merely a part of a puzzle or aporia,”39 for it is nowhere countered or defused. Then
again, it is surely significant that Aristotle nowhere explicitly speaks of place as a
cause. The most plausible way to take these statements together, therefore, would be
to regard (i) as describing a phainomenon that might seem to be the case, but that in
the end will turn out to need to be explained in different terms: place does play a role
in the explanation of natural motion, though not as a cause. Indeed, three further
passages in Aristotle’s dialectical discussion of place in Phys. 4, 1–5 may be adduced
to support an interpretation which denies to place any causal status.
38
Just some examples: Bonaventura Sent. II, dist. 14, pars I, art. III, qu. 2 thinks of place as a mov-
ing cause in speaking of “the force of the place that attracts and of the place that expels” (virtus loci
attrahentis et virtus loci expellentis). Thomas Aquinas De physico auditu, liber IV, lectio I, objects
to such a view by claiming that place rather attracts like a final cause (sicut finis dicitur attrahere).
Some modern scholars have taken natural place in Aristotle to figure as a formal cause (Pierre
Duhem); others see it as a final cause (Michael Wolff, Richard Sorabji). For references and further
discussion, see Algra 1995, 195–221, esp. 196–197 and 219–221.
39
Thus Sorabji 1988, 187, n6.
28 K. Algra
First of all, as part of his attempt, in chapter 3, to show that place cannot be mat-
ter or form, Aristotle uses the following argument:
Text 10. Further, how could a body be carried to its own place, if place was the matter or the
form? It is impossible that that which has no reference to motion or the distinction of above
and below can be place. So place must be looked for among things which have these char-
acteristics (Phys. 4, 210a2-5).
We define locomotion with reference to place, not with reference to matter or form.
And to explain what it is for a body to move to its own (i.e. its natural) place, we
need to be able to differentiate places in terms of ‘above’ and ‘below,’ but there is
no such differentiation to be discerned in form or matter. This passage thus clearly
confirms that natural place cannot be identified as a formal or material cause.
Next, at the beginning of chapter 4, where Aristotle offers his revised list of
phainomena as “the things that are supposed truly to belong to it,” he makes clear
that the need to be able to differentiate places in terms of ‘above’ and ‘below’ is
among these phainomena:
Text 11 We assume […] that all place admits of the distinction of above and below, and each
of the bodies is naturally carried to its appropriate place and rests there, and this makes the
place either above or below (Phys. 4, 211a3-6).
The suggestion is not that natural place helps to explain natural motion as a cause,
but that a proper theory of place is able to account for the difference between places
that are ‘above’ (where the light elements naturally are or move to) and those that
are ‘below’ (where the heavy elements are or move to).
Finally, after having established, in chapter 4, his own account of place as the
first immobile limit of the surrounding body, Aristotle explicitly returns to the phe-
nomenon of natural motion in order to show how his own conception of place is able
to account for it:
Text 12. Also, it can be explained that each kind of body should be carried to its own place
(φέρεται […] εὐλόγως). For a body which is next in the series and in contact (not by com-
pulsion) is akin, and bodies which are united do not affect each other, while those which are
in contact interact on each other. Nor is it inexplicable that each should remain naturally in
its proper place (μένει […] οὐκ ἀλόγως). For parts do, and that which is in a place has the
same relation to its place as a separable part to its whole […] (Phys. 4, 212b29-35).
The details of the analogy between places and parts need not concern us here.40
What is important in the present context is that, once again, there is no hint that
place has any causal status. Instead, we get the more modest suggestion that the
Aristotelian concept of place as a surrounding surface allows us to make sense (note
the use of the terms εὐλόγως and of οὐκ ἀλόγως) of our talking about bodies mov-
ing to their own, or their natural, place. It is precisely because the natural motion or
rest of the elements is in one way or another dependent on the bodies that are sur-
rounding them, that Aristotle’s concept of place as the limit of the surrounding body
allows for meaningful talk about natural motion. Or, as we might put it, Aristotelian
places are not isotropic: it makes a difference whether a body is contained by the
40
More details in Algra 1995, 205–206 and 216–217.
limit of the right body (its natural place) or by the limit of the wrong body (a non-
natural place). That this is one of the reasons why according to Aristotle his own
theory is to be preferred over its most important rival theory (place as independent
three-dimensional extension) is further shown by a passage in chapter 8, where the
void is being discussed:
Text 13. How can there be such a thing as natural motion, if there are no distinctions within
that which is void and infinite? For since it is infinite, there is no above or below or centre;
since it is void, there is no distinction between above and below (Phys. 4, 215a6-9).
The isotropic void-space of the atomists, it is suggested, makes all talk about natural
motion and natural places meaningless.
Of course this leaves us with the question what, then, is the cause of the natural
motion of the elements, if it is not their natural place. Aristotle’s answer does not
come in the context of his discussion of place, but only in book 8 of the Physics
(with some further relevant information being provided in some passages in book 4
of the On the Heavens), where he describes the dynamics of natural motion. I will
here not go into the details, but will briefly present the theory there outlined.41 The
elements, as inanimate natural objects, have an inner tendency, or nisus, to move (or
rather, as Aristotle puts it: “a principle of motion, not of moving something else or
causing motion, but of suffering it,” κινήσεως ἄρχην, οὐδὲ τοῦ κινεῖν, οὐδὲ τοῦ
ποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ τοῦ πάσχειν, 255b30-31) which is activated when they are generated
in unnatural surroundings, for example when the sun through its heat turns water
into air and thus generates air in a place that is suitable for water. This means that
there are two main factors involved: the external cause which triggers the whole
process by generating the changed substance and the inner tendency of this new
substance to be somewhere, namely in its natural place. The external generator actu-
alizes the potentiality to acquire a new substantial form (the potentiality of water to
become air, and thus light). Along with this new form two further, secondary, poten-
tialities (in the categories quantity and ‘where’) will be actualized: unless prevented
the new mass will expand (quantity) and it will tend to move to a new place, thus
actualizing its lightness. In Aristotle’s own words:
Text 14. The actuality of lightness consists in the light thing being somewhere (που), namely
high up: when it is in the contrary place it is being impeded. The case is similar with regard
to quantity and quality. But, be it noted, this is the question we are trying to answer: how
can we account for the motion of the light things and heavy things to their proper places?
The reason for it is that they have a natural tendency to go in a certain direction (πέφυκεν
ποι); and this is what it is to be light or heavy, the former being determined by an upward,
the latter by a downward tendency (Phys. 8, 255b11-17).
So it is a thing’s being somewhere, as the actuality of its lightness or heaviness, that

constitutes the goal, and thus the final cause of its natural motion, which in turn is a
concomitant (a secondary actualization) of a substantial change (with the original
external generator acting as the moving cause that sets the whole process going). It
For a fuller discussion of the dynamics of natural motion (including the relevant passages in the
41
On the Heavens), see Algra 1995, 195–221.

30 K. Algra
is important to note what some commentators have missed: ‘being somewhere’ is

not the same thing as ‘place.’ We need to get the ‘semantics of natural motion’ right.
A light or heavy thing’s ‘being somewhere’ in the sense of being in its natural place
is an attribute of the heavy or light thing itself, and as such following upon the actu-
alization of the thing’s new substantial form, just as this change of form may involve
a change of size. Place, by contrast, is external to the thing itself. As Philoponus puts
it,
Text 15. Also otherwise, final causes are seen to be present in the things of which they are
the ends, but place is different from all the things that are in it, having no share in the
emplaced object (Philoponus, In Phys. 509, 30–510, 2).
We can now see Aristotle’s position more clearly. The claim in chapter 1 of Physics
4 that place appears to ‘have a certain power’ should not be taken literally. At any
rate, place itself is not a cause, whether final or otherwise. But we still do need the
concept of place to specify the ‘somewhere’ in the element’s ‘being somewhere’
that is the final cause of its natural motion. And since, as we saw, in the case of natu-
ral place this ‘being somewhere’ essentially means ‘having the right surroundings’
(being in its surroundings as a part in a whole), Aristotle’ conception of place (as the
surface of the surrounding body) is better equipped, or so he believes, to describe
this process than any other conception of place, including the concept of an isotro-
pic empty space defended by the atomists.
Some commentators, such as Simplicius and Philoponus, did in fact recognize
that this was Aristotle’s considered view.42 We may surmise that later interpretations
went astray mainly for two reasons. First, they failed to appreciate the different
force of the various claims in Phys. 4, in particular of the claims (i) and (ii) as out-
lined above, against the background of its overall dialectical programme of sifting
out phainomena and bringing in aporiai. Secondly, in interpreting book 4 of the
Physics they may not have paid sufficient attention to the details of the relevant
discussion in Physics 8. It is only after reading Phys. 8 that we can fully appreciate
how the concept of natural place is to play an important role in the explanation of
natural motion without this in any way implying that natural places are causes.
2.6 The Problem of the Immobility of Place
At some point in the middle of his account in chapter 4 Aristotle adds the require-
ment that place should be immobile (βούλεται δ’ ἀκίνητος εἶναι ὁ τόπος, 212a18),
so he qualifies his definition of place accordingly: it is not just the limit of the sur-
rounding body, but the first (or nearest) immobile limit of the surrounding body. In
42
For Simplicius, see In Phys. 533-22-25 where it is argued that “if place is not the same as being
in a place […] and the goal of bodies, if anything, is to be in a particular place, then place [itself]
is not the final cause.” On Philoponus’ similar position see the reconstruction in Algra 2012, 7–9.
On similar qualifications in Averroes and even in Thomas Aquinas, see Algra 1995, 219–220, with
n67 and n68.
the same context he adds that a thing located in a mobile container is in a vessel
rather than in a place. So a vessel is a mobile place and a place is an immobile ves-
sel. We have seen above (Section 2.4) that the vessel analogy suggests a stability
which Aristotelian places actually lack. We are now faced with a disanalogy between
vessels and places – unlike vessels, places are said to be immobile – which raises
problems of its own. In principle the requirement that place should be immobile
seems to make sense: after all, places are supposed to figure as an immobile frame
of reference against which the change of position of moving bodies can be mea-
sured. However, for a theory that defines place in terms of a thing’s surroundings it
is not so obvious how this can work, for in most circumstances a thing’s surround-
ings consist of mobile substances. Even in the case of the layers of the elements we
see that water and air are mobile and in fact moving; the same goes for fire, and for
the aether of the heavenly bodies. This is why, faced with the immobility criterion
for Aristotelian places, Simplicius (In Phys. 604, 3) rhetorically asks: “where, then
is such a place to be found and what things are properly in place?”
Aristotle adds to the difficulty by providing a rather obscure example: a boat in a
river. Presumably what he has in mind is a boat flowing along with the current of the
river. He claims that in such a case the boat is in the flowing water as in a vessel
(with respect to which, we may add, it does not move), whereas its immobile place
is ‘the whole river’ (with respect to which, we may add, it does move):
Text 16. Just as a vessel is a mobile place, so place is an immobile vessel. That is why, when
something is in motion inside a moving object (imagine a boat on a river), it uses its sur-
roundings as a vessel rather than as a place. But place is meant to be immobile. For that
reason rather the whole river is the place (ὁ πᾶς μᾶλλον ποταμὸς τόπος), because taken as
a whole it is immobile (ἀκίηντος ὁ πᾶς) (Phys. 4, 212a14-20).
This passage was much debated by ancient and medieval commentators and various
interpretations were put forward.43 Some commentators took the claim about ‘the
whole river’ being the place to refer to the immobile river banks (as opposed to the
mobile, flowing water). But that would be to violate one of the criteria for place
which Aristotle had set up himself, viz. that it should be contiguous (πρῶτον πέρας)
and of the same size (“neither larger nor smaller,” 211a2). In order to save both the
contiguity and the immobility of Aristotelian place (qua surface of the surrounding
body) some later medieval commentators introduced a distinction between material
place (the actual surface of the immediately surrounding body, which may be
mobile) and formal place (the surrounding surface, considered in abstracto, and
with its immobility defined in terms of its location in relation to the outer sphere of
the heavens).44
A modern variant of this theory is presented by Ben Morison.45 Whereas the
medieval commentators specified the relevant immobile surface as the surface of the
immediately containing substance, but taken in abstracto, Morison specifies it as
43
For an overview of the problems and solutions, see Grant 1981b; Sorabji 1988, 190; Algra 1995,
222–230.
44
On the concepts of formal and material place in the medieval discussions, see Grant 1981b,
63–72.
45
See Morison 2002, 155–161.
32 K. Algra
the containing surface taken as the surface of a larger surrounding entity, or of a

group of entities, and in the end – and this is crucial – even as the surface of the sur-
rounding cosmos or universe as a whole. And the cosmos as a whole is immobile;
indeed it could not even move, because there is nothing outside it.
Now it is not easy to derive this interpretation from what Aristotle actually says:
“rather the whole river is the place.”46 Moreover, the role which this interpretation
accords to the immobility of the cosmos as a whole seems questionable. For the
immobility of the cosmos as a whole does not appear to be the kind of immobility
we are looking for. We are discussing intra-cosmic motion and rest, so we need an
immobile reference point within the cosmos which allows us to determine whether
a particular body is moving or at rest. This is what Aristotle makes clear in the pas-
sage immediately following on the river example and the statement of the immobil-
ity requirement. For there he goes on to talk about the centre of the world and the
inner limit of the sphere of the heavens as ‘above’ and ‘below’ in the basic, or
‘absolute’ sense, because they are both at rest. It is with respect to these two items
that we can determine the natural rest or natural motion of the elements. Eudemus
explicitly works out this line of thought by specifying that we define immobile
places with reference to the heavenly sphere which is immobile in the relevant,
intra-cosmic, sense:
Text 17. Having said that place must be the limit, in so far as it surrounds, of the surround-
ing body which was immobile he [i.e. Eudemus] added: “For that which moves is like a
vessel, and that is why we determine places in relation to the heavens. For they do not
change place, except in their parts” (Simplicius In Phys. 595, 5–8; part of Eudemus fr. 80
Wehrli).
No sign here of the supposed relevance of the immobility of the cosmos as a whole
in this connection. In fact, we may well ask what this relevance could possibly have
been. Imagine a situation where the cosmos is surrounded by an infinite empty
space and where – as imagined by the Stoic Cleomedes and in medieval thought
experiments – it moves or is moved so that it exhibits a rectilinear translation
through this space.47 Would that change the way in which we define mobile versus
46
Morison, appears to support his interpretation by offering a different translation of the words ὁ
πᾶς μᾶλλον ποταμὸς τόπος. He takes them to mean: “rather the whole river is a place,” i.e one of
the possible ways of identifying the surrounding surface, next, for example, to the identification of
this surface as the limit of the surrounding universe. In this reading, in other words, the eventual
identification of the surrounding surface as the surface of the surrounding immobile universe is
thus at least implied. However, the fact that the noun τόπος here occurs without the article is per-
fectly normal Greek idiom for nouns in a predicate position. It does not indicate that Aristotle is
talking about ‘a place’ rather than ‘the place.’ Indeed the equivalent of ‘a place’ would probably
have been something like τόπος τις. The context seems to suggest that we are being told that it is
not the immediately surrounding water, but the river as a whole that is said to be the place of the
boat.
47
See Cleomedes Cael. 1, 1, 39–43 Todd. More or less the same thought experiment was referred
to in the 49th proposition of the famous Parisian condemnation of 1277 issued by bishop Étienne
Tempier (which argued against those (Aristotelians) who claimed that God could not shift the
world) and it was taken up by philosophers such as Thomas Bradwardine, John de Ripa and
immobile substances within the cosmos? Wouldn’t we still regard the centre and the
periphery as fixed reference points for determining intra-cosmic motion and rest?
Conversely, of what use would the immobility of the cosmos as a whole be, for the
purpose of locating things within the cosmos, if we imagine it as containing no fixed
elements, but consisting of substances which all move helter-skelter all the time? It
appears, in other words, that the search for immobile places would in principle not
be thwarted by any supposed motion of the cosmos as a whole, whereas it would
indeed be thwarted if we had no immobile reference points within the cosmos. So it
appears that the immobility of the universe is of no help in securing the required
immobility of places.
On the basis of these considerations I do not think it very likely that Aristotle’s
claim that “rather the whole river is the place” refers to the surrounding surface of
the boat-sized hole in the cosmos, as Morison suggests. One would rather expect it
to refer to the surface of the surrounding river, taken in abstracto, i.e. as a geo-
graphic entity, following the interpretation of the earlier mentioned medieval com-
mentators (an interpretation which has been taken up some time ago in a slightly
different way by Myles Burnyeat).48 This surface, we may surmise, derives its
immobility from the immobility of the river qua geographical entity, which has a
fixed position on the immobile earth, which in turn has a fixed position with respect
to the heavenly spheres. Nevertheless, even this solution cannot be smoothly
extracted from Aristotle’s text. It presupposes a rather specific unpacking of the
roughshod phrase “the whole river is the place.” In addition, it still presupposes a
distinction between the surface qua surface of the surrounding water and the surface
qua surface of the surrounding immobile river as a geographical entity – a distinc-
tion which is not provided in the context of these particular passages, nor indeed
elsewhere in Phys 4. Consequently, we need not be surprised that the problem of the
immobility of place remained on the agenda in the later ancient and medieval com-
mentary traditions, starting with Theophrastus, who included the fact that “place
will be in motion” among the aporiai raised by Aristotle’s conception of place as a
surrounding surface (Simplicius In Phys. 604, 5–11; Theophrastus fr. 146 FHSG).
2.7 The Emplacement of the Heavens
Two further aporiai raised by Theophrastus in the same context concern the fact that
on Aristotle’s theory not every body will be in a place – not the sphere of the fixed
stars – and that also the heavens (ouranos) as a whole will not be in a place. These
aporiai are related to the text of the first part of chapter 5 of Phys 4, which deals
Nicolas Oresme. See Grant 1979, 230–232. In these contexts, the thought experiment was actually
used to prove that there is, or can be, an extra-cosmic void space. As Palmerino’s Chapter 12 in this
volume documents, this thought experiment plays a central role in the Leibniz-Clarke
Correspondence.
48
Burnyeat 1984, 230, n15.
34 K. Algra
with the subject of the emplacement of the (outer sphere of the) heavens (212b8-
21), and which is extremely condensed and difficult. Aristotle appears to claim that
the ouranos is not in a place as a whole, but that it has places for its parts in so far
as they move and contain each other (hence, they somehow act as each other’s
places). The very fact that Aristotle designates his subject as ‘the ouranos’ does not
make matters easier. After all, in Aristotle, even in this single context, the word
ouranos can refer either to (1) the whole cosmos (as a synonym of ‘the universe’ or
to pan), or to (2) the outer sphere of the heavens, or to (3) the heavens as a whole.
Interpretations of what Aristotle says (and especially of what he means by ‘the
parts’ of the ouranos) naturally differ according as one opts for (1), (2) or (3).49
Simplicius (In Phys. 594, 35–37) actually complains that “it is clear that he was
calling either the whole universe or the whole of that which revolves ‘the heavens,’
but he created much unclarity in the passage before us by meaning sometimes ‘the
heavens’ and sometimes ‘the universe’.”
But let us leave the problem of the lack of clarity in the presentation for what it
is and move on to the underlying conceptual problems. Whether the referent of the
word ouranos is the outer sphere, or the heavens as a whole, or the cosmos as a
whole, it is said not to be in a place. One could argue that these three entities all do
indeed lack a container, so that they are not ‘in something’ in the required sense and
that they exhibit no locomotion apart from rotation, so that it is hardly a problem if
we have to conclude that they are not in a place. We have evidence that this was the
interpretation opted for by Alexander of Aphrodisias, in his now lost commentary.
He added that it is not impossible for something to exist without being in a place,
because being in a place is not an essential property (belonging to the definition) of
a body.50 We may note that this might be a way to take up Aristotle’s repeated sug-
gestion that not everything that exists, but only mobile substances, are in a place.51
The additional claim to make would then be that the ouranos is not a mobile sub-
stance in the relevant sense, because it exhibits no rectilinear motion, whereas its
rotation of its parts does not count as locomotion properly speaking and thus does
not need places as a frame of reference.52 However, in chapter 5 Aristotle seems
reluctant to take this line. Despite everything, he now seems so much swayed by the
“universally accepted” (208a39) idea that that all existing things are somewhere as
to want to show that the ouranos for sure does have a place, even if only in a deriva-
tive sense, and he also appears intent on maintaining the idea that its rotation, or the
rotation of its parts involves places. And indeed, how could rotation be explained
without invoking some conception of place?
49
The translation by Waterfield and Bostock 1996, for example opts for (1) and takes the whole of
212a31–b22 to be about the (place of the) universe. Hussey 1983, 119 rather assumes that Aristotle
is moving between the various senses of ouranos, as indeed does Philoponus in the various sec-
tions of his commentary, on which see Algra and Van Ophuijsen 2012, 118, n201, n202, n203.
50
This is how Averroes describes Alexander’s position in his Long Commentary, as paraphrased by
Lettink 1994, 308.
51
On which see above, n24.
52
This additional claim was indeed made by Alexander, on which see below, the text to n56.
Accordingly, his own solution in the obscure first part of chapter 5 seems to come
down to two claims:
(i) the ouranos, in whatever meaning of the word we have in mind here, is indeed
in place, but only incidentally, in virtue of the fact that its parts are in place; and
(ii) the kind of locomotion involved is rotation; this involves the idea that its parts
exchange places without the ouranos as a whole doing so.
So the ouranos is said not to exhibit locomotion in its own right; only its parts
change place. And thus the ouranos is not in place in its own right, but only inciden-
tally, in virtue of the fact that its parts, presumably all of them, are in place. But does
this work? In particular – and here we are back at the problem we started with –
what is the ouranos in this connection and what, accordingly, are the parts that are
moving and emplaced?
The commentary tradition comes up with two ways in which this could be
worked out, each of them equally unsatisfactory. One option is to take this passage
to be about the heavens as a whole, in which case the reference to the ‘parts’ and
their respective motions is taken to be to the nested spheres. The problem with this
is that it does not leave us with a place which can serve as the measure of rotation;
for during its rotation each inner sphere remains in the same outer sphere. Secondly
we are left anyway with the problem of the outermost sphere, which on this inter-
pretation should still be taken not to be in a place at all, for it has nothing to sur-
round it from outside, unless we take it to be located, exceptionally, not in a concave
surrounding surface, but in the convex surface of the inner sphere of Saturn, as
Themistius appears to have suggested.53 Some Arabic commentators extended this
solution from the sphere of the fixed stars to all celestial spheres. Thus Ibn Bajja
(Avempace), basically followed by Ibn Rushd (Averroes), claims that a surrounding
surface on the outside figures as the place for bodies exhibiting rectilinear motion,
whereas bodies that exhibit rotation (i.e. the heavenly spheres) have as their place a
surrounding surface on the inside.54 Philoponus knows Themistius’ solution, but
objects that such a place for the sphere of the fixed stars (the outer surface of the
sphere of Saturn) would not be of equal size (as demanded by Aristotle’s own con-
straints on the theory, 211a1-2).
The second option mentioned in the commentary tradition is to take the passage to be
about the outer sphere, i.e. the sphere of the fixed stars, alone, and to take the reference
to the parts, which in so far as they are surrounded by each other supposedly are
emplaced, to be to the continuous parts of this outer sphere itself.55 The problem with his
interpretation is that on Aristotle’s own line of thought, and as we noted above in Section
2.3, the parts of a continuous whole are not in a place, properly speaking. Moreover, in
the process of the rotation of the outer sphere these parts do not in fact change place rela-
53
Cf. Themistius In Phys. 121, 1–5.
54
For the arguments, see Lettink 1994, 297 (Ibn Bajja) and 309–310 (Ibn Rushd).
55
See, for example, Philoponus In Phys. 594, 5–10; Simplicius In Phys. 593, 13–15 with reference
to Alexander of Aphrodisias.
36 K. Algra
tively to each other: they rotate along with each other. As such they, or their surfaces, can
hardly constitute the places that measure the rotation of the sphere.
Once again, a possible way out for an Aristotelian might be to claim that locomo-
tion as such is restricted to the kind of rectilinear motion that we witness in the sublu-
nary world, and that only substances in that region are the sort of things that need
places to explain their motions. In that case the fact that the outer sphere and the
heavens as a whole are not in place, although they rotate, could be seen as no longer
problematic, provided that rotation would no longer be treated as a subspecies of
locomotion, but as a separate species of change in its own right (next to locomotion,
qualitative change etc.), one which does not require a place to start from, nor a place
to move into. And this indeed appears to have been the option chosen by Alexander of
Aphrodisias.56 However, as Simplicius notes in the first part of his Corollary, there are
many passages where Aristotle emphatically does claim that rotation is in fact one of
the subspecies of locomotion or kinêsis kata topon.57 So he would have to revise that
aspect of his theory to be able to take Alexander’s line of approach.
All in all, then, the first part of chapter 5 appears to reveal that Aristotle did not man-
age to really sort out some rather crucial aspects of his theory of place: whether and to
what extent we should be committed to the truth of the first premises of Zeno’s paradox
of place, what should be considered to be the sort of things that need places, and whether
or not rotation is a species of locomotion that requires places to measure it.
In his Corollary on Place Philoponus has this to say on the attempts by the com-
mentators to save this part of Aristotle’s account:
Text 18. Hence, when they try to explain how the sphere of fixed stars could move in place
when it is not in place, they throw everything into confusion rather than saying anything
clear and persuasive. For they cannot deny that the sphere moves in place, because they
cannot even make up a story about what {other} kind of motion it would have. However,
they cannot explain what is the place in respect of which it moves, but like people playing
dice they throw out first one account, then another, and through them all they destroy their
original assumptions and agreements. For by concealing the weakness of his account with
obscurity, Aristotle licensed those who want to change their stories however they wish
(Philoponus, In Phys. 565, 12–21).
Even Aristotle’s staunch defender Ben Morison has to conclude that the problem of
the emplacement of the ouranos is “a problem which is recognized and tackled by
Aristotle, but unsatisfactorily.”58
2.8 Conclusions
Physics 4, 1–5, as we have seen, is a difficult text in many respects, and the concep-
tion of place which it eventually works out is not in all respects a viable or very
useful element in any theory of locomotion. In the present paper I have discussed
56
See Simplicius In Phys. 595, 20–21; see also 589, 5–8; 602, 31–35.
57
Simplicius In Phys. 603, 4–16.
58
Morison 2010, 85.
five of the main exegetical or conceptual problems with which this text has con-
fronted its later readers, starting with Aristotle’s pupils Eudemus and Theophrastus.
These problems, as we saw, are not all of the same type, and in the end not all of
the same weight and importance. The problem of the precise role of natural places
in the explanation of the natural motion of light and heavy elements (discussed in
Section 2.5) turns out not to be so much of a conceptual or philosophical problem
after all, but rather a problem of presentation. One has to pull the pieces together,
but the emerging picture makes sense, once we realize that the claim that place
seems to have ‘a certain power’ need not be taken at face value, that Aristotle quite
emphatically states that it is not one of the four causes, and that the dynamics of
natural motion as sketched in Physics 8 isolates other causal factors (among which
we find the element’s ‘being somewhere,’ not its place, labeled as a final cause).
The problem of the unsatisfactory way in which the rival conception of place as
three-dimensional extension is rejected (Section 2.3) and the problem of how places
can figure in the explanation of locomotion (Section 2.4) arguably lose much of
their edge, once we look at things from an Aristotelian perspective. Admittedly, the
arguments against the conception of place as an independent three-dimensional
extension do not work as they stand, but what seems to be the underlying problem –
the inconceivability of such an extension within the context of Aristotle’s substance
ontology (and the concomitant theory of the categories) – was a real one for Aristotle
and many of his followers. We may also admit that Aristotelian places are hopeless
if we want to explain the trajectory of a body moving from place A to place
B. However, in many contexts the fact that the theory is able to identify place A at
the beginning and place B at the end of the trajectory arguably lends it sufficient
explanatory power for an Aristotelian.
However, the problem of specifying the required immobility of Aristotelian
places (Section 2.6), and the problem of clarifying whether and in what sense the
outer sphere of the heavens, the heavens as whole, or the cosmos as a whole have a
place, both represent aspects of the theory that Aristotle himself appears not to have
thought through sufficiently. In everyday contexts we may for all practical purposes
think it good enough to say that a boat moving along with the current in a river does
not move with respect with the immediately surrounding water, but does move with
respect to ‘the river as a whole.’ But once we want to translate this ‘the river as a
whole’ in the more technical language of Aristotelian places as contiguous and
immobile surfaces we run into problems and are forced to think up solutions (like
the medieval ‘nominalist’ solution of taking these surfaces in abstracto) of which
there is not a trace in the actual text of Physics 4, 1–5. When it comes to the problem
of the emplacement of the ouranos (Section 2.7), in whatever sense of the word we
take it, it appears that Aristotle has not managed to make clear to what extent pre-
cisely he is committed to the first premises of Zeno’s paradox, and that he has failed
to make clear in what sense the parts of the ouranos are to be thought of as being in
a place, in what sense its rotation is or is not a species of locomotion and in what
sense the explanation of rotation requires a place of the type developed in Physics 4
at all. Perhaps all this could be resolved, for example along the lines suggested by
Alexander, but no such resolution is forthcoming from chapter 5 of Physics 4.
38 K. Algra
In spite of all this, it is fair to say that Physics 4, 1–5 is also an intriguing, rich
and highly original text – the more so since it is the first in its kind. Right at the
beginning of the account (208a34-36) Aristotle himself highlights this point by
claiming that, apart from the inherent difficulty of the subject, a proper discussion
is hampered by the fact that thinkers before him have neither shown any awareness
of the problems inherent in thinking about place (οὐδὲν […] προηπορημένον), nor
offered any good insights (οὐδὲν […] προηυπορημένον). Certainly, later on he is
willing to admit that “although everyone assumes that there is such a thing as place,
Plato is the only one who tried to say what it is” (209b15-16). But in Aristotle’s view
Plato’s account in the Timaeus has not been successful in doing so because it
remains fundamentally unclear, and from a purely physical point of view he is
surely right.59 And so Aristotle’s Physics 4, 1–5 stands out, despite all its problem-
atic features, as the first systematic discussion of various possible conceptions of
place, of some of the problems inherent in thinking about place, and of new and
necessary conceptual distinctions.
References
Algra, Keimpe. 1992. Place in Context: On Theophrastus fr. 21 and 22 Wimmer. In Theophrastus:
His Psychological, Doxographical and Scientific Writings, ed. William Fortenbaugh and
Dimitri D. Gutas, 141–165. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
———. 1995. Concepts of Space in Greek Thought. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2012. Introduction. In Philoponus On Aristotle Physics 4. 1-5, ed. Keimpe Algra and
Johannes van Ophuijsen, 1–12. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.
———. 2014. Aristotle’s Conception of Place and Its Reception in the Hellenistic Period. In Space
in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Graziano Ranocchia, Christoph Helmig, and Christoph Horn,
11–52. Berlin: De Gruyter.
———. 2015. Place (M 10, 1–36). In Sextus Empiricus and Ancient Physics, ed. Keimpe Algra and
Katerina Ierodiakonou, 184–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Algra, Keimpe, and Johannes van Ophuijsen. 2012. Philoponus On Aristotle Physics 4, 1–5.
Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.
Bergson, Henri. 1889. Quid Aristoteles de loco senserit. Paris: Alcan.
Burnyeat, Myles. 1984. The Sceptic in His Place and Time. In Philosophy in History: Essays
on the Historiography of Philosophy, ed. Richard Rorty, Jerome Schneewind, and Quentin
Skinner, 225–254. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Desclos, Marie-Laurence, and William Fortenbaugh. 2011. Strato of Lampsacus: Text, Translation
and Discussion. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
59
This is a subject not discussed in this paper. But the long and the short of it is that Aristotle thinks
that (i) the Timaeus leaves it fundamentally unclear whether the ‘receptacle’ can be seen as a sepa-
rable self-subsistent space in which phenomenal bodies are and move around in the strictly local
sense of ‘being in,’ or rather an inseparable constituent factor of the world in which immanent
qualities are, in the non local sense of ‘being in’ which we might call ‘inherence;’ and that (ii) its
identification of space or place with matter is of no use in a physical context dealing with the loco-
motion of substances. For a vindication of Aristotle’s critique of the Timaeus and its ‘receptacle,’
with a discussion of the relevant texts, see Algra 1995, 110–117.
Furley, David, and Christian Wildberg. 1991. Philoponus, Corollaries on Place and Void – With
Simplicius, Against Philoponus on the Eternity of the World. London: Duckworth.
Gottschalk, Hans. 1998. Theophrastus and the Peripatos. In Theophrastus: Reappraising the
Sources, ed. Johannes van Ophuijsen and Marlein van Raalte, 281–299. New Brunswick:
Transaction Publishers.
———. 2002. Eudemus and the Peripatos. In Eudemus of Rhodes, ed. Istvan Bodnár and William
Fortenbaugh, 25–37. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Grant, Edward. 1979. The Condemnation of 1277: God’s Absolute Power and Physical Thought in
the Late Middle Ages. Viator 10: 211–244.
———. 1981a. Much Ado About Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to
the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 1981b. The Medieval Doctrine of Place: Some Fundamental Problems and Solutions.
In Studi sul XIV secolo in memoria di Anneliese Maier, ed. Alfonso Maierù and Agostino
Paravicini Bagliani, 57–79. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
Hussey, Edward. 1983. Aristotle: Physics Books III and IV. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Irigaray, Luce. 1998. Place, Interval: A Reading of Aristotle, Physics IV. In Feminist readings of
Aristotle, ed. Cynthia A. Freeland, 41–58. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University
Press.
Lettink, Paul. 1994. Aristotle’s Physics and its Reception in the Arabic World: With an Edition of
the Unpublished Parts of Ibn Bajja’s Commentary on the Physics. Leiden: Brill.
Morison, Ben. 2002. On Location: Aristotle’s Concept of Place. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2010. Did Theophrastus Reject Aristotle’s Account of Place? Phronesis 55 (1): 68–103.
Owen, Gwyll. 1961. Tithenai ta phainomena. In Logic, Science and Dialectic, Collected Papers in
Greek Philosophy, ed. Martha Nussbaum, 239–251. London: Duckworth.
Rashed, Marwan. 2011. Alexandre d’Aphrodise: Commentaire perdue à la Physique d’Aristote
(livres IV-VIII). Les scholies byzantines: Édition, traduction et commentaire. Berlin: De
Gruyter.
Sambursky, Shmuel. 1982. The Concept of Place in Late Neoplatonism. Jerusalem: The Israel
Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Sharples, Robert. 1998. Theophrastus as Philosopher and Aristotelian. In Theophrastus:
Reappraising the Sources, ed. Johannes van Ophuijsen and Marlein van Raalte, 267–281. New
Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
———. 2002. Eudemus’ Physics: Change, Place and Time. In Eudemus of Rhodes, ed. Istvan
Bodnár and William Fortenbaugh, 107–126. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
———. 2011. Strato of Lampsacus: The Sources, Texts and Translations. In Strato of Lampsacus:
Text, Translation and Discussion, ed. Marie-Laurence Desclos and William Fortenbaugh,
5–231. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Sorabji, Richard. 1988. Matter, Space and Motion. London: Duckworth.
———. 1990. The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle. In Aristotle Transformed, ed. Richard
Sorabji, 1–30. London: Duckworth.
———. 2004. The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD: A Sourcebook, vol. 2, Physics.
London: Duckworth.
Todd, Robert. 2003. Themistius, On Aristotle’s Physics 4. London: Duckworth.
Urmson, James O. 1992. Simplicius, On Aristotle’s Physics 4, 1–5 and 10–14. London: Duckworth.
Urmson, James O., and Lucas Siorvanes. 1992. Simplicius, Corollaries on Place and Time.
London: Duckworth.
Waterfield, Robin, and David Bostock. 1996. Aristotle’s Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chapter 3
The End of Epicurean Infinity: Critical
Reflections on the Epicurean Infinite
Universe
Frederik A. Bakker
Abstract In contrast to other ancient philosophers, Epicurus and his followers

famously maintained the infinity of matter, and consequently of worlds. This was
inferred from the infinity of space, because they believed that a limited amount of
matter would inevitably be scattered through infinite space, and hence be unable to
meet and form stable compounds. By contrast, the Stoics claimed that there was
only a finite amount of matter in infinite space, which stayed together because of a
general centripetal tendency. The Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius tried to defend
the Epicurean conception of infinity against this Stoic alternative view, but not very
convincingly. One might suspect, therefore, that the Epicureans’ adherence to the
infinity of matter was not so much dictated by physical arguments as it was moti-
vated by other, mostly theological and ethical, concerns. More specifically, the
infinity of atoms and worlds was used as a premise in several arguments against
divine intervention in the universe. The infinity of worlds was claimed to rule out
divine intervention directly, while the infinity of atoms lent plausibility to the chance
formation of worlds. Moreover, the infinity of atoms and worlds was used to ensure
the truth of multiple explanations, which was presented by Epicurus as the only way
to ward off divine intervention in the realm of celestial phenomena. However, it will
be argued that in all of these arguments the infinity of matter is either unnecessary
or insufficient for reaching the desired conclusion.
The original version of this chapter was revised. This chapter was considered as an Open Access
chapter. A correction to this chapter can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-
02765-0_13
F. A. Bakker (*)
e-mail: f.bakker@ftr.ru.nl

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_3
42 F. A. Bakker
3.1 Introduction
A prominent feature of ancient atomism that still captures the imagination is its
endorsement of the infinity of the universe and, associated with it, the infinite num-
ber of worlds.1 Whereas most ancient philosophers argued for a single cosmos,
either identified with a finite universe, as in Plato’s and Aristotle’s cosmologies, or
placed in an infinite void, as in Stoic cosmology, the atomists made our cosmos a
negligible and utterly unremarkable part of the infinite matter-filled universe.2
The infinity of the universe, in terms of space as well as bodies, was arrived at
through rigorous argumentation, much of which may go back to the earlier atomists,
but which has come down to us mainly through the works of Epicurus and Lucretius,
who adopted and reinforced some of the earlier arguments.3 The centrality of this
theory to Epicurean cosmology is clear from the prominent place given to it in
Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus (close to the beginning) and in Lucretius’ De rerum
natura (in the final and concluding parts of books one and two).
However, the dual infinity of matter and void, and the consequent infinite number
of worlds, are not simply curious but otherwise sterile logical consequences of the
basic tenets of Epicurean physics, but they also serve as the starting points for fur-
ther inferences: the infinity of the universe is argued to rule out divine governance,
to make the spontaneous formation of a cosmos not merely possible but inevitable,
and to guarantee the simultaneous truth of multiple, mutually incompatible explana-
tions. Moreover, all of these consequences relate directly or indirectly to the ques-
tion of the gods’ involvement in the world.
In this chapter I will investigate the infinity of the universe from both points of
view. First, I will critically examine the Epicurean arguments for the infinity of
space and bodies, as well as the way in which they deal with a rival view, and, sec-
ond, I will look into some of the corollaries to the infinity of space and bodies, and
the role these corollaries play in underpinning the Epicurean view of the gods, in
order to see whether this role may serve as an additional motivation for the
Epicureans’ insistence on the infinity of bodies and worlds.
1
See e.g. Mash 1993, 204–210; Dick 1996, 12–13, Dowd 2015, 56, Traphagan 2015, 18; and
Darling 2016, s.vv. ‘atomism,’ ‘Leucippus,’ ‘Democritus,’ ‘Metrodorus,’ ‘Epicurus’ and
‘Lucretius.’
2
See e.g. Lucretius 6.649–652. Henceforth all references to Lucretius will follow the text and
translation of Rouse and Smith 1992, unless otherwise specified.
3
For the Presocratic antecedents of these arguments see Furley 1989, 110–114; Avotins 1983;
Asmis 1984, 261–267.
3 The End of Epicurean Infinity: Critical Reflections on the Epicurean Infinite Universe 43
3.2 Cosmological Arguments for the Infinity of the Universe
Two Epicurean accounts for the infinity of the universe have come down to us. One
is found in Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus 41–42, and another, longer one in
Lucretius’ De rerum natura 1.951–1113. In both accounts the arguments presup-
pose the Epicurean division of being into bodies and void. In order to clarify these
two somewhat ambiguous concepts and to provide a background for the discussion
of Epicurean infinity, I will start with a brief discussion of these two concepts.
3.2.1 Clarification of Concepts: Bodies and Void
According to Epicurus the universe (τὸ πᾶν) consists of bodies and void (κενόν).4
The existence of bodies is directly attested by the evidence of the senses,5 but the
existence of void, being inaccessible to sense perception, has to be inferred from
other phenomena (Letter to Herodotus 40):
And if there were not that which we term void and room and intangible nature, bodies
would have nowhere to exist and nothing through which to move, as they are seen to move.6
In this statement void (κενόν) is connected with two other spatial concepts, room
(χώρα) and intangible nature (ἀναφὴς φύσις). In the Letter to Herodotus Epicurus
does not provide a definition for any of these three terms, but a later source, Sextus
Empiricus, Against the Professors 10.2, provides the following testimony:
According to Epicurus, of ‘intangible nature,’ as he calls it, one kind is named ‘void,’
another ‘place,’ and another ‘room,’ the names varying according to the different ways of
looking at it, since the same nature when empty of all body is called ‘void,’ when occupied
by a body is named ‘place,’ and when bodies roam through it becomes ‘room.’7
So, although Epicurus apparently did sometimes distinguish these spatial terms, in
Letter to Herodotus 40 these distinctions are observed neither nominally – for
Epicurus presents the three terms as mere synonyms –,8 nor conceptually – for the
4
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 39. Henceforth all references to Epicurus’ letters will follow the
text edition of Arrighetti 1973. See also Lucretius 1.419–20.
5
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 39. See also Lucretius 1.422–25.
6
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 40: εἰ <δὲ> μὴ ἦν ὃ κενὸν καὶ χώραν καὶ ἀναφῆ φύσιν ὀνομάζομεν,
οὐκ ἂν εἶχε τὰ σώματα ὅπου ἦν οὐδὲ δι’ οὗ ἐκινεῖτο, καθάπερ φαίνεται κινούμενα. Translation
in Bailey 1926, 23 (slightly modified). See also Lucretius 1.329–69.
7
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors 10.2: κατὰ τὸν Ἐπίκουρον τῆς ἀναφοῦς καλουμένης
φύσεως τὸ μέν τι ὀνομάζεται κενόν, τὸ δὲ τόπος, τὸ δὲ χώρα, μεταλαμβανομένων κατὰ
διαφόρους ἐπιβολὰς τῶν ὀνομάτων, ἐπείπερ ἡ αὐτὴ φύσις ἔρημος μὲν καθεστηκυῖα παντὸς
σώματος κενὸν προσαγορεύεται, καταλαμβανομένη δὲ ὑπὸ σώματος τόπος καλεῖται, χωρούντων
δὲ δι’ αὐτῆς σωμάτων χώρα γίνεται. Text in Long and Sedley 1987b, 22; translation in Long and
Sedley 1987a, 28 (slightly modified).
8
Similarly Lucretius 1.334 “quapropter locus est intactus inane vacansque;” 1.954-955 “quod
inane repertumst / seu locus ac spatium;” and 1.1074 “omnis enim locus ac spatium, quod in<ane
vocamus>.”
44 F. A. Bakker
existence of void is inferred from the fact that bodies (1) need to be somewhere,
which is place, and (2) need something to move through, which is room. This means
that in Letter to Herodotus 40, and possibly also other passages, the term ‘void’ is
used to denote not just empty space, but also occupied space (i.e. ‘place’) and the
space through which bodies move (i.e. ‘room’). In other words, ‘void’ is used as a
stand-in for the generic term ‘intangible nature,’ which may also be translated as
‘space.’9
Another ambiguity that must be addressed concerns the concept of body. Bodies,
according to Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus 40–41), come in two kinds: compounds
and atoms. Now, when Epicurus claims that the existence of bodies is attested by the
evidence of the senses (see above), he must be thinking primarily of compounds,
since atoms cannot be perceived (Letter to Herodotus 56). However, since in com-
pound bodies there is always an admixture of void (Lucretius 1.358-369), concep-
tual purity requires that, in those contexts where bodies are opposed to void, we
think primarily of atoms.
3.2.2 P
ositive Arguments for the Infinity of the Universe,
Bodies and Void
In section 41 of his Letter to Herodotus, Epicurus provides the following argument

for the infinity of the universe:
Moreover, the universe is boundless. For that which is bounded has an extreme point, and
the extreme point is seen against something else, <but the universe is not seen against some-
thing else,>10 so that, as it has no extreme point, it has no limit, and as it has no limit, it must
be boundless and not bounded.11
The same view is also defended by Lucretius (1.951-1007), who offers no fewer
than four arguments.12 In the first place (1.958-967), Lucretius argues, whatever is
finite must have a boundary, but a boundary requires something external to bound it;
however, since there is nothing external to the universe, the universe cannot have a
9
See Long and Sedley 1987a, 29–30; Algra 1995, 52–58. However, Inwood 1981, and more
recently Konstan 2014, claim that Epicurus uses the term ‘void’ (τὸ κενόν) exclusively to refer to
‘empty space.’ (Concerning these two interpretations see also n18 below.) In this article I will fol-
low the first-mentioned interpretation, which I find to be the more convincing of the two. My own
conclusions concerning the Epicurean theory of infinity do not, however, essentially depend on this
choice, and could also agree with the alternative interpretation.
10
Addition suggested by Usener 1887, xviii, on the basis of Cicero’s version of Epicurus’ argument
in De divinatione 2.103; it is rejected by Bailey 1926, 22 and 184, but accepted by Arrighetti 1973,
39.
11
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 41: Ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸ πᾶν ἄπειρόν ἐστι· τὸ γὰρ πεπερασμένον
ἄκρον ἔχει· τὸ δὲ ἄκρον παρ’ ἕτερόν τι θεωρεῖται· <Ἀλλὰ μὴν τὸ πᾶν οὐ παρ’ ἕτερόν τι
θεωρεῖται·> ὥστε οὐκ ἔχον ἄκρον πέρας οὐκ ἔχει· πέρας δὲ οὐκ ἔχον ἄπειρον ἂν εἴη καὶ οὐ
πεπερασμένον. Translation in Bailey 1926, 23 (modified).
12
See Bailey 1947, vol. 2, 763–764; Asmis 1984, 262–264; Bakker 2016, 182–184.
boundary, and hence must be infinite. Secondly (1.968-983), if the universe had a
boundary and someone threw a spear towards it, the spear would either stop or con-
tinue: if it stops, there must be matter outside to obstruct it, but if it continues there
must be empty space to receive it: in either case there must be something outside,
and the boundary of the universe turns out to be no boundary at all; this result
repeats itself wherever one assumes the presence of a boundary. As a consequence
the universe cannot have a boundary, and is proved to be infinite. Thirdly (1.984-
997), if space were finite and bounded on all sides, all bodies would be heaped up at
the ‘bottom,’ i.e. the lower boundary, by strength of their weight, and nothing fur-
ther would happen, but this is not the case; therefore the universe must be infinite.
Finally (1.998-1001), we see that everything that is bounded is always bounded by
something else, but in the case of the universe there is nothing else to bound it;
therefore the universe must be infinite.
The first of Lucretius’ arguments basically repeats Epicurus’ argument from the
Letter to Herodotus 41, and may go back to the earlier atomists: one version is pre-
sented and rejected by Aristotle in Physics 3.4, 203b20-22. The second argument is
a famous thought experiment that goes back to the Pythagorean Archytas and was
also used by the Stoics.13 Both these arguments, as well as the fourth, exploit the
notion of limit, which seems to include the notion of a ‘beyond.’14 Lucretius’ third
argument is of a different nature. Presupposing the Epicurean conception of down-
ward motion as a motion along parallel lines from infinity to infinity,15 and hypo-
thetically enclosing the universe in boundaries, Lucretius argues that the lower
boundary, the ‘bottom,’ would obstruct this natural downward motion and cause
matter to be compacted into one inert mass.16 However, at this point of the argument
the Epicurean theory of parallel downward motion has not yet been proved: in fact,
its proof depends upon the rejection of centripetal gravity in 1.1052-1093 (see the
next section), which in turn presupposes the infinity of space – the very thing
Lucretius is arguing for here. In short: Lucretius’ third argument presents a petitio
principii. The fourth argument seems to be nothing but a restatement of the first. A
version of this argument is also used by the Stoic Cleomedes (1.1, 112–122).
13
Archytas fr. A24 in Diels and Kranz 1951–1952; Stoics SVF II 535–536 (Here and elsewhere I
use the standard abbreviation SVF for references to Arnim 1903–1905). For an analysis of the vari-
ous ancient versions of this thought experiment, see Ierodiakonou 2011. For early modern versions
of the thought experiment see Granada’s and Palmerino’s Chapters 8 and 12 in this volume.
14
Furley 1989, 111; Avotins 1983, 427; Asmis 1984, 262–263.
15
See Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 60, with the comments on the same in Konstan 1972, and
Lucretius 2.216-250, with the comments on the same in Bakker 2016, 214–216.
16
It might be argued that, were the existence of a centripetal downward motion assumed, the centre
would provide a similar ‘bottom,’ and the same argument would apply (on which see p. 51 below).
However, in the present context Lucretius is clearly thinking of external boundaries, and his iden-
tification of one of these external boundaries as the ‘bottom’ indicates that he is assuming the
existence of a parallel downward motion.
46 F. A. Bakker
With the infinity of the universe proven, and given the fact that the universe con-
sists of bodies and void, the question naturally arises how the infinity of the universe
relates to each of its two components. In sections 41–42 of the Letter to Herodotus,
Epicurus argues for the infinity of both bodies and void:
Furthermore, the universe is boundless both in the number of the bodies and in the extent of
the void. For if on the one hand the void were boundless, and the bodies limited in number,
the bodies could not stay anywhere, but would be carried about and scattered through the
infinite void, not having other bodies to support them and keep them in place by means of
collisions. But if, on the other hand, the void were limited, the infinite bodies would not
have a place to be in.17
Here too, ‘void’ seems to be used in the sense of ‘space,’ encompassing both that
through which bodies move (i.e. ‘room’) and that where bodies are (i.e. ‘place’).18
However, this should not mislead us into thinking that bodies and space might be
coextensive, with bodies (i.e. atoms) filling up every portion of space. Lucretius
offers three arguments for the existence of actually empty space. Firstly, motion
requires the existence of pockets of empty space, in order to provide a beginning of
motion (1.335-345); secondly, the penetration of sound and cold into bodies, but
also the dispersion of food through the living body require the existence of empty
passageways (1.346-357), and thirdly, differences in specific weight must be due to
differing amounts of empty space in (compound) bodies (1.358-369).19 When,
therefore, the Epicureans state that both the extent of space and the number of bod-
ies are infinite, what they have in mind is an infinite alternation of (atomic) bodies
and (empty) space.20 In an expanded version of Epicurus’ argument for the infinite
number of bodies Lucretius (1.1008-1051) specifies that our world is being main-
tained by external bodies, which constantly either replace atoms or beat them back
into line.21
17
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 41–42: Καὶ μὴν καὶ τῷ πλήθει τῶν σωμάτων ἄπειρόν ἐστι τὸ πᾶν
καὶ τῷ μεγέθει τοῦ κενοῦ· εἴ τε γὰρ ἦν τὸ κενὸν ἄπειρον, τὰ δὲ σώματα ὡρισμένα, οὐθαμοῦ ἂν
ἔμενε τὰ σώματα, Ἀλλ’ ἐφέρετο κατὰ τὸ ἄπειρον κενὸν διεσπαρμένα, οὐκ ἔχοντα τὰ ὑπερείδοντα
καὶ στέλλοντα κατὰ τὰς Ἀνακοπάς· εἴ τε τὸ κενὸν ἦν ὡρισμένον, οὐκ ἂν εἶχε τὰ ἄπειρα σώματα
ὅπου ἐνέστη. Translation in Bailey 1926, 23 (slightly modified).
18
According to Algra 1995, 56–57, ‘being in’ and ‘moving through’ imply that ‘void’ is here
thought of as occupied, and therefore not empty. Konstan 2014, 90–91, retorts that ‘being in’
means ‘being surrounded by’ and ‘being separated by,’ and since bodies are always surrounded and
separated by empty space (because otherwise they would not be able to move), the infinity of bod-
ies implies an infinite amount of surrounding empty space.
19
Algra 1995, 57.
20
Cf. Lucretius 1.1008-1011 “Ipsa modum porro sibi rerum summa parare / ne possit, natura tenet,
quae corpus inani / et quod inane autem est finiri corpore cogit, / ut sic alternis infinita omnia red-
dat.” Text from Rouse and Smith 1992, 82 and 84.
21
A similar argument is also found in fragment 67 (in Smith 1993, 259–260) of the Epicurean
inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda.
3.2.3 Refutation of a Rival Theory
At first sight the Epicurean argument for an infinite number of bodies seems quite
plausible. However, the assumption it is based on – that in infinite space a limited
number of bodies would not be able to find a stable foothold, and would therefore
be dispersed throughout the void – is not self-evident. While Epicurus simply
assumes that this is true, Lucretius is aware of, and actively engages with, a rival
theory that challenges precisely this implication. In 1.1052-1093, Lucretius warns
Memmius, his addressee, to “avoid and keep afar” the view
that, as some say, all things press towards the centre of the whole and that for this reason the
nature of the world stands firm without any external blows, and […] cannot be set loose in
any direction, because all presses towards the centre.22
If, as these unnamed rivals claim, all bodies have a natural tendency to move towards
a central point, even a limited amount of bodies would be able to remain together
and be safe from dispersal into the infinite void, without the need for external blows
to keep the bodies in check, or to repair the losses. One could even argue – although
Lucretius does not make this point – that the assumption of a general centripetal
tendency of bodies would actually preclude their infinite number, because otherwise
the world would experience continuous growth due to the incessant accrual of new
atoms converging on the centre from the infinite stock of surrounding matter, which
is not the case.23
Lucretius does not identify the proponents of this theory, and over the years vari-
ous candidates have been proposed. The common, and in my opinion the most plau-
sible, view is that Lucretius was thinking of the Stoics.24 Although several ancient
philosophers and schools of philosophy endorsed some kind of centripetal gravity,
only the Stoics deployed this theory in order to safeguard the integrity of a single
and finite cosmos in infinite space, and only they extended this centripetal tendency
to all bodies, heavy and light alike. Other proposed candidates, like Aristotle or the
early Platonists, simply rejected extra-cosmic space, and therefore did not have to
account for the coherence of the cosmos as such, or to counterbalance the centrifu-
gal tendency of air and fire with a centripetal one.25 However, although Lucretius
probably had the Stoics in mind, this does not necessarily mean that he understood
22
Lucretius 1.1052–1055: “Illud in his rebus longe fuge credere, Memmi, / in medium summae
quod dicunt omnia niti, / atque ideo mundi naturam stare sine ullis / ictibus externis, neque quo-
quam posse resolvi, / […] quod in medium sint omnia nixa.” Text and translation from Rouse and
Smith 1992, 87–89.
23
Compare Aristotle, De caelo 1.8, 276a18-b21, where Aristotle argues that, if one assumes the
universe to consist of the same elements having the same nature and potentialities everywhere, the
universe must also have a single centre towards (or away from, or around) which all the elements
would move; hence there can only be one world, because every part of matter in another world
would take up position with respect to this single centre.
24
For a more extended argument see Bakker 2016, 191–202.
25
Aristotle was proposed by Furley 1989, 187–195, and the early Platonists by Sedley 1998, 78–82.
48 F. A. Bakker
or represented their theory correctly in every respect. The clearest ancient testimony
as to the Stoic theory in question is preserved by Stobaeus:
In the case of all things in the cosmos that have a hexis of their own the parts tend towards
the centre of the whole thing. Similarly in the case of the cosmos itself; and it is in virtue of
this fact that it is rightly said that all parts of the cosmos have a tendency to move towards
the centre of the cosmos, most of all the things possessing weight. The same thing is respon-
sible both for the immobility of the cosmos in the infinite void and for the earth’s immobil-
ity in the cosmos, as it is situated around the centre of it [viz. of the cosmos] in a state of
equal balance. Still it is not unrestrictedly so that body has weight, but air and fire are
weightless. However, also these elements tend towards the centre of the whole globe of the
cosmos, although they find their relative position in the direction of the periphery of the
cosmos. For by their own nature they are upward moving because they don’t have any share
in weight.26
According to the Stoics, just as individual things within the cosmos are held together
by a cohesive force or hexis, so the cosmos as a whole has a hexis, which causes all
its parts to converge on its centre. This tendency is felt most strongly by the heaviest
parts, which take up a more central position, but less by the weightless bodies,
which therefore move towards, and settle at, the periphery.
After describing the rival theory and mockingly highlighting some of its para-
doxical corollaries – that on the underside of the earth gravity is directed upwards,
and animals and humans stand upside down (1058–1067) – Lucretius proceeds with
his refutation. His main arguments are, first (1070–1071), that the universe, being
infinite, does not have a centre for the parts of the cosmos to move towards; second
(1071–1080), that the centre, even if it existed, would be a spatial and hence incor-
poreal entity, and as such incapable of exerting any effect on bodies; and, third
(1083–1093), that the rival theory is internally inconsistent in also claiming that air
and fire tend away from the centre.
Given that the rival theory stands in the way of a central Epicurean tenet, one
would expect a particularly strong effort to refute it. In fact, however, Lucretius’
arguments seem to be rather weak. In order to demonstrate this I will now discuss
Lucretius’ arguments one by one. I will start with the first and third arguments,
whose inadequacy is the most obvious, and leave the second argument, which pres-
ents some difficulties, for last.
Lucretius first argues that there is no centre, because the (infinite) universe can
have no centre. This seems to be a good point. However, if we take a closer look at
the Stoic theory as reported by Stobaeus (see above) and other sources, we see that
Stobaeus, Eclogae Physicae 1.166, 2–22 (= Arius Didymus fr.23 / SVF I 99): Τῶν δ’ ἐν τῷ
26
κόσμῳ πάντων τῶν κατ’ ἰδίαν ἕξιν συνεστώτων τὰ μέρη τὴν φορὰν ἔχειν εἰς τὸ τοῦ ὅλου μέσον,
ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ κόσμου· διόπερ ὀρθῶς λέγεσθαι πάντα τὰ μέρη τοῦ κόσμου ἐπὶ τὸ
μέσον τοῦ κόσμου τὴν φορὰν ἔχειν, μάλιστα δὲ τὰ βάρος ἔχοντα. ταὐτὸν δ’ αἴτιον εἶναι καὶ τῆς
τοῦ κόσμου μονῆς ἐν Ἀπείρῳ κενῷ καὶ τῆς γῆς παραπλησίως ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, περὶ τὸ τούτου
κέντρον καθιδρυμένης ἰσοκρατῶς. οὐ πάντως δὲ σῶμα βάρος ἔχειν, Ἀλλ’ Ἀβαρῆ εἶναι Ἀέρα καὶ
πῦρ· τείνεσθαι δὲ καὶ ταῦτά πως ἐπὶ τὸ τῆς ὅλης σφαίρας τοῦ κόσμου μέσον, τὴν δὲ σύστασιν
πρὸς τὴν περιφέρειαν αὐτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι. φύσει γὰρ Ἀνώφοιτα ταυτ’ εἶναι διὰ τὸ μηδενὸς μετέχειν
βάρους. Text from Arnim 1903–1905, vol. 1, 27; translation in Algra 1988, 160.
the centre in question is not the centre of the universe at all, but the centre of the
(finite) cosmos.27 Lucretius’ first argument, then, simply turns out to be unfounded.
Lucretius’ third argument consists in pointing out an internal inconsistency in his
rivals’ position. In line 1052 Lucretius still reported that, according to the unnamed
rivals, ‘all things press towards the centre of the whole’ (‘in medium summae […]
omnia niti’) (my emphasis). Now, in lines 1083–1084, we are told that according to
these same opponents ‘not all bodies press towards the centre’ (‘non omnia corpora
[…] in medium niti’) (my emphasis), but only those which make up earth and water,
whereas air and fire are naturally centrifugal.28 We do not exactly know how the
argument was developed because the relevant portion of Lucretius’ text is lost in a
lacuna, but Bailey’s suggestion that Lucretius would have first charged his rivals
with inconsistency, and then pointed out that their thesis of centrifugal air and fire
undermines the very coherence of the cosmos which their original thesis was meant
to safeguard, is quite plausible.29 However, if we compare Lucretius’ criticism with
the actual statements of the Stoics, we can see both where it came from, and why it
may not be justified. On the one hand, Stobaeus confirms that the Stoics did, in fact,
make these two, apparently inconsistent, claims, asserting both that all the elements,
including air and fire, show a tendency to move towards the centre, and that air and
fire have a natural tendency to move upwards, i.e. away from the centre. On the
other hand, however, Stobaeus’ testimony also shows that, in reality, these two
claims are neither inconsistent with each other nor deserving of Lucretius’ criti-
cism, since Stobaeus clearly states that the centrifugal tendency of air and fire is
only secondary and subordinate to their centripetal tendency, and will not take them
beyond the confines of the cosmos. On the basis of this and other testimonies some
commentators ascribe to the Stoics a version of the ancient extrusion or buoyancy
theory, according to which lighter bodies, such as those which make up air and fire,
have a natural tendency to move downwards (i.e. towards the centre), but are
extruded and forced upwards (i.e. away from the centre) against their nature by
heavier ones, and hence they will not move beyond the sphere of these heavier ele-
ments, but instead position themselves at the periphery.30 Whether or not this inter-
pretation is correct, it at least shows that it would be possible to resolve the apparent
inconsistency in a way that the Epicureans could hardly object to, since they them-
selves endorsed a version of the buoyancy theory, albeit one that did not define
27
See e.g. Plutarch, De Stoicorum repugnantiis 44, 1055a 1–2 (SVF II 550, 31–32), quoting
Chrysippus: πιθανὸν πᾶσι τοῖς σώμασιν εἶναι τὴν πρώτην κατὰ φύσιν κίνησιν πρὸς τὸ τοῦ
κόσμου μέσον; and Cleomedes 1.1, 91–92: νένευκε γὰρ {sc. ὁ κόσμος} ἐπὶ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ μέσον καὶ
τοῦτο ἔχει κάτω, ὅπου νένευκεν.
28
Furley 1989, 189, claims without offering an argument that no such inconsistency is implied:
‘omnia’ in l. 1052 would refer only to bodies that are heavy, and coming from all sides, while
‘omnia corpora’ in l. 1083 would refer to all bodies, both heavy and light. Furley’s claim is sup-
ported by Sedley 1998, 79. See, however, Schmidt 1990, 213, and Bakker 2016, 197.
29
Bailey 1947, vol. 2, 787–788.
30
Sambursky 1959, 111; Wolff 1988, 507 et passim; Furley 1989, 192–193; idem 1999, 444–445.
For arguments against the attribution of this theory to the Stoics see Bakker 2016, 197–198.
50 F. A. Bakker
upwards and downwards in centrifocal,31 but in parallel terms. Thus Lucretius’ third
argument is dissipated, too.
This brings us to Lucretius’ second argument. In lines 1.1074-1080 we read:
For all place and space, which we call void, must yield a passage through middle or not-
middle equally to weights, wherever their movements tend. Nor is there any place in which
bodies, when they have come thither, can lose the force of weight and stand still in the void;
nor again must that which is void ever give support for anything, but, as its nature craves, it
must proceed to give place.32
Here Lucretius points out that, even if it existed, the centre, being a place and hence
incorporeal, would not be able to affect bodies in the way the anonymous rivals
want it to. This seems to be a legitimate point.33 The Stoics indeed held that a centre
was a place or a limit, and that places and limits as such were incorporeal.34 They
also held that incorporeal entities were incapable of producing effects in bodies.35
On these matters Stoics and Epicureans could, in fact, see eye to eye.36 Consequently,
the centre would not be able to attract bodies to itself or to check their motion. Here,
too, however, a closer look at our sources reveals that Lucretius may not quite have
captured the Stoic theory. Indeed, although the precise interpretation of the relevant
testimonies is disputed, it seems clear that the Stoics did not assign some miracu-
lous power of attraction to the centre, but rather considered the centripetal motion to
be the resultant effect of a cohesive force that somehow draws all the parts of the
cosmos to each other.37 In other words, the centripetal tendency of bodies is not
attributable to the incorporeal centre, but to the corporeal whole to which the
31
For the buoyancy theory see Epicurus fr. 276 (in Usener 1887, 196–197) and Lucretius 2.184–
215, with the comments on the same in Bakker 2016, 211–213. ‘Centrifocal’ is a term coined by
Furley 1989, 15, 234–235, to describe systems in which ‘up’ and ‘down’ are defined in relation to
a centre; for the contrast between centrifocal and parallel dynamics see Bakker 2016, 177–179.
32
Lucretius 1.1074–1080: “omnis enim locus ac spatium, quod inane vocamus, / per medium, per
non medium, concedere debet / aeque ponderibus, motus quacumque feruntur. / nec quisquam
locus est, quo corpora cum venere, / ponderis amissa vi possint stare in inani; / nec quod inane
autem est ulli subsistere debet, / quin, sua quod natura petit, concedere pergat.” Text and translation
from Rouse and Smith 1992, 88–91.
33
A similar point against the Stoic theory is made by Plutarch in De facie in orbe lunae 7, 924b 4–8
and 11, 926a 10 – b 7.
34
On the centre as a place see Plutarch, De facie 6, 923e 5 and 926a 2; on the centre being a limit
see ibid. 10, 925e 10–11 and 11, 926b 9 (cf. Aristotle, De caelo 2.13, 293a 33). On the incorporeal
nature of place see SVF II 331; on that of limits see SVF II 487 and 488.
35
SVF I 89; II 336, 340, 341, 343, 363, 387: only corporeal things can produce an effect.
36
On place/space/void being incapable of affecting bodies in Epicurean cosmology see e.g.
Lucretius 1.437-439, 443 and 2.235-237. Cf. also Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors
10.221-222 and the scholion to Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 43.
37
Sambursky 1959, 111–113; Wolff 1988, 505–507; Furley 1989, 8, 192; 1999, 443–448. Another
indication that the centripetal tendency was merely a resultant is provided by the later Stoic
Cleomedes (1.1, 164–172), who claims that only in spherical bodies the inward tendency of their
parts is always directed towards the centre; in oblong bodies, on the other hand, the focus of each
part’s motion does not necessarily coincide with the centre of the whole.
individual bodies belong, whence it is communicated to the individual bodies

themselves.
As a matter of fact, Lucretius even seems to hint at this possibility, perhaps unwit-
tingly, when writing, at 1.1077-1078: “Nor is there any place in which bodies, when
they have come thither, can lose the force of weight and stand still in the void.” In
these lines he seems to envisage, and reject, the thesis that upon reaching the centre
bodies would actively lay down their weight and come to a standstill. Although this
account comes closer to the Stoics’ actual theory, Lucretius’ words still betray an
Epicurean bias: according to the Stoic theory bodies would stop at the centre not
because they lose their weight, but rather because upon reaching the centre their
downward or centripetal tendency, which is weight, is fulfilled or actualized. For the
Epicureans, on the other hand, downward motion is motion along parallel lines from
infinity to infinity, a motion which can neither be ‘laid down,’ nor be checked by the
resistance of some immaterial ‘centre.’38 At this point, however, Lucretius has not yet
established the Epicurean theory of weight and downward motion, nor would he have
been able to, before the Stoic alternative was fully refuted.
Moreover, it is not clear on what grounds the Stoic theory is rejected. Evidently the
Epicureans could not accept the Stoic theory of centripetal gravity tout court, as this
requires a complete contiguity of bodies – Stoics and Epicureans alike rejected the
possibility of action at a distance –39 that is at odds with the Epicurean duality of atoms
and void. Yet there does not seem to be a cogent reason why bodies could not have an
inbuilt tendency to move towards a specific point. After all, the Epicureans themselves
endorsed the view that weight is a tendency to move in a certain direction, albeit a
motion along parallel lines, and not along lines converging to a single point.40
In reaction against this view Lucretius could have repeated his earlier argument
of 1.984-997.41 There he had argued that if the universe had a bottom, all matter
would be heaped up there to form one compact and inert mass, putting an end to all
activity and change.42 Now, on the assumption of a centripetal downward motion,
the ‘centre’ would provide just such a ‘bottom,’ so that the same conclusion would
apply. However, I do not believe such a conclusion would be warranted, as it does
not seem to take into account a crucial aspect of the Epicurean theory of atomic
motion. According to the Epicureans (including Lucretius) the atoms are in constant
motion, and when their motion is checked they will simply rebound and continue to
move in the opposite direction43: accordingly, even with the assumption of an
absolute ‘bottom,’ no complete cessation of activity and change would result.
Anyway, Lucretius does not invoke this argument against the rival theory.
38
For the Epicureans’ endorsement of a parallel downward motion see n15 above.
39
For the Stoics see Sambursky 1962, 102–103; Long 1986, 160; Wolff 1988, 507, 522. For the
Epicureans see Furley 1989, 12, 78; O’Keefe 2005, 80–81.
40
See Konstan 2014, 96.
41
See also Bakker 2016, 208–209.
42
See p. 45 above.
43
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 43–44; idem fr. 280 (in Usener 1887, 199); Lucretius 2.80–88.
52 F. A. Bakker
What is more, later on in the De rerum natura, he seems to actually endorse the
centrifocal theory that he just rejected. In 5.449-508 Lucretius describes the coming-
into-being of our cosmos in terms that strongly suggest that a centripetal gravity is
at work.44 In lines 449–454, for instance, we read:
For in plain fact firstly all the bodies of earth, because they were heavy and entangled, came
together in the centre and all took the lowest place; and the more entangled they came
together, the more they squeezed out those particles which could make sea, stars, sun, and
moon and the walls of the great world[.]45
The entire process starts with earthy particles moving towards, and settling in, the
centre, or “the lowest place,” “because they were heavy and entangled.” As they
settle and become even more entangled they squeeze out all the lighter stuffs that
will eventually make up the sea, the heavenly bodies and the outer boundary of the
cosmos. Later on we learn how in this way ether, which is the lightest element, takes
up the highest and outermost region of the cosmos, “fencing in all the rest with
greedy embrace,”46 and how the other elements and the individual heavenly bodies
take up intermediate positions in proportion to their relative weights.
Nowhere in this passage we are told why heavy bodies should move to the centre;
Lucretius simply assumes that they do, as if it were natural for them to do so.
However, if heavy bodies naturally move towards the centre, but also by definition
tend downwards, then ‘to the centre’ and ‘downwards’ must be the same thing, as
indeed Lucretius seems to imply, and as was definitely the case in Stoic cosmolo-
gy.47 In other words, Lucretius’ cosmogony assumes a theory of centripetal gravity
that is virtually indistinguishable from the rival theory he rejected earlier.
As it turns out, then, none of Lucretius’ three arguments against centripetal grav-
ity seems cogent. Two arguments are simply misguided, while another can be easily
circumvented and is, in fact, contradicted by Lucretius himself.
3.2.4 The Status of Lucretius 1.1052-1093 and 5.449-508
In the preceding section we encountered two mutually inconsistent Lucretian pas-

sages. In the first of these (1.1052-1093) Lucretius refutes a rival theory that may be
attributed to the Stoics. Now, since it is generally assumed that Epicurus himself did
not yet engage the Stoics, who had then only recently come into the picture,
44
For a more extensive discussion of this passage see Bakker 2016, 223–235.
45
Lucretius 5.449–454: “Quippe etenim primum terrai corpora quaeque, / propterea quod erant
gravia et perplexa, coibant / in medio atque imas capiebant omnia sedes; / quae quanto magis inter
se perplexa coibant, / tam magis expressere ea quae mare sidera solem / lunamque efficerent et
magni moenia mundi.” Text and translation (slightly modified) from Rouse and Smith 1992,
412–413.
46
Lucretius 5.457-470 and 498-501.
47
See e.g. Cicero, De natura deorum 2.84, reporting the Stoic view: “in medium locum mundi, qui
est infimus.”
Lucretius’ anti-Stoic polemic must postdate Epicurus.48 In that case Lucretius’ refu-
tation can be seen as a defence of the orthodox Epicurean position against a chal-
lenge that Epicurus himself will not have been aware of. That the passage should be
a later addition to Epicurus’ argumentation even seems to be borne out by the order
of Lucretius’ account: without any prior reference to the Stoic alternative Lucretius
first emphatically concludes that “there is need of an infinite quantity of matter on
all sides,”49 and only then sets out to refute the rival theory which threatens to under-
mine this conclusion.
The second passage (5.449-508), by contrast, is hard to reconcile with the ortho-
dox Epicurean view. Whereas Epicurus himself endorses a parallel conception of
downward motion, to which Lucretius generally also subscribes, this passage
assumes a centripetal downward tendency. Moreover, the account finds no parallel
in any other known Epicurean writing. The only parallel passage is found in Aëtius’
Placita 1.4, where a very similar theory is reported without attribution.50 Yet the
explicit reference to atoms and to the non-providential nature of the world’s coming-
into-being make it clear that the account must be atomistic. Moreover, certain
details – weight difference rather than a vortex as the formative principle, and the
tenuous rather than heavy nature of the heavenly bodies – clearly place the account
on the Epicurean rather than the Democritean side.51 In fact, the theory is Epicurean
in every respect other than the assumption of a centripetal instead of parallel gravity.
And yet, precisely this assumption makes the theory anomalous within the frame-
work of orthodox Epicurean cosmology, and virtually irreconcilable with the infin-
ity of atoms and worlds.
3.2.5 Provisional Conclusion
While in the Letter to Herodotus Epicurus could still confidently claim to have
proved, once and for all, the joint infinity of space and bodies, the subsequent appear-
ance of an alternative theory which allowed for a finite amount of matter to remain
together in infinite space posed a challenge which later Epicureans had to meet. In
Lucretius’ De rerum natura we find an attempt to refute this rival theory and re-
establish the orthodox Epicurean position, which in the rest of his work is simply
taken for granted. As we have seen, however, Lucretius’ refutation is not entirely
convincing. The question arises, therefore, why Lucretius, like most other Epicureans,
chose to stick to the orthodox view. An answer may be found in the important con-
sequences of this view, especially with respect to Epicurean theology.
48
For the early Epicureans’ lack of engagement with Stoic philosophy see Sedley 1998, 73, and
especially Kechagia 2010.
49
Lucretius 1.1051: “infinita opus est vis undique materiai.” Text and translation from Rouse and
Smith 1992, 86–87.
50
For a comparison of Lucretius’ and Aëtius’ cosmogonical accounts, see Bakker 2016, 224–227.
51
Spoerri 1959, 8–29; Bakker 2016, 226–227.
54 F. A. Bakker
3.3 Theological Consequences of the Infinity of the Universe
The infinity of the universe and its two component parts appears to have some
remarkable consequences. Firstly, it spawns an infinity of other worlds beside the
one we inhabit; secondly, it makes the spontaneous coming-into-being of a world
not merely possible but necessary; and, finally, it allows for the simultaneous truth
of multiple, even mutually incompatible, explanations. What is more, all these cor-
ollaries have been argued by Epicurus himself or by his modern interpreters to be
crucial, in one way or another, to the Epicurean mission to free the world from
divine intervention. If it can be shown that they are, indeed, crucial, this might
explain why the Epicureans were so committed to the infinity of the universe, and
had to defend this view against rival theories.
In the following part I will discuss each of these corollaries of the infinity of
space and bodies, with special attention to their theological aspects. First, however,
it will be expedient to give some account of the Epicurean concept of divinity, to
serve as a background for the following discussion of infinity.
3.3.1 The Epicurean Concept of Divinity
The most important thing to know about the gods, according to Epicurus, is that they
are not involved in the creation and administration of the world or any of its parts in
any way. This does not mean that they do not exist, for we do have a preconception
of them – a preconceived notion resulting from repeated impressions, such as occur
to us in dreams.52 This preconception not only tells us that the gods exist, but also that
they are immortal and blissful.53 And since, being perfectly blissful, the gods have
neither need nor care for anything besides themselves, any involvement on their part
in the creation and governance of the world or any part thereof must be rejected.54
In addition to this conceptual proof of the gods’ inactivity with respect to the
world, the Epicureans also had a store of empirical arguments to bolster their view.
Since the opposite view was often supported by some form of the argument from
design, in which the observation of functional and orderly structures in the world
led to the assumption of a grand design and hence a designer god, the Epicureans
could simply point to the many instances of disorderly and useless, or even harmful,
things and phenomena in order to disprove the idea of such a grand design.55 To the
52
Cicero, De natura deorum 1.43–44; Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 123–124. For gods appearing
in dreams see Lucretius 5.1169-1171
53
Cicero, De natura deorum 1.45; Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 123–124. Cf. Lucretius
5.1175-1182.
54
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 76 and 81; idem, Letter to Pythocles, 97; Cicero, De natura deo-
rum 1.51-53; Lucretius 5.156-173
55
Lucretius 5.195-234. Cf. Diogenes of Oenoanda “Theological Physics-sequence” (= NF 167 +
NF 126/127 + fr. 20 + NF 182), cols. XIV-XVI, in Hammerstaedt and Smith 2014, 263–270.
Epicureans it was evident, therefore, that the gods neither created nor took care of
the world or any of its parts or inhabitants.
It is with this view of the gods in mind that we will now look into some corollar-
ies of the infinity of bodies and space.
3.3.2 Infinite Worlds and the Demiurge
One consequence of the infinity of atoms is the existence of not just a plurality, but
even an infinity of worlds. In Letter to Herodotus 45, Epicurus writes:
Furthermore, there are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. For the atoms
being infinite in number, as was proved already, are borne on far out into space. For those
atoms, which are of such nature that a world could be created out of them or made by them,
have not been used up either on one world or on a limited number of worlds, nor again on
all the worlds which are alike, or on those which are different from these. So that there
nowhere exists an obstacle to the infinite number of the worlds.56
In this passage Epicurus seems to take on Plato, who in Timaeus 32c-d states that
the composition of our world used up all the elements, leaving nothing outside, and
in Timaeus 55c-d, conceding that there might be more than one world – say, five –
still emphatically rejects the notion that there might be infinitely many.57
Epicurus’ statement is repeated by Lucretius, De rerum natura 2.1048-1066,
who then adds the following argument:
Besides, when abundant matter is ready, when space is to hand, and no thing and no cause
hinders, things must assuredly be done and completed. And if there is at this moment both
so great store of seeds as all the time of living existence could not suffice to tell, and if the
same power and the same nature abides, able to throw the seeds of things together in any
place in the same way as they have been thrown together into this place, then you are bound
to confess that there are other worlds in other regions and different races of men and genera-
tions of wild beasts.58
If the atoms were able to form a cosmos in this part of the universe they must have
been able to do so elsewhere, and given the infinity of the universe, a possibility
56
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 45: Ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ κόσμοι ἄπειροί εἰσιν, οἵ θ’ ὅμοιοι τούτῳ καὶ
Ἀνόμοιοι. αἵ τε γὰρ ἄτομοι ἄπειροι οὖσαι, ὡς ἄρτι Ἀπεδείχθη, φέρονται καὶ πορρώτατω· οὐ γὰρ
κατανήλωνται αἱ τοιαῦται ἄτομοι, ἐξ ὧν ἂν γένοιτο κόσμος ἢ ὑφ’ ὧν ἂν ποιηθείη, οὔτ’ εἰς ἕνα
οὔτ’ εἰς πεπερασμένους, οὔθ’ ὅσοι τοιοῦτοι οὔθ’ ὅσοι διάφοροι τούτοις. ὥστε οὐδὲν τὸ
ἐμποδοστατῆσόν ἐστι πρὸς τὴν Ἀπειρίαν τῶν κόσμων. Translation in Bailey 1926, 25.
57
See also Plato, Timaeus 31a–b.
58
Lucretius 2.1067-1076: “Praeterea cum materies est multa parata, / cum locus est praesto, nec res
nec causa moratur / ulla, geri debent nimirum et confieri res. / nunc et seminibus si tanta est copia
quantam / enumerare aetas animantum non queat omnis, / visque eadem et natura manet, quae
semina rerum / conicere in loca quaeque queat simili ratione / atque huc sunt coniecta, necesse est
confiteare / esse alios aliis terrarum in partibus orbis / et varias hominum gentis et saecla ferarum.”
Text and translation in Rouse and Smith 1992, 178–179.
56 F. A. Bakker
cannot fail to be realised, and not once, but infinitely many times. Hence there must
be an infinity of worlds.
Lucretius’ conclusion rests upon the application of two principles: the principle
of uniformity, which assumes that the same circumstances obtain always and
everywhere,59 and a version of the so-called principle of plenitude, which states that
whatever can be done, will be done at some time or place.60
Having concluded that there are infinitely many worlds, Lucretius proceeds to
use this conclusion as a premise in his argument against the notion of a divinely
governed universe:
If you hold fast to these convictions, nature is seen to be free at once and rid of proud mas-
ters, herself doing all by herself of her own accord, without the help of the gods. For I
appeal to the holy hearts of the gods, which in tranquil peace pass untroubled days and a life
serene: who is strong enough to rule the sum of the immeasurable, who to hold in hand and
control the mighty bridle of the unfathomable? who to turn about all the heavens at one time
and warm the fruitful worlds with ethereal fires, or to be present in all places and at all
times[.]61
Lucretius’ conclusion takes the form of a series of rhetorical questions which invite
the answer ‘nobody’: nobody is strong enough to rule and control an infinite number
of worlds, and nobody is able to be present always and everywhere throughout the
infinite expanse of time and space.
However, as James Warren notes, this is not a particularly strong argument.62
Several responses come to mind that would avoid Lucretius’ desired conclusion that
infinite worlds rule out divine intervention.
It might be suggested, for instance, that each world is governed individually by
its own god. In Lucretius’ defence, David Sedley points out that even those of
Lucretius’ opponents who were willing to assume a plurality of gods still assumed
a single overall command by a supreme deity, and would thus, after all, be subject
to Lucretius’ implied criticism.63
59
See e.g. Darling 2016, 416, and Mash 1993, 209, who explicitly identifies ‘uniformitarianism’ as
one of the assumptions underlying the Lucretian argument.
60
The ‘Principle of Plenitude’ was first described by Lovejoy 1936, 52 et passim. For the attribu-
tion of this principle to the ancient atomists see e.g. Dick 1996, 12–13; Fowler 2002, 368–369;
Sedley 2007, 138; 2013, ch. 4 (ad 5.416-770); Darling 2016, 329; and Bakker 2016, 21–24, 28–31,
74, 210. Versions of Lucretius’ argument – e.g. Drake’s Equation – are still invoked today by those
arguing for the likely existence of extra-terrestrial life and intelligence: see e.g. Mash 1993, and
Darling 2016, 329. For Bruno’s application of the principle see Section 8.2 of Granada’s Chapter
8 in this volume.
61
Lucretius 2.1090–1099: “Quae bene cognita si teneas, natura videtur / libera continuo, dominis
privata superbis, / ipsa sua per se sponte omnia dis agere expers. / nam pro sancta deum tranquilla
pectora pace, / quae placidum degunt aevom vitamque serenam, / quis regere immensi summam,
quis habere profundi / indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas, / quis pariter caelos omnis
convertere et omnis / ignibus aetheriis terras suffire feracis, / omnibus inve locis esse omni tempore
praesto.” Text and translation in Rouse and Smith 1992, 178–181.
62
Warren 2004, 363–364. See also Sedley’s critical response in Sedley 2007, 148–149.
63
Sedley 2007, 149 n33, cites Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.3.13, where “he who organizes and holds
together the whole world” (my translation) is singled out over the other gods. One might also think
One might also respond that god is, in fact, strong enough to rule the infinite. In
Lucretius’ defence, David Sedley points out that this would imply an infinitely
extended god, a view which the Epicureans attributed to certain Presocratic philoso-
phers, and which they strongly opposed, on the grounds that this would make it
impossible for god to experience sensation, due to the lack of bodily extremities to
sense with.64 Perhaps, however, we do not even need to suppose that such a criticism
was implied. Lucretius’ most obvious opponents in the present context are not the
Presocratics, but thinkers like Plato and the Stoics, who equated infinity with inde-
terminacy and imperfection, which have no place in divine creation65; and who
therefore emphasized the limited and finite nature of the created world.66 It was not
until the third century A.D. that, among Neoplatonists and Christians, infinity began
to be seen as perfection and a fitting attribute for a god.67
In short, Lucretius’ argument is aimed at thinkers who not only believe in a
divine involvement with the universe, but also think that this involvement needs to
be a unified and limited affair.
Although, at first sight, this assumption seems to rescue Lucretius’ anti-
interventionist argument from such responses as were suggested above, it actually
undermines his argument even further. Lucretius’ argument is based on the infinity
of worlds, a theory which in turn relies, among other things, on the application of
the principle of uniformity – the assumption that the same circumstances apply
everywhere. The validity of this assumption may be obvious if one adopts the
Epicurean view of a universe filled with atoms that all obey the same physical laws,
and hence may be assumed to produce the same effects everywhere. If, on the other
hand, one adopts the theory that the world is created by a supreme deity, and that
this act of creation is necessarily both unique and limited, it is clear that this result
cannot be applied universally: even in an infinite universe filled with infinite matter
the creation of one cosmos in no way implies the creation of another, let alone of an
of Plato’s Timaeus 40a–d, where the lesser, created gods are said to partake in the creation of the
world at the Demiurge’s behest. In fact, several centuries after Epicurus, in the second century AD,
the Platonist Plutarch, conceding that there might, in fact, be more than one world (though not
infinitely many), suggests that while each world might be governed by its own supreme deity, all
the worlds together would still be subject to the single rule and reason of one divine overlord
(Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum 29, 425f2 – 426b1).
64
Sedley 2007, 149, citing the Epicurean arguments reported by Cicero in De natura deorum
1.26–28.
65
On Plato see Clarke 1994, 70–72, who specifically quotes Plato’s Philebus 16–18, 23c–30,
61–67; Statesman 283b–285a; Laws 716c; Sophist 265e. For Plato’s application of the notion of
limit to the creation of the world see Plato Timaeus 31a-b, 32c-33a, 55c-d. For the Stoics, see
Plutarch, De communibus notitiis 30, 1074b7-c3 (SVF II 525, p. 167.28 – 168.1), which links infin-
ity to indeterminacy, incompletion and disorderliness; Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors
9.148–149, which rehearses a Stoic argument for the limited nature of the divine; and Cleomedes
1.1, 7–17 (SVF II 534), which emphasises the limited nature of the created world.
66
Even Plutarch, while admitting a plurality of worlds (see n63 above), still stresses the finitude of
nature (Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum 24, 423c7-11 and 25, 424a8-12) and god (ibid. 30,
426d8-10).
67
Clarke 1994, 75–79.
58 F. A. Bakker
infinite number of others.68 Therefore, Lucretius’ argument against divine interven-

tion will convince only those who are already convinced that worlds do not come
about due to divine intervention.
3.3.3 Chance and the Power of Infinity
What the Epicureans had to do, therefore, was to show that the world could have
come into being even without divine intervention, as a result of mere chance. Now,
that such an orderly and complex structure as our world should arise by chance
seems exceedingly unlikely. The odds are dramatically increased, however, if infin-
ity is brought into play: according to the principle of plenitude, given infinite oppor-
tunity, everything that is possible must be realised. Accordingly, even without divine
intervention, the infinity of the universe makes the coming-into-being of a world
like ours not only possible but even inevitable.69
However, as James Warren notes, for this conclusion to obtain the Epicureans did
not have to postulate the infinity of matter and space; the infinity of time alone,
which the Epicureans commonly accepted, would suffice to guarantee that any pos-
sible configuration would be realized, and not once, but infinitely many times.70
What is more, in the two passages where Lucretius actually applies the principle
of plenitude to the formation of the cosmos (1.1021–1028 and 5.419–431), he only
refers to the infinity of time, not of matter and space. I quote the second passage,
which is the clearest in this respect:
For certainly it was no design of the first-beginnings that led them to place themselves each
in its own order with keen intelligence, nor assuredly did they make any bargain what
motions each should produce; but because many first-beginnings of things in many ways,
struck with blows and carried along by their own weight from infinite time up to the present,
have been accustomed to move and to meet in all manner of ways, and to try all combina-
tions, whatsoever they could produce by coming together, for this reason it comes to pass
that being spread abroad through a vast time, by attempting every sort of combination and
motion, at length those come together which, being suddenly brought together, often
become the beginnings of great things, of earth and sea and sky and the generation of living
creatures.71
68
So also Asmis 1984, 66 n19: “a demiurge would provide a reason why the number of possibilities
should be restricted to a single possibility.”
69
For a lucid and very attractive exposition of this theory, see Sedley 2007, 137–139 and
155–166.
70
Warren 2004, 364, citing David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, part 8. For the
Epicureans’ implicit endorsement of the infinity of time see Sedley 1999, 373.
71
Lucretius 5.419-431: “nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum / ordine se suo quaeque sagaci
mente locarunt / nec quos quaeque darent motus pepigere profecto, / sed quia multa modis multis
primordia rerum / ex infinito iam tempore percita plagis / ponderibusque suis consuerunt concita
ferri / omnimodisque coire atque omnia pertemptare, / quaecumque inter se possent congressa
creare, / propterea fit uti magnum volgata per aevom, / omne genus coetus et motus experi-
undo, / tandem conveniant ea quae convecta repente / magnarum rerum fiunt exordia saepe, / terrai
maris et caeli generisque animantum.” Text and translation in Rouse and Smith 1992, 410–413 (my
emphasis).
The same observation applies to Epicurus as well, who, according to one ancient
testimony, stated that “nothing unfamiliar comes about in the universe, due to the
infinity of time that has already passed.”72
In short, although it is often stated that the infinity of the universe was a neces-
sary part of the Epicureans’ anti-teleological argument, the argument actually works
just as well on the assumption of infinite time, and was, in fact, applied in this way
by Lucretius and Epicurus themselves.
3.3.4 Infinity and the Truth of Multiple Explanations
The Epicurean theory of infinite worlds also carries important epistemological con-
sequences. In astronomical and meteorological matters the Epicureans famously
prescribed the use of multiple explanations to account for each phenomenon, instead
of just one.73 This might just be considered a kind of epistemic modesty: since in
such matters the evidence does not allow us to discriminate between various expla-
nations, all explanations that agree with the observations and do not violate the
general principles of Epicurean physics must be retained. However, there is ample
evidence that the Epicureans went beyond a mere sceptical affirmation of doubt.
They did not doubt which of the accepted explanations was true: they were adamant
that all accepted explanations – even mutually incompatible ones – were true.74
But how could the Epicureans assert the simultaneous truth of multiple explana-
tions? Lucretius offers the following argument (DRN 5.526-533):
For which of these causes holds in our world it is difficult to say for certain; but what may
be done and is done through the whole universe in the various worlds made in various ways,
that is what I teach, proceeding to set forth several causes which may account for the move-
ments of the stars throughout the whole universe; one of which, however, must be that
which gives force to the movement of the signs in our world also; but which may be the true
one, is not his to lay down who proceeds step by step.75
There may be doubt as to which cause is operative in our world, but this does not
mean that other explanations are not true: in the infinity of the universe every pos-
sible explanation must be actualized somewhere, and in this sense every possible
72
Epicurus fr. 266 (in Usener 1887, 191) = ps.-Plutarch, Stromateis 8: οὐδὲν ξένον ἐν τῷ παντὶ
Ἀποτελεῖται παρὰ τὸν ἤδη γεγενημένον χρόνον ἄπειρον (translation mine).
73
For an overview see e.g. Taub 2009, 110–112, 115, 120–123.
74
On the truth of multiple explanations see Striker 1974; Sedley 1982, 263–272; Asmis 1984,
178–180, 193–196, 211, 321–336; Long and Sedley 1987a, 90–97; Asmis 1999, 285–294; Allen
2001, 194–205 and 239–241; Bénatouïl 2003, 42–44; Verde 2013, 134–135; Bakker 2016, 13–31.
75
Lucretius 5.526–533: “Nam quid in hoc mundo sit eorum ponere certum / difficile est; sed quid
possit fiatque per omne / in variis mundis varia ratione creatis, / id doceo, plurisque sequor dispo-
nere causas, / motibus astrorum quae possint esse per omne; / e quibus una tamen siet hic quoque
causa necessest / quae vegeat motum signis; sed quae sit earum / praecipere haudquaquamst pede-
temptim progredientis.” Text and translation from Rouse and Smith 1992, 418–419.
60 F. A. Bakker
explanation is also true. This is yet another application of the principle of

plenitude.
This method of multiple explanations was the Epicureans’ response to the dog-
matic certainty with which other philosophers propounded single explanations. A
sceptic detachment would not do, because this would leave open the possibility that
the other philosophers were right after all. The Epicureans therefore countered the
dogmatic assertion of single explanations with an equally dogmatic assertion of a
multiple account.76
But why would the Epicureans want to oppose single explanations in the first
place? As Epicurus himself repeatedly states, the principal reason for engaging in
physical inquiry is to exclude the divine from the workings of nature, see e.g.
Epicurus’ Letter to Herodotus 76–77:
Furthermore, the motions of the heavenly bodies and their turnings and eclipses and risings
and settings, and kindred phenomena to these, must not be thought to be due to any being
who controls and ordains or has ordained them and at the same time enjoys perfect bliss
together with immortality (for trouble and care and anger and kindness are not consistent
with a life of blessedness, but these things come to pass where there is weakness and fear
and dependence on neighbours).77
Elsewhere, too, Epicurus enjoins his reader not to resort to myth.78 However, if
physical inquiry is all about excluding myth and divine intervention, why is one
naturalistic explanation not enough?79 The answer to this question may be found in
a number of passages in Epicurus’ Letter to Pythocles. In §87, for instance, Epicurus
writes:
But whenever one accepts one explanation while rejecting another that harmonizes just as
well with the phenomenon, it is clear that one falls from scientific inquiry altogether and is
plunged into myth.80
According to Epicurus, providing a single explanation when other explanations are

equally plausible is in itself a kind of myth. But why should a single explanation
amount to myth? Another relevant passage that may provide some further clues is
§113:
76
See Warren 2004, 361: “With the addition of the conception of infinite kosmoi the Epicureans can
claim not only that one of the possible explanations is the true one but that in fact all of them are
true. In this way they can hope to bridge the gap between offering multiple merely possible expla-
nations and the provision of sure, tranquillity-producing, conviction.”
77
Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus 76–77: Καὶ μὴν ἐν τοῖς μετεώροις φορὰν καὶ τροπὴν καὶ ἔκλειψιν
καὶ Ἀνατολὴν καὶ δύσιν καὶ τὰ σύστοιχα τούτοις μήτε λειτουργοῦντός τινος νομίζειν δεῖ
γίνεσθαι καὶ διατάττοντος ἢ διατάξαντος καὶ ἅμα τὴν πᾶσαν μακαριότητα ἔχοντος μετὰ
Ἀφθαρσίας· οὐ γὰρ συμφωνοῦσι πραγματεῖαι καὶ φροντίδες καὶ ὀργαὶ καὶ χάριτες μακαριότητι,
Ἀλλ’ ἐν Ἀσθενείᾳ καὶ φόβῳ καὶ προσδεήσει τῶν πλησίον ταῦτα γίνεται. Translation in Bailey
1926, 49.
78
Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 104.3: μόνον ὁ μῦθος Ἀπέστω. Cf. ibid. 115.8.
79
Similarly Verde 2013, 130.
80
Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 87: ὅταν δέ τις τὸ μὲν Ἀπολίπῃ τὸ δὲ ἐκβάλῃ ὁμοίως σύμφωνον
ὂν τῷ φαινομένῳ, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ ἐκ παντὸς ἐκπίπτει φυσιολογήματος, ἐπὶ δὲ τὸν μῦθον καταρρεῖ.
Translation mine.
But to assign a single cause for these phenomena, when the phenomena call for a plural
account, is madness, and is unfittingly practised by those who are devoted to idle astronomy
and vainly assign causes for certain phenomena, since (ὅταν) they do not free divine nature
in any way from the burden of responsibilities.81
Providing single explanations for celestial phenomena is typically practised by dev-

otees of astronomy – not just professional astronomers, but also those who accepted
and incorporated the astronomers’ findings into their own cosmologies, like Plato,
Aristotle and the Stoics.82 However, Epicurus’ criticism is not limited to these devo-
tees of astronomy, but also applies to others who provide single explanations when
the phenomena call for several, whether one is dealing with astronomical or atmo-
spheric occurrences. Nor should the explanations provided by these devotees of
astronomy and other proponents of single causes be spurned as such: this is made
clear by the inclusion of many such views in Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ lists of mul-
tiple explanations.83 Apparently these views are only objectionable in so far as they
are claimed to be uniquely true. But why would this be objectionable? The answer
to this question is given in the concluding, subordinate clause of the cited passage.
Unfortunately, the Greek here presents an ambiguity. According to Liddell and
Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, ὅταν, the conjunction which starts the clause, nor-
mally means “whenever, with a conditional force.”84 Yet if the conjunction is taken
in this sense, one might conclude that assigning single causes is okay after all, as
long as the gods are not involved. This would be a very weak conclusion after
Epicurus’ insistence on the need for multiple explanations both in the present pas-
sage and throughout the Letter to Pythocles, and would also be at odds with the
previously quoted passage (from §87), where rashly opting for a single explanation
(apparently regardless of its content) was equated to myth. However, Liddell and
Scott also report a second meaning. Occasionally, ὅταν is also used in a causal sense
(attested from Aristotle onwards), which may be rendered as ‘since.’85 If we take the
conjunction in this sense, the final clause turns out to provide the very answer we
were looking for: assigning single causes, when the phenomena call for several, is
wrong, because this would imply divine involvement in the world. This conclusion
seems to be confirmed by §97:
And divine nature must not be applied to these things in any way, but must be preserved
unburdened by responsibilities and in complete blessedness. For if this practice is not
observed the entire inquiry into the causes of celestial phenomena will be idle, as it has
already been for certain people who have not clung to the possible method, but have fallen
back into idle talk by believing that things only happen in one way, and rejecting all other
81
Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 113: τὸ δὲ μίαν αἰτίαν τούτων Ἀποδιδόναι, πλεοναχῶς τῶν
φαινομένων ἐκκαλουμένων, μανικὸν καὶ οὐ καθηκόντως πραττόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν τὴν ματαίαν
Ἀστρολογίαν ἐζηλωκότων καὶ εἰς τὸ κενὸν αἰτίας τινῶν Ἀποδιδόντων, ὅταν τὴν θείαν φύσιν
μηθαμῇ λειτουργιῶν Ἀπολύωσι. Translation (and emphasis) mine.
82
See Bakker 2016, 57.
83
For the incorporation of the astronomers’ views in Epicurus’ and Lucretius’ lists of alternative
explanations, see Bakker 2016, 42–58.
84
Liddell and Scott 1940, 1264, lemma ὅταν.
85
Admittedly, the use of ὅταν in this sense is otherwise unattested in Epicurus’ works.
62 F. A. Bakker
explanations that follow from the possible method, being driven thus to what is inconceiv-
able, and unable to make a survey of the phenomena that must be accepted as signs.86
Although the statement is quite convoluted, it seems to imply that those “people
who […] have fallen back into […] believing that things only happen in one way”
have thereby failed to observe the practice of preserving divine nature “unburdened
by responsibilities and in complete blessedness.”
In short, according to Epicurus, assigning single explanations to celestial phe-
nomena in itself (i.e. regardless of the content of each explanation) already amounts
to involving the gods in the workings of nature. Why this should be so is not stated
clearly anywhere by Epicurus. However, his explicit reference to the devotees of
astronomy in §113 suggests that his quarrel is not so much with those who provide
single causes on one or two occasions, but with those who do so systematically, like
professional astronomers and their followers. Elsewhere I have argued, on the basis
of the above and other passages, that Epicurus was opposed to the astronomers and
their followers because of their groundless reliance on a preconceived theoretical
model in which phenomena were accounted for with single explanations according
to a unified explanatory principle.87 It was the belief in these general explanatory
theories, often illustrated by means of tangible mechanical models,88 that Epicurus
especially opposed, considering them to be nothing more than “empty assumptions
and arbitrary principles,”89 without a firm basis in the phenomena.
Moreover, by embracing these models the devotees of astronomy grant the world
an amount of coherence and regularity that seems to point to an overall design.90 In
fact, both Plato and the Stoics explicitly link the orderly nature of the world, and
especially the heavenly sphere, to its being designed by a god. In Timaeus 34b-40d,
Plato describes how the Demiurge successively created the heavens, the celestial
orbits, and finally the heavenly bodies themselves as living gods, according to a
single coherent and intelligent plan, the details of which can only be understood by
the use of visible models; and in Laws 820e-822c he prescribes the study of astron-
omy in order to eradicate the erroneous and blasphemous view that the planets,
being gods, should wander about aimlessly. The Stoics even made the order and
86
Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 97: καὶ ἡ θεία φύσις πρὸς ταῦτα μηδαμῇ προσαγέσθω, Ἀλλ’
Ἀλειτούργητος διατηρείσθω καὶ ἐν τῇ πάσῃ μακαριότητι. ὡς εἰ τοῦτο μὴ πραχθήσεται ἅπασα ἡ
τῶν μετεώρων αἰτιολογία ματαία ἔσται, καθάπερ τισὶν ἤδη ἐγένετο οὐ δυνατοῦ τρόπου
ἐφαψαμένοις, εἰς δὲ τὸ μάταιον ἐκπεσοῦσι τῷ καθ’ ἕνα τρόπον μόνον οἴεσθαι γίνεσθαι, τοὺς δ’
ἄλλους πάντας τοὺς κατὰ τὸ ἐνδεχόμενον ἐκβάλλειν, εἴς τε τὸ Ἀδιανόητον φερομένους καὶ τὰ
φαινόμενα ἃ δεῖ σημεῖα Ἀποδέχεσθαι μὴ δυναμένους συνθεωρεῖν. Translation mine.
87
Bakker 2016, 32–33, 263, 266–267; see also 57–58.
88
On the use of mechanical models in astronomy see Cornford 1935, 74–76; and Evans 1998,
78–84. On Epicurus’ opposition to this practice see Sedley 1976, 32, 37–39.
89
Epicurus, Letter to Pythocles 86: Οὐ γὰρ κατὰ Ἀξιώματα κενὰ καὶ νομοθεσίας φυσιολογητέον,
Ἀλλ’ ὡς τὰ φαινόμενα ἐκκαλεῖται. Translation in Bailey 1926, 59.
90
Similarly Verde 2013, 131, 135.
regularity of the celestial motions a prime exhibit in their argument from design,
likening the heavenly sphere to a man-made orrery.91
In this way the systematic application of single explanations could be taken to
imply a belief in divine creation, to which the systematic and dogmatic assertion of
multiple explanations would provide an effective antidote. However, in order to
perform this function, each of these multiple explanations has to be not merely pos-
sible, but actually true. And this is where, as we have seen, the infinity of worlds
comes in: the principle of plenitude stipulates that in the infinity of the universe
every possible explanation must be true somewhere.
However, to this line of reasoning several objections can be made. Firstly, one
might call into question whether single explanations really do imply divine gover-
nance. Epicurus may have believed so, but Lucretius, in those passages where he
either expounds or applies the method of multiple explanations, never claims that
multiple explanations as such are necessary to eliminate divine intervention. In fact,
on several occasions where one might have expected a multiple account, Lucretius
is content to give a single explanation, apparently without fearing thereby to make
the gods responsible. A later Epicurean, Diogenes of Oenoanda, even gives up on
the simultaneous truth of multiple explanations altogether, claiming instead that,
“while all explanations are possible, this one is more plausible than that,” without
worrying about theological consequences.92
Secondly, even if one accepts that the dogmatic assertion of multiple explana-
tions is necessary to rule out divine involvement, one might still doubt whether a
plurality of worlds is required to guarantee the truth of each individual explanation.
In a recent article Francesco Verde has suggested that Lucretius may not have ren-
dered Epicurus’ thought adequately in this respect.93 While emphasizing – even
more clearly than Epicurus himself – the truth of every given explanation in the
universe at large, Lucretius at the same time seems to slip right back into the scepti-
cism that Epicurus wanted to avoid, by stressing that in this world only one
explanation applies, although we do not know which one. Since in similar contexts
Epicurus himself never refers to other worlds, the various individual explanations
should be thought of as true even within this world: compatible explanations could
be true at the same time, while incompatible ones may still be true sequentially. If
Verde is right, then however important the method of multiple explanations may
have been to demythologize the world, the infinity of the universe may not have
played any part in it.
91
Cicero, De natura deorum II 88.
92
Diogenes of Oenoanda fr.13 iii 10–12 (in Smith 1993, 171). For the epistemological import of
this passage see Verde 2013, 136–137; Bakker 2016, 37–42, 242; Leone 2017, 97–100; and espe-
cially Corsi 2017, 277–282.
93
Verde 2013, 139–141. See also Corsi 2017, 262–263.
64 F. A. Bakker
3.3.5 Summary
Although the infinity of atoms, and consequently of worlds, appears as a premise in

several actual or presumed Epicurean arguments against divine intervention, it turns
out to be neither sufficient nor necessary to arrive at the desired conclusion. True,
the infinity of worlds rules out divine intervention (at least as conceived by Plato
and the Stoics), but this can only be established after divine intervention has been
ruled out already. True, the joint infinity of atoms and void guarantees that any con-
figuration of atoms, including our cosmos, will be realized even without divine
intervention, but so does the infinity of time, and, in fact, the Epicureans only
invoked the latter. True, the infinity of worlds would ensure that every objectively
possible explanation is also true, as Lucretius claims; but it is debatable, firstly, to
what extent Epicurus himself used or needed the infinity of worlds to account for the
truth of multiple explanations; secondly, to what extent later Epicureans still
endorsed the truth of multiple explanations, as opposed to their mere possibility or
probability; and thirdly, to what extent later Epicureans were still committed to the
thesis that divine intervention can only be eliminated by multiple, as opposed to
single, naturalistic explanations. In sum, there is no reason to assume that the
Epicureans had strong theological motives for positing and upholding the joint
infinity of atoms and void.
3.4 Conclusion
In this chapter I have tried to establish why the Epicureans, in contrast to every other
ancient school of philosophy, posited an infinite amount of matter. I have approached
this question from two different angles. In the first half of the chapter the physical
arguments for the infinity of matter were discussed. In both Epicurus’ Letter to
Herodotus and Lucretius’ De rerum natura the infinite number of atoms is inferred
from the infinity of space, on the assumption that a finite number of atoms would be
scattered abroad and not be able to meet and produce anything. For Epicurus this
was the end of the matter, but later Epicureans had to deal with a rival theory that
threatened to undermine the Epicurean argument: by assuming a theory of centrip-
etal gravity the Stoics were able to account for the infinity of space without the need
for a corresponding infinity of matter. Lucretius offers a refutation of the Stoic view,
but his counter-arguments appear to be either unfounded or unconvincing, and are
further undermined by Lucretius’ implicit endorsement, later on in his work, of
centripetal gravity.
In the second half of the chapter I have looked at the question from another point
of view. If the physical arguments are not strong enough to prove the infinity of
atoms, the Epicureans may have had other – theological and ethical – motives to
uphold this thesis. In the writings of Epicurus and Lucretius several arguments are
found or are thought to be implied in which the infinity of matter rules out divine
intervention in the world. However, as we have just seen, none of these arguments
holds up to scrutiny.
The somewhat disappointing conclusion is that the Epicurean endorsement of
the infinity of matter, and hence of worlds, was warranted neither by physical nor by
ethical considerations. Epicurus himself, blissfully ignorant of the challenge that
would be posed by the Stoics, may still have believed that his proof of the infinity
of atoms was conclusive, and hence could be used, perhaps not as sufficient, but at
least as supporting evidence against divine intervention. Later Epicureans, however,
felt obliged to defend a thesis that was neither consequent upon the principles of
Epicurean physics, nor antecedent to the main doctrines of Epicurean ethics, but one
that nevertheless had become a defining tenet of their sect.94
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Chapter 4
Space and Movement in Medieval
Thought: The Angelological Shift
Tiziana Suarez-Nani
Oportet hic considerare de loco eorum [sc. substantiarum

spiritualium], quod non habet aliquid difficilius se in tota
speculatione sapientiae.
Here it is necessary to take into account their place [sc. of
spiritual substances]: nothing is more difficult in the whole
speculation of wisdom.
Roger Bacon, Opus tertium, c. XLVII in Roger Bacon 1859,
Chap. 6, 172.
Abstract This paper explores the contribution of medieval metaphysics to the

development of the theories of space and movement through an investigation of
some metaphysical conceptions of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
If treatises on the philosophy of nature – especially the commentaries on Aristotle’s
Physics and De caelo – generally provided the theoretical context for notions of
place, location and space in medieval thought, medieval thinkers also examined
these notions in a metaphysical context in order to explain the relationship between
immaterial substances (souls, angels and God) on one hand, and the space of the
physical World on the other. This paper outlines three different medieval modalities
of location: the circumscription of bodies, divine ubiquity, and the delimitation of
souls and angels. On the basis of these modalities, medieval thinkers developed two
types of explanation for the location of created immaterial substances: firstly, loca-
tion through operations, and secondly, location through the being. According to
these models, space is an external (first model) or internal property of the being
itself (second model). These conceptions bear important consequences on the theo-
I would like to thank the editors for their careful reading of this article, their remarks on the same,
and suggestions for improvement. All translations are the author’s except where otherwise noted.
T. Suarez-Nani (*)
University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
e-mail: tiziana.suarez@unifr.ch

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_4
70 T. Suarez-Nani
ries of movement, especially those focusing on the movement of indivisibles (that

is, non-extended substances like spirits) in the physical extended space. In this
context medieval thinkers intensely discussed the possibility of instantaneous move-
ment and elaborated a complex notion of resistance as crucial to each movement in
the world.
4.1 Introduction
The importance of medieval conceptions of space and place in the genesis of early
modern physics is, by now, a well-documented fact. Over the last two decades
numerous works have enabled us to better know and appreciate the doctrines of
several thinkers, as well as the ramifications of their theories and their contributions
to what we might call an ‘occidental philosophy of space.’1
This paper approaches the importance of medieval theories of space and place
from a specific vantage point: it will highlight the role of the doctrines concerning
spiritual creatures in this context by investigating the conditions of the localization
and motion of immaterial substances in physical and material space.
From the thirteenth century onwards medieval natural philosophy developed
within the framework of commentaries on the Aristotelian corpus, in particular
those on the Physics and On the Heavens, as well as in the context of metaphysical
and theological texts such as the Commentaries on the Sentences or the Disputationes
de quolibet (open disputations).2 These texts discuss important questions on matter,
body and spirit, as well as movement, place, and the localization of God and spiri-
tual creatures. These are not basic commentaries, but rather essentially doctrinal
treatises that construct novel conceptions; advance natural philosophy through the
acquisition of new instruments of thought (such as the important linguistic and ter-
minological analyses of the fourteenth century); and encourage the formulation of
1
Among these studies, note particularly – in addition to the classic studies of Pierre Duhem 1913
and Anneliese Maier 1955 and 1966 – the following publications of a more general and/or inter-
disciplinary character: Sorabji 1983; Aertsen and Speer 1998; Moraw 2002; Uomo e spazio 2003;
Suarez-Nani and Rohde 2011. Additionally there are studies specific to medieval theories of space
and place, for example, Grant 1981; Cross 1998; Trifogli 2000; Grellard and Robert 2009; Biard
and Rommevaux 2012; Weill-Parot 2013.
2
Written around the middle of the twelfth century, Peter Lombard’s Sentences is a collection, in
four books, of statements (‘sentences’) from patristic writings (especially Augustine, but also
Ambrose, Hilary, and Jerome): the first book deals with God, the second with angels and human
beings, the third with Christ, and the fourth with the sacraments. At the beginning of the thirteenth
century, this work was adopted as a university textbook in medieval universities: the training cur-
riculum for the masters of theology required them to comment on the ‘Sentences,’ that is to say, to
explain their content and to discuss the topics that were raised within them. Therefore, in com-
menting on book II, masters of theology discussed numerous questions pertaining to spiritual
creatures, including their relations to places in the material world. Since commenting on the
‘Sentences’ was compulsory, numerous commentaries survive, and they constitute a specific liter-
ary genre through which medieval thought was conveyed. Cf. Evans 2002; Roseman 2004.
4 Space and Movement in Medieval Thought: The Angelological Shift 71
new problems.3 These developments had considerable repercussions in medieval

physics and metaphysics and beyond, and their contributions to the development of
the concepts of space, place and localization were recognized by scholars from the
mid-twentieth century onwards – in particular those of the medieval thinkers who
went beyond the Aristotelian conception, and thus paved the way for its demise as
brought about by Galileo and Newton.4
The questions that define the evolution of medieval theories of space and place
include questions regarding the localization of God and spiritual creatures. Since
Aristotelian physics of bodies does not offer valid conceptual tools for solving this
problem, many thinkers looked for new solutions, and proposed new theoretical
frameworks that would allow them to think about the relationships of spirits to
physical places, and to clarify the conditions for including spirits within the space
of the world.5 As early as 1964 Paul Vignaux emphasized the necessity of research
into medieval philosophy for deepening the study of metaphysical doctrines on the
relationships of spirits to places:
We stand before a doctrine of space for which the point of departure is the relation of spirits
to places. The detailed understanding of such reasoning […] [in this matter] requires a study
of fourteenth-century speculation on the place of angels [de loco angelorum].6
Paul Vignaux was inclined to find the question of God’s relationship to the material
world essential for a clarification of the concepts of space and place (especially
through introducing the notion of spatial infinity) in the intellectual process leading
“from the closed world to the infinite universe” (as illustrated in Alexandre Koyré’s
famous work From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe).7 Vignaux thus noted
that John of Ripa’s (fourteenth century) reflection on the coexistence of creatures
with the “infinite imaginary void” focuses on the relationships between spirits
(angels and souls) and places, which then become paradigmatic in his elaboration of
his theory of space; Vignaux concluded that John of Ripa’s text is “invaluable for
the history of the relationships between religious and scientific thought because of
the radical distinction it presents between God’s immensity and spatial infinity, a
3
See Biard 2005, 289–300 (esp. 290).
4
See Clavelin 1968. Maurice Clavelin recognizes the importance of medieval antecedents for the
development of Galilean mechanics, but proposes that the compartmentalization of disciplines
prevented medieval thinkers from seeing in their ‘new solutions’ the roots of mechanical science,
which would not see the light of day until Galileo’s time (cf. 121, 291); see also Koyré 1939;
Wallace 1981. For Newton see also: Jammer 1954. See Funkenstein 1986; Sorabji 1988; Sylla
1997, 65–110; Leijenhorst, Lüthy and Thijssen 2002; esp. Sylla 2002, which discusses the evolu-
tion within the Aristotelian tradition; Giovannozzi and Veneziani 2014; Suarez-Nani, Ribordy and
Petagine 2017; Suarez-Nani 2017a, 93–107.
5
These discussions would continue into the seventeenth century, in particular with Descartes,
Henry More, Hobbes and Gassendi. Of the many studies dedicated to this subject the following
shall be noted: Sylla 2002; Paganini 2005, esp. 258–339; Grant 2007, 127–155; Normore 2007,
271–287; Agostini 2011, 49–69; Pasnau 2007, 283–310; Anfray 2014, 23–46; Jaffro 2014, 3–22;
Suarez-Nani forthcoming.
6
See Vignaux 1967, 194.
7
Koyré 1957.
72 T. Suarez-Nani
distinction that began to haunt natural philosophy.”8 Vignaux’s statement has a gen-
eral import and can be applied to numerous medieval doctrines on the relationships
of spirits (God, angels, and human souls) to places; such doctrines propose new
notions and hypotheses that are not found in treatises on physics (which largely
remain indebted to Aristotle’s conception). These doctrines, indeed, represent a
major milestone on the path leading towards the demise of the Aristotelian para-
digm. It is, therefore, both important and interesting to explore angelological doc-
trines related to questions on the relationships between spirits and space.
This paper will present some prominent aspects of the doctrine of space and
place developed by medieval thinkers in an angelological doctrinal context before
approaching a hitherto unexplored problem: the role ascribed to resistance in medi-
eval theories of the movement of immaterial substances. In the second part of this
article, once the specific mode of localization of spiritual substances in physical
space has been explained, I will evaluate to what extent the analysis elaborated in
the angelological context modifies the conception of local motion: what is at stake
here becomes especially obvious in my analysis of the role of resistance – a condi-
tion that necessarily determines the movement of bodies – in the transport of imma-
terial substances.
4.2 Place, Space and Movement of Spiritual Creatures
4.2.1 Relationships to Place/Space
In the medieval period the relationship of spiritual creatures to space was addressed
via two very different questions: “Where are the angels?” (ubi sunt angeli), and
“Are angels in a place?” (utrum angeli sint in loco). The reply to the first question –
which assumed that angels can be located in a place – was theological in nature,
stating that the angels and the blessed are in the Empyreum: not an astronomical,
but a ‘theological’ or spiritual heaven, created by God in order to host the blessed
spirits (the angels and those human souls that deserved beatitude).9
8
Vignaux 1967, 209.
9
Deriving from a long tradition dating back to Antiquity (especially the school of Gnosticism, the
Chaldean Oracles, and some Neo-Platonic thought) the Empyreum was introduced into medieval
Christian theology by Valafridus Strabo, a monk of the first half of the ninth century and disciple
of Raban Maur. Its reality was widely accepted thanks to its association with the theological tradi-
tion, which lent it authority. The Empyreum was conceived as a spiritual or intellectual sphere
(sometimes ‘sphere of fire’ or ‘sphere of light’) surrounding the material world. It was, thus, con-
sidered the tenth celestial sphere, which was immobile and located beyond the Primum Mobile, i.e.
outside the ninth sphere according to the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology. The Empyreum’s
influence upon the inferior world was, however, not unanimously accepted: Bonaventure, Richard
of Middleton and Giles of Rome acknowledged it, while Thomas Aquinas and the Aristotelians
rejected it. On the medieval doctrine of the Empyreum see Nardi 1967, 167–214. Regarding the
angels’ cosmological function as movers of the celestial spheres, there was no unanimous agree-
But even if this reply allowed for the angels to be somewhere within the created
universe it in no way accounted for their presence in the material world, nor did it
explain which type of relationship to physical space angels might have. By contrast,
the second question (the question on which this paper will focus in particular)
addressed precisely this subject, and was more specifically philosophical in nature,
as it questioned the conditions for the localization of spirits in the material world.
It is worth emphasizing here that, for medieval thinkers, there was no doubt that
immaterial substances were related to and located in physical space. On the one
hand, biblical passages – incontestable authorities – told of many angelic move-
ments from the sky to the earth.10 On the other hand, the intrinsic limits of the cre-
ated world required the inclusion of all creatures (even spiritual creatures) in a
spatio-temporal framework. The specific way in which purely immaterial substances
were localized, then, had to be examined and determined, since in this case the
Aristotelian conception of place as the limit of a surrounding body did not apply.11
Thus, from the middle of the twelfth century onwards, Peter Lombard gathered
specific elements from the earlier tradition and formulated three possible modalities
of localization: through the circumscription of bodies (circumscriptio); by divine
ubiquity (ubiquitas); and finally, through definition or delimitation (definitio). The
first of these methods defines the relationship of bodies to their respective places:
each body is, literally, circumscribed, i.e. it is contained in a place dependent on its
dimensions. The second method characterizes divine reality only: ubiquity means
that God is present everywhere, without being contained in a determined place. And
the third method corresponds exactly to the manner of localization proper to created
spirits, since spirits are neither circumscribed in physical space, nor, like God, pres-
ent everywhere, but rather necessarily delimited in relation to a place, that is to say
“situated somewhere, such that they cannot be everywhere simultaneously.”12
The notion of a ‘definition’ or ‘delimitation’ in a place, which was generally
accepted by medieval thinkers, nevertheless gave rise to many interpretations, nota-
bly when it came to clarifying the how and why of delimitation in space. On this
basis two principal explanations of local ‘definition’ or ‘delimitation’ with regard to
place emerged: one anchored the localization of spirits in their operations, the other
in their being. Adopted, notably, by Thomas Aquinas in the wake of Albert the
Great, the thesis of localization by activity led to the attribution of an extrinsic
ment, either: while Bonaventure conceived this function in strictly theological terms, Aquinas
transformed it into a philosophical thesis, creating the possibility of accounting for universal dyna-
mism; see Suarez-Nani and Faes de Mottoni 2002, 717–751; Suarez-Nani 2002, 91–164.
10
See, among others, Tobit 3:25; Luke 1:26 and 8:35–36; Acts 2:31.
11
Physics in Aristotle 1937, IV, 4, 212a20: “place is the immobile limit of the containing body.”
12
Sententiae in Peter Lombard 1981, l. I, d. XXXVII, chap. 6, 270: “spiritus vero creatus quodam
modo localis est, et quodam modo non est localis. Localis quidem dicitur, quia definitione loci
terminatur, quoniam cum alicubi praesens sit totus, alibi non invenitur; non autem ita localis est, ut
dimensionem capiens, distantiam in loco faciat.” The distinction between circumscription and
delimitation goes back to De fide orthodoxa in John of Damascus 2010–2011, I, chap. 13; it is
taken up by, among others, Hugh of St. Victor in De sacramentis, see Hugh of St. Victor 2008, I,
pars 3, chap. 18.
74 T. Suarez-Nani
relation between angels and physical space, because such activity referred exclu-
sively to operations they could carry out on bodies.13 In this theory, an angel who
does not act is not localized in the space of the material world. An inactive angel is,
essentially, nowhere, while yet in the Empyreum, which is not a material place. For
thinkers following this school of thought angels were not involved in spatial dimen-
sionality, since they are totally foreign to the material world’s conditions. They
were, nevertheless, endowed with a ‘quantity of power’” (quantitas virtutis), with
which they could act on bodies and their places, such that angels were situated with-
out being circumscribed.14 This sort of localization resulted from a causality between
the angel entering into contact (contactum virtutis) with the place of the body upon
which it acted, and therefore being delimited or localized in that place ‘from
outside.’15 This explanation, then, allowed for the possibility of an extrinsic relation
to space: a relation that is qualitatively different from the spatial relationships of
bodies because it is freed of all mass and all material conditions.
The second explanation of definitio, in contrast to the first, somewhat interiorized
of the relationship of angels to space by defining localization as based in the being
of created spirits themselves. This position had already been defended by
Bonaventure,16 and became predominant after the condemnation of 1277, which
censured the thesis that an angel is located nowhere,17 as well as the thesis that an
angel is localized by its operations.18 The theory was supported by Peter John Olivi,
Mattew of Aquasparta, Henry of Ghent, Richard of Middleton, John Duns Scotus
and others, and conceived the relationship to physical place as a necessary and
13
Sententiae in Albert the Great 1893, d. XXXVII, a. XVIII, 254–255: “Dicendum quod non est
idem in loco esse, et locale esse […]. Locatum enim proprie non est nisi corpus: cum tamen spiri-
tus creatus diffinitive sit in loco, et non locatus, nec localis, nisi secundum quid, ut dicit in
littera.”
14
Summa theologiae in Thomas Aquinas 1889, I, q. 52, a. 1, vol. V, 20: “angelo convenit esse
in loco: aequivoce tamen dicitur angelus esse in loco et corpus. Corpus enim est in loco per […]
contactum dimensivae quantitatis. Quae quidem in angelis non est; sed est in eis quantitas virtualis.
Per applicationem igitur virtutis angelicae ad aliquem locum qualitercumque dicitur angelus esse
in loco corporeo.” The same thesis is formulated in: Scriptum in I Sent., in Thomas Aquinas 1929,
d. 37, q. 4, a. 1 and in the Quodlibet in Thomas Aquinas 1956, I, q. 3, a1. For the Thomist concep-
tion, see Suarez-Nani 2002, 87–90, as well as Suarez-Nani 2011, esp. 126–127.
15
Summa theologiae in Thomas Aquinas 1889, I, q. 53, a. 1, 30: “Sed angelus non est in loco ut
commensuratus et contentus, sed magis ut continens. Unde motus angeli in loco non oportet quod
commensuretur loco, nec quod sit secundum exigentiam eius, ut habeat continuitatem ex loco, sed
est motus non continuus. Quia enim angelus non est in loco nisi secundum contactum virtutis, ut
dictum est, necesse est quod motus angeli in loco nihil aliud sit quam diversi contactus diversorum
locorum successive et non simul, quia angelus non potest esse simul in pluribus locis.”
16
Sententiae in Bonaventure 1885, dist. II, pars II, a. II, q. III, vol. II, 81–82: “Et ideo est tertia
positio, quod angelus, cum contineatur a loco corporali, quod est in loco partibili, tamquam in loco
primo; et quoniam non potest extendi in eo, ideo necesse est, quod sit in toto, ita quod totus in toto,
et totus in qualibet parte.”
17
This thesis was, notably, defended by Roger Bacon: cf. Panti 2017, 57–77.
18
See Denifle and Chatelain 1889, vol. I, art. 204, 218 and 219, 554–555; Hissette 1977, art. 53–55,
104–110; see also Piché 1999, 140, 144 and 146. On the echoes of this condemnation, see Mahoney
2001, 902–930.
intrinsic condition of all creatures, both material and immaterial.19 From this per-
spective, the question de loco angelorum was to make the relationship to space
uniform for all created beings, based on their finitude. This motif was present in
most of the arguments looking to prove the intrinsic character of the relationship of
all beings to physical place, beyond and independently of the quantitative dimen-
sionality and proper conditions determining the circumscription of the bodies.20
Despite their shared appeal to the motif of finitude, the argumentative strategies
often differed from one another significantly, sometimes giving place to novel
explanations of the nature of the relationship between spirits and physical space. To
take only two examples, we will now look briefly at the doctrines of Henry of Ghent
and of John Duns Scotus.
4.2.1.1 Henry of Ghent
According to Henry of Ghent, it “is necessary for the angel to be located somewhere
in the corporeal universe: not nowhere, nor everywhere, but somewhere, even if the
angel is not in a determined manner only here or only there.”21 Freed from the condi-
tions for the localization of the body, this way of being in space does not imply any
relationship of co-naturality, dependence or commensurability between the angel
and the place it occupies.
This thesis results from a twofold distinction: that between place (locus) and
position (situs) on the one hand, and that between ‘natural position’ (situs naturalis)
and ‘mathematical position’ (situs mathematicus) on the other. The ‘natural posi-
tion’ implies a (natural) dependence of the localized object on the body that con-
tains it, while the situs mathematicus is not dependent upon or attached to one
position rather than another.22 Henry clarifies that only the category of position
(situs) befits an angel, which is, thus, only localized in the sense that it is necessarily
19
I have analysed these authors’ doctrines in: Suarez-Nani 2003, 233–316 (esp. 262–274); Suarez-
Nani 2008, 89–111; Suarez-Nani 2017b, 123–133.
20
Francis of Marchia’s position is significant in this regard; see Suarez-Nani 2015a, 237–274.
21
Quodlibet in Henry of Ghent 1983, q. 9, 68.
22
Ibid., 60: “Appellatur autem ‘situs naturalis’ rei, ad quem se habet per naturalem dependentiam,
ut naturale sit ei esse in illo, et violentum et extra naturam esse alibi et extra illum […]. Appellatur
autem ‘situs mathematicus’ applicatio rei ad ‘ubi’ aliquod determinatum, sive supra sive infra, sive
in oriente sive in occidente, sine aliqua naturali dependentia et determinatione plus ad unum quam
ad alterum, ita tamen quod necesse est rei ex sua natura esse in aliquo illorum.” The distinction
between ‘natural place’ and ‘mathematical place’ had already been introduced in question 5 of the
same Quodlibet, to explain the means by which Christ’s body is present in the Eucharistic sacra-
ment: “Et hoc modo, sicut substantia panis per sua accidentia habuit esse in loco non naturali sed
mathematico in altari, et substantia corporis Christi non habet ibi esse nisi quatenus transsubstan-
tiata est substantia panis sub illis speciebus ibi existens in corpus Christi” (29–30).
76 T. Suarez-Nani
‘situated’ somewhere, according to the mode of situs mathematicus; that is to say, it

is ‘situated’ without any natural link with or dependence on the place where it finds
itself.23
It seems clear that this argument implies an important modification of the
Aristotelian doctrine: given that the relationship of an angel to a place is devoid of
all natural character, Henry was able to formulate the innovative idea of a place or
mathematical position separate from a body, and therefore also independent of
bodily qualities.
4.2.1.2 John Duns Scotus
Similarly to Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, while appealing to Aristotle, pro-
poses a novel conception of the place of bodies.24 He conceives of place as a math-
ematical quantity or dimension rather than a physical property. Place is presented as
a homogenous entity, a “form without content,” that is, “an absolute mathematical
property of all corporeal or incorporeal being.”25 Thus, Scotus does not base local-
ization on the physical or natural properties of things, but on a ‘passive potency,’ in
virtue of which each thing relates to a place; as a consequence, this relationship is
not one of necessity but becomes, strictly speaking (de iure), nothing more than a
simple possibility.26 In this way, Scotus removes localization from the network of
physical qualities and the relationships between bodies.
This conception has wide-ranging implications when applied to separate sub-
stances for which, just as for natural bodies, Duns Scotus rejects the necessity of a
relationship between separate substances and physical places. For him, such a rela-
tionship is nothing but a possibility due to the ‘passive potency’ by which an angel
can be in a place.27 This means that, for Scotus, angels do not necessarily have to be
23
Ibid., 59: “loquendo proprie de esse in tali loco sub ratione tali, quia angelus simplex est, omni
ratione quantitatis dimensivae carens, nullo modo angelus intelligitur esse in loco secundum suam
substantiam […]. Nec de hoc modo essendi in loco est quaestio. Sed solum est quaestio extend-
endo ‘locum’ ad omnem rationem situs, ut dicatur esse in loco, quod situm sibi aliquod determinat
per suam praesentiam alicubi.”
24
For Scotus see also Duba’s Chapter 5 in this volume.
25
See Boulnois 1998, esp. 325, 327 and 330.
26
Ordinatio in Duns Scotus 1973, II, d. 2, p. 2, q. 1–2, 259: “Per nihil igitur absolutum in alio,
requirit necessario esse in loco, sed tantum habet necessario potentiam passivam qua posset
esse in loco”; see also Quodlibet in idem 1895, q. XI, a. 2, 444–446. This doctrine, which
does not de facto preclude creatures from being located in cosmic space, relies on the prin-
ciple of divine omnipotence and on the hypothesis that “God could create a stone in the
absence of any other containing body or create it outside the universe,” see Ordinatio in
Duns Scotus 1973, d. 2, p. 2, q. 1–2, 259.
27
Ordinatio in Duns Scotus 1973, II, d. 2, p. 2, q. 1–2, 261: “Ad propositum igitur ista applicando
de angelo, dico quod angelus non necessario est in loco, quia multo magis posset fieri sine cre-
atione creaturae corporalis, vel facta creatura corporali posset fieri et esse extra omnem creaturam
corporalem. Et tamen in angelo est potentia passiva, qua potest esse in loco”; if the angel is not
localized de iure, according to Scotus, it is nevertheless localized de facto; see Suarez-Nani 2008.
in the cosmos. Moreover, he considers this passive potency ‘neutral’ for angels, that
is, neither natural nor violent.28 Strictly speaking, the angel is ‘indifferent’ to all
spatial configurations, and can therefore occupy any place.29
This thesis marks a noteworthy theoretical step within medieval theory: the
notions of limit and capacity, as well as the natural proximity of a place to a located
substance – all of which constitute fundamental elements of Aristotle’s natural phi-
losophy – are overtaken by an idea of place as a mathematical dimension (homog-
enous and neutral), and by a conception of localization as the pure possibility of
relating to space. Whether speaking of a body or a spirit, Duns Scotus (even more
radically than Henry of Ghent) moves towards a separation of place and the local-
ized substance.
4.2.2 Movement of Spiritual Creatures
Medieval doctrines on the movement of angels attest to a similar dynamic of

thought. Peter Lombard identified two different schools within them: one held that
spiritual creatures did not move in space but only in time; the other, that spiritual
creatures were subject to local motion.30 From the mid-thirteenth century onwards
views on the angels’ ability to move converged, but opinions were divided regarding
the manner of their local movement.
Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, among others, considered the local move-
ment of angels not natural but voluntary, and concluded that angels did not succes-
sively cross the intermediate space between the points of departure and arrival.
Here, the movement of an indivisible (such as an angel) is necessarily discontinuous
and indivisible, because it is constituted by a succession of instantaneous and indi-
visible movements.31 In other words, Albert and Thomas thought it impossible that
an indivisible might move continuously in a continuous and divisible space.
28
Ordinatio in Duns Scotus 1973, II, d. 2, p. 2, 1. 1–2, 267: “ista potentia passiva (quae est in
angelo ad essendum in loco) non est naturalis nec violenta, sed neutra.”
29
Nevertheless, Scotus leaves a lingering doubt about the compatibility between the virtual quan-
tity of the angel and the quantity of the place it occupies: cf. Ordinatio in Duns Scotus 1973, d. 2,
p. 2, q. 1–2, 264–265.
30
Sententiae in Peter Lombard 1981, I, chap. 8, 272–273. The first position appealed to Augustine,
De Genesi ad litteram, VIII, chap. 26; the second to biblical passages such as Luke 1:19, and Isaiah
6:6.
31
In I Sententiarum in Albert the Great 1893, d. XXXVII, a. XVIII, 259–261: “Dicetur quod angeli
moventur localiter […]. Sine praeiudicio loquendo, dico quod [angelus] transit medium […] et
ideo dico quod transit spatium indivisibiliter: et sibi efficitur totum spatium sicut unum indivisi-
bile”; Summa theologiae in Thomas Aquinas 1889, I, q. 53, a. 1, 30: “Sed angelus non est in loco
ut commensuratus et contentus, sed magis ut continens. Unde motus angeli in loco non oportet
quod commensuretur loco, nec quod sit secundum exigentiam eius, ut habeat continuitatem ex
loco, sed est motus non continuus. Quia enim angelus non est in loco nisi secundum contactum
virtutis, ut dictum est, necesse est quod motus angeli in loco nihil aliud sit quam diversi contactus
diversorum locorum successive et non simul, quia angelus non potest esse simul in pluribus loci.”
78 T. Suarez-Nani
The opposite approach to this attributes to angels a local movement that is con-
tinuous and successive across the intermediate space between the points of depar-
ture and arrival, and continuous in time.32 This position would dominate the works
of numerous authors after 1277, among them Matthew of Aquasparta, Richard of
Middleton and Peter John Olivi.33 In their wake Duns Scotus, too, rejects instanta-
neous angelic movement and defends the thesis of continuity, his argument resting
as much on the continuum of space traversed as on the continuum of time that mea-
sures each movement. He thus explicitly maintains the – non-Aristotelian – thesis of
the successive and continuous movement of an indivisible through continuous and
divisible space.34
4.3 T
he Problem of Resistance in the Movement
of Immaterial Substances
The question of the movement of spirits also involved the question of resistance as
one of the factors determining the local movement of bodies. According to Aristotle’s
doctrine, the medium in which movement takes place is crucial.35 For projectile
movement, the surrounding air was considered responsible for prolonging the
See Suarez-Nani 2015b, 427–443. This angelological position is closely related to the physical
doctrine developed by certain ‘finitists’ of the fourteenth century, including Walter Chatton. In the
context of the Pythagorean and Platonic tradition, they considered place the finite sum of ‘punctual
places’ occupied by the points that compose bodies. Some of these thinkers, like Marco Trevisano,
went so far as to defend the movement of an indivisible as a change of position through indivisible
instants; see Robert 2017, 182–206.
32
In II librum Sententiarum in Bonaventure 1885, dist. II, pars II, a. II, q. III, 81–82 (see above,
note 16); ibid., in Bonaventure 1885, dist. XXXVII, pars II, a. II, q. III vol. I, 657–663: “Dicendum
quod angelus, sicut dicit Scriptura, habet moveri. […] Rationabiliter dicitur, quod angelus per
medium movetur. […] Sed quoniam difficile videtur intelligere, quod pertranseat medium, quin sit
in pluribus partibus medii; et ponere, quod subito moveatur et sit in pluribus partibus medii, est
ponere in illo motu, quod sit in pluribus locis simul; et hoc omnino est absurdum dicere de angelo
[…], ideo dicendum est, quod angelus non movetur per medium motu subito, sed successivo. […]
Concedendum est igitur quod motus angeli per medium non est perfecta successione successivus,
quia deficit ibi resistentia spatii et partibilitas mobilis; est tamen successivus ratione distantiae
spatii, in qua non potest esse simul per totam, et finitatis virtutis moventis, quae non excedit
medium improportionabiliter.”
33
See Cappelletti 2009, 433–451, as well as idem 2011; In I librum Sententiarum in Richard of
Middleton 1591, d. XXXVII, a. III, q. 3, vol. I, 333; Quaestiones in II Sententiarum in Olivi 1922,
q. XXXII, vol. I, 571–591; Demange forthcoming; Suarez-Nani 2003, 262–278.
34
Ordinatio in Duns Scotus 1973, II, d. 2, p. 2, q. 5, 288–289; q. 7, 382 and q. 8, 385–387. On this,
see Suarez-Nani 2017a, and Suarez-Nani 2015b, 441–442. Indeed, Duns Scotus was not alone in
defending the possibility of local movement of the indivisible. He would be followed by Francis of
Marchia, among others, and also Walter Chatton, whose doctrine was studied by Robert 2012,
78–79.
35
Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, other factors contribute to the movement; see Esmaeili
2011, 13–34.
movement once the object’s contact with the motor had ceased. Also, according to
a greater or lesser density (of air or water) the medium exerts resistance and deter-
mines the speed of the mobile’s displacement.36
In an angelological context, these elements of Aristotelian doctrine were taken
into consideration in the question of whether spirits moved instantaneously: (utrum
angelus possit moveri in instanti). Given that an instant does not have a temporal
span and designates nothing other than a limit of time, the reply to this question
necessarily determined whether the movement of spirits was temporal – and, conse-
quently, measured by cosmic (or continuous) time – or instantaneous and indivisi-
ble. Instantaneousness could be taken to mean either that the angel instantaneously
traversed the medium located between two termini of displacement; or that the
angel instantaneously jumped from one point to another without crossing the inter-
mediate distance.37
4.3.1 Three Possible Solutions
Given the above, three possible answers to the question “utrum angelus possit
moveri in instanti” emerge:
(a) an angel cannot move instantaneously;
(b) an angel can move instantaneously by crossing the intermediate space between
the points of departure and arrival;
(c) an angel can move instantaneously without crossing the intermediate space
between the points of departure and arrival.
The two underlying concerns regarding the local movement of spirits (its spatial
continuity and its temporality) arise because, according to the doctrine formulated
by Aristotle in books four and five of the Physics, distance and duration are the
inherent conditions for local motion.
That a local movement, caused by whatever object or subject, implied a distance
to cross was, indeed, considered indisputable. Consequently, in the case of moving
spirits, not just spatial continuity, but also duration or temporal continuity of move-
ment posed a problem. If, following Aristotle, continuity or temporal succession in
36
See Physics in Aristotle 1937, IV 8, 215a1–215b15; VII 10, 266b27–267a12; here one of the
reasons emerges for Aristotle’s rejection of the vacuum, which for him made movement and time
(which measured movement) impossible: there cannot be movement in a medium without resis-
tance, because then the speed of the mobile would be infinite. On specific aspects of the medieval
reception of Aristotle’s doctrine of movement see Biard 1991, 1–32, which discusses John
Buridan’s critique of the thesis that projectile movement is caused by the medium. For another
example of the reworking of the Aristotelian notion of ‘medium’ and its function in movement see
Weill-Parot 2014, 59–71, which examines the question of the ‘medium’ in relation to magnetic
attraction.
37
These two aspects are clearly articulated in the Lectura in Gregory of Rimini 1979, d. 6, q. 3, vol.
V, 47.
80 T. Suarez-Nani
movement was due to the resistance applied by the medium, continuity and
temporality in movement had to be rejected should this medium not give any resis-
tance to immaterial entities.
Appealing to Averroes – who had clarified and further developed Aristotle’s doc-
trine on this matter – medieval thinkers conceived resistance to the movement in
three ways: first, as the resistance of a moving body to its motor (the latter always
distinct from the former, according to the Aristotelian principle that “what is moved
is moved by something”)38; secondly, as the resistance of the medium to the moving
body; and thirdly, as the simultaneous resistance of the moving body and the medi-
um.39 Any examination of the movement of spiritual creatures, therefore, required a
verification of the presence of one or another kind of resistance, or their absence, in
order to establish if the movement of the immaterial substances was temporal and
successive or, on the contrary, discontinuous and instantaneous.
It is not surprising to see that in the attempts to find a solution for this question,
the divisions of opinion that we have considered above appear to repeat
themselves.
4.3.1.1 Thomas Aquinas’ and Giles of Rome’s Solution
As partisans of instantaneous spiritual movement (not subject to the necessity of

crossing the intermediate space between two points, see solution c) above), Thomas
Aquinas and Giles of Rome thought the movement of angels to result only from the
succession of the angels’ operations on physical bodies and places. As mentioned
above, this succession followed the will of the acting subject, meaning that the angel
was not in itself dependent on the spatial continuum it traversed. Each angelic oper-
ation corresponds to an indivisible instant, such that the resulting movement is dis-
continuous (immediate displacement from one point to another), just like the time
that measures theirs operations, which is composed of instants.40 According to this
38
Physics in Aristotle 1937, III 1, 202a9–11. Joël Biard has noted the modification used by medi-
eval thinkers regarding this principle: “moved by something” becomes for medieval thinkers
“moved by another” (Biard 1991, 3).
39
In Aristotelis Physicam in Averroes 1562, vol. IV, ff. 161M-162B: “Nos autem dicamus quod
necesse est quod inter motorem et rem motam sit resistentia. Motor enim movet rem motam secun-
dum quod est contrarium et res mota movetur ab illo, secundum quod est similis [...] et ista resis-
tentia aut erit ex ipso moto [...], aut erit ex ipso medio [...], aut resistentia erit ex utroque, scilicet
ex re mota et ex medio.” This passage from Averroes is often cited and employed by medieval
thinkers: we can note as examples In I Sententiarum in Giles of Rome 1521, d. XXXVII, pars II,
princ. II, q. III, f. 198r; Ordinatio in Duns Scotus 1973, II, d. 2, pars II, q. 5, 286; Lectura in
Gregory of Rimini 1979, d. 6, q. 3, 47. Galileo, referring to the medieval doctrine of the resistance
of medium and mobile, would say that it amounts to one and the same sort of resistance: see De
motu in Galilei 1890–1909, vol. I, 410.
40
Summa theologiae in Thomas Aquinas 1889, I, q. 53, a. 1–3; and Scriptum in I librum
Sententiarum in Thomas Aquinas 1929, d. XXXVII, q. IV, a. III, vol. I, 889–890: “Unde cum
motus angeli non sit continuus, quia non est secundum necessitatem conditiones habens magnitu-
dinis per quam transit, […] sed per successionem operationum in quibus nulla est ratio continuitatis;
theory, it was therefore inconceivable that an indivisible subject should traverse a

divisible space successively and continuously, given that such a space exerts no
resistance on it.
Giles of Rome, nevertheless, admits a form of resistance in the local movement
of spirits, attributing it to the distinction between motor and mobile: there is, in
effect, a resistance between the force applied (through which the angel-motor acts)
and spatial points on which the angelic power is applied. This form of resistance is,
however, restrained, and serves only to justify the sui generis temporality of spiri-
tual movement – a temporality which for Thomas Aquinas is completely different
from the continuity of cosmic time. The angel thus moves in a discontinuous and
instantaneous manner, that is, in the time (composed of instants) proper to immate-
rial substances.41
4.3.1.2 Duns Scotus’ and Francis of Marchia’s Solution
The position taken by Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome was rejected by a num-
ber of authors, including those from the abovementioned Franciscan tradition, who
vigorously rejected the idea that an angel could move instantaneously. In their wake,
Duns Scotus insisted on the continuity and the successive character of the local
movement of angels, both because of the divisibility of the spatial continuum and
because of the resistance of the mobile with respect to the motor.42 Scotus’ doctrine
attracted many followers, among them the early Scotist Francis of Marchia, who
commented on the Sentences in Paris in the years 1319/1320.43
ideo tempus illud non est continuus, sed est compositum ex ‘nunc’ succedentibus sibi […].
Quamvis linea sit continua per quam angelus transit, non tamen est continuitas secundum quod
refertur ad motum angeli, qui diversa ‘ubi’ non continuatim pertransit.” Cf. Suarez-Nani 2015c,
71–96.
41
In I librum Sententiarum in Giles of Rome 1521, d. XXXVII, pars II, princ. II, q. III, f. 198r: “Ad
cuius evidentiam notandum quod angelus dupliciter movetur. Primo in corpore assumpto. Secundo
per applicationem virtutis ad diversa spatia [...]. Cum autem movetur per applicationem virtutis ad
diversa locorum spatia, tunc requiritur ibi tempus propter distinctionem angeli applicantis virtutem
suam ad corpus ad quod eam applicat. Istud tamen tempus quod requiritur ad talem applicationem
non est eiusdem rationis cum tempore quod est passio primi motus, quia talis applicatio non redu-
citur in motum caeli. Patet ergo etiam ratione resistentiae motus angeli fieri in tempore accipiendo
resistentiam non solum pro impedimento medii, sed large ut dicamus talem resistentiam esse cum
est distinctio motoris ad mobile vel applicantis virtutem ad id cui applicat.”
42
Ordinatio in Duns Scotus 1973, II, d. 2, p. 2, q. 5, 344–346: “sed talis resistentia [consistit in
hoc], quod mobile semper stat sub aliquo cui non potest immediate succedere terminus intentus a
movente. Et ista resistentia mobilis ad motorem est propter defectum virtutis moventis […]; si
enim esset virtus infinita, posset ponere mobile statim in termino ad quem. […] Necessitas tamen
successionis […] est […] praecise comparando illam [resistentiam] ad agens, cui mobile resistit
propter istam resistentiam medii ad ipsum, − ita quod, sicut erat possibilitas ex sola resistentia
medii ad mobile, ita virtus illa limitata non possit tollere istam resistentiam; et ideo resistit ista
resistentia agenti, ne statim inducat terminum.”
43
One example is Nicolaus Bonetus, who was already noted by Duhem; concerning resistance,
which arises as much in the question of angelic movement as in movement in a vacuum, Duhem
82 T. Suarez-Nani
Francis shared Duns Scotus’ thesis of continuous movement of indivisibles in a

divisible space. His argument, however, introduced a novel reference to the notion
of ‘divisibility:’ according to Francis, it is necessary to distinguish between a ‘for-
mal’ divisibility (applicable to whatever is intrinsically divisible) and a ‘virtual’ or
‘causal’ divisibility that only bears relevance to the effect produced, such as move-
ment in physical space. Attributing this form of divisibility to non-dimensional (that
is, formally indivisible) entities, Francis concluded that the movement produced and
effected by an angel is divisible, because a spirit cannot entirely be present in two
parts of space at the same time, that is, it cannot produce two distinct effects at the
same time.44
In his examination of the question whether angelic movement is instantaneous,
Francis proceeded in an analogous way, submitting the notion of resistance to a
revision which guaranteed its pertinence while permitting him to apply this notion
to the movement of spiritual entities. After considering the points in favor of instan-
taneousness, Francis argued for an angelic movement that is temporal, continuous
and successive, in order to avoid the possibility – which he finds unacceptable – that
an angel could be simultaneously at the departure point and end point of its move-
ment, and that it could thus occupy two places at the same time.45
To justify this position, Francis criticised Duns Scotus, who saw in the continuity
and divisibility of space a sufficient – while non-exclusive – reason for the continu-
ity and succession of angelic movement.46 In agreement with Averroes, Francis
underlines that some form of ‘resistance’ determines each local movement, includ-
insists on the elements of Bonetus’ doctrine that would lead to “the Dynamics of Galileo, of
Descartes and of Beeckman” (Duhem 1913, 78–81).
44
More precisely, according to Francis the moving angel is partly in the first term and partly in the
final term of its movement, while being in each of them entirely (because he is not quantitatively
divisible), but not totally (because he cannot occupy two places at the same time): in other words,
an angel can travel from one place to the other while entirely occupying the place where he is, but
without occupying the totality of space he has to go through. Cf. Quaestiones in II Sententiarum in
Francis of Marchia 2010, q. 16, vol. II, 75–106, 98: “Angelus autem, quia est divisibilis non for-
maliter, sed tantum causaliter in ordine ad effectum, ideo est partim in termino a quo et partim in
termino ad quem non prout ‘partim et partim’ opponuntur ‘toto,’ sed prout opponuntur ‘totaliter’.”
See Suarez-Nani 2017b.
45
Quaestiones in II Sententiarum in Francis of Marchia 2010, q. 16, 100: “Tunc per hoc potest
argui sic ad propositum [...]; sed medii per quod angelus movetur ad medium per quod corpus
movetur nulla est proportio quantum ad resistentiam, cum medium per quod angelus movetur nullo
modo resistat angelo; ergo nec motus angeli ad motum corporis erit aliqua proportio in velocitate.
Ergo est in instanti.” Francis adds other arguments, notably referring to the Aristotelian thesis that,
if there were movement in a vacuum, it would be instantaneous due to the absence of resistance.
Ibid., 102: “Dico tamen quantum ad hoc quod angelus non potest naturaliter virtute sua moveri
localiter in instanti. Hoc probo sic: illud quod in eodem instanti movetur de loco ad locum per
medium in eodem instanti est in termino a quo et in termino ad quem; sed angelus non potest simul
esse in pluribus locis sibi aequalibus; ergo non potest de loco sibi aequali et proportionato moveri
in instanti ad alium ab illo loco priori distantem.”
46
Ordinatio in Duns Scotus 1973, II, d. II, p. 2 q. 5, 341: “in motu locali est successio ex duplici
causa, videlicet ex divisibilitate mobilis et ex divisibilitate spatii – quarum utraque causa, si esset
per se et praecisa, esset sufficiens ratio successionis.”
ing that of spirits: this movement is certainly free of any resistance exerted by the
medium, but nevertheless subject to the resistance of the mobile with respect to the
motor.47
It is precisely on this point that Francis makes an original contribution to the
debate, with his distinction between two types of resistance. A first form of resis-
tance may be due to the natural inclination of the mobile towards a place opposite to
the place to which it is moved by its motor. This is the resistance at work in the
movement of bodies, for example the resistance acting on a stone thrown upwards,
when its natural inclination pushes it downwards. But another form of resistance
comes into play when the mobile does not perfectly ‘obey’ a motor of limited power:
in this case the mobile cannot be perfectly moved from one place to another, and thus
it resists the movement; this applies, for example, to an angel who cannot instanta-
neously transport himself from one place to the other because of his lack of a moving
force.48 This second type of resistance, resulting from the limits of a mover’s force,
is called ‘privative resistance,’ to distinguish it from ‘positive resistance,’ which cor-
responds to the physical resistance exerted by the medium on the material mobile.
It is this privative resistance that applies to the local movement of angels, and
determines its temporal succession: angelic movement cannot be instantaneous due
to the privative resistance of the mobile with respect to the motor.49 Yet this resis-
tance is completely different from the resistance affecting bodies: indeed, it is con-
ceivable that it might be annulled, to the extent that the angel as moving entity
would be capable of achieving a state of pure obedience with itself as motor – some-
thing that is simply impossible for bodies because of their materiality.50 The origi-
nality of Francis’ position lies in his invention of the concept of ‘privative’ resistance
47
Duns Scotus had also taken this type of resistance into account; see Ordinatio in Duns
Scotus 1973, 345.
48
Quaestiones in II Sententiarum in Francis of Marchia 2010, q. 16, 103: “Ubi tamen advertendum
quod mobile resistere motori potest esse duplici de causa: uno modo aliquod mobile resistit motori
ex hoc quod habet inclinationem naturalem ad aliquod ubi oppositum illi ubi ad quod movetur. [...]
Alio modo aliquod mobile potest resistere suo motori [...] solum quia non habet perfectam oboedi-
entiam ad ipsum; quia enim istud mobile, quodcumque sit, non potest simul esse naturaliter in
pluribus locis, ideo quando est in uno loco, non potest esse in alio. Nec est in perfecta oboedientia
respectu alicuius agentis finiti quod possit moveri ab isto [loco] et poni in alio in quacumque men-
sura.” By introducing the second type of resistance, Francis aims to avoid the possibility that an
angel could perform an instantaneous motion.
49
Ibid., 104: “Dico ergo quod […] causa successionis motus [est] etiam resistentia privativa, qualis
est in quocumque motu locali cuiuscumque rei finitae, sive corporalis sive spiritualis, facto a vir-
tute finita. Ex quo concludo quod angelus potest movere se ipsum et alia successive et non in
instanti propter rationem iam dictam, quia, scilicet in eius motu quo movet se localiter non sit
resistentia mobilis ad motorem positiva contraria, est tamen ibi, ut dictum est, resistentia
privativa.”
50
Ibid., 105: “Angelus etiam resistit sibi, sed ista resistentia qua angelus ut mobile resistit suae
virtuti motivae alterius rationis est ab illa resistentia qua corpus resistit sibi vel cuicumque alteri,
et minor illa. [...] Nec corpus posset esse in illa perfecta oboedientia ad motum localem respectu
angeli, nec etiam respectu alicuius alterius, sicut est ipse angelus.” See Schabel 2001, 175–89 (esp.
187–188).
84 T. Suarez-Nani
as a metaphysical counterpart to the concept of ‘positive’ or physical resistance

which plays an important role in the explanation of the local motion of bodies.
Francis of Marchia’s contemporary Walter Chatton defends a similar position
(although without the outlined distinction between different types of resistance).
For Chatton, the resistance of a mobile to a motor plays a role in the local movement
of angels, due to the limited power of an angel as a motor, and also the fact that an
angel cannot coexist simultaneously at all points of the spatial distance that is
traversed.51
4.3.1.3 Gregory of Rimini’s Solution
Twenty-five years after Francis of Marchia and Walter Chatton, Gregory of Rimini
examined the same question in its different aspects, and came to two conclusions:
firstly, that an angel can move instantaneously from one place to another by crossing
the intermediate space (solution b) above); and secondly, that God’s agency can
cause an angel to move instantaneously from one place to another without crossing
the intermediate space.52
The first thesis presents an intermediate solution between the two mentioned
before (solutions a) and c)): it admits the natural possibility of instantaneous angelic
movement, exempt from resistance, but with the necessity of crossing intermediate
space. This position is defended by different arguments, the most important of
which is based on an analogy between angelic movement and the movement of a
body in a vacuum: appealing to an existing hypothesis, albeit not one accepted by
Aristotle, Gregory observed that if a body were to move in a vacuum it would meet
no resistance, so that its movement would be instantaneous. The same applies to
angelic movement, which experiences no resistance from the medium.53
Gregory’s second thesis, by contrast, admits the possibility of surpassing all the
natural conditions for local movement (spatial distance, temporality and resistance),
but only by virtue of divine power. He considers this in analogy with the Eucharistic
transubstantiation, in which the matter of the bread is instantaneously transformed
into the body of Christ, that is, without intermediate steps. According to Gregory,
God might operate in a similar fashion with angels, moving them from one place to
another, without the necessity to pass through intermediate places.54
51
Reportatio super Sententias in Chatton 2004, l. II, 173–174; and analysis in Robert 2012, 78–79.
52
Lectura in Gregory of Rimini 1979, d. 6, q. 3, 47: “Hiis praemissis pono duas conclusiones:
Prima est quod angelus potest a seipso mutari de loco ad locum in instanti, transeundo per totum
medium. Secunda, quod potest a deo mutari de loco ad locum in instanti, non transeundo per
medium.” Gregory discusses the problem of angelic location in ibid., d. 2, q. 2, vol. IV, 331–343.
53
Ibid., 47 and 49–50. In this way Gregory of Rimini criticizes Giles of Rome’s theses. For the
latter, whenever there is a distinction between motor and mobile, there is necessarily resistance that
makes the movement temporal.
54
Ibid., 50.
Gregory’s position provides a nuanced approach, which requires him to differen-

tiate between two orders of argument: the first concerns the natural capacities of
created spirits; the other privileges supernatural intervention. The interesting aspect
and importance of his approach lies in the analogy he develops between the move-
ment of angels and that of bodies in a vacuum – an approach that allows him to view
resistance no longer necessary, nor an intrinsic condition for all local movement.
4.4 Concluding Remarks
I will conclude this short investigation with three points. First, far from constituting
a uniform doctrinal corpus, medieval theories of space, place and movement show a
great diversity of approaches that coexist and compete with one another, certainly in
a shared cultural space, but with differentiated, and even diametrically opposed,
sensibilities and philosophical aims.
Secondly, while all positions of the medieval thinkers discussed in this study
draw from the natural philosophy of Aristotle, they dispose of his doctrinal author-
ity in some fundamental points, and thereby evolve further in new and interesting
ways. Indeed, it is through appealing to the doctrinal canon of the Physics while, at
the same time, distancing themselves from it that medieval thinkers can formulate
concepts including a ‘mathematical position,’ ‘passive power,’ ‘causal divisibility,’
and ‘privative resistance,’ and theses on continuous or instantaneous movement of
indivisibles, or even on local movement that knows no resistance whatsoever.
Thirdly – and it is here that we find the hypothesis that has directed my own
research for several years – it appears that the development of medieval theories of
place, space and movement were strongly dependent on metaphysical reflections
applied to questions of natural philosophy. As we have seen, thinkers of the Middle
Ages submit certain fundamental notions in physics to an interrogation that is, in
fact, metaphysical: what happens with place and movement when it comes to imma-
terial, purely spiritual, entities such as angels? For medieval thinkers, there was
nothing strange about this approach, which gained far-reaching importance in the
history of ideas.55 Indeed, the metaphysical construct of angelology constituted a
55
Indeed, the importance of angelological considerations in the development of conceptions of
place and movement should not conceal other factors that, in the framework of natural philosophy,
contributed to developing medieval doctrines and to the progressive shift away from Aristotle. We
should consider, for example, the position of Gerardus Odon, studied by Bakker and De Boer
2009, 149–184. Not knowing specific critiques (those of Philoponus, for example) already mounted
against the Aristotelian conceptions of place and movement – except for Avempace’s, reported by
Averroes in the latter’s In Libros Physicorum Aristotelis, l. IV, fol. 160C – these questions and
developments were internal to medieval thought, as were the new requirements to which thinkers
had to respond, requirements that favored a certain surpassing of the Aristotelian paradigm.
Medieval thinkers from the thirteenth century onward were, however, very attached to this para-
digm, as Richard Sorabji has observed (see Sorabji 1987, 15: “What is surprising is that the medi-
eval Latin West was less robust in rejecting Aristotle’s account of place, and was prepared to go
through many contortions to preserve it”). The relationship of medieval thinkers to the paradigm
86 T. Suarez-Nani
genuine laboratory of thought experiments that allowed medieval thinkers to handle

innovative concepts and to open new perspectives – perspectives that announced in
nuce the coming of a new way to see and understand the physical world.
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Chapter 5
Mathematical and Metaphysical Space
in the Early Fourteenth Century
William O. Duba
Abstract Medieval philosophers did not unequivocally support the Aristotelian

doctrine of container-place, that is, that the place of a thing is the first immobile
surface of what contains the thing. John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) famously developed
a theory that tried to resolve the problems of container-place through an appeal to a
notion of equivalence. Peter Auriol (d. 1322) took the radical step of reducing place
to the category of position, understood with relation to the three-dimensional exten-
sion of the universe. Auriol called this “place according to metaphysical consider-
ation” and contrasted it with “place according to physical consideration.” This
division reflects one in another thinker, Nicholas Bonet (fl. 1333), who in his
Philosophia naturalis distinguished between mathematical and natural senses of
place. Rather than being influenced by Auriol, Bonet developed Scotus’ doctrine of
equivalent place into a doctrine of mathematical place and time. To support his posi-
tion, Bonet drew upon the Aristotelian notion of abstraction and selectively read
Averroes as explicitly supporting his position.
5.1 Introduction
Many thinkers found unsatisfactory Aristotle’s doctrine that place is the innermost
surface of the containing body – a doctrine that, for the sake of simplicity, will be
referred to here as ‘container-place.’1 Certainly, Aristotle’s doctrine solves the prob-
lem of giving place extramental existence; by making the place of a thing something
other than the thing itself, Aristotle can hold that place is something real and show
how something can change places without changing intrinsically. Yet, as Aristotle
All translations are the author’s, except where otherwise noted.
For an account of the Aristotelian notions of place and space, see Algra’s Chapter 2 in this
1
volume.
W. O. Duba (*)
Institut d’Études Médiévales, Université de Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
e-mail: william.duba@unifr.ch

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_5
92 W. O. Duba
recognized, his solution gives rise to some absurd cases, most notably the cases
where the container moves, with or without what it contains, the so-called problem
of ‘mobile place.’ Scholastic thinkers had additional concerns. For example, purely
spiritual beings, such as angels, can be said to be in place, but Aristotle’s discussion
of place refers to material surfaces.2 Moreover, the celebrated Condemnation of
1277 required Parisian thinkers to hold several doctrines apparently at odds with
Aristotle’s teaching, such as that God can move the heavens in a straight line, imply-
ing that the entire universe can change place3; but how can the universe change
place without reference to a container?
The Franciscan John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) suggested in passing a solution to the
problems of mobile place by appealing to an otherwise-unspecified notion of equiv-
alence, which some interpreters have claimed approaches “a conception of space as
the three-dimensional container of bodies.”4 Scotus’ critic, the Franciscan Peter
Auriol (d. 1322), came up with a more radical solution, reducing place to the cate-
gory of position, situs, considered in reference to an arbitrary three-dimensional
extension. Auriol distinguished this position-place from container-place by calling
the latter ‘place according to physical consideration’ and apparently calling the for-
mer ‘place according to metaphysical consideration.’ Auriol’s radical view has
attracted considerable attention for relegating Aristotelian container-place to a sec-
ondary role and promoting the primary sense of place as something approaching the
notion of space.5
Whereas Scotus gives an embryonic account, Auriol is explicit. This difference
has led to some confusion about the relative influence of the two doctrines on later
thinkers who distinguish between multiple senses of place and who subscribe to a
notion of place as three-dimensional extension. In particular, Chris Schabel has sug-
gested a link between Auriol’s ‘metaphysical place’ and a similar notion defended
by a later Franciscan, Nicholas Bonet. In the 1330s, Bonet famously distinguished
between the ‘natural consideration of place’ and the ‘mathematical consideration of
place,’ an abstracted notion of being-in-place with primarily mental existence.
Schabel hypothesized that Bonet’s use of ‘mathematical’ “[m]ay be an error in the
editions or in Bonet’s reading of an Auriol manuscript […] because the abbrevia-
tions for ‘mathematicus’ and ‘methaphisicus’ are often the same and frequently
confused.”6
The inherent problems in Auriol’s passage and questions concerning its authen-
ticity have led Schabel to attenuate his claim, now suggesting that Bonet’s doctrine
2
See Tiziana Suarez-Nani’s Chapter 4 in this volume.
3
Piché-Lafleur 1999, 96 n49. As Algra’s Chapter 2 in this volume recalls, the first extant version of
this thought experiment is found in the work of the Stoic philosopher Cleomedes. The same
thought experiment plays a central role in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence; see Palmerino’s
Chapter 12 in this volume.
4
Cross 1998, 211.
5
Schabel 2000, Maier 1968, Duhem 1956.
6
Schabel 2000, 140 n65.
5 Mathematical and Metaphysical Space in the Early Fourteenth Century 93
simply shares a common Aristotelian origin with that of Auriol.7 Nevertheless, this
raises the question: what exactly is Bonet’s notion of mathematical place, and how
does he develop it? In effect, Bonet’s doctrine is indebted to John Duns Scotus’
doctrine of container-place (Sect. 5.2). With regard to Peter Auriol’s doctrine of
place as position and the specific doctrine of metaphysical place (Sect. 5.3), Bonet
had an awareness of Auriol’s doctrine of place as situs, but he did not follow that
route. Rather, Bonet’s notion of mathematical space traces its origins to a selective
reading of a text, maybe even an abusive misreading, namely, of Averroes, which he
uses in conjunction with the notion of equivalence to develop a doctrine of mathe-
matical place and time (Sect. 5.4).
5.2 John Duns Scotus and Equivalent Place
In his Ordinatio on book II of the Sentences, John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) defends a
doctrine of container-place.8 This doctrine has a well-known problem, that of immo-
bility: the containing body can change without the thing changing place; a river can
dry up, and yet a boat anchored in the river will not change place. Scotus solves the
problem of immobility with two propositions. First, he states that a container-place,
qua container place, cannot move; if a thing that is a container-place moves, the
place does not move with it. Since a place is an accident of its subject, when the
subject changes (e.g., when container-air is replaced by container-water), a new
accident of place takes over. As he puts it, “place has immobility that is entirely
opposed to local motion”:
The first statement is clear, because if it were in some way locally mobile, however much
that mobility be in an accidental sense, it could be said to be in place and two different
places could be assigned to it. For, although a likeness is moved almost accidentally through
an accident (accidentaliter per accidens), namely as it is in the fourth or fifth degree
(because first [there is] the body, and through the body the surface, and through the surface
whiteness, and through whiteness the likeness), nevertheless, the surface or likeness truly
exists in different places.
Likewise, then something at rest could be moving locally, since what has different
places successively is moved locally; but something fixed could have different containing
places, if place were moved accidentally.9
7
Schabel 2011, 164: “But given that only one manuscript preserves what seems to be Auriol’s
complete text, I now think it unlikely that Bonet had this text before his eyes, and that he was per-
haps extrapolating from common statements on the mathematical vs. natural distinction going
back to Aristotle himself.”
8
The standard reference for Scotus’ doctrines of place and space is Cross 1998, 193–213.
9
Ioannes Duns Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 2, pars 2, q. 1–2 (1973, 256–257): “Dico igitur quod locus
habet immobilitatem oppositam motui locali omnino, et incorruptibilitatem secundum aequivalen-
tiam per comparationem ad motum localem. – Primum patet, quia si esset aliquo modo mobilis
localiter, quantumcumque accipiatur per accidens, posset dici esse in loco et ei assignari posset
alius et alius locus; sicut, licet similitudo moveatur quasi accidentaliter per accidens, scilicet quasi
in quinto vel quarto gradu (quia primo corpus, et per hoc superficies, et per hoc albedo, et per hoc
94 W. O. Duba
This immobility of place leads to the second proposition, that place has “incorrupt-
ibility according to equivalence by comparison to local motion.” That is, Scotus
argues that the new and the old accidents of place are somehow the same place by
equivalence:
I prove the second statement, because, although place is corrupted when its subject moves
locally, so that when the air moves locally, the same reason of place (ratio loci) as before
does not remain in it (this is clear from what has already been proven), nor can the same
reason of place remain in the water that follows, because numerically the same accident
cannot remain in two subjects, nevertheless the reason of place that follows, which is differ-
ent from the reason of place that precedes, in fact is the same as the preceding by equiva-
lence, with respect to local motion. For it is just as incompossible for local motion to be
from this place to that place as if it were entirely the same place in number.
But no local motion can be from one where to another where, unless these two wheres
correspond to two places that are different in species, since they (the places) have a different
relation (respectus), not just in number, but also in species, to the whole universe. Thus,
those relations that are only different in number seem to be one in number, because they are
as indistinct with respect to local motion as if there were just one relation.10
According to this doctrine, a ship anchored in a river will have a place that is
described by the inner surface of the surrounding water; as the river flows, that
water constantly changes, and so the place of the ship constantly changes numeri-
cally. Nevertheless, those numerically distinct places are not different in species, for
they maintain the same relation to the entire universe. Therefore, they are equiva-
lently the same, and that equivalence suffices to guarantee the immobility of place.
Scotus implies that we can speak of the same place in the way we can speak of
two people owning the same handbag: they are two instantiations of the same spe-
cies. The species of places, however, differ among themselves according to their
respect to the whole universe.
Subsequent Franciscans take Scotus’ doctrine in various directions. For his part,
Nicholas Bonet is inspired by how Scotus abstracts place from distinct instantia-
tions and equates those abstractions with each other. Peter Auriol, on the other hand,
looks at Scotus’ claim for how places are different in species, namely by having a
specifically different relation to the whole universe, and reduces place to the cate-
gory of position.
similitudo), tamen superficies vel similitudo vere est in alio et alio loco. – Similiter, tunc aliquid
quiescens posset moveri localiter: nam quod habet alium et alium locum successive, localiter
movetur; fixum autem posset habere alium et alium locum continentem, si locus moveretur per
accidens.”
10
Ioannes Duns Scotus, Ordinatio II, d. 2, pars 2, q. 1–2 (1973, 257–258): “Secundo probo, quia
licet locus corrumpatur moto eius subiecto localiter, ita quod, moto aere localiter, non manet in eo
eadem ratio loci quae prius (sicut patet ex iam probato), nec eadem ratio loci potest manere in aqua
succedente, quia idem accidens numero non potest manere in duobus subiectis, − tamen illa ratio
loci succedens (quae est alia a ratione praecedente) secundum veritatem est eadem praecedenti per
aequivalentiam quantum ad motum localem, nam ita incompossibile est localem motum esse ab
hoc loco in hunc locum sicut si esset omnino idem locus numero. Nullus autem motus localis
potest esse ab uno ubi ad aliud ubi nisi quae duo ubi correspondent duobus locis differentibus
specie, quia habentibus alium respectum – non tantum numero sed etiam specie – ad totum univer-
sum; ex hoc illi respectus qui sunt tantum alii numero videntur unus numero, quia ita sunt indis-
tincti respectu motus localis sicut si tantum essent unus respectus.”
5.3 Peter Auriol
Peter Auriol lectured on the Sentences at Paris in the academic year 1317–1318.11 In
the revised, written form of his lectures on book II, d. 2 of the Sentences, Peter
Auriol raises the issue of the immobility of place. He states outright “that place in
itself and primarily (per se et primo) is nothing other than position, for example,
here or there.”12 Container-place, on the other hand, is only place in an accidental
sense. By “position,” for which Auriol uses the terms positio or situs interchange-
ably, Auriol means the Aristotelian category, interpreted as the configuration of a
body with respect to an imagined three-dimensional extension that contains the
whole world.13
Auriol’s definition of the primary sense of place is at odds with the notion of
container-place, and he sees container-place as accidental, namely as place “accord-
ing to physical consideration.” A passage present only in one of the 12 extant manu-
script witnesses, and therefore one whose authenticity has not been solidly
established, distinguishes this from the primary sense:
The description of place (ratio loci) is taken in one way according to metaphysical consid-
eration, in another way according to physical consideration. For a physicist defines by mat-
ter, not indeed the matter that is the other part of a compound (because in that way a
metaphysician defines by matter), but here “matter” should be taken for everything that is
outside the description of a quiddity. According to this, therefore the consideration of a
metaphysician differs from the consideration of a physician, because a metaphysician only
treats what intrinsically pertains to a quiddity, while a physician treats material things and
accidents and things extraneous to the quiddity. Whence, in his investigation the physician
is concerned with the sensible qualities according to which the thing itself is subject to
motion, action, and passion.
Then, to the case at hand, I say that, of itself, the quiddity of place is nothing other than
the description (ratio) of that where, and therefore place is quidditatively in the category of
where. For this reason place according to metaphysical consideration is nothing other than
that very where or position. And note that the immediate subject is a continuous quantity.
Thus only something quantified is primarily and in itself capable of being situated, as could
be evident elsewhere. This is the express intention of the Commentator, Metaphysics V, in
the chapter on quantity, where he gives the reason why Aristotle does not count place
among the species of category there [in the Metaphysics], as he does in the Categories. And
the Commentator says “and perhaps he left aside place here, because according to him,
place belongs to the passions of quantity.” Therefore, place is not quidditatively a quantity,
but something that is accidental to quantity. But that is situation itself, that is, it is where, as
was said.14
11
Duba and Schabel 2017.
12
Petrus Aureoli, In II Sententiarum, d. 2, pars 3, q. 1 (2000, 143–144): “Respondeo. Pono hic duas
propositiones. Prima est quod locus per se et primo non est aliud quam positio, puta hic vel ibi.
Secunda est quod per accidens locus est superficies corporis continentis.”
13
Schabel 2000.
14
Petrus Aureoli, In II Sententiarum, d. 2, pars 3, q. 1 (2000, 151–152): “Ratio loci aliter accipitur
secundum considerationem metaphysicam, aliter secundum considerationem physicam. Physicus
enim definit per materiam, non quidem per materiam quae est pars altera compositi, quia hoc modo
metaphysicus definit per materiam, sed debet hic accipi “materia” pro omni eo quod est extra
96 W. O. Duba
The text continues, and is joined by four other manuscript witnesses for the explana-
tion of place in the physical sense:
According to physical consideration, place beyond that where and situation means some-
thing material, say the extremity of the container, and thus place is not physically any one
being in itself, but is one accidentally, aggregated from two categories. Or, if it is undesir-
able for it to be an accidental being such that it includes things of two genera in its direct
and principal significate, one must at least say that it includes something in direct significa-
tion, say the quiddity of that place, and in oblique signification, in the manner of something
connotated, it includes what is material to that place, namely the extremity of the
container.
And therefore, where Aristotle defined place physically, he said that it is the first immo-
bile extremity of the container, not that it is formally and quidditatively the extremity of the
container, because as such it would be quantity according to substance and would not be a
passion of quantity, which the Commentator disproves above. Thus Physics IV, defining
place, he means what is formal in place when he says “first immobile.” For place is only
immobile because situation or place is immobile. He also means what is material when he
says “extremity of the container.”15
In the passage available in one manuscript, the claim is raised that this place “accord-
ing to metaphysical sense” is an accident that inheres in a continuous quantity. The
position of this quantitative extension with respect to the quantitative extension of
the universe makes place be place. By contrast, physical place, as discussed in five
manuscripts, adds to place-as-position a material aspect, the container’s surface.
rationem quidditatis. Secundum hoc igitur differt consideratio metaphysici a consideratione

physici, quia metaphysicus tantummodo accipit illud quod intrinsece pertinet ad quidditatem, sed
physicus accipit materialia et accidentia ac extranea quidditati. Unde concernit in sua consider-
atione qualitates sensibiles secundum quas res ipsa est subiecta motui, actioni, et passioni. – Tunc
ad propositum, dico quod de per se quidditate loci non est aliud quam ratio ipsius ubi, et ideo locus
quidditative est in praedicamento ubi. Quapropter locus, secundum considerationem metaphysi-
cam, non est aliud quam ipsum ubi sive positio. Et nota quod immediatum subiectum est quantitas
continua. Unde nihil est situabile primo et per se nisi quantum, ut alibi apparere poterit. Haec est
intentio Commentatoris expressa, V Metaphysicae, capitulo de quantitate, ubi reddit rationem
quare Aristoteles ibi non numerat locum inter species quantitatis sicut in Praedicamentis. Et dicit
‘et forte dimisit hic locum quia apud ipsum locus est de passionibus quantitatis.’ Igitur quidditative
locus non est quantitas, sed aliquid quod accidit quantitati. Illud autem est situs ipse, sive est ubi,
ut dictum est.”
15
Petrus Aureoli, In II Sententiarum, d. 2, pars 3, q. 1 (2000, 152–153): “Sed secundum physicam
considerationem, locus ultra ipsum ubi et situm dicit aliquid materiale, puta ultimum continentis,
et sic locus physice non est aliquod unum ens per se, sed est unum per accidens ex duobus praedi-
camentis aggregatum. Aut si non placet quod sit ens per accidens, ita quod includat res duorum
generum in recto et in principali significato, oportet saltem dicere quod aliquid includat in recto,
puta quidditatem ipsius loci; et in obliquo per modum connotati includit illud quod est materiale
ipsi loco, scilicet ultimum continentis. – Et idcirco, ubi Aristoteles definivit locum physice, dixit
quod est ultimum continentis immobile primum, non quod formaliter sit ultimum continentis et
quidditative, quia sic esset quantitas secundum substantiam et non esset passio quantitatis, quod
improbat Commentator ubi supra. Unde 4° Physicorum, definiens locum, capit illud quod est for-
male in loco in hoc quod dicit ‘immobile primum.’ Non enim locus est immobilis nisi quia situs
vel ubi est immobile. Capit etiam materiale cum dicit ‘ultimum continentis.’”
The surface is materially in place, while place is formally built on the extension of
the surface.16
Peter Auriol’s metaphysical consideration of place reduces it to the category of
where, itself reduced to a type of position, namely position within the entire uni-
verse. For, Auriol opines, place is essentially such a position in the universe.
According to physical consideration, however, place indicates something material:
the container. Peter Auriol thus breaks place into two concepts: one physical, the
other metaphysical.
5.4 Nicholas Bonet and the Philosophia naturalis
Nicholas Bonet (or Bonetus) should need no introduction. He entered the Franciscan
order in the convent of Tours, and after extensive studies, he was promoted to Master
of Theology at the University of Paris in 1333; he enjoyed a stunning career in
ecclesiastical administration, traveling to the East, but forsaking the luxuries of the
Khan’s court in Beijing for a bishopric in Malta, and dying in 1343. Historians of
philosophy know him for his masterwork; his Philosophia naturalis, composed in
the 1330s, pretends to be the first systematic work of explicitly natural philosophy,
starting with the science of being qua being in his Metaphysics – indeed, Nicholas
was not only the first philosopher in history to write a Philosophia naturalis, but
also, in naming the first part of this work, he was also the first person to give the title
‘Metaphysica’ to his own writing. In addition to the Metaphysics, the remaining
parts of his natural philosophy are the Physics, the so-called Categories (a series of
ten short treatises, one on each of the categories), and the Natural Theology. The
entire text is rigorously systematic, with constant cross-references forward and
back. He refers to the scholastic theologians of the previous century, such as Thomas
Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and others, as ‘recent philosophers’ or ‘philosophers of our
religion;’ for Greek and Arabic philosophers, from Plato to Averroes, he uses the
16
Schabel 2000, 156. Schabel implicitly presents the second passage as authentic, since, after the
part cited above, it continues by addressing objections that would otherwise be left open. This pas-
sage appears in five manuscripts, including Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 3066,
which Florian Wöller has recently argued is a witness to Auriol’s final revision of book II (Wöller
forthcoming). With the reference to the Commentator, the second passage explicitly refers to the
first, arguing for its authenticity. Most likely, Peter Auriol had these two passages written in the
margin or on easily overlooked cedulae, sometime after the text had begun to circulate. This would
explain why the copyist of the only manuscript witness to the first passage, immediately after the
first passage, began copying the next question before finding the second passage. That is, in the
manuscript Firenze, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Conv. Sopp. B.6.121, f. 21rb, the copyist fin-
ished with “ut dictum est.,” the last words of the first passage; he then began copying the next
question (“Utrum angeli sint creati in celo empireo sicut in loco”) before abandoning it (on f.
21va). At that point, the copyist crossed out the text of the new question, then went back and wrote
after the “ut dictum est” the beginning of the second passage, namely “Sed secundum phisicam
consideracionem,” extending into the margin.
98 W. O. Duba
appellation ‘our ancestors,’ progenitores, and he explicitly portrays himself as

building on, continuing, and in part replacing their work.17
His work was as successful as it was audacious. Over a dozen manuscript copies
of the entire Philosophia naturalis survive, and even more of its individual parts; the
Metaphysica, for example, survives in over 40 manuscripts and became part of the
standard curriculum in some of the mendicant studia. For example, when a
Franciscan went to study philosophy in the provincial studium in Strasbourg, his
first-year course consisted in Bonet’s Metaphysica. Generations of Franciscans
learned metaphysics not from Aristotle, but from Bonet. This historical importance
has philological consequences: many of the extant manuscripts were copied by
scholars in their early years of philosophical study and in connection with the class-
room, leading to a rather rich variance among the surviving copies. The philosopher
Lorenzo Venier, editor of the 1505 edition of Bonet’s work, probably repaired the
text in key places himself, and the result is that, until a critical edition of Bonet’s
work is produced, his text should be reconstructed with reference to both the printed
edition and several manuscripts, as is done here.18
Bonet’s thinking has attracted the attention of historians of science ever since
Pierre Duhem pointed to his defense of atomism and the opinion of Democritus, or
at least what Bonet thought Democritus’ opinion was. Duhem saw him as a pure
philosopher, pursuing principles to their often absurd consequences:
Bonet excels in discovering within each doctrine principles that can produce extreme con-
sequences; he presses these principles and forces them to bring to light the corollaries hid-
den in their shadows. In his hands, the characteristics of a theory become so prominent that
the author of the theory would not always recognize the legitimate offspring of his thought.19
Since then, generations of scholars have confirmed Bonet’s importance for discus-
sions of atomism: Anneliese Maier, John Murdoch, and most recently Christophe
Grellard and Aurélien Robert.20 The last two place Bonet’s work in the context of
contemporary atomists such as Henry of Harclay, Gerald Odonis, and Nicholas of
Autrecourt. In one such study, Grellard points to a connection between atomism and
doctrines of space as three-dimensional extension, arguing that Bonet’s atomism is
undergirded by a theory of abstraction combined with a distinction between math-
ematical and physical place. In brief, Grellard argues that, by appealing to a math-
ematical place as an abstraction from physical place, Nicholas Bonetus the atomist
can avoid all arguments that appear to go against his doctrine. For example, while a
17
On Nicholas Bonet, see Duba 2014, 464–492. Goris 2015, 102–141.
18
In what follows, therefore, in addition to the 1505 edition, the following manuscripts are used:
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 6678 (=P, Metaphysica and Physica); Paris,
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 16132 (=S, Metaphysica and Physica, the copy from the
library of the Sorbonne); Città del Vaticano, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 3040 (=V1,
Metaphysica) and Vat. lat. 3039 (=V2, Physica, the copies used by Francesco della Rovere, later
Pope Sixtus IV).
19
Duhem 1956, 259; English translation: Duhem 1985, 229.
20
Maier 1949, 177–179, Murdoch 1984, 45–66, Grellard 2004, Grellard and Robert 2009, and
Robert 2012.
physical thing can only be divided a finite number of times along an axis, the math-
ematical abstraction of that thing is capable of infinite division.21
In fact, Bonet’s distinction between mathematical and physical considerations is
not just a means to support his atomism; it plays a central role in his philosophical
system and in his mission, which is fundamentally syncretic and compatibilist. The
challenge is that the distinction between an imaginary consideration – a mathemati-
cal sense – on the one hand, and a natural one – a physical sense – on the other, long
predates Bonet and Scholastics in general. Indeed, Aristotle, in book IV of the
Physics, extensively argues against the ‘common-sense’ notion of place as three-
dimensional extension, pointing out that, if place had three-dimensional extension,
then it would be a body over and above the body actually in place; rather, Aristotle
founds place on the inside surface of the containing body; he likewise argues against
time as a continuum independent of existing things and ties it directly to motion.
Thus, the idea of mathematical place itself can be found in Aristotle, as the ‘common-
sense’ notion of place as three-dimensional extension, a notion that he rejects, mir-
roring his rejection of time as an absolute continuum. Bonet’s contribution lies in
defending this idea of mathematical place (and time) and in applying it systemati-
cally. Specifically, he develops a doctrine of mathematical abstraction, and inspired
by what we might call a variant reading of Averroes’ discussion of time, applies it
first to time and then to place, the latter by means of Scotus’ doctrine of equivalent
places. That is, Bonet develops a twofold notion of time, encompassing both natural
time, rooted in external reality, and mathematical time, an abstraction from that
reality with purely conceptual existence; he credits Averroes with the term ‘mathe-
matical time’; and he extends this natural/mathematical divide to motion and place.
A consummate syncretist, he melds this Pseudo-Averroan term with the notion of
equivalence poached from Scotus, and he relies on the doctrine of abstraction to
fend off accusations of making time, place, and motion mere fictions.
Nicholas Bonet’s doctrine of abstraction follows his presentation of the Platonic
and Peripatetic doctrines of universals, a presentation that is so idiosyncratic that the
editor of the 1505 Venice edition feels the need to refute Bonet’s ‘Peripateticism’ in
the margins.22 After claiming that Aristotle’s universals have real, extramental exis-
tence in singulars, and can exist in separation from them, Nicholas describes the
process of ‘mathematical separation,’ that is, of abstraction, beginning with magni-
tudes, such as those involved in spatial extensions or temporal durations. Relevant
to his doctrines of place and time, Bonet argues that the purely mental abstraction
of particular magnitudes is possible:
For the intellect can abstract a particular magnitude objectively from every subject, because
a quantity can have cognized being without the subject in which it exists having cognized
being. And so, to abstract is nothing other than to consider this-besides-this (hoc preter
hoc). And this is not a falsehood (mendacium) of those who abstract, and such an abstraction
21
Grellard 2004, 189, citing Nicholas Bonetus, Physica IV, c. 2 (see below, n26).
22
Duba 2014, 480–484.
100 W. O. Duba
of quantity from every sensible subject and matter is properly mathematical. For mathema-
ticians consider the quantities of bodies without caring in what matter they exist.23
Of any given reality, the mind can consider a quantity by itself. Echoing Aristotle’s
comments in Physics II, c. 2, Bonet is quick to insist that such an abstraction is not
a pure fiction (mendacium), since it is abstracted from reality in the manner of hoc
praeter hoc.24 These terms will surface again, precisely when Nicholas describes the
distinction between physical and mathematical place.
Nicholas Bonet hints at the central role of this distinction in the first mention of
his doctrine of mathematical being, which occurs in the next section of the
Philosophia naturalis, the Physica. In book IV, while defending his doctrine of
atomism, Bonet confronts the objection that Aristotelian continua are infinitely
divisible:
But there is a doubt concerning these statements about the reality of motion, since to say
such things is to contradict Aristotle, as is clear in the entirety of Physics VI. [To this,] it is
said that Aristotle spoke of motion, time, and place mathematically, but not physically, or
he spoke of motion only in conceivable being, but not in real being. But it is granted that in
conceivable being motion has divisibility, continuity, and perhaps infinity, and so too the
other properties that will be described in Physica VIII; but it does not have them in real
being.25
While in the extramental world motion can be divided into a finite number of indi-
visible mutata esse, in conceivable being, that motion can be infinitely divided.
Aristotle’s discussion of motion, time, and place mixes conceivable being and real
being, and for this Bonet appeals forward to his Physica VI, where he discusses
time, and to the ‘other properties’ of motion that he will discuss in his Physica VIII,
that is, the culmination of his Physica, his discussion on place.
23
Nicholaus Bonetus, Metaphysica VIII, c. 2 (1505, ff. 42vb-43ra; P, f. 102r-v; S, f. 77va; V1, f.
78v): “Post hec autem de separatione mathematica est dicendum, et primo de separatione mathe-
maticorum a sensibilibus, et primo quantum ad magnitudines, postmodum autem de numeris fiet
sermo. Separatio autem mathematicorum potest intelligi tripliciter. Prima separatio magnitudinis
singularis. Secunda universalis magnitudinis a singularibus. Tertia universalis magnitudinis ab
omni subiecto, et in quolibet ordine potest intelligi separatio fieri vel apud intellectum in esse
cognito, vel extra intellectum et in esse reali. – Dicamus igitur in primis de separatione mathemati-
corum in esse cognito quod in isto triplici ordine separatio possibilis est; potest namque intellectus
abstrahere magnitudinem particularem ab omni subiecto obiective, quia quantitas potest capere
esse cognitum absque hoc quod subiectum in quo est capiat esse cognitum. Et sic abstrahere nihil
aliud est nisi considerare hoc preter hoc. Et talium abstrahentium non est mendacium, et talis
abstractio quantitatis ab omni subiecto et materia sensibili proprie est mathematica. Considerant
namque mathematici quantitates corporum non curantes in qua materia existant.”
24
Cf. Aristoteles, Physica II, c. 2 (193b 34–35); Auctoritates Aristotelis (ed. Hamesse 1972, 145
n57): “Abstrahentium non est mendacium.”
25
Nicholaus Bonetus, Physica IV, c. 2 (1505, f. 60rb; P, f. 142va; S, f. 111rb; V2, f. 76r-v): “Habet
autem dubitationem circa ista dicta de realitate motus, quoniam sic dicendo est dimittere
Aristotelem in contradictione, ut patet VI Physicorum per totum. Fertur quod locutus est Aristoteles
de motu, tempore, et loco mathematice, non autem physice, vel tantum de motu in esse concepti-
bili, non autem in esse reali. Concessum est autem quod in esse conceptibili motus habet continui-
tatem, divisibilitatem, et forte infinitatem, et sic de aliis proprietatibus que VIII Physicorum
scribuntur, non autem habet illa in esse reali.”
In book VI of the Physica, Nicholas Bonet distinguishes between the physical

and mathematical considerations of time and the present instant of time, the now
(nunc). He begins by arguing that each motion has its own time, and therefore its
own now. That leads to an objection, namely that, according to this sense, two
events cannot happen at the same time:
And if you argue, “therefore in the same now in which I eat someone else does not live, and
in the same now in which I speak, the Seine does not flow,” I reply: not in the same now
really, but in the same equivalently, by which I understand a now measuring extrinsically
and not intrinsically. You have to observe carefully that it is not the same now according to
physical consideration, but according to mathematical consideration it is the same now in
number, as will be said below concerning time.
And if you should say: “You contradict your ancestors,” I reply: in this matter, they
spoke about time and the now mathematically, abstracting the now by the intellect from a
given mutatum esse in this motion and [from another mutatum esse] in that motion, and as
such it is the same now, at least equivalently. Our ancestors also held it to be absolutely
impossible for there to be many worlds and consequently many equally-first motions, there-
fore there are many times together and many nows; but we deviate from our ancestors in
this principle, therefore we must also deviate from them in the conclusion that follows
necessarily from that principle.26
Duhem sees here further proof of the revolutionary nature of the Condemnation of
1277; since Bonet recognizes that he cannot share the same assumptions as his
philosophical predecessors.27 Beyond this discussion of principles, however, Bonet
explicitly brings in Scotus’ notion of equivalence, and by equivalence he means the
equivalence achieved by mentally abstracting the nows from the motions in which
they inhere. Unlike Scotus, however, Bonet does not ground this equivalence in the
sense of being numerically different but specifically the same; equivalence for
Bonet means that the two items can become numerically one via abstraction, when
considered mathematically. Bonet clarifies the two ways of considering time in the
next chapter, explicitly citing Averroes:
We should investigate the parts of time as well as the unity of time. To the evidence of
which, it should be understood that there are two considerations of time: one natural and the
26
Nicholaus Bonetus, Physica VI, c. 1 (1505, f. 67rb; P, f. 161r; S, f. 127ra-b; V2, f. 54v): “Et si
arguas ‘ergo in eodem nunc in quo comedo alius non vivit, et in eodem in quo loquor, Secana non
currit,’ respondeo: non in eodem realiter, sed in eodem equivalenter, per quod intelligo nunc men-
surans extrinsece et non intrinsece. Debes diligenter advertere quod nunc secundum consideratio-
nem physicam non est idem; secundum considerationem tamen mathematicam est idem nunc
numero, sicut dicetur inferius de tempore. – Et si dicas: ‘contradicis progenitoribus tuis,’ respondeo:
illi loquti sunt in hac materia de tempore et de nunc mathematice, abstrahendo nunc per intellec-
tum ab isto mutato esse in hoc motu et in illo, et ut sic idem nunc est saltem equivalenter.
Progenitores etiam nostri habuerunt simpliciter pro impossibili plures esse mundos et per conse-
quens plures esse motus eque primos, ergo plura tempora simul et plura nunc; nos autem ab eis
deviamus in hoc principio, ergo et oportet deviare in conclusione necessario sequente ex illo
principio.”
27
Duhem 1956, 431: “En affirmant que Dieu peut, s’il lui plaît, créer plusieurs Mondes, Étienne
Tempier a ruiné le fondement qui portait la théorie peripatéticienne du temps; de même en affir-
mant que Dieu peut imposer à l’Univers un mouvement de translation, il avait privé de base la
théorie péripatéticienne du lieu.” The condemnation Duhem has in mind is of the doctrine that God
cannot move the universe rectilinearly; see Piché-Lafleur 1999, 96 n49.
102 W. O. Duba
other mathematical. Therefore, the simultaneity and unity of time should be spoken of in
one way according to natural being and in another way according to mathematical being,
and this is what that Commentator, Averroes, says in Physics IV, the chapter on time, com-
ment 131, that time is said to be related outside the soul in the same way, similar to place,
and he adds: “this consideration of time is mathematical and not natural”: one manuscript
has the reading “mathematical,” another “divine,” another has “philosophical.”28
Averroes defended a notion of time according to which time has actual existence
only in the mind; in the world, it only has potential existence in the individual move-
ments. Therefore, outside the mind, time only resembles the perfect, that is, the
actual. The quotation of Averroes that Bonet makes at the end of the passage is
intriguing: in the Juntina edition, the text reads, “in this way time is said to have
existence outside the soul similar to the actualized (simile perfecto), even if it is not
actualized. And this investigation of time is more philosophical than natural.”29
Here, Bonet’s text seems to corrupt the first part to associate time with place (nota-
bly changing simile perfecto to simile loco),30 and Bonet himself selects the reading
that says that this investigation “is mathematical and not natural,” admitting that
there are other variants, namely “divine” and “philosophical.”
Bonet appeals to Averroes for the division between “mathematical” and “physi-
cal” (or “natural”). His doctrine uses the “physical” sense to absorb theories associ-
ating time and the instant with motion. He then guarantees that there is a single time
for all things through a curious mix of Averroes’ conceptual notion of time, Scotus’
doctrine of equivalence, and an appeal to mathematical abstraction based on a vari-
ant reading of Averroes.
Nicholas Bonet crowns his Physica with a discussion on place in the eighth and
final book. There, in the last chapter, Bonet pulls together the strings and ascribes to
Aristotle and Averroes the distinction between mathematical and natural place:
The final saying of our ancestors on the immobility of place is: there are two kinds of specu-
lation concerning place: one mathematical and the other natural. Aristotle had the mathe-
matical consideration of place in mind when he defines place saying that it is primarily the
28
Nicholaus Bonetus, Physica VI, c. 2 (1505, f. 67vb; P, f. 162r-v; S, f. 128rb-va; V2, f. 55r): “De
simultate autem partium temporis est inquirendum et de eius unitate. Ad cuius evidentiam est intel-
ligendum quod consideratio de tempore est duplex: una naturalis et alia mathematica. Ideo aliter
est dicendum de simultate et unitate temporis secundum esse naturale (naturale] nature mss.), aliter
secundum esse mathematicum, et hoc est quod dicit Commentator ille Averroys, 4 (4] 8 P, 2 V2)
Physicorum, capitulo de tempore, commento 131, dicens quod tempus eundem modum dicitur
habere esse extra animam simile loco (eundem ... loco] secundum hunc modum dicitur inesse extra
animam simile perfecto etsi non sit perfectum 1505), et addit: ‘ista consideratio de tempore magis
est mathematica quam naturalis.’ Una littera habet ‘mathematica,’ alia ‘divina,’ alia habet
‘philosophica.’”
29
Averroes, Physica IV, comm. 131 (1562, f. 202vaH): “Secundum igitur hunc modum dicitur
tempus habere esse extra animam simile perfecto, etsi non sit perfectum. Et ista perscrutatio de
tempore magis est philosophica quam naturalis.”
30
Of the texts I consulted, only the 1505 edition has the correct reading for the first part of the text
(simile perfecto), and this may be the corrective work of the editor. Cf. Duhem 1956, 432: “C’est
ce que dit le Commentateur d’Aristote au commentaire 131 sur le huitième livre des Physiques: il
remarque que la façon dont le temps se comporte hors de l’esprit est analogue à celle dont se com-
porte le lieu.”
immobile surface of the containing body; but the natural consideration of place would
define place thus: that it is primarily the mobile surface of the containing body. For a natural
philosopher, as natural philosopher, does not consider the definition of place (ratio loci)
properly speaking, but the definition of vessel (ratio vasis). But every place that has the
definition of vessel is mobile.31
Nicholas Bonet echoes Peter Auriol’s presentation of place, emphasizing that

Aristotle’s reference to the vessel indicates that the discussion concerns physical
place. Yet, he states what Auriol does not, namely that physical place is primarily
mobile place. Further, he ascribes the mobile/immobile place distinction to “our
ancestors,” but his definition according to the “natural consideration of place” is
explicitly hypothetical; no ancestor actually made such a statement. Nicholas Bonet
differs from Auriol concerning the non-natural consideration of place as well:
Auriol’s metaphysical place is tied to the quiddity of place, that is, to the notion of
what place is, while Nicholas Bonet discusses mathematical place not with the ter-
minology of quiddities, but with the terms he used earlier in defining abstraction:
Therefore, you have to diligently observe that mathematical consideration of place is the
consideration of the primary containing surface of the body without considering the natural
body to which that surface belongs. Thus a mathematician considers the surface of air that
immediately surrounds and contains you, without caring in what body it exists, be it air or
something else; he considers precisely that surface, and, as it is abstracted from every natu-
ral body, it is immobile, because all mathematical beings are immobile, because they
abstract from motion and from sensible matter. Nor is there a falsehood (mendacium) in
such an abstraction, because what is considered is this-besides-this (hoc praeter hoc), not
this-without-this. Thus place, as a mathematician considers it, is entirely immobile. Hence
the surface of air that surrounds and contains you, when it is considered as if separate from
the air (and from other bodies through the variation of the natural body that contains you)
never changes. For since the surrounding surface, as considered mathematically, is always
considered as one, therefore place is entirely immobile according to mathematical consid-
eration; but according to natural consideration it is mobile and only has the definition of a
vessel, because natural place is considered, namely as the surface is in this and that natural
body, and that surface is certainly mobile, both subjectively and objectively, just as its natu-
ral body is mobile, in the way that the parts of the river continually vary according to the
natural being of the river, and consequently so do the surfaces of those bodies as they are
considered under natural being, but not as they are mathematically considered.32
31
Nicholaus Bonetus, Physica VIII, c. 4 (1505, f. 75rb; P, f. 183r; S, f. 145vb; V2, f. 80r): “Ultimum
autem dictum nostrorum progenitorum de immobilitate loci est istud: quoniam de loco est duplex
speculatio, una mathematica et alia naturalis. Consideratio autem mathematica de loco fuit apud
Aristotelem cum diffinit locum dicens quod est superficies corporis continentis immobilis primum.
Consideratio autem naturalis de loco sic diffiniret locum: quod est superficies corporis continentis
mobilis primum. Naturalis enim ut naturalis est non considerat proprie rationem loci, sed rationem
vasis; omnis autem locus qui habet rationem vasis mobilis est.”
32
Nicholaus Bonetus, Physica VIII, c. 4 (1505, f. 75rb; P, f. 183r; S, ff. 144vb-145ra; V2, f. 80r):
“Debes igitur diligenter advertere quod mathematica consideratio de loco est consideratio de
superficiei corporis continentis primum, absque hoc quod consideretur corpus naturale cuius est
illa superficies. Unde mathematicus considerat superficiem aeris te ambientem et continentem
immediate, non curando in quo corpore existat, sive sit aer vel aliquid aliud, sed precise considerat
illam superficiem, et, ut sit abstracta ab omni corpore naturali, immobilis est, quia omnia mathe-
maticalia (]mathematica mss.) sunt immobilia, quia abstrahunt a motu et a materia sensibili. Nec
in tali abstractione est mendacium, quia consideratur hoc preter hoc, non autem hoc sine hoc. Ideo
104 W. O. Duba
Finally, Bonet supports his argument with an appeal to Averroes; more specifically,
he cites the same passage he used in support of mathematical time, where he man-
aged to introduce the word ‘mathematical’ through a variant reading. Now, how-
ever, he presents a manifestly perverse citation:
But this is clear according to the Commentator, Physics IV, comment 131, since the consid-
eration of place is more mathematical than natural.
Let us conclude therefore that this was the intention of our ancestors concerning the
immobility of place, and who should not be content with this aforesaid threefold immobility
can go look elsewhere.33
Bonet’s mathematical place is the only sense in which place is immobile, and math-
ematical place exists in conceivable being, not in reality. He claims it is not a pure
fiction because of its tie to reality via abstraction. While the physical place of a non-
moving object may change, its mathematical place does not, and this occurs because
the mind understands the equivalence of the disparate physical places. But this
raises the question: with respect to what external reality are two equivalent places
equivalent?
5.5 Conclusion
Aristotle’s doctrine of container-place has long caused perplexity, and especially

when the container itself moves, leading to the problem of mobile place. To resolve
this issue, John Duns Scotus appealed to a doctrine of equivalent place, according
to which two numerically distinct container-places can be said to be one if they have
the same relation to the universe. Peter Auriol simplified the appeal, and claimed
that place in the proper sense was metaphysical place, understood as position in a
three-dimensional extension, and consigned container-place to an accidental sense,
“place according to physical consideration.” Nicholas Bonet might have been
inspired by Peter Auriol’s claim that Aristotle spoke of place in two senses, and only
one sense was physical. For Bonet, however, the defining feature of physical place
locus, ut de eo mathematicus considerat est omnino immobilis. Unde superficies aeris te ambiens
et continens considerata quasi separata ab aere et ab alio corpore per variationem corporis naturalis
continentis numquam mutabitur. Superficies enim ambiens ut mathematice considerata, quoniam
semper consideratur ut una, ideo locus est omnino immobilis secundum considerationem mathe-
maticam; secundum autem considerationem naturalem, mobilis est et tantum habet rationem vasis,
quia consideratur locus naturalis, ut scilicet superficies est in corpore naturali isto et illo, et illa
superficies bene est mobilis et subiective et obiective, sicut et corpus naturale cuius est, sicut partes
fluvii continue variantur secundum esse naturale fluvii, et per consequens superficies illorum par-
tium ut sub esse naturali considerantur, non autem ut mathematice considerantur.”
33
Nicholaus Bonetus, Physica VIII, c. 4 (1505, f. 75rb; P, f. 183r-v; S, f. 145ra, V2, f. 80r): “Palam
autem secundum Commentatorem, IV Physicorum, commento 131, quoniam consideratio de loco
est magis mathematica quam naturalis. – Concludamus ergo quod ista fuit intentio progenitorum
nostrorum de loco immobilitate, et qui ista triplici immobilitate predicta non fuerit contentus,
querat aliam.”
was that it was mobile, and the other sense of place was certainly not metaphysical,
giving place-as-extension ontological priority over physical place, but rather math-
ematical, in the sense of considering magnitudes independently of the subjects that
they inhere in, and therefore making place-as-extension derive from physical place.
In this way, he tried to place Scotus’ kernel of a doctrine of equivalent place in fer-
tile ground, although unlike Scotus’ teaching, Bonet’s identity by equivalence is a
numeric identity enabled by abstraction. Bonet, however, never explains the frame
of reference according to which two places can be equivalent. In these aspects,
Bonet’s use of abstraction plays a central role in his physics, serving equally well in
his discussion of place as in his treatment of atomism, and of time. To answer the
question of influence, Bonet was explicitly influenced by Scotus, possibly influ-
enced by Auriol, and absolutely faithful only to himself.
Influence and irreverence mark Bonet’s attitude towards the ancient Greek and
Arabic philosophers, those Bonet calls his ‘predecessors.’ Conscious that his philo-
sophical point of departure differed from that of his predecessors, Bonet sought
nevertheless to engage them in dialogue, explaining their positions, and to take the
mantle as their equal and interlocutor. Yet, over the course of the Physica, his dia-
logue with the philosophers becomes increasingly warped by his own philosophy, to
the point that, at the end, he claims that his views find support in the very words of
his predecessors, words that those predecessors might never have written. His ven-
triloquist act reveals in the extreme the radical solitude of the philosopher, who can
only participate in a perennial tradition by constructing a monologue with the past.
References
Averroes. 1562. Quartum Volumen Aristotelis De physico auditu libri octo cum Averrois
Cordubensis variis in eosdem commentariis, Quae omnia, a summis huius aetatis Philosophis
a mendis quamplurimis expurgata cernuntur. Marci Antonij Zimarae Contradictionum in eos-
dem Libros Solutiones. Venetiis apud Iunctas (USTC 810959, v. 4 = Physica).
Cross, Richard. 1998. The Physics of Duns Scotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Duba, William. 2014. Three Franciscan Metaphysicians After Scotus: Antonius Andreae, Francis
of Marchia, and Nicholas Bonet. In A Companion to the Latin Medieval Commentaries on
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, ed. Fabrizio Amerini and Gabriele Galluzzo, 413–493. Leiden: Brill.
Duba, William, and Chris Schabel. 2017. Remigio, Auriol, Scotus, and the Myth of the Two-Year
Sentences Lecture at Paris. Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 84: 143–179.
Duhem, Pierre. 1956. Le système du monde: Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à
Copernic. Vol. 7. Paris: Hermann.
———. 1985. Medieval Cosmology. Theories of Infinity, Place, Time, Void, and The Plurality of
Worlds, trans. Roger Ariew. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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tenu de Nicolas d’Autrécourt et Nicolas Bonet. In Méthodes et statut des sciences à la fin du
Moyen-Âge, ed. Christophe Grellard, 181–199. Paris: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Grellard, Christophe, and Aurélien Robert, eds. 2009. Atomism in Late-Medieval Philosophy and
Theology. Leiden: Brill.
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Hamesse, Jacqueline. 1972. Les Auctoritates Aristotelis: Un florilège médiéval. Étude historique et
édition critique. Louvain: Université Catholique de Louvain.
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Vatican City: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis.
Maier, Anneliese. 1949. Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert. Rome: Storia e Letteratura.
———. 1968. Zwei Grundprobleme der Scholastischen Naturphilosophie. 3rd ed. Rome: Storia
e Letteratura.
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Tradition in the Sciences: Essays in Honor of I. Bernard Cohen, ed. Everett Mendelsohn,
45–66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nicholaus Bonetus. 1505. Habes Nicholai Bonetti viri perspicacissimi quattuor volumina:
Metaphysicam videlicet naturalem phylosophiam praedicamenta necnon theologiam natura-
lem, Venice, (USTC 816175 = Philosophia naturalis (Metaphysica, Physica, Praedicamenta,
et Theologia naturalis).
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Turnhout: Brepols.
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———. 2011. The Reception of Peter Auriol’s Doctrine of Place, with Editions of Questions by
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la culture médiévale: Colloque Fribourgeois 2009, ed. Tiziana Suarez-Nani and Martin Rohde,
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William Duba. Turnhout: Brepols.
Chapter 6
Space, Imagination, and Numbers in John
Wyclif’s Mathematical Theology
Aurélien Robert
Abstract The aim of this paper is to show that John Wyclif’s theory of space is at
once an interpretation of the Platonic theory of place and a Neopythagorean concep-
tion of magnitudes and numbers. The result is an original form of mathematical
atomism in which atoms are point-like entities with a particular situation in space.
If the core of this view comes from Boethius’ De arithmetica, John Wyclif is also
influenced by Robert Grosseteste’s metaphysics, which includes the Boethian num-
ber theory within the Christian tale of the creation of the world ex nihilo. John
Wyclif, however, adds some novelty to this theory concerning the epistemological
status of this hypothetical description of the creation of the world out of atoms.
First, according to Wyclif, whereas geometry is concerned with sensible and imag-
inable beings, arithmetic, which is purely intellectual, has access to the deep math-
ematical structure of the universe. He then suggests a subordination of geometry
under arithmetic, which he considers the most solid basis for his metaphysics. As a
result, with the attribution of numbers and units to every level of reality, it becomes
possible to reform our natural imagination, so that it can imagine the atomic struc-
ture of matter and space.
6.1 Introduction
It has long been thought that medieval philosophers were not able to conceive space
as a three-dimensional, absolute and infinite space, because they predominantly
adopted the Aristotelian cosmos together with its conception of place as the two-
dimensional surface of the surrounding body.1 Edward Grant went as far as to con-
1
For an account of the Aristotelian notions of place and space see Algra’s Chapter 2 in this
volume.
A. Robert (*)
Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, CNRS, Université de Tours,
Tours, France
e-mail: aurelien.robert@univ-tours.fr

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_6
108 A. Robert
clude that theories of abstract and mathematical space found no support between the
sixth century, with John Philoponus, and the sixteenth century, with Francesco
Patrizi – with some rare exceptions, such as the Jewish philosopher Hasdai Crescas
in the fourteenth century.2 In recent decades, however, new interesting examples
have been discovered within fourteenth-century Western philosophy, of thinkers
such as Walter Chatton, Guiral Ot, William Crathorn, Nicolas Bonet, Nicole Oresme,
and John Wyclif, who tended to reduce place to space or, at least, to a position in
space, even though they did not replace the Aristotelian cosmos with a Euclidean
absolute and infinite space.3 What is interesting with regard to these newly explored
cases is that, with exception of Nicole Oresme, they all defended a specific form of
atomism, according to which a body is ultimately constituted of indivisibles. And
except for Nicolas Bonet and Nicolas of Autrécourt, who sometimes considered
indivisibles as minima or corpuscles, all others defended a mathematical atomism
in which indivisibles are point-like entities. These two aspects, the theory of place
and atomism, are directly connected with each other insofar as geometric space is
thought of as composed of surfaces, lines and points (mathematical atoms).
John Wyclif (ca. 1330–1384) is one of the most intriguing figures of this group of
philosophers. While best known today for his opinions on the reform of the Church,
he also wrote several philosophical treatises in which he defended an interesting
theory of place and space inspired by the Platonic and Neopythagorean traditions. As
a consequence, Wyclif’s system perfectly illustrates what David Albertson recently
called “mathematical theologies,” which correspond to a systematic analysis of the
created universe in mathematical terms, based on a Neopythagorean number theory.4
Albertson convincingly shows that this approach continued to be very popular
throughout the Middle Ages, from Boethius’ time to the twelfth century at least, and
it was then revived in the fifteenth century by Nicolas of Cusa. But, as I have argued
elsewhere, this type of theory also continued to be important in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, among a range of philosophers and theologians, and more par-
ticularly for the atomists listed above.5 The present paper aims to place John Wyclif
within this long tradition, and show how he develops it in his own fashion.
Here I will focus on John Wyclif’s atomist conception of matter and space in
relation to his philosophy of mathematics. Indeed, Wyclif faced a classical problem
that concerned all atomists: indivisibles, be they corpuscles or mathematical points,
cannot be seen or touched, so that they could be mere fictional entities, or corre-
spond to a mere theoretical hypothesis. An Aristotelian philosopher would argue
that intellectual abstraction always depends on sensory cognition and imagination,
and that, if indivisibles are not cognized by the senses, there cannot be an accurate
2
Grant 1976, 138.
3
On Walter Chatton see Robert 2012; on Guiral Ot see Bakker and De Boer 2009; on William
Crathorn see Robert 2009 and Roques 2016; on Nicolas Bonet see Duba’s Chapter 5 in this vol-
ume; on Nicole Oresme see Kirschner 2000. We also find this kind of theory in the Arabic tradition,
but I will limit this study to the Latin tradition.
4
Albertson 2014.
5
Robert 2017.
6 Space, Imagination, and Numbers in John Wyclif’s Mathematical Theology 109
representation of them in the mind. How can we imagine points independently of

other entities? How could one be certain that they exist? John Wyclif was perfectly
aware of these problems and tried to find a solution that is coherent with the prin-
ciples of his Platonic and Neopythagorean metaphysics. According to him, if the
senses and imagination have a role in the process of grasping the mathematical
structure of the world, only the intellect can ascend to this non-sensible reality,
thanks to the science of arithmetic. In other words, whereas the geometer and the
natural philosopher heavily depend on sensory cognition, so that they cannot grasp
the atomic structure of reality, the metaphysician is able to conceive reality as com-
posed of indivisibles, thanks to the attribution of numbers to all kinds of realities,
including matter and space. With this mathematical conception of reality, the intel-
lect is therefore able to correct the senses and gives a new top-down impulse to the
imagination.
6.2 John Wyclif’s Mathematical Atomism
From his earlier philosophical works in the 1360s to his later theological tracts,
John Wyclif constantly asserted that every continuum is ultimately constituted of
indivisibles without quantity (non quanta). In a stimulating paper, Norman
Kretzmann analysed some of his arguments, but noted that, despite some really
innovative philosophical insights into the problem of the continuum, the whole the-
ory seemed to be based on theological assumptions, such as the possibility for God
to count the precise number of atoms in a finite continuum of matter, space or time.6
More recently, Emily Michael has also suggested an interpretation of John Wyclif’s
atomism as a consequence of his “logic of Scripture,” insofar as it depends on his
exegesis of Genesis, based on Augustine’s commentaries.7 They are both absolutely
right. It is, indeed, difficult to separate the philosophical arguments supporting
atomism from its broader theological context. This is partly due to his methodology,
which subordinates philosophical investigation to Scripture and Christian theology,
and partly to his metaphysics.
This becomes quite clear in the Trialogus, written in 1382 or 1383, in which John
Wyclif gives an overview of his system. Following the traditional agenda of medi-
eval theologians, the treatise begins with God’s existence and properties, and then
turns to the divine ideas – considered equivalent to Platonic ideas in the Timaeus –
which served as models for the creation of the world. The second book deals with
the world itself, its unity and composition. At one point Alithia, who speaks for
philosophical truth, says that the world seems to be a mere aggregate of creatures,
whereas Pseustis, a sceptic of sorts, raises some doubts about this mereological
assumption. Finally Phronesis, who represents Wyclif’s own position, defends the
unity of the world without denying Alithia’s point of view altogether. Here again,
Kretzmann 1986.
6
Michael 2009.
7
110 A. Robert
the text is reminiscent of a typically Platonic trend: in the same way as a man is a
little world, a microcosm, with a unity due to its substantial form, the bigger and
total world, the macrocosm, has a similar unity, which is due to something akin to
‘the soul of the world.’ Unfortunately, Wyclif does not develop this Platonic concep-
tion of the unity of the world, but he seems to state that the parts of the universe,
including indivisible parts, would be a mere aggregate without a form. He then turns
to the composition of created things from indivisibles:
Pseustis: You frequently assume what is impossible, that a continuum is composed of
instants, for which Aristotle often reproves Plato and Democritus, indeed he teaches this
with enduring reason and mathematical demonstration.
Phronesis: Certainly it appears to the wise, in geometry and other sciences, as in arith-
metic, [that] something with a quantity is composed of [indivisibles] without quantity,
which must be the principles of any sort of composite. […] I give this response along with
Augustine and faith in Scripture, that just as God saw everything that He made [Genesis 1,
31], so He understands distinctly every part of every continuum, so that there are not given
more or other components of that continuum. And in that way the reasoning seems plainly
to succeed. And as for the text of Aristotle and his followers, it is clear that it does not pro-
duce faith, since it had often erred. But Democritus, Plato, Augustine, and Robert
Grosseteste, who thought in this way, are much more distinguished philosophers, and much
more brilliant in many metaphysical issues.8
This short sketch reveals the most important features of Wyclif’s mathematical
atomism. The first point to be noted here is that, even though atomism is coherent
with the principles of mathematics, it cannot be understood without metaphysics
and must agree with Scripture, and more particularly with the story of Creation.
Wyclif explicitly names his sources, even though we should add some names to this
short list, like Boethius. The alleged reason for naming them, i.e. Democritus, Plato,
Augustine and Robert Grosseteste, is that these philosophers were much more bril-
liant than Aristotle on metaphysical issues. This means that what is at stake here
does not concern natural philosophy: it is a metaphysical problem connected with
the original creation of the material world.
John Wyclif’s atomism is also related to his well-known thesis about the sacra-
ment of the Eucharist. In his official condemnation at the Council of Constance
(1414–1418), three of the forbidden theses directly concern atomism, and the con-
text suggests that they were considered by the authorities present at the Council as
the source of his negation of the dogma of transubstantiation.9
49: God cannot annihilate, diminish or increase the world.
51: Any continuous line is composed of two, three, or four points without intermediate
points, or of only an absolutely finite number of points; and time is, was and will be
composed of instants without intermediate instants.
52: One has to imagine that one corporeal substance was produced at its beginning as com-
posed of indivisibles, and that it occupies every possible place.10
8
Wyclif 1869, II, ch. 3, 83–84 (for the Latin text), and Wyclif 2012, 76–77 (for the English transla-
tion, slightly modified here).
9
Lahey 2009, ch. 4; see Levy 2003 for a general presentation.
10
[Councils] 1973, 426.
These three assertions give a faithful outline of Wyclif’s atomism. First, God has
created the material world with indivisibles or atoms and he cannot change its struc-
ture afterwards. Second, what he has created, notably prime matter, has a mathemat-
ical structure: it is composed of mathematical atoms, i.e. unextended point-like
entities. Third, this is conceivable for us, as soon as we ‘imagine’ (imaginandum
est) that God has created the world with these atoms, so that they occupy the totality
of the space that is now filled by the world. This space is like a sphere composed of
lines – each point in this sphere is the end of one diameter –, which are, in turn,
constituted of points. As a system, it certainly allows Wyclif to deny the reality of
transubstantiation during the Eucharist, insofar as the official dogma would imply
that God must annihilate one substance, or at least its form, in order to create
another. But, as it seems, the negation of transubstantiation is only a consequence of
this system, not Wyclif’s principle motive to endorse it. The main reason for adopt-
ing mathematical atomism is his metaphysics of creation.
These three propositions condemned at the Council of Constance almost literally
feature in the last part of John Wyclif’s Logica, usually referred to as Logicae con-
tinuatio, which is probably one of his earlier philosophical works, together with his
commentary on the Physics.11 In these texts, Wyclif does not discuss transubstantia-
tion, or only incidentally, but provides a full-fledged atomistic theory, in which he
tackles several important issues, such as the nature of space, the distinction between
the continuous and the discrete, and the role of atomism in the description of differ-
ent kinds of motion. Certainly, the theological aspect of this theory is not totally
absent from the Logica, but it is limited to a metaphysical theory of creation largely
inspired by the Platonic and Neopythagorean tradition.
Indeed, despite his apparent allegiance to Democritus, the doctor evangelicus is
by no means a materialist, and he does not limit his ontology to atoms and void. Not
only does he deny the existence of void, insofar as the world-space is totally filled
with atoms, but he does not restrict his ontology to indivisibles of matter, space and
time. As is well known, Wyclif is a realist about universals – they have some kind of
existence and unity independently of the singular objects concretely exemplifying
them. He also defends a realist analysis of the ten Aristotelian categories – they all
have some specific kind of existence and are not mere linguistic or conceptual ways
to order the world – and believes in the existence of real counterparts of propositions
in the world (propositiones in re).12 What is more, he does not only follow Aristotle’s
Categories in his own ontology, but also defends hylomorphism: every particular is
11
It is usually assumed that the third part of the Logica was written between 1360 and 1363, imme-
diately after the first two parts, but the date 1383 is once mentioned in the text. Thomson (1983)
considers the possibility that either a copyist changed the original date, or that it is a scribal mis-
take. Wyclif’s unedited commentary on the Physics survives in only one manuscript (Venice,
Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MS Lat. VI. 173). Ivan Müller is presently preparing an edition of
this text. The two important questions in which Wyclif deals with atomism and the nature of place
are the following: Utrum omnia temporaliter existentia sunt in loco (ff. 38ra-40rb); Utrum omne
tempus, magnitudo et motus diversificate se invicem consequuntur (ff. 52vb-55ra), and many argu-
ments are similar to the ones developed in the Logica.
12
Conti 2006 and Cesalli 2005.
112 A. Robert
constituted of matter and forms (substantial and accidental). As a consequence, mat-

ter is composed of indivisibles, but a particular piece of matter is also informed by
elemental forms (earth, fire, water and air) and by their mixture before it receives
substantial and accidental forms.13
Another important departure from Democritus is that Wyclif’s atoms are abso-
lutely indivisible, i.e. physically and conceptually. They are not corpuscles with a
shape and figure, but point-like entities. What is more, they do not play any causal
role in natural phenomena. Indivisibles of matter, form, space, time and motion
rather serve as units of measurement for natural phenomena, at least from the point
of view of God, who has created the world according to these units.
This very rich ontology led Wyclif to give a new interpretation of Aristotle’s
Categories, which is central for his atomism. Indeed, in the first part of his Logica
and in his De ente praedicamentali, John Wyclif describes the presence of indivisi-
ble units in several categories, not only in the category of quantity.
In every category there must be one principle, which is the metre and the measure of all the
things contained in this category: the first principle in the category of substance is God, who
is superior to all created substances; the first principle in the category of quantity is the unit,
because unit is the principle of continuous quantity as well as discrete quantity; the first
principle in the category of quality is the degree, because every latitude of a quality is com-
posed of degrees; the first principle in the category of relation is dependence; the first prin-
ciple in the category of action is the contemplation of an intelligence, because every action
will be performed by this action; the first principle in the category of passion is the recep-
tion of prime matter; the first principle in the category of ‘where’ is the situation (situs) of
a point, because the whole situation (situs) of the world is composed of punctual situations
(ex sitibus punctalibus); the first principle in the category of ‘when’ is the indivisible
instant, because in the same way as the world is composed of punctual entities, time is
composed of instants; the first principle of position (positionis) is the situation of its centre
(situs centri), because position is a relation (respectus) between a body and this
situation.14
A material substance is composed of matter and form, and its matter is reducible to
the atoms from which it has been created. Substantial forms are indivisible by them-
selves and exemplify a universal form, which is like a unit in God’s mind. Concerning
accidental categories, the most important one is quantity, insofar as every material
substance is quantified and is composed of indivisible units, which are numbers for
discrete quantities and points for continuous quantities. Other accidental beings
belonging to the categories of quality, where, and when, are based on quantity inso-
far as they only inhere in a quantified substance, and insofar as they are themselves
quantified, i.e. measurable with absolute units. And it is a general principle that in
every category there is some indivisible principle.
13
Michael 2009.
14
Logica, I, ch. 4, in Wyclif 1893 13; see also De ente praedicamentali, 1, 3, in Wyclif 1891. The
references to the Logica are from the nineteenth-century edition whenever the text is correct, but
when it is not, in particular for the Logicae continuatio (henceforth LC), I will give my own tran-
scription of MS Assisi, Biblioteca Communale 662 (now A), dating from c. 1385, which gives a
better version.
Taking this general framework as a basis, John Wyclif gives a very long exposi-
tion of his atomism in his Logicae continuatio (third treatise, chapter 9), in an analy-
sis of propositions in which the term ‘where’ (ubi) occurs. This logical pretext is
rapidly abandoned for a general presentation of his theory of place (locus) and situ-
ation (situs). His aim is to show that locus and situs can be analysed in terms of the
situation of atoms, so that atomism follows from a more general theory of place, and
not the contrary. It is not surprising, then, that this chapter of the Logicae continu-
atio precisely begins with something similar to the first of the three propositions
condemned at Constance:
Although the term ‘place’ is equivocal, it is sufficient for now to know what place is when
understood as situation. In order to know what it is, it is worth noticing that the world is
composed of a fixed number of atoms and that it cannot be increased or diminished or
locally moved along a straight line or changed in its figure, so that, from natural and immu-
table causes, its continuous quantity and figure follows from the number of atoms.
Otherwise, indeed, the world would not be at its maximal capacity and would not be maxi-
mally harmonious relatively to its figure. The situation and dimension15 of the world follow
from these [indivisibles]. This is why, when Aristotle mentions continuous quantities, he
names the different species in a certain order: line, surface and body, and beyond this, place
and time; and the point is the principle for all, and the unit is the principle of the point. And
place follows matter to such an extent that wherever there is this maximal matter (maxima
materia) of the world there is a place. As a consequence, even if it were – per impossibile –
moved locally along a straight line in an infinite void space, its situation would be continu-
ously the same, insofar as the extension of this matter is sufficient to individuate its situation.
[…] And this was Plato’s opinion, who called matter ‘hyle,’ ‘vacuum,’ ‘a forged craftiness
enveloped by thick darkness.’16
In his very useful study on John Wyclif’s theory of matter, Zenon Kaluza has shown
that the specific vocabulary used in this text clearly echoes Plato’s Timaeus and
Chalcidius’s commentary, even though the Platonic Chôra is sometimes identified
with Augustine’s materia informis and Aristotle’s prime matter.17 What is important
here is that the place of the world and its parts can be understood without reference
to something external to the world itself, even if we imagine that there is an infinite
void space all around. According to Wyclif, absolute space, such as the Euclidean
infinite geometrical space, cannot help us to describe the place and motion of bodily
entities in our world, insofar as we always need some fixed referential for locating
something relatively to something else, or in order to describe the motion of a
mobile. For this reason, the notions of place and situation are intimately related. The
place of a body is the totality of the situations of its atomic parts.
In an earlier chapter of the Logicae continuatio (III, 7) Wyclif explained that in
all natural phenomena there must be minima and maxima. This is also true for
place: the indivisible is a minimum and the totality of the world is a maximum.
From this result two possibilities for apprehending the place of a body in the inner
space of our closed world: we can either consider the place of a body relatively to a
15
The edition has duratio but the MS A has dimensio.
16
LC, III, ch. 9, in Wyclif 1899, 1–2.
17
Kaluza 2003.
114 A. Robert
point or a series of points, or relatively to the totality of the world. On the one hand,
Wyclif asserts that to every point of matter a punctual situation (situs punctalis) cor-
responds, so that the situation of a particular body corresponds to the totality of the
situations of the points from which it is composed. But, on the other hand, human
beings cannot use these units of measurement, because they do not have access to
these indivisibles of matter and space.18 As a consequence, we have to situate bodies
relatively to the totality of the world, by their distance to fixed points like the Poles,
the centre of the world or a precise point on the Equator.19 As a whole, the perfect
sphere of our material world constitutes a fixed spatial framework of points, always
full of matter, but it can be thought of abstractedly as a mathematical, empty, spheri-
cal space. When a body moves from one place to another, a part or the totality of its
points change from one situation to another.20 The place of a particular body is,
therefore, equal to the part of space it occupies, together with a specific position
relative to fixed points, even though we cannot know the precise position and num-
ber of all of its points.
In spite of our natural incapacity to cognize points, Wyclif says, it is still possible
to use different descriptions of place. One can say, for instance, that place is a con-
tinuous quantity, immobile, permanent, in which a body is formally located (a defi-
nition inspired by the Liber sex principiorum) or that place is the extremity of the
surrounding body (a definition inspired by Aristotle). The first definition, attributed
to Gilbert de la Porée, fits better with Wyclif’s own position, but even the Aristotelian
definition can be used to describe the place of a body, although the situation of the
surface of the surrounding body should be determined by the position of the lines
and points from which it is composed, relatively to other fixed points in the uni-
verse. What is important for Wyclif is that there exist absolute units of measurement
in our world, which are independent of our conventions for measuring distances,
time, and speed, even though we cannot know them and are forced to use conven-
tional systems.
After he has presented his theory of place and local motion, John Wyclif asks
whether the continuum is composed of indivisibles. Naturally his answer is positive.
Indeed, despite our incapacity to know exactly the number and location of all the
atoms composing a particular body, we can “imagine,” Wyclif says, this composi-
tion from a metaphysical point of view, starting from the indivisible points up to
composite lines, surfaces, and bodies. The first step consists in accepting that the
point enters into the definition of the line (a line is defined by at least two points).
For this reason, points belong to the essence of the line, which for Wyclif means that
it is ontologically prior to the line, as its cause. In this context, the main argument
he gives rests on an analogy between time and numbers: points are the principles
and causes of a line, in the same way that instants are the principles of time, and in
the same way that units are the principles of numbers.21 The example of time is
18
LC, III, ch. 9, 2.
19
LC, III, ch. 9, 3–4.
20
LC, III, ch. 9, 11–29.
21
LC, III, ch. 9, 30.
crucial in Wyclif’s mind, insofar as it seems to be the case that only indivisible
instants exist (the present) and that time is, nonetheless, continuous (there is no gap
between the past, the present and the future). What is more, Aristotle himself was
not very clear about the status of time, since he seems to say that continuous time is
also a number, not only in the subject who measures time (numerus numerans), but
also in the reality measured by time (numerus numeratus).22 In the case of spatial
continua all the indivisibles exist, and they exist in a certain number.
Wyclif adds further arguments. If this were not the case, he continues, it would
be possible to remove one point from a line, for instance the last one, without chang-
ing its nature, and, by way of consequence, this would be also true if we removed a
larger number of points, and, per impossibile, an infinite number of points. This
would have strange consequences for geometry, according to Wyclif, if we accept
that a segment of a straight line is defined by its first and its last points. On the con-
trary, Wyclif’s theory holds that the place of a line corresponds to a series of indivis-
ible situations in the world, which changes as soon as one or several points are
removed from or added to the entire line. And what is true for indivisible situations
must be also true for their material counterparts, because to every punctual situation
(situs punctualis) in the world corresponds a point of matter, which Wyclif some-
times refers to as an atom. According to Wyclif, one must conclude that a line is a
series of points situated next to each other, with distinct positions in space. Two
points can be situated immediately next to each other, exactly like two instants in
time are successive without any gap. It would be reasonable to think that these
points have, in reality, some kind of extension in order to explain how they can be
real parts of the continuum, but this is apparently not necessary for Wyclif. Indeed,
he frequently repeats that these points have no quantity: they are non quanta. If I
understand his position correctly, he means to say that, if according to Aristotle’s
criteria in the Categories (4b20 sq.) quantitative parts are continuous – i.e. if their
extremities are ‘together,’ and if they have distinct positions in space – then the
extreme points of these quantitative parts are also in a relation of continuity, insofar
as they must touch each other in some way and have distinct positions in space.
Indeed, if we can imagine that (1) when two segments of a straight line are continu-
ous, then their extremities are points, which are immediately contiguous, without
any gap; and (2) that there are points everywhere in a line; then (3) we can imagine
that all these points are continuously situated next to each other, without interrup-
tion, insofar as each pair of these contiguous points can be considered as a pair of
extremities of two distinct segments of that line. If we can imagine that, then we can
also imagine that the line is at the same time continuous and composed of points.
Wyclif’s global strategy therefore consists in demonstrating that we can derive
all kinds of magnitudes, in different categories, from indivisible units. For spatial
continua this means that geometric figures are derived from unextended points and
their indivisible situations. For instance, a minimal line is made of two points, a
minimal surface is a triangle made of three points, and a minimal body is a pyramid
22
See Annas 1975.
116 A. Robert
made of four points, etc.23 Larger figures are always multiples of these minimal
ones. This typically Neopythagorean way of describing geometric figures is omni-
present in Wyclif’s works, and is reinforced by his Platonic theory of place. Because
of the limits of our cognitive faculties we are forced to start with the world as a
whole before we divide it into parts, so that we are naturally inclined to consider
division never to stop. If we could cognize all the indivisibles, as well as their situ-
ation and their number, we would be able to conceive the world differently. We
cannot cognize points directly through the senses, but we can nonetheless imagine
how the continuum – the whole world and its quantitative parts – is composed from
the addition of points and indivisible situations thanks to a thought experiment
involving God’s absolute power (potentia Dei absoluta):
In the same way, as I believe, no theologian would deny that God can produce a punctual
substance by his absolute power, either by condensation or by causing a new entity, or by
producing a spirit in a punctual site and annihilating all the other creatures except this spirit,
keeping it in its site without movement. It is evident in this case that punctuality or point,
which for a substance means being punctual, is an act that is posterior to that substance, be
it separable or inseparable. Therefore a point can exist. There is no more doubt that if God
can produce a punctual being, he can juxtapose many of them. And there is no doubt that
their sites would be correspondingly juxtaposed next to each other, insofar as site is the
subject of what is situated. It is therefore evident that God can produce a quantified being
from these non-quantified beings […]. God could create a punctual substance in every
indivisible site of the world and annihilate every continuous substance, conserving punctual
substances immobile. It is obvious that thus far God acts on24 as much place as there was in
the beginning, so that such an amount of place exists, or at least it may happen that such an
amount of place is produced from indivisibles as it was in the first place. […] Therefore,
once every accident of continuity is posited, one must posit the existence of a continuous
subject of this [continuum], which would be composed of punctual beings, because they
would be its intrinsic principles. There is no doubt that, once such a possibility is admitted,
no philosopher in the world would have infallible evidence for the conclusion that it is not
actually the case.25
23
LC, III, ch. 9, 49, 55, 59–61.
24
The Latin has est (God is in as much place…), but in this context it is difficult to understand how
God can be in this place.
25
LC, III, ch. 9, 33–34, corrected with MS A, f. 72ra: “Similiter, ut credo, nullus theologus negaret
quin Deus de potentia absoluta potest facere substantiam punctalem vel condensando vel noviter
causando vel tertio faciendo spiritum esse in situ punctali et annihilando omnem aliam creaturam
preter talem spiritum servatum immotum. Et tunc patet quod punctalitas vel punctus que est huius-
modi substantiam esse punctalem est accidens posterius illa substantia, sive sit separabile sive
inseparabile. Punctus ergo potest esse. Nec dubium quin si Deus potest unum punctale producere
potest et quodlibet iuxtaponere. Nec dubium quin situs essent correspondenter iuxtapositi, cum
situs sit subiectum situari. Et ultra patet quod Deus potest ex talibus non quantis facere unum
quantum […]. Creet substantiam ad omnem situm punctalem mundi unam substantiam punctalem
et annihilet post omnem substantiam continuam servando punctales substantias immotas. Et patet
quod Deus est adhuc per tantum locum sicut fuit in principio et per consequens est tantus locus vel
saltem contingit tantum locum fieri ex illis punctalibus sicut prius. […] Posito ergo quocumque tali
accidente continuo oportet ponere subiectum eius continuum et illud esset compositum ex punc-
talibus, quia illa forent eius principia intrinseca. Nec dubito quin admisso hoc pro possibili omnes
philosophi mundi non haberent infallibilem evidentiam ad concludendum quod non est sic de
facto.”
To sum up: since the material world is composed of atoms which fill the totality of
atomic situations in space, it could certainly be discrete; but this is not the case,
because (1) every indivisible site is filled with a point-like entity, so that there is no
gap or void space in our world, and (2) the totality of the world was created from
indivisibles, and as a continuum, from the beginning. Later, in the Logicae continu-
atio, Wyclif explains this point more precisely with a proposition that is very similar
to proposition 52, which had been condemned at Constance:
One has to imagine a unique corporeal essence produced in the first instant, composed from
indivisibles, occupying every possible place, not corruptible according to any of its parts,
except by the division and separation of one part from another. But, since it must be the case
that this total essence has every one of its indivisible parts in a relation of continuity, it is
obvious that such an essence is absolutely incorruptible. And this essence is first conceived
in a confused way under the notion of being, absolutely, i.e. neither as fire or air, or what-
ever genus or species […]. But philosophers, who further consider that each such essence
which qualifies to be the subject of accidents is absolutely one, attribute substantiality to it.
After that, once it is considered in its extension, they attribute corporeity to it, which the
Bishop of Lincoln [Robert Grosseteste] calls light. Third, they attribute to it the form of its
proximate genus, such as animality, ‘stone-ness’ or whatever else. Fourth, considered under
the aspect of its species, they attribute to it its most specific form. Therefore, philosophers
say that in a substance, the matter, the form and the composite are distinct.26
Here John Wyclif seems to follow Avicenna’s emanatist metaphysics, in which the
form of corporeity (forma corporeitatis) is the first form of material substances – a
form which is already present in their material substratum before they receive sub-
stantial and accidental forms. It corresponds to the extension of material sub-
stances insofar as it is the necessary condition for having a certain quantity. As we
shall see, Robert Grosseteste actually interpreted this claim as meaning that the
world was created in the first place as one material and corporeal substance, together
with its extension or form of corporeity, thanks to the multiplication of a single
point of light in all directions.
Wyclif believes that it is possible to conserve the conceptual apparatus of
Aristotle’s Physics within a more general and Platonic scheme. The concepts of
matter and form, of the four elements, of substance and accidents, are still efficient
and valuable, but the arguments against atomism are not, because they only concern
sensible reality, not the deep ontological structure of the continuum.27 For example,
26
LC, III, ch. 9, 119, corrected with MS A, f. 88ra-b: “ymaginandum est igitur unam essentiam
corpoream in principio productam, ex indivisibilibus compositam et occupare omnem locum pos-
sibilem, nec esse secundum eius partem aliquam corruptibilem nisi forte per divisionem et separa-
tionem unius partis a reliqua. Sed cum oportet illam totam essentiam habere quamcumque talem
partem aliqualiter continuatam, patet quod illa essentia est simpliciter incorruptibilis et illa essen-
tia primo confuse concipitur sub ratione qua [est] ens simpliciter, et nec ut ignis vel aer vel cuius-
cumque alterius generis vel speciei […]. Sed philosophi ulterius considerantes quamlibet talem
essentiam esse unum absolutum cui per se competit substare accidentibus attribuunt sibi substan-
tialitatem. Et postmodum considerata eius extensione attribuunt sibi corporeitatem quam
Lincolniensis vocat lucem. Et tertio formam generis proximi, ut animalitatem, lapiditatem vel
aliud huiusmodi. Et quarto considerata ratione speciei attribuunt sibi formam specialissimam. Ideo
dicunt philosophi quod substantiarum alia est materia, alia est forma, alia compositum ex hiis.”
27
LC, III, ch. 9, 35.
118 A. Robert
in response to Aristotle’s argument that two points cannot touch, so that they cannot
form a continuous quantity, Wyclif replies that he cannot conceive the spatial order-
ing of points because his concept of contact is derived from sensible realities. With
the hypothetical model based on arithmetic and God’s absolute power, it is perfectly
imaginable for Wyclif that points can touch in a broad way (large loquendo), insofar
as every point occupies a distinct position in space and that the totality of place is
occupied.28
Before we turn to the epistemological problem raised by the role of imagination
in the foundation of this mathematical model it is important to indicate where Wyclif
borrowed the main tenets of his Platonic and Neopythagorean doctrine.
6.3 The Platonic and Neopythagorean Background
The possibility of deriving spatial magnitudes from points equivalent to numerical

units with a particular position in space was one of the central ideas of Pythagoreanism,
at least in its late development in the Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean traditions.29
The first major synthesis happened thanks to Nicomachus of Gerasa in the second
century A.D., in his treatise On arithmetic.30 In brief, Nicomachus explains Plato’s
conception of the creation of the world in the Timaeus with a theory of numbers:
mathematical beings are not only mediating entities between humans and a world of
ideas, as is usually the case in Plato’s dialogues, but they rather reflect an actual
correspondence between God’s mathematical ideas and the structure of the material
world. As a consequence, arithmetic is not only a practice that helps us to ascend to
divine reality, but it is also the key for our understanding of every natural phenom-
enon, together with geometry, music and astronomy. In order to grasp these num-
bers in material reality, one has to consider points equivalent to numerical units with
a particular position in space. Geometric figures are, therefore, structured with num-
bers, and geometry must be subordinated to arithmetic. At a higher level, music and
astronomy allow us to grasp the harmony between the different levels of creation.
A noteworthy consequence of this theory is that matter and space have exactly
the same structure, like the Chôra in Plato’s Timaeus, but this structure is primarily
of a numerical order. In other words, the analysis of geometric three-dimensional
solids as composed of surfaces, lines and points does not only hold for idealized
figures – in God’s mind or in a human intellect – but also for concrete and material
bodies. It gives the ontological structure of both geometric space and of material
bodies occupying this space.
This theory was widely known in the Middle Ages thanks to ancient sources such
as Macrobius, Cassiodorus, or Martianus Capella, but the most important of these
was Boethius’ treatise On arithmetic, which is a Latin translation of Nicomachus of
28
LC, III, ch. 9, 35–36.
29
See Philip 1966, Burkert 1972, Zhmud 2012, Cornelli 2013; Horky 2013.
30
For a general introduction to Nicomachus’s arithmetic, see Levin 1975.
Gerasa’s work, with only small additions and modifications. Like its Greek model,
this text deals not merely with mathematics, but endeavours to show that a good
grasp of the ontological organization of the material world requires the finding of
units, numbers and relations between numbers in all kinds of realities within the
created world. For this reason the science of arithmetic antecedes the other sciences
of the quadrivium (geometry, music and astronomy), and it is also, and more gener-
ally, the basis of all kinds of philosophical reasoning. As Boethius says, “whoever
puts these matters aside has lost the whole teaching of philosophy,” because with
mathematics in general, and arithmetic in particular, “we bring a superior mind
from knowledge offered by the senses to the more certain things of the intellect.”31
This intellectual grasp of higher realities through arithmetic and numbers is useful
for the other mathematical sciences, but also, by way of consequence, for physics
and metaphysics. As Boethius puts it,
[arithmetic] is prior to all not only because God the creator of the massive structure of the
world (mundanae molis) considered this first discipline as the exemplar of his own thought
and established all things in accord with it; or that through numbers of an assigned order all
things exhibiting the logic of their maker found concord; but arithmetic is said to be first for
this reason also, because whatever things are prior in nature, it is to these underlying ele-
ments that the posterior elements can be referred. Now if posterior things pass away, noth-
ing concerning the status of the prior substance is disturbed […]. The same thing is seen to
occur in geometry and arithmetic. If you take away numbers, in what will consist the tri-
angle, quadrangle, or whatever else is treated in geometry? All those things are in the
domain of number.32
While Plato’s Timaeus tends to limit its description of the mathematical structure of
matter and place to geometric figures, Nicomachus and Boethius ascribe numerical
values to geometric figures, in such a way that they can be analysed in terms of
multiples of more basic units, i.e. points. For instance, the first line is made of two
points, the first triangle of three points, the first square of four points, and so forth,
and larger figures are multiples of these numbers. Mathematical atoms as building
blocks of spatial figures are not only units of measurement, they are also the ulti-
mate metaphysical constituents of material realities, and at the same time, the ulti-
mate constituents of space in which matter exists. As Boethius says:
It is necessary that whatever solid body may exist, it should have length, width, and depth,
and whatever contains these three in itself, that thing is by its very name called a solid.
These three things are concerned with each other by an inseparable connection, in every
body, and it has been so constituted in the nature of bodies. If anything should be lacking in
one of these dimensions, that body is not solid. That which maintains only two intervals is
called a surface; every surface is contained only by width and breadth. […] The line, to
which has been attributed the nature of one dimension, is exceeded by the surface in one
dimension and is exceeded by the solid in two dimensions. The point is exceeded by the line
in one dimension, that which remains, length. If a point is superseded by one dimension in
a line, it is exceeded in a surface by two dimensions; a point is removed from solidity by
three dimensions of intervals, and so it is that a point exists without magnitude or a body or
31
On Arithmetic, I, i, in Boethius 1983, 73.
32
On Arithmetic, I, i, in Boethius 1983, 74.
120 A. Robert
dimension of an interval. It is bereft of length, width, and depth. It is the principle of all
intervals and indivisible by nature, and the Greeks call it “atom” (atomon).33
A point, despite its non-quantitative nature, is therefore the metaphysical principle

of all spatial dimensions, and consequently of every material and quantified being.
The rest of book II is therefore dedicated to demonstrating this equivalence between
numbers and geometric figures.
David Albertson has brilliantly shown that this Neopythagorean conception of
geometric space remained very important during the Middle Ages, at least in the
twelfth century.34 But there is no reason to think that this Neopythagorean model
that Boethius transmitted did not continue to be a common matrix for many philoso-
phers and theologians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, despite the constant
refinements in natural philosophy and mathematical theories after the arrival of the
Aristotelian corpus and its Arabic commentators. As I have shown elsewhere, the
Neopythagorean derivation of spatial magnitudes from points was reworked by
many of those who defended mathematical atomism in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries.35 And there is no doubt that John Wyclif also belongs to this long
tradition.
To put it briefly, before the reception of Aristotle’s Physics in the West, medieval
philosophers discussed the composition of the continuum and the nature of place in
their commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories and Boethius’s De arithmetica.
Indeed, when Aristotle distinguishes discrete and continuous quantities in the
Categories (4b20 sq.) the criteria he uses are, at least partly, compatible with the
Neopythagorean model.36 He simply says that a continuous quantity has its parts
‘together’, so that they touch at a common limit or extremity, and that, except for
time, these parts occupy distinct positions in space. If points can be thought of as
occupying distinct positions in space without any gap in a finite line, and as touch-
ing each other, then it is possible for a continuum to be ontologically composed of
indivisibles. The problem for twelfth-century commentators was that Boethius
defends the Neopythagorean thesis in his De arithmetica, whereas he seems to
affirm the opposite view in his commentary on the Categories, where he follows
Aristotle and says that points cannot be parts of a line, a surface or a body, because
they are only the extremities of a continuous line. Some twelfth-century readers of
Aristotle and Boethius, such as William of Champeaux and Peter Abelard, argued
for the necessity to accept the positive existence of points as intrinsic metaphysical
parts of the line and, transitively, as metaphysical constituents of surfaces and bod-
ies.37 And it is worth noticing that Peter Abelard’s arguments in his Dialectica and
his Logica ingredientibus are similar in many respects to Wyclif’s own arguments in
his Logica: (1) a quantity is a complex being composed of simple entities; (2) these
33
On Arithmetic, II, iv, in Boethius 1983, 130 (trans. slightly modified).
34
Albertson 2014.
35
Robert 2017.
36
On this point see Mendell 1987.
37
King 2004.
simple entities must be considered parts of the whole quantity; (3) each time we
divide a line into quantitative parts, new points arise from the division, and since
division is possible everywhere, there are points everywhere in the line; (4) when a
line is divided into two parts, for instance, the end-points of each part are next to
each other before the division, so that it is possible to imagine points everywhere in
the line with distinct, though immediate, positions in the line; (5) these points can-
not be mere accidents of a continuous quantity, because they define a line and are
parts of its essence. Other commentators on the Categories in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, such as Albert the Great or Walter Burley, continued Peter
Abelard’s effort to give an ontological status to the points, opposing the Categories
to the Physics.
After the reception of Aristotle’s Physics and De generatione et corruptione in
the thirteenth century, medieval philosophers had to take into account new argu-
ments – notably concerning the infinite – against physical and mathematical atom-
ism, and a majority of them were convinced by these arguments. Furthermore,
mathematical arguments based on incommensurability or on the impossibility to
ascribe a precise number of parts to a continuum came into the picture at this time,
with some Arabic texts (like Avicenna and Al-Ghazali’s) newly translated into Latin.
So, from the thirteenth century onwards, the problem of the continuum was deeply
transformed by these novelties.38 Nevertheless, despite these new trends in mathe-
matics and physics, some thinkers continued to defend the old Neopythagorean
mathematical atomism.39 This is notably the case for Robert Grosseteste, who is one
of the most important sources of John Wyclif.40
In his treatise On light Grosseteste describes the creation of the world out of
nothing in terms of an “infinite multiplication” (replicatio infinita) of an original
point of light in every direction, so that it finally forms a perfect sphere.41 This pro-
cess of emanation of light gives rise to the corporeal form of the world together with
its definitive extension. Light is therefore the first form of the created prime matter,
and it is what philosophers like Avicenna called “corporeity.”42 But this theory was
“the meaning of the philosophers positing that everything is composed of atoms and
saying that bodies are composed of surfaces, surfaces of lines, and lines of points.”43
Indeed, Grosseteste says, from this multiplication of a point of light results an infi-
nite number of points in the total extension of the world. It is, thus, possible to
analyse different portions of matter as different numbers of atoms or points, i.e. as
different ‘infinities,’ in Grosseteste’s terminology. Indeed, he believes in the possi-
bility of comparing different infinite numbers of points in the same way as we, for
instance, compare the series of natural numbers with the series of even numbers
38
See Maier 1949, Murdoch 1974 and 1982.
39
See fn. 1.
40
See Robson 2008, 26–31.
41
Trans. Lewis 2013.
42
On light, in Grosseteste 2013, 239–240; see Panti 2012.
43
On light, in Grosseteste 2013, 242.
122 A. Robert
(according to him these series or sets of numbers do not have the same number of
elements).
What is new in Grosseteste’s account, apart from his metaphysics of light, is that
he endeavours to respond to the classical arguments based on incommensurability
with his original conception of the infinite. In each part of the world, he says, there
is an infinite number of points, and if a line is twice as long as another, it contains
twice as many points as the first. This allows Grosseteste to state that there can be
different ratios between magnitudes, exactly like there are ratios between different
series of numbers.44 Those ratios can be rational or irrational, as is the case for the
side of a square and its diagonal. It is, therefore, possible to say that the continuum
is infinitely divisible.
As Neil Lewis puts it, in Grosseteste’s Notes on the Physics, “a typical strategy
is for him to hold that Aristotle’s theories are of limited ambition, and that his own
account locates Aristotle’s views within a broader picture.”45 More precisely, he
endeavours to interpret some important propositions of the Physics within the
Neopythagorean model previously described. When he comments on book III about
the infinite, for instance, he states that the infinite is a principle for natural philoso-
phers, even though it is not their task to deal with the infinite as such. It is a principle
because, “according to what Plato and Augustine say about number, number and
wisdom are the same, and the wisdom of God is an infinite number, and there is an
infinite number of ideas, i.e. reasons of things (rationes rerum) in divine wisdom.”46
It is not only compatible with the famous dictum of Wisdom 11, 21 (God disposed
everything in number, weight and measure) as interpreted by Augustine, it is also
confirmed by Plato and “the Pythagoreans, who posited that an infinite number is
the principle of sensible things.”47 These philosophers did not refer to a divine num-
ber, according to Grosseteste, but to numbers expressing the infinite multiplication
of matter (replicationem materiae infinitam), which is a passive property of matter.48
As far as forms are concerned, except for the form of corporeity, one has to turn to
Plato and Augustine. The first relation between divine ideas and the material world
is precisely the derivation of geometric figures from points, which Grosseteste
describes exactly like Boethius in his De arithmetica: “indeed, in the same way as
different species and figurations of numbers are produced from the additions of dif-
ferent finite numbers, it is also the case for infinite numbers. The triangular infinite
number, which exists in multiplied matter and form, is the principle of sensible tri-
angulation in a body in the same way as the squaring in the infinite number is the
principle of squaring in a body, and the cube in number for the bodily cube, and the
pyramid for pyramid, etc.”49 To sum up, all figures are multiples of minimal figures
as well as multiples of numbers. Since the world is composed of an infinite number
44
On light, Grosseteste 2013, 241–242.
45
Lewis 2005, 160.
46
Grosseteste, Commentarius in VIII libros physicorum, III, in Grosseteste 1963, 54.
47
Grosseteste 1963, 54.
48
Grosseteste 1963, 54.
49
Grosseteste 1963, 55 (see also 93).
of points, it is not a problem to affirm, like Aristotle, that the continuum is infinitely
divisible.
Many commentators pointed out the originality of Grosseteste’s conception of
the infinite, especially his views on the comparison of different infinities. But if we
look closer, sometimes he uses the term infinitus with the meaning of ‘infinite’ in
the mathematical sense, sometimes with the meaning of ‘indefinite,’ i.e. uncount-
able. For instance, in his commentary on the Physics he affirms that we say that the
number of points is ‘infinite’ only because we are unable to count these uncog-
nizable points.50 In other words, what is infinite for us always corresponds to a defi-
nite number for God, who can count everything he has created (sicut enim vere in se
finita nobis sunt infinita, sic que vere in se infinita sunt, illi sunt finita). Therefore,
we should not overestimate Grosseteste’s theory of the infinite, and John Wyclif was
perfectly conscious that it was sometimes a mere figure of speech. For this reason
he abandoned the idea of an ‘infinite multiplication’ of points and renounced to the
comparison of infinites. Even if we cannot know the exact number of points in a
line, such a number exists, at least in God’s mind, and it is necessarily finite for
Wyclif.
It is clear from the texts quoted above that John Wyclif borrowed from Robert
Grosseteste the main lines of his interpretation of the Neopythagorean and Boethian
derivation of magnitudes from indivisibles. For instance, when he asks us to ‘imag-
ine’ how God could create the world out of atoms, his description is very similar to
Grosseteste’s theory in his treatise On light, except for his finitism. Now the ques-
tion is: what does he exactly mean when he says that we must imagine this (imagi-
nandum est…)? In comparison with earlier authors in the long tradition briefly
sketched above, John Wyclif’s account of the epistemological foundation of his
Neopythagorean conception of matter and space provides quite a lot of details con-
cerning the role of the senses, imagination and intellect.
6.4 T
he Epistemological Foundation of Mathematical
Atomism and the Role of Imagination
In his Logica John Wyclif has frequent recourse to imaginary situations either as an
illustration of a philosophical point, or as a counterfactual argument or thought
experiment confirming a previous assumption. For instance, when he defends his
theory of place, he suggests that the reader imagine a giant whose head is at the
Antarctic Pole, his feet at the Arctic Pole, with one of his arms directed to the West,
the other to the East, and says that from the position of this giant we would be able
to locate other bodies and the imaginable sphere he embraces.51 Elsewhere, he asks
us to imagine what would happen if the world were turned the other way round.52
50
Grosseteste 1963, 91–93.
51
LC, III, ch. 9, 6.
52
LC, III, ch. 9, 19.
124 A. Robert
But when Wyclif says that we have to imagine that God created the world from
points, in the same way as we can imagine that He can juxtapose points in every
possible place in the world with to His absolute power, this is neither a mere illustra-
tion, nor a simple thought experiment, because this form of imagination is already
grounded in a complex theoretical argument. It is surprising, at first sight, that
Wyclif uses the term ‘imaginatio’ in this context, insofar as he is convinced of the
weakness of simple sensible imagination. What sort of imagination is he referring
to here?
The problem is that points and their punctual situations cannot be cognized by
the senses, and that imagination depends on sensible contents. As soon as we
endeavour to imagine or represent these non-quantified entities we are forced to
represent them with some quantity, in the same way as geometric figures drawn in
the sand are supposed to represent solids, surfaces, lines and points. According to
Wyclif, this is the reason why geometry and natural philosophy cannot deal with the
atomic constitution of continua.
Natural philosophy, in which the cause is demonstrated by the effect with a factual demon-
stration (demonstratio quia est) based on experience or the senses, does not have to deal
with punctual parts. A point is neither sensible nor imaginable. Therefore, its treatment
neither comes down to the geometer in particular, who is only directly concerned with
imaginable entities, nor to the natural philosopher, but must be reserved to the metaphysi-
cian and the arithmetician.53
In the same vein as Nicomachus and Boethius, the evangelical doctor praises meta-
physics and arithmetic because they are purely intellectual approaches to reality. An
Aristotelian philosopher would object that mathematical beings are mere abstrac-
tions, which must be based in some way on sensible cognition. But Wyclif contends
that the role of the intellect in the science of arithmetic and metaphysics is precisely
to transcend sensible and imaginable beings. And this intellectual work does not
always correspond to the Aristotelian conception of abstraction, since the intellect
is able to understand something that totally contradicts the information delivered by
the senses or shaped by the imagination. As he puts it:
Imagination is not sufficient to understand these things […]. One has to ascend higher up to
the gaze of the intellect in order to conceive correctly the composition of the continuum
from entities without quantity. It is important to do so, because the imagination acts upon
the intellect in the apprehension of imaginable objects; and since [imagination] does not
discover such a composition of parts in the contours of its object, it is not surprising that it
does not assent to it. But the intellect says to itself that another composition of indivisible
parts must be accepted, on which [imagination] cannot say anything.54
53
LC, III, ch. 9, 36, corrected with MS A, f. 72rb: “non interest tractare de partibus punctalibus in
philosophia naturali in qua demonstratur causa per effectus demonstratione quia est., cuius princi-
pium est experientia vel sensus. Punctus autem non est sensibilis vel ymaginabilis, ideo tractatus
eius non specialiter pertinet geometre qui solum de ymaginabilibus pertractat directe, sicut nec
naturali philosopho. Sed illud conservandum est metaphysico et arithmetico.”
54
LC, III, ch. 9, 45, corrected with MS A, f. 73va-b: “Ymaginatio autem non sufficit ista capere
[…]. Ideo oportet superius ascendere ad aciem intellectus in recte concipiendo compositionem
continui ex non quantis. Quod grave est facere ex hoc quod ymaginatio coagit intellectum in appre-
By analogy, Wyclif continues, in the same way as the intellect of someone who
knows the principles of optics is able to correct sensible errors and illusions, it is
possible for the intellect to correct our sensible image of the continuum and geomet-
ric figures.55 The intellect is certainly naturally inclined to conceptualize what is
given to sensory cognition and the imagination, but it is precisely the metaphysi-
cian’s task to disconnect his reasoning from these sensible images. This is the force
of mathematics, and of arithmetic in particular.
According to Norman Kretzmann, Wyclif would endeavour to show that continu-
ity is a mere illusion delivered through the senses – as happens today when we
watch a movie, for instance – whereas real things are discrete and composed of
indivisible units.56 It is, indeed, true that when Wyclif deals with the variation of
speed in motion, he affirms that there is only one speed corresponding to continuous
motion (when the ratio is equal to one atom of space for one instant of time), which
is the maximal speed achievable by a mobile, whereas the other speeds have imper-
ceptible times of rest and are, therefore, discontinuous in some way. But this only
means that motion can be discontinuous, when a mobile stays in one place for some
imperceptible duration of time, not that matter, space, and time are discontinuous.
Even in a discontinuous motion there is no gap or jump, only times of rest. Indeed,
as we have seen, Wyclif believes in the existence of continuity in the material world,
which makes his position quite difficult to understand from our modern point of
view. Matter, space and time are continuous and composed of indivisibles, exactly
like a line is continuous and ontologically composed of points. The central idea here
is that it is always possible to attribute numbers, i.e. a discrete quantity, to continu-
ous realities, and that there exist absolute units of measurement, conceptually and
mathematically indivisible, which are beyond the scope of humanly sensible cogni-
tion, but can be conceptualized with mathematics. What Wyclif suggests is that we
enlarge our natural and sensible imagination with the principles of arithmetic.
This intellectual exercise has its limits, as we have seen, and Wyclif agrees with
Robert Grosseteste that we cannot know exactly the number of points in a line.57
Only God knows the precise number of atoms present in the world and each of its
parts. This is not a problem for Wyclif’s theory, since it is sufficient for the mathe-
matician to recognize that the relations between continuous quantities correspond to
relations between numbers. For instance, if one cuts a line in two equal parts, there
will be the same number of points in both parts, whatever the precise number of
these points. What about the incommensurability between one side of a square and
its diagonal? Here again, Wyclif says that we have to go beyond the senses and the
imagination on which geometry is based.
hensione cuiuscumque ymaginabilis. Et cum in toto ambitu sui obiecti non reperit compositionem
huiusmodi partium, non est mirabile si dissentit. Sed intellectus dicit sibi quod est dare partium
indivisibilium compositionem aliam quam non est suum discutere.”
55
LC, III, ch. 9, 40 and 58.
56
Kretzmann 1986, 43–44.
57
LC, III, ch. 9, 35–37.
126 A. Robert
All [the conclusions of geometry], as I said, are conceived for lines, angles and figures that
lie in the imagination, but we are talking about [figures] that can be cognized by the intellect
only, as Augustine teaches in his On the quantity of the soul. If someone said that all the
conclusions of geometry are proved in the same way for pure intelligible and imaginable
beings, it is a casual discourse pronounced without the force of a proof. No one would
believe it without further proof. And if someone says that Campanus [of Novara] and other
commentators on Euclid affirmed this, [I say that] many others, like Pythagoras, Democritus,
Plato, and more recently Robert Grosseteste, with others who followed the path of the truth,
constantly affirmed the contrary. Therefore, as far as doctrine is concerned, these topical
arguments lacking additional demonstrations are the sign of a garrulous defect of argu-
ments. Consequently, I say that there is no demonstrable conclusion for continua that is not
demonstrable for numbers, but the reverse is probably not true, because of the scope of the
former object. It is obvious that the conclusions of arithmetic do not demonstrate precisely,
but only without sensible error, as I said about the division of any given line or angle in two
equal parts. […] The geometer is not certain about the quantity and proportion of the intel-
ligible diameter [with the side of a square], since, according to Robert Grosseteste, the
number of punctual beings that compose this is unknown to him. He has probable conjec-
tures or true ones or near the truth about the sensible diameter, which cannot be corrected
by the senses. The certitude of science is located in the numbers cognized by the blessed,
whereas the erroneous and confused idleness is located in the sensible.58
Geometry, as he says elsewhere, only has a conditional necessity (ex suppositione),

whereas arithmetic is absolutely necessary.59 For Wyclif, if we follow the axioms of
geometry and the proofs deduced from sensible beings and drawings, we must con-
clude that the continuum is infinitely divisible, because every sensible being has a
quantity and is divisible. In the same way, we must conclude that the ratio between
the diagonal and the side of a square is, in fact, incommensurable, because it is not
possible to express this ratio with natural whole numbers. But we can still imagine
that God created the world with atoms, and this is coherent with the principles of
arithmetic according to Grosseteste and Wyclif. What is more, with this theory
Wyclif believes he can respond to the classical arguments based on incommensura-
bility. Indeed, what seems incommensurable for us is, in fact, commensurable from
58
LC, III, ch. 9, 109, corrected with MS A, f. 86ra-rb: “Omnes, ut dictum est., intelliguntur de lineis
angulis et figuris ymaginacioni subiectis, nos autem loquimur de illis que a solo intellectu cognosci
possunt, ut docet Augustinus in De quantitate animae. Quod si aliquis dicat quod eque verificantur
omnes conclusiones geometrice de puris intelligibilibus, sicut de ymaginabilibus, leve verbum est
et sine probacionis efficacia eructatum. Ideo non credetur nisi efficaciter comprobetur. Quod si
dicatur Campanum et multos alios expositores Euclidis illud asserere, revera multi expositores, ut
Pitagoras, Democritus, Plato et inter moderniores Lincolniensis cum aliis sequentibus tramitem
veritatis constanter asserunt oppositum. Ideo tales topice raciones in materia doctrinali deficientes
demonstraciones adducte indicant defectum garulum argumentorum. Et sic dico quod nulla est
conclusio demonstrabilis in continuis quin sit demonstrabilis in numeris, sed forte<non> econtra
propter amplitudinem obiecti prioris. Et patet quod conclusiones arismetice non demonstrant cum
precisione, sed cum exclusione erroris sensibilis, ut dictum est de divisione cuiuscumque date linee
vel dati anguli in duo [A: f. 86rb] equalia. […] incertum est cuilibet geometro de quantitate et
proporcione intelligibilis dyametri, sicut, secundum Licolniensem, incognitus est sibi numerus
punctalium componencium. Et de dyametro sensibili habet coniecturam probabilem vel veram vel
veritati propinquam a sensu incorrigibilem. In numeris autem cognitis a beatis consistit certitudo
sciencie et in sensibilem langor erroneus et confusus.”
59
LC, III, ch. 9, 57.
the point of view of God’s knowledge of the real number of points in lines and fig-
ures. If the Boethian model of derivation of magnitudes from points is valid, there
are minimal figures for which the theorems of geometry do not work (like for the
minimal square of four points in which the diagonal is equal to the side of the
square). If all magnitudes are multiples of these minimal figures, and they are lim-
ited by the maximal size of our material world, then every ratio between magnitudes
will be expressible with numbers, and every magnitude will be only finitely divisi-
ble.60 It is only because we do not cognize the real number of parts that we call these
numbers “infinite.”
6.5 Concluding Remarks: Wyclif and Proclus
The first aim of this paper was to show that Wyclif’s theory of three-dimensional
space as composed of surfaces, lines and points consists of a Neopythagorean inter-
pretation of Plato’s theory of place in the Timaeus. The main source of this mathe-
matical atomism is Boethius’ De arithmetica, from which he takes the idea of the
derivation of all magnitudes from indivisibles. He applies this model to the totality
of the world and replaces Aristotle’s conception of place with a new one based on
two concepts: spatial occupation, and situation. The place of a body is not the sur-
face of the surrounding body but corresponds to the situation of all of its points, i.e.
to the portion of space it occupies, which can be located relatively to fixed points.
But more important for Wyclif is Robert Grosseteste’s interpretation of this model:
Grosseteste includes this in a Neoplatonic metaphysics of light, which explains the
creation of the world in terms of a multiplication of a single point of light in all
directions in space.
The second aim of this paper was to show that Wyclif adds some novelty to this
model. Indeed, he is conscious of the fact that Robert Grosseteste’s metaphysics of
light is an intellectual construction, and that its force rests on its capacity to provoke
the imagination: we can imagine the original diffusion of light from a single point
in all directions. Whereas Boethius, like Plato and his followers, simply praises the
intellect and depreciates the sensible, Wyclif tries to assign a role to imagination,
which stands in between the two. The result is a clear articulation between the sci-
ences and the cognitive faculties, similar in some respect to Proclus’ vision of math-
ematics, which was not disseminated in Latin in Wyclif’s time.
According to Proclus, theology is a higher kind of knowledge, which uses the
nous or simple intellectual grasp in order to know forms and divinity. At a lower
level, mathematics only uses judgments (dianoia), and physical sciences deal with
sensible objects and are limited by sensation. Like Nicomachus of Gerasa, Proclus
places arithmetic at the primary stage of mathematical sciences, before geometry,
60
LC, III, ch. 9, 55–58.
128 A. Robert
music and astronomy. This is so, he says, because a unit is simpler than a point,
which is a unit with a position in space. Numbers are prior to the ratios between
continuous magnitudes, and they correspond to the order imposed to the world by
the Demiurge.61 In material reality, a point is therefore the instantiation of a numeri-
cal unit. What is interesting for us is that in his commentary on the first book of
Euclid’s Elements Proclus famously adds that geometrical reasoning belongs to the
domain of intellectual judgement (dianoia), but is assisted by imagination (phanta-
sia). Ian Mueller sums up this theory as follows: imagination “serves as a kind of
movie screen on which dianoia projects images for mathematical reflection.”62
Imagination gives to mathematical objects something equivalent to what Aristotle
used to call “intelligible matter,” which is a kind of imaginary space in which figures
can be represented, multiplied or divided. For Proclus, the Pythagoreans defined the
point as a unit with a position in space, in order to distinguish the unit as a pure
object of thought and the point as an object of thought and of imagination. The point
acquires a kind of spatial individuation when it is projected in imagination. What
does it mean to have a representation of a point in the imagination? Proclus says that
imagination naturally moves from the whole to its parts, but when it is informed by
the intellect, imagination can go the other way round, from the indivisible to the
divisible, from points to extended magnitudes, so that “the point is projected in
imagination and comes to be, as it were, in a place and embodied in intelligible
matter.”63 With this intellectualized imagination, we can therefore imagine lines as
“the flowing of a point.” As Proclus puts it: “This line owes its being to the point,
which, though without parts, is the cause of the existence of all divisible things; and
the flowing indicates the forthgoing of the point and its generative power that
extends to every dimension without diminution and, remaining itself the same, pro-
vides existence to all divisible things.”64 Without any direct knowledge of Proclus’s
commentary, Wyclif attributes to the imagination the same kind of role: when imag-
ination is informed by the intellect and the principles of arithmetic, it can imagine
the flowing or the multiplication of a point in space.
Wyclif, however, would not agree with Proclus on several issues. For instance, in
his commentary on proposition 10 of book 1 of Euclid’s Elements, Proclus assumes
the infinite divisibility of a finite straight line.65 Therefore, like Robert Grosseteste,
he tries to reconcile Aristotle’s theory of the continuum in book VI of the Physics
with his own metaphysics inspired by Plato and the Neopythagoreans. That the
number of points is infinite in a finite continuum is, apparently, not a problem for
Proclus, whereas the evangelical doctor believes that this number is only indefinite,
but actually finite for God.
Wyclif would also disagree with Proclus about the epistemological status of
arithmetic, since the latter affirms that
61
Proclus 1970, 30.
62
Proclus 1970, XX.
63
Proclus 1970, 78.
64
Proclus 1970, 79–80.
65
Proclus 1970, 216–217.
arithmetic is more precise than geometry, for its principles are simpler. A unit has no posi-
tion, but a point has; and geometry includes among its principles the point with position,
while arithmetic posits the unit. […] Nevertheless they have certain community with one
another, so that some theorems demonstrated are common to the two sciences, while others
are peculiar to the one or the other. The statement that every ratio is expressible belongs to
arithmetic only and not at all to geometry, for geometry contains inexpressible ratios.66
On the contrary, John Wyclif states that arithmetic is no “more precise” than geom-
etry, because we are incapable of attributing precise numbers to geometric figures.
Its force rather resides in the fact that it does not depend on the senses. He also
disagrees with Proclus on inexpressible ratios, since he believes that every ratio
would be expressible if we knew the precise number of indivisibles in every
magnitude.
Since Alexandre Koyré’s works on the importance of Platonism for the rise of
modern science at the time of Galileo were published it has been a commonplace to
affirm that the translation of Proclus played a significant role – which is certainly
the case – and that the mathematization of space began slowly in the Renaissance
with Nicolas of Cusa, or later with Giordano Bruno. But the most important element
in modern science may not only be the influence of Platonism or Pythagoreanism –
we have seen that they were already influential in the Middle Ages – or the mathe-
matization of space, but the conception of space as absolute and infinite.
Nevertheless, even though they were still attached to the Aristotelian finite cosmos,
John Wyclif and many other medieval atomists certainly played a crucial role in this
long story of the transformations of the concept of space.
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———. 1893–1899. Tractatus de logica. 3 vols., ed. Michael H. Dziewicki. London: Trübner for
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———. 2012. Trialogus. Trans Stephen Lahey. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
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Chapter 7
Francisco Suárez and Francesco Patrizi:
Metaphysical Investigations on Place
and Space
Olivier Ribordy
Abstract At the threshold of the modern period the intense discussions generated
by Aristotelian arguments on place and space gave birth to new scholastic synthe-
ses, such as that of Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), but also some innovative theo-
ries, as can be found in the works of the humanist Francesco Patrizi (1529–1597).
Suárez shares Patrizi’s critical stance on the Aristotelian definition of place as the
surface of the surrounding body, but both thinkers derive widely divergent conclu-
sions from this common starting-point. Patrizi favors a Neoplatonist cosmology that
allows for the existence of void between bodies within the outermost sphere, as well
as beyond it; Patrizi considers void as the essence of space. He defines three-
dimensional space as true place (locus verus), which can receive bodies. According
to Patrizi’s theory, immobile space is, as it were, the condition of the reception of
bodies. While Patrizi supports a conception of space as existing prior to bodies,
Suárez opts for a place that inheres in bodies, the ubi intrinsecum, and distinguishes
it from the locus extrinsecus. Rejecting any definition of ubi focused on exterior-
ity – be it as an enveloping surface, a physical limit, an external form or even bodily
space to be filled – Suárez argues in favor of place’s interiority and brings localiza-
tion back within the realm of being.
7.1 Introduction
On the eve of the modern period, Aristotelian theories of place and space provoked
intense reflection that favored the development of new scholastic syntheses, such as
those of the Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), as well as of innovative lines of
argumentation, such as those of the humanist Francesco Patrizi (1529–1597). Given
I would like to thank Bill Duba for the English translation of the text and his precious additions,
and the editors for their useful remarks.
O. Ribordy (*)
University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
e-mail: olivier.ribordy@unifr.ch

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_7
134 O. Ribordy
the scientific and astronomical observations that had occurred in this period, was it
still imaginable to maintain the Aristotelian description of place, or was it necessary
to find another definition and develop different cosmological models? Should the
localization of beings be understood as an essential and intrinsic characteristic of
every being, or rather as an accident? What distinctions must one make between
mind and body with respect to space? And how does an immaterial mind relate to a
place?
This paper first sketches Francisco Suárez’s theses on localization that he pres-
ents in his Metaphysical Disputations, finished at Salamanca ca. 1597, and which
finds an echo in the treatise De angelis, published posthumously in 1620. Then it
puts Suárez’s arguments on place in perspective by considering the very different,
but almost precisely contemporary, doctrine presented by Francesco Patrizi in his
De spacio physico et mathematico (Patrizi 1587). The humanist Patrizi incorporated
his doctrine in his subsequent Nova de universis philosophia (Ferrara 1591, Venice
1593), which he defended before the Inquisition.1 The comparison of these two
authors opens new interpretive perspectives on early modern theories of space:
Suárez’s ontological model, the product of a detailed analysis of Aristotelian meta-
physics, focuses on the characteristics of being (ens inquantum ens) and holds that
being is intrinsically in space. Patrizi’s model, however, criticizes Aristotle and pre-
fers a doctrine inspired by Plato, according to which there is a primary space that
precedes everything. A contrast of these two models, the first representing a scho-
lastic reading, the second associated with the Humanist movement, not only illus-
trates the richness of ‘pre-modern’ discussions of Aristotelian place, but also shows
the degree to which the Aristotelian category of place (ubi) can be clarified: in
Suárez’s case, in the wake of the intense scholastic debates among the Coimbra
Jesuits, through the distinction between locus extrinsecus and ubi intrinsecum. By
contrast, Patrizi, inspired by a Neoplatonic system of thought, proposes going
beyond the Aristotelian categories to add space (spatium), which precedes sub-
stance in existence and which genuinely receives all bodies, including the world.
7.2 Localization and Space According to Francisco Suárez
Recent research has focused on the coherence of Suárez’s theses on space, particu-
larly as expressed in the Metaphysical Disputations [=DM], as, for example, in
Castellote Cubells’ study on the connections between divine immensity (DM XXX),
imaginary space and possible worlds.2 In this respect, how the ubi intrinsecum,
which Suárez considers in Disputation LI, relates to other works, such as the De
angelis, needs to be investigated. In describing the capacity of separate substances
to bring changes about, Suárez addresses three aspects: the intellect, the will, and
1
See Puliafito Bleuel 1993, VII and 45–58. See Deitz 1999, 140, with a summary of the author’s
six principal theses. For a precise overview, see De Risi 2016 and infra n42 sqq.
2
Castellote Cubells 2015.
7 Francisco Suárez and Francesco Patrizi: Metaphysical Investigations on Place… 135
above all the transitive power, in other words, local motion. In the fourth book of his
massive De angelis, Suárez investigates a separate substance’s capacity of bringing
about local motion; through this capacity a separate substance, like an angel, can
move itself, but it can also act on other entities. With respect to the question of a
separate substance’s movement, Suárez first focuses on the motive power according
to which an angel can move itself.3 He then addresses an angel’s capacity to act on
other angels, on the separated soul, on man, and on the soul joined to the body.
Finally, he considers an angel’s capacity for moving other corporeal realities. Note
that there are two lines of investigation: one with respect to the angel itself and one
with respect to external realities. Decisive in this context are a precise definition of
the notion of place for a material substance and an explanation for how an angel can
be present somewhere. In the question on the localization of an immaterial being,
Suárez underscores a central distinction between extrinsic place (locus extrinsecus)
and intrinsic ubi.
That we should show this truth by reason, and lest the ambiguity of expression give rise to
error, it should be noted that two things are to be distinguished in a thing that is in place,
namely, extrinsic place, in which it is said to be, and intrinsic ubi, by reason of which it is
said to be here or there.4
In his discussion in his treatise on angels, Suárez takes care to maintain the theses
that he had established in detail in his Metaphysical Disputation LI on the ubi of
material bodies and of immaterial beings.
I dealt with this question at length in my Metaphysics, disputation 51, section 3 and 4 [...].
Nevertheless, I will take care to dispatch these matters briefly and without repeating myself,
to the degree that I am able. But that the sense and the point of the question be understood,
I observe that in a body existing in place two aspects can be considered: one is the extreme
surface of the surrounding body, inside which the body is contained; the second is the pres-
ence or way of existing that a body has in the space stretched between the sides of the
containing body, which fills space. But in angels that are in place, the extreme surface of the
containing body is not considered, because an angel is not contained nor is circumscribed
in place. Whence, with respect to an angel can be considered, as its extrinsic place, that
body in which it intimately and quasi-penetratively exists, according to what was said in the
previous chapter.5
Suárez first discusses corporeal ubi before identifying the characteristics of spiritual
ubi. In fact, while the body, having dimensions, is surrounded by place, the spirit is
not surrounded by place. Just as the corporeal ubi is material and implies that every
3
Suárez 1856, vol. 2, 421: “Et ideo in hoc libro prius dicemus de potestate, quam Angelus habet ad
movendum seipsum motu locali. Supponimus enim extra cognitionem, et affectum, Angelum non
esse capacem alterius mutationis praeter localem, quia neque augeri potest, aut minui, nec ad
qualitates alias, praeter eas, quae intellectui, aut voluntati deserviunt, et in eis recipiuntur, trans-
mutari potest.”
4
Ibid., vol. 2, 422 (cap. 1, §3): “Ut ratione veritatem hanc declaremus, et ne verborum ambiguitas
sit errandi occasio, advertendum est, in re existente in loco duo esse distinguenda, scilicet, locum
extrinsecum, in quo esse dicitur, et intrinsecum ubi, ratione cujus res hic, vel ibi esse dicitur” (our
italics).
5
Suárez 1856, vol. 2, 427–428 (De angelis, lib. IV, cap. 2, §1).
136 O. Ribordy
body excludes every other body from the place that it occupies, the ubi of an angel
is spiritual and permits an angel to occupy the same space as a body. In spite of these
differences, all beings, corporeal and spiritual, have an ubi intrinsecum according to
Suárez. Let us observe in greater detail which theses about the ubi of bodies Suárez
criticizes, and which arguments he calls to support his position, before considering
his statements on the ubi of separate substances. In order to do so, we must follow
Suárez’s own advice and consult DM LI.
pinions that Suárez Discusses Concerning the ubi

7.2.1 O
of Bodies
From his sources Suárez presents three solidly documented positions on the ubi of
bodies. He rejects them all and proposes a fourth position, his own, which is not
supported by any explicit source, but rather by an array of arguments.
Suárez’s discussion of the ubi of bodies moves from the external to the internal,
and he organizes his presentation of positions accordingly. In effect, Suárez begins
by considering the exterior envelope of bodies and then gradually focuses on the
intrinsic ubi. Suárez holds that ubi is a real and intrinsic mode of the body, and his
exposition of the four positions can be presented schematically.6
1. According to the first position, ubi is described as an extrinsic form; thus a thing
is said to be something in virtue of a determination.7 This position comes from
Aristotle’s famous description of place in Physics IV (4, 212a20) as the surface
of the containing body (locus est superficies ultima corporis continentis
immobilis).8
2. According to the second position, ubi is not an extrinsic form or the containing
surface, but rather is what in some way remains in a localized body considered
independently of place.9 Suárez clarifies that, in this case, the extrinsic form
certainly does not constitute the ubi, but, in leaving its traces on the ubi, the
extrinsic form remains the foundation for it. This position, which suggests that
the external container leaves a residue in what it contains, was notably defended
6
This description is a synthesis of a more detailed survey: Ribordy 2017.
7
For the suarezian formulation of these four theses, see Suárez 2013 (DM LI, sect. I, §§2–13):
“Prima est ubi esse formam quamdam extrinsecam et extrinsece denominantem rem quae alicubi
esse dicitur, nimirum superficiem ultima corporis continentis. Quae fundari potest primo, quia esse
alicubi nihil aliud est quam esse in aliquo loco; ergo forma huius praedicamenti qua res ubicatur
(liceat sic loqui ad rem declarandam), non est nisi locus quo circumscribitur vel continetur.”
8
Aristotle 1983, 28: “So that is what place is: the first unchangeable limit of that which surrounds.”
volume.
9
Suárez 2013 (DM LI, sect. I, §§2–13): “Secunda sententia est ubi non esse ipsam formam extrin-
secam seu superficiem ultimam continentem, sed esse quippiam intrinsecum passive relictum
in locato ex circumscriptione loci.”
in the Book of the Six Principles attributed to Gilbert of Poitiers and according to
which locus is in the containing body and ubi is in the contained body.10 During
the discussion of this second position, Suárez raises the issue of the relation
between the contained body and the containing place; specifically, he rejects the
theory that John Duns Scotus defended in Quodlibet, q. 11, that place is under-
stood as a relationship with the container, that is, as an extrinsic accident.11
3. According to the third position, ubi is not in any way the containing surface or
something that comes from it, but rather ubi is the space filled by the body that
is said to be somewhere. The position seems to suggest a three-dimensional ubi.
One will note here that, alongside other sources, like Simplicius (Physics IV, ad.
c. 5),12 one finds John Philoponus, whose Physics commentary was just then
available in Latin.13
4. Having rejected the three preceding positions, Suárez arrives at the fourth posi-
tion, which he supports:
Therefore the fourth position is the one that asserts that what is formally the category of ubi
is a certain mode that is real and intrinsic to that thing that is said to be somewhere, from
which mode such a thing has that it is here or there. This mode does not essentially depend
on the surrounding body, nor on anything else that is extrinsic, but depends only materially
on the body that is somewhere, while it effectively depends on the cause that constitutes or
conserves that body there.14
Suárez pulls the following lessons from this discussion of the opinions on the place
of bodies15: First, in every body there is an intrinsic mode that is distinct from its
10
See Gilbert of Poitiers 1953 (§5 De ubi, 20–24), at 20: “Ubi vero est circumscriptio corporis a
loci circumscriptione procedens, locus autem in eo quod capit et circumscribit. Est igitur in loco
quicquid a loco circumscribitur. Non est autem in eodem locus et ubi, sed locus quidem in eo quod
capit, ubi vero in eo quod circumscribitur et complectitur.” The work attributed to Gilbert of
Poitiers would serve as a source for Albert the Great, who also produced a Liber sex principiorum,
a text that Suárez mentions in DM LII (Suárez 1965), sect. II, §4. Moreover, Suárez himself pro-
duced an analysis of De sex ultimis praedicamentis, which he also had the opportunity to teach in
Segovia. I would like to thank Daniel Heider for this information. Although Suárez refers to this
analysis in his De anima, he does not make any mention of it in DM LI, which is our concern here.
11
Duns Scotus 1895, 457–460.
12
Simplicius 1992a, 86–101. See also Simplicius 1992b.
13
Patrizi himself translated the Commentary on the Metaphysics ascribed to Philoponus, while he
likely knew Philoponus’ Physics commentary, as it was translated in Latin twice in the sixteenth
century, by Guglielmo Doroteo (first printed in Venice, 1539) and by Giovanni Battista Rasario
(first printed in Venice, 1558). See Henry 1979, 556–557, who further specifies that Philoponus
held space to be “incorporeal space,” described in his Physics commentary as “pure dimensionality
void of all corporeality” (Philoponus 1888, 567). See also Lohr 2000, 33–34 and De Risi 2016, 77,
as well as Section 2.3 of Algra’s Chapter 2 in this volume.
14
Suárez 2013 (DM LI, sect. I, §13): “Est ergo quarta sententia quae affirmat id quod est formale
in praedicamento ubi esse quemdam modum realem et intrinsecum illi rei quae alicubi esse dicitur,
a quo habet talis res quod sit hic vel illic. Qui modus per se non pendet a corpore circumscribente
neque ab aliquo alio extrinseco, sed solum materialiter a corpore quod alicubi est, effective autem
ab ea causa quae tale corpus ibi constituit vel conservat” (our italics).
15
See Suárez 2013 (DM LI, sect. I, §§14–22): “Dico ergo primo esse in quolibet corpore proprium
quemdam modum intrinsecum, ex natura rei distinctum a substantia, quantitate et aliis accidenti-
bus corporis, a quo modo essendi formaliter habet unumquodque corpus esse praesens localiter
138 O. Ribordy
substance.16 Second, every body is locally present here or there by this intrinsic
mode. Consequently, the presence of a body to place cannot be formally explained
by any cause external to the body.
Certainly, Suárez does not deny that a body is normally surrounded by another
body; rather, he rejects that local determination is caused by something external to
the determined body. To show this, he brings up the case of the outermost celestial
sphere, which, since it is not surrounded by any other body, constitutes an excep-
tion. He concludes that this outermost celestial sphere certainly has a real presence
there where it is and that it has this presence without any surface surrounding it.
Having considered the totality of bodies including the highest, that is, the celes-
tial sphere, Suárez establishes that all bodies have an intrinsic ubi. It now remains to
decide the question for separate substances, and therefore to return to it in the De
angelis.
7.2.2 S
uárez’s Characterization of the Place of Angels (ubi
angelicum)
In the treatise De angelis Suárez writes that one can certainly say that an angel is in
a place (esse in loco), but only if one understands that the angel is really present
there and that it has no distance with respect to its place, even a corporeal place.
Echoing John Damascene’s treatment of the question (De fide orthodoxa, I, 17
and II, 3),17 Suárez furthermore deplores the frequent use of imprecise language.
For example, when one says that the angels are in the Empyrean Heaven, the expres-
sion used is ‘are in,’ which signifies a presence, but the meaning given to it by some
authors is ‘have a formal disposition (habitudo) with respect to.’18 Building on such
terminological qualifications, Suárez can now maintain that an angel is not, prop-
erly speaking, in an extrinsic place, but rather that one must hypothesize, beyond
place and every action in it, an accidental mode that is intrinsic to the angel, that is,
the ubi angelicum.19 The ubi angelicum however is not similar to a substance, but
adds to it “a certain intrinsic, accidental mode.”
alicubi seu ibi ubi esse dicitur. Dico secundo: hic modus praesentiae non solum non provenit for-
maliter ab extrinseco corpore vel superficie ambiente, verum etiam nullo modo ex circumscrip-
tione illius resultat nec per se illam requirit, quamvis ob naturalem ordinem corporum universi
nunquam sit sine illa, praeterquam in ultima sphaera caelesti.”
16
According to Suárez 1861 (DM XXXIV, sect. 4, §23), an intrinsic mode is a formal and ultimate
determination of existence, adding a modification to being, for example, providing localization.
Thus, by an intrinsic mode can a being be individuated and recognized as such. See Coujou 2001,
47–48. On the modus, see Suárez 1976 (DM VII). For a comparison between Suárez (DM VII) and
Descartes (PP I, 60–62), see Glauser 2000, 417–445, at 419, 439; Ariew 2012, 38–53.
17
Damascene 1955, 2010, 229–231.
18
On the Empyrean Heaven, see Mehl 2017b.
19
Suárez 1856, vol. 2, 429 (De angelis, lib. IV, §2): “[Prima conclusio] Nihilominus dico primo,
Angelum non esse in extrinseco loco, quin praeter illum, et omnem actionem in illum, supponatur
in ipso Angelo aliquis intrinsecus modus accidentalis, et ex natura rei a substantia distinctus.”
Thanks to this notion of an ubi intrinsecum, Suárez can explain a large number
of problems relating to the localization of angels. By their intrinsic spiritual ubi,
angels can indeed be in a space at the same time that a body is already there, because
separate substances do not require extension.20 Moreover, the ubi intrinsecum allows
an angel to be present not only to a real place, but also to have a presence to an
imaginary space. An angel can be somewhere, even if no surrounding body exists.21
Angels, owing to their intrinsic ubi, seem to be able to keep their localization in just
about any situation. To show this, let us consider some of the paradigmatic cases
that are particularly telling for scholastic thinkers.
7.2.3 H
ypothetical Cases and Thought Experiments
that Appeal to the Imagination
Hypothetical cases or thought experiments test the value of the proposed model, in
this case, Suárez’s ubi intrinsecum. These hypothetical situations allow complex
questions to be investigated, chiefly the localization of an immaterial being (such as
a spirit), the bilocation of a being, or the interpenetration of many spirits.
1. In the first case, Suárez seeks to determine if two angels can be in the same place
at the same time. Owing to the intrinsic ubi proper to each angel, two angels can
simultaneously have the same place, since each one of them would be there
according to the spiritual ubi proper to it.
Secondly, it should be said, speaking of extrinsic place, that many angels can be at the same
time in the same suitable place, according to the condition and ability of each one. [...]
Because two angels do not naturally exclude each other from the same place by reason of
their substance or by reason of the mode by which they are in a body or even in space,
therefore there is no reason why being in the same place is incompatible with them, if they
so wanted.22
20
Suárez 1856, vol. 2, 423 (De angelis, lib. IV, §2), 2013 (DM LI, sect. IV, §36): “Ratio vero a
priori est, quia haec propinquitas, seu indistantia non requirit commensurationem, vel extensio-
nem, aut contactum quantitativum, sed solum simultatem (ut sic dicam) seu quasi penetrationem
duarum entitatum in eodem spatio, quod ad rem explicandam nos concipimus, et ideo imaginarium
vocatur: spiritus autem capax est hujus existentiae intimae, seu penetrationis cum corpore, imo
solus ille hanc naturalem capacitatem habet, quia quantitate caret; ergo.”
21
Suárez 2013 (DM LI, sect. IV, §37). On various aspects of imaginary space, in particular as an
example of an ens rationis, see infra n28 sqq.
22
Suárez 1856, vol. 2, 459 (De angelis, lib. IV, §9): “Secundo dicendum est, loquendo de extrin-
seco loco posse plures Angelos esse simul in eodem loco adaequato, juxta conditionem, et capaci-
tatem uniuscujusque. […] Quia duo Angeli non se excludunt naturaliter ab eodem loco, ratione
substantiae suae, nec ratione modi, quo sunt in corpore, vel etiam in spatio, ergo non est cur
repugnet naturaliter esse in eodem loco, si velint.”
140 O. Ribordy
2. Suárez likewise cites another hypothetical case used by medieval, and later by
modern thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes23 or Pierre Gassendi,24 that of the anni-
hilatio mundi. Suárez asks if an angel can keep its localization, even if all bodies
were annihilated and then re-created. Here too, thanks to its intrinsic ubi, an
angel can keep its localization, independent of the space that surrounds it, be it
real, corporeal, empty, even non-existent.25 According to Suárez an angel would
keep the same intrinsic mode of existing here, the same substantial presence,
before, during and after the destruction of the bodies. Indeed, an angel has in
itself an intrinsic mode of localization, even when the neighboring space remains
empty. Such an ubi therefore does not depend in itself on a corporeal space. An
angel would maintain a presence even in an imaginary space and could be local-
ized thanks to its intrinsic ubi. In fact, the subject of imaginary space was above
all explored in Metaphysical Disputation XXX,26 dedicated to divine immensity,
to the point that Suárez treats imaginary space rather summarily in his discussion
on the place of angels in DM LI. In this context, imaginary space corresponds to
a place that can be filled by a body or by a quantity.27
Nevertheless some details on imaginary space can be gleaned from DM LIV,
concerning entia rationis.
For example, in the category of substance, there is conceived a chimera or similar monsters
of reason, which are conceived in the manner of substance inasmuch as they are not fabri-
cated as attributes of other things but imagined as beings by themselves. In the category of
quantity, first there seems to be imaginary space, which we conceive as a kind of extension;
and also that quantity which we conceive, for instance, in a chimera is a being of reason (ens
rationis).28
In this remark, Suárez first of all makes use of the intellectual process of compari-
son, by which we can positively conceive of a being stripped of a given attribute; in
23
Leijenhorst 2002, 111–123; Suarez-Nani 2017, 93–107.
24
See Bellis’ Chapter 11 in this volume.
25
Suárez 2013 (DM LI, sect. IV, §10): “nam corpus annihilatum fuit sine mutatione reali angeli, et
consequenter reproductum fuit sine reali additione facta in angelo; ergo omnis modus realis qui
reperitur in angelo ante annihilationem illius corporis et post reproductionem eius, perseveravit in
angelo toto eo tempore quo corpus illud fuit annihilatum et spatium vacuum. Ergo ubi angelicum,
quantum est de se, aeque potest conservari, sive spatium sit reale et corporeum, sive inane, seu
nihil praeter ipsum angelum.”
26
Concerning Suárez DM XXX, see the study of Beltrán 1999. For a study of the connections
between divine immensity and possible worlds, see Castellote Cubells 2015, 219–235 – an analy-
sis accompanied by a critical survey of contemporary studies of imaginary space, possible worlds,
and the links between the Jesuits and Galileo. See also Leijenhorst 1996.
27
Suárez 2013 (DM LI, sect. IV, §29), (infra n31).
28
Suárez 2001 (DM LIV, sect. IV, §1): “Ut in substantia concipitur chymaera, aut similia monstra
rationis, quae per modum substantiae concipiuntur; non enim finguntur ut adjacentia aliis, sed ut
entia per se ficta. In quantitate videtur esse imprimis spatium imaginarium, quod per modum
cujusdam extensionis nos concipimus; quantitas etiam illa, quam in chymaera, verbi gratia, con-
cipimus, ens rationis est.” On DM LIV, see Coujou 2001 and for the quoted English translation
Suárez 1995, 90.
this case, conceiving of an imaginary space without extension amounts to conceiv-

ing it as like an extension. It is only through recourse to positive knowledge of
extension that it is possible for us to act as if imaginary space also had dimensions.
This example of imaginary space is thus just an illustration of the principle adopted
at the beginning of DM LIV, where a being of reason is “forged according to the
modality of being” and presents itself as an object to the mind.29 Over the course of
the disputation, Suárez adds still more details concerning imaginary space. First, he
underscores that “although it is true that this space so conceived is a being of reason,
nevertheless, it falls under negation or privation considered extensively. For this
space, when abstracted from its dimensions, is something negative.”30 Second,
Suárez observes that it is out of the question to fill imaginary space: for example, it
is an error to fill it with shadows. To liken imaginary space to shadows amounts to
not taking seriously the privation represented by an empty space, for it amounts to
filling the space. In other words, it amounts to giving a fictional being an imaginary
or invented privation; filling an imaginary space could be compared to creating a
blind chimaera, where one adds an invented privation – blindness – to the fictional
being that is a chimaera. Third and finally, Suárez explains that purely fictional
beings without basis in reality can encompass all the categories (quantity, quality,
relation, position, action, passion, etc.) and even be multiplied to infinity, while
beings of reason that have a basis in reality cannot embrace all the categories.
Imaginary space, as a negation, can embrace several categories, but particularly that
of quantity. Suárez had already investigated the links between substance and quan-
tity in Metaphysical Disputation XL. The question then became whether imaginary
space, as a being of reason, is exhausted by the category of quantity. Related ques-
tions, on the possibility of hypothetically having distances in imaginary space, and
which deserve further development, bring us to the third thought experiment.
3. The third hypothetical case is that of a supposed distance between two angels.
According to this hypothesis, one admits the existence of two angelic substances,
between which there will be a distance, without however a real quantity being
there.
Since therefore in that argument it is inferred that there can be a distance between essen-
tially (secundum se) spiritual beings, those particles in themselves can be taken in different
ways [...]. Whence another sense can be between angels in themselves, that is, between
angelic substances alone there can be distance, even if there were no quantity in reality; and
we believe this sense to be true, because for there to be distance, it suffices for there to be
the imaginary space, which we conceive as something suited to be filled with quantity. For
29
Suárez 2001 (DM LIV, sect. II, §16): “quamprimum concipitur per modum entis quod vere non
est ens, jam intelligitur fabricatum ens rationis” and DM LIV, §2: “Hoc igitur modo metaphysicae
proprium est agere de ente rationis ut sic, et de communi ratione, proprietatibus et divisionibus
ejus, quia hae rationes suo modo sunt quasi transcendentales, et intelligi non possunt nisi, per
comparationem ad veras et reales rationes entium, vel transcendentales, vel ita communes, ut sint
proprie metaphysicae; nam quod fictum est, vel apparens, per comparationem ad id quod vere est,
intelligi debet” (our italics).
30
Suárez 2001 (DM LIV, sect. IV, §7).
142 O. Ribordy
two angels can have two ubis, by reason of which they ground between them a relation of
distance, because they can so relate to each other that between them so large a body could
be placed without their changing, which is enough for distance, even if, in fact, such a body
were not placed.31
Unsurprisingly, according to this hypothesis, the ubis of the two angels constitute
the foundation of the relation of distance between them – it scarcely matters whether
a body is placed or not in the imaginary space that separates the two angels. The ubi
suffices to explain the presence of the first angel to the second. In all the hypotheti-
cal cases cited, the key to interpretation lies in the ubi intrinsecum32: a real mode,
intrinsic to all beings – corporeal and spiritual – and which guarantees their being
localized.
Criticizing the Aristotelian definition of place that emphasizes the external limit,
Suárez’s model ends up privileging the interiority of place and re-establishing local-
ization inside beings by means of the intrinsic ubi. In the Baroque period, the dis-
cussion of Aristotelian place saw other, very different doctrines come to the fore,
which doctrines clarify from a different perspective Suárez’s synthesis: this is the
case with Patrizi’s theses.
7.3 P
utting in Perspective: Aspects of Patrizi’s Investigations
of Place and Space
The works of Francesco Patrizi hold a particularly meaningful spot in philosophical

investigations into place and space conducted at the end of the sixteenth century. As
Hélène Védrine has shown, Patrizi severely criticized Aristotelian positions in his
Peripatetic Discussions (Discussionum peripateticorum libri IV, Basel, 1581), in
31
Suárez 2013 (DM LI, sect. IV, §29): “Cum igitur in illo argumento infertur posse esse distantiam
inter res spirituales secundum se, variis modis accipi potest illa particula secundum se […]. Unde
alius sensus esse potest inter angelos secundum se, id est, inter solas substantias angelicas posse
esse distantiam, etiamsi nulla realis quantitas sit in rerum natura; et hunc sensum verum esse cre-
dimus, quia ad hoc sufficit spatium imaginarium, quod nos concipimus ut aptum repleri quantitate.
Possunt enim duo angeli habere duo ubi, ratione quorum fundent inter se relationem distantiae,
quia possunt ita se habere ut inter eos possit tantum corpus interponi sine eorum mutatione, quod
satis est ad distantiam, etiamsi de facto tale corpus interpositum non sit.”
32
In his Commentary on the Physics (1640), Francisco de Oviedo also mentions the ubi intrinse-
cum (Liber quartus physicorum, Controversia XV, De loco et vacuo, punctum IV, at 310–312.
Refusing to describe place as an extrinsic denomination or as the result of circumscription, Oviedo
prefers the opinion that designates the ubi as a real form and a physical accident added to the local-
ized thing. Among those who hold this position, Oviedo mentions Suárez explicitly. In the same
Physics commentary, Oviedo – who goes beyond the Aristotelian definition of place – describes
imaginary space as a certain capacity; for, according to him, before a body can acquire presence in
a place, a certain capacity (for localization) must be pre-existing in the place. Imaginary space
moreover seems not to fall into the customary categories and rather to be neither a created being
nor an uncreated being, but rather just a capacity. Certain related topics (for example on space
preceding the localization of a body) emerge from Patrizi’s other texts. See infra Section 7.3.3.
particular those on the enigmatic distinction between non-localized prime matter

and localized determinate matter.33 His speculation on infinity, place, and the void
also contains a criticism of major Aristotelian theses. Looking to propose a better
physical model than that set out by Aristotle, Patrizi introduces four new constitu-
tive principles of the universe: space, light, heat and fluor (a sort of material
principle).34 If the first principle, space, is, according to Patrizi, both corporeal and
incorporeal, we will note that the second principle is also both corporeal and
incorporeal.35
In an innovative work, De spacio physico et mathematico, published 6 years
later, Patrizi achieved a cosmological synthesis inspired by Neoplatonism and fur-
ther criticized the Aristotelian doctrine of place. The De spatio physico et mathe-
matico, along with a new introduction, would later be included in the Nova de
universis philosophia, published in 1591 in Ferrara, where Patrizi taught Platonic
philosophy, and again in 1593 in Venice, where he had to face the Inquisition. In the
Nova de universis philosophia, one finds similar formulations applied to space and
to light, such as “spatium sit corpus incorporeum et incorporeum corpus”36 and
“Lumen corpus est incorporeum et incorpor[e]um corpus.”37 Nevertheless, as John
Henry’s analysis has shown, space is primordial, preceding all being, including
light: “space is created first as a theatre in which all following events take place.”38
In any case, light shares an important characteristic with space: it does not have
resistance. These aspects allow Patrizi to distinguish space from natural bodies.
Citing the three fundamental forms of space (tria spatia), namely “length or the
line, width or the surface, and depth or the body,” Patrizi states that a natural body
33
These observations come from Hélène Védrine’s introduction to Patrizi 1996, 24. She also cites
Patrizi 1571, 1581 on 396. See also Patrizi 1581, 246–250 (Discussionum peripateticorum), where,
on the topics of locus, vacuum, tempus, and coelum, Patrizi systematically prefers Platonic expla-
nations to Aristotelian ones. I would like to thank Filip Karfik for drawing my attention to this text.
34
Cf. Patrizi 1996, 27, 1591 (Pancosmia, liber XIII, f. 92v): “Spacium, quo trino omne corpus
constat. Lumen, quod corpora omnia se ipso inficit. Fluor, qui corpora omnia constituit. Et calor,
qui corpora omnia a fluore constituta et format et vivificat.”
35
Patrizi 1591b (Panaugia, liber I, f. 2v): “Lux ergo & incorporeorum, & corporum aeque, simula-
chrum est. & imago, & medium quoddam inter divina incorporea, & corporum naturam”; ibid., f°
10r°: “Inter quae dicimus, lumen esse corpus incorporeum, & immateriale, trine dimensum.” In a
recent study, Delphine Bellis examines these same passages from Patrizi and observes that the
mathematician and astronomer Ismaël Boulliau (1605–1694) gives a similar description in his De
natura lucis, 1638 (theorema, p. 62): “Lux est substantia media proportionalis inter corpoream
substantiam et incorpoream.” Boulliau explicitly cites Patrizi in the De natura lucis, p. 121:
“Asserit deinde illam esse mediam, inter corpus, & incorporeum in sole & astris, corpus est quia in
his habet molem, & trinam dimensionem, incorporea est quia est forma solis.” While in his
Questiones celeberrimae in Genesim (1623), Mersenne would criticize Patrizi’s description,
Descartes rather would target Boulliau. See Bellis Forthcoming.
36
Patrizi 1591, f. 68v.
37
Ibid., f. 74v.
38
Henry 1979, at 556: “Light is for him [Patrizi], the nearest analogy to God, and it is what he calls
a corporeal incorporeal: corporeal because it is extended, but incorporeal because it has no resis-
tance, no density, and is instantly propagated.”
144 O. Ribordy
includes resistance (antitypia) over and above these three dimensions.39 He then
argues that, since bodies have these three dimensions, so does place.
Patrizi singles out an inconsistency in Aristotle’s teaching: on the one hand,
Aristotle states that place has three dimensions (Physics IV, 209a); on the other,
inasmuch as place is the surface of the containing body, place seems to have two
dimensions and to lack depth (Physics IV, 212a).40 Patrizi resolves this aporia by
making two counter-claims: (i) place has depth, and in this sense he defines place as
a three-dimensional space that is immobile and capable of receiving different local-
ized bodies; and (ii) place is distinct from body, in order to allow, at least at different
times, two bodies to have the exact same place.41 Patrizi therefore establishes a
subtle balance between localizing body (locans corpus), immobile space, and local-
ized body (locatum). When it moves, the localizing body, having three dimensions,
leaves behind it a free space, which the localized body can occupy.
Therefore it is necessary that the localizing body (locans corpus), when it receives the
localized body (locatum), leave in its entirety from there, and the space that is immobile
there leave of itself a vacuum, so that it may be filled by the entering body.42
7.3.1 Definition of True Place
Patrizi defines as true place the immobile and three-dimensional space that is called
upon to be filled by a body. Therefore, he maintains that, just as the localized body
has its proper place, the immobile space where a body could enter also has its proper
place. Nevertheless, while three-dimensionality remains an accident of a localized
39
Patrizi 1996, 40, 1591, f. 61v. With respect to mathematical space, Patrizi states that minimum
space is constituted by a line and not by a point, which is stripped of all dimensionality. Apart from
a straight line, he also admits a circular line that can simply do without points. See Patrizi 1996,
33.
40
Aristotle 1983, 21: “It has three dimensions, length, breadth, and depth, by which every body is
bounded.” Ibid., 1983, 28 (see supra n8).
41
In the part of his study dedicated to Patrizi’s criticism of Aristotle, John Henry (1979, at 559–
566) simply regrets that Patrizi had not developed theoretical arguments for explaining “the pos-
sibility of motion in a void,” which would have allowed him to refute Aristotle, who held such
motion to be impossible. Henry concludes: “this is one of the major failings of his otherwise
comprehensive critique” (ibid., 563).
42
Patrizi 1591, f. 62v: “Ergo necesse est, ut locans corpus, dum locatum recipit, ipsum totum inde
discedat, & spacium quod ibi immobile est, relinquat se ipso vacuum, ut ingrediente corpore
impleatur.” After emphasizing the originality of Patrizi’s positions, Hélène Védrine, (Patrizi 1996,
28), qualifies his conception of space: “Audacieuse par ses implications cosmologiques et sa cri-
tique physique, cette tentative reste parfaitement simpliste dans ses conséquences opératoires et
mathématiques.” In his very rich study, De Risi 2016, at 83, highlights Patrizi’s originality on three
points of the metaphysics of space: the conception of space as “the foundation of the quantification
and extension of everything which exists in it,” the formulation of “a new epistemology of geom-
etry as the science of space,” and the “thesis that space is directly quantified” (and also “the idea
that the world is mathematizable”).
body, it constitutes immobile space. In this context, Patrizi’s insistence on the equiv-
alence between three-dimensional space and place becomes more understandable43:
Therefore, place, because it is not a body, will necessarily be space endowed with three
dimensions: length, width, and depth, by which it receives and grasps the length, width, and
depth of the located body (corporis locati). And such a threefold space is true place, differ-
ent from the localized body, in itself immobile, and in every aspect equal to the localized
body. Place therefore has its own space, which is different from the proper space of the
body. Rather, this threefold space truly is place, and place truly is threefold space. For
space is accidental to place just as it is accidental to body [...] but this place is none other
than those distances. And space is true place. And place is true space.44
One of Patrizi’s most striking achievements was to have “directly quantified space” –
and not substance or matter – and to have “geometricized space.”45 De Risi under-
scores with emphasis the evolution that Patrizi imposes from a geometry that had
been, until then, based around quantified matter to a geometry that turns on concepts
of localization, a geometrical science based on logical principles to be found by the
intellect and not on the construction of imaginary figures.46 Furthermore, he indi-
cates that arithmetic, which according to Aristotle held first place, so-to-speak gives
way to another mathematical science, geometry. Indeed, from a physical perspec-
tive, Patrizi considers space a first principle, prior to all beings, and, from a mathe-
matical perspective, he integrates space into the field of geometrical investigations.
A possible mathematical echo of his approach occurs several years later, in 1657,
when, in his Introduction to Geometry, Blaise Pascal states that “the object of pure
geometry is space, which it considers according to its triple extension in three dif-
ferent directions, which we call dimensions.”47 Patrizi’s conception of space from a
physical perspective had an even greater influence than his mathematical reflec-
tions. For example, Gassendi accepts the idea that the study of space precedes that
of physical bodies. Even if Gassendi, unlike Patrizi, defines space as quantity, he
still maintains, along the lines of Patrizi, the priority of space, for example arguing
that the space occupied by a city was there before the city, and that this immobile
space would stay the same should the city need to be transferred or rebuilt. By going
beyond the Aristotelian definition of place and developing his understanding of
43
And yet, space, which precedes all things, remains prior with respect to place, since place is just
a part of space.
44
Patrizi 1996, 44; 1591, f. 62v, our italics. The cited passages were translated from the Latin text;
for an English translation of part of the Nova de universis philosophia (Pancosmia. Liber primus:
De spacio physico and also excerpts of Book II: Liber secundus: De spatio mathematico) see
Patrizi 1943, 224–245, here 225: “[Patrizi] can thus claim to be the ancestor of the Absolute Space
of early modern science. Patrizi first elevated Space to that metaphysical pre-eminence which
More and Newton emphasized.” See also Muccillo 2010 and Leinkauf 1999.
45
De Risi 2016, 79, 97.
46
Ibid., 79–83, 90–93, at 80: “The element of exceptional novelty in Patrizi’s theory of space,
namely, is that it envisages the idea of a quantitative extension without any substrate at all, neither
substantial nor material.” See also Patrizi 1586 (infra n71 sqq.).
47
The passage from the Introduction to Geometry – a work that we know about only from some of
Leibniz’s notes – is signalled by De Vittori 2010, 25. See also Itard 1969.
146 O. Ribordy
place as primary, abstract, three-dimensional, immobile, and capable of receiving

all bodies, including the world, Patrizi seems to have provided Gassendi with key
arguments, and to have laid the groundwork for Newton’s absolute space. Moreover,
he seems to have bequeathed a field of research to the critics of Descartes, including
the Cambridge Platonist Henry More.48 Henceforth the question became whether
space, conceived as capable of being infinite and prior to all beings, represents a
physical limit for God.49
In addition to the definition of three-dimensional space as true place, another
thesis appears in Patrizi’s text: his claim, at first glance disconcerting, that space can
be both finite and infinite in actuality.
7.3.2 Finite and Infinite Space
The space that contains the world is finite, while the space of the universe beyond
the world is both finite – insofar as one of its parts touches the world – and infinite.
In spite of this difference, these two spaces, in the world and outside the world,
share certain basic characteristics: “they both are suited to receive bodies” and “they
both have three dimensions.”50 In this way Patrizi emphasizes that both kinds of
space allow “the shifting of bodies and their movement, which is proper to both
kinds of space.”51
Patrizi undertakes to show “by almost tangible arguments”52 the existence of a
space outside the world, by means of (i) investigations on the signs of the Zodiac,
(ii) the natural philosophers’ theories of the conflagration of the world, and (iii)
various thought experiments, which call upon the imagination. Thus, according to
48
Muccillo 2010, 56–64, quoting Gassendi, Syntagma philosophicum (Lyon, 1658), 182A: “certe
illud Spatium sive intervallum quod, occupat Turris, erat ibi priusquam illa conderetur: quae etiam,
si dirui, reaedificari, aut transferri intelligatur, semper tamen idem spatium, sive intervallum immo-
tum consistet.” Muccillo 2010, 49, likewise indicates that Descartes is the author of a “radicale
geometrizzazione dello spazio, che viene così privato di tutte le qualità che non siano quelle della
materia stessa.” On the connections between matter and extension, see also Kambouchner 2015.
49
Muccillo 2010, 59. The debate revolves around Descartes’ thesis of a dichotomy between res
extensa and res cogitans, implying the exclusion of any spiritual principle, and thus of God, in the
physical world. It would focus precisely on the conception of space and the question of God’s rela-
tion to the world. According to More, to avoid having to affirm (with Descartes) that God is
nowhere in the world, it is legitimate to attribute to God a local presence and a certain specific
extension (purum subiectum mensurabilitatis). While the extension of bodies makes them impen-
etrable and tangible, the extension attributed to God permits Him to be everywhere. On this debate
between More and Descartes, see Suarez-Nani Forthcoming.
50
Patrizi 1591, f. 64v.
51
Ibid., f. 64v: “Neutrum ipsorum corpus est: utrumque corpus recipere est aptum, utrumque cor-
pori cedit: utrumque trine est dimensum; […] neutrum corporibus resistit […]. Sic spacii utriusque
proprium est, cessio corporibus, eorumque motibus praestita.”
52
Ibid., f. 63v: “Sed rationibus fere sensatis, extra mundum spatium esse, illud inane
demonstremus.”
Patrizi, (i) the finite space, 30° long and 20° wide, occupied by a sign of the Zodiac
in the internal surface of the heavens can be easily extended by lines into the con-
tiguous and empty external space beyond the world. (ii) The hypothetical explosion
of the world – (conflagratio) an argument used by Stoics, such as Cleomedes53 –
would mean that the vapors it emitted would expand into the currently empty space
that surrounds it, thereby proving the existence of a void space around the world.
(iii) To support the thesis of a void space outside the world, Patrizi uses the follow-
ing thought experiments:
If the mind imagines the whole world to move from its place, it [viz. the whole world]
would necessarily fill that empty space [into which it moves] – which now is just empty
space because it contains no body – and make that space its place. Moreover, if this world
were made by God to shrink to a smaller size, part of its place that now exists will be left as
empty space, not to speak of those cases that some people will allow in thinking of a man
standing on top of heaven, or who stretches an arm outside.54
7.3.3 Space as First Principle
Although Aristotle, in presenting the categories, certainly mentioned place (ubi), to

Patrizi’s eyes he did not treat space with the required precision.55 In his cosmologi-
cal model, Patrizi emphasizes above all that space precedes all being56: “Since no
other beings in nature exist beyond these four: space, place, body, quality, but body
is prior to quality, and place to body, and space to place, without doubt, space is the
first of all things.”57
53
See Edelheit 2009, 247–248.
54
Patrizi 1591, f. 63v: “Si mundus universus mente cogitetur suo loco moveri, inane illud spacium,
necessario replebit, locumque in eo sibi efficiet, quod nunc, quia corpus nullum continet, spacium
tantummodo est inane. Praeterea si mundus etiam hic, in minorem a Deo contrahatur molem, eius
loci qui nunc est, vacuum remanebit spacium, ut ommittamus, quae, aliqui de homine in supremo
cœlo stante, vel brachio extra porrecto cogitatione admiserunt.” These examples have a long his-
tory, and were freely used, particularly in the medieval period: e.g. Oresme 1968; 1997, 317
(Quaest. In Phys. IV, q. 1), where he specifies that “place is the space between the extremities of
the container.” This space would be “void if there were no body there, and full if a body filled it”:
a notion that evokes parallels to Patrizi’s theses. For these observations, see Suarez-Nani 2004,
107–109. See also Oresme 2013, at 423–428.
55
Patrizi’s criticism of Aristotle is sometimes quite strong. See Patrizi 1591, ff. 67v-68a (De spacio
mathematico): “Therefore, all the artifice of this man, by which he strives to ruin the indivisible
line and minima, using sophisms dressed as war machines, appears to us to be extremely futile.
Thus it leads us to ask how something so pointless could have created such tumult in philosophy
and mathematics. May this fiction, may this lie, be expelled from the school of the truth.” See Deitz
2007 and infra n82.
56
See Prins 2015.
57
Patrizi 1591, f. 65r: “At cum entia nulla alia in natura sint praeter haec quatuor, spacium, locus,
corpus, qualitas; corpus autem qualitate prius est; & corpore locus, & loco spacium, spacium nimi-
rum rerum omnium primum est.”
148 O. Ribordy
Echoing to some degree Plato’s Timaeus (52b) – where space (χώρα) is described
as “providing a situation for all things that come into being”58 – Patrizi considers
space as a first principle that precedes everything in nature.59 Space exists even
before the creation of the world; space provides, so to speak, the conditions for the
localization of the world. According to Patrizi, the case of the annihilatio mundi
confirms this hypothesis: “For if the world were corrupted or reduced to nothing
[which certain well-known Ancients have claimed], then the space in which the
world is localized would be left empty.”60 In any case, space is merely a simple
empty envelope, a simple capacity to receive bodies, characterized by having dimen-
sions, by being immobile.
Moreover, this description is not incompatible with the distinction made above
between the space “that localizes the world, which is full of the body of the world,
just as the other space [outside the world] is empty of all body. The latter also differs
from the former in the fact that it is at once finite and infinite while the other is
entirely finite.”61 In spite of their difference, these two spaces share a capacity to
receive bodies. Nevertheless, the void is essential to space.
7.3.4 Empty and Full Space
While Patrizi denies the existence of a large void in the space that contains the world
(such as, according to some, the air of the heavens), he does admit the existence of
small voids and minima of space between bodies.62 He appeals to the observable
example of a portion of water that, when it contracts by half, neither disappears by
half, nor occupies the other half, but rather densifies, occupying the empty spaces
that it contains in itself.63 Therefore, there exists a void between bodies, and the void
is even more essential to space than is the plenum64: “For this reason, if being a
58
Plato 1989, 122–125.
59
This parallel is highlighted by Henry 1979, 554.
60
Patrizi 1591, f. 65r.
61
Ibid., f. 64v.
62
Ibid.: “Illud enim inane, ac vacuum totum est, quantumcumque est. Hoc vero plenum mundo est,
ac mundi corporibus omnibus, minutis tantum inter corpora intervalli vacui distinctum.”
63
Ibid., f. 63r. He invokes other examples and experiences to confirm the presence of tiny void
spaces in the world, such as an airtight vase filled with water that, when exposed to cold air, pro-
duces a void. Similar problematic examples often represent thought experiments. See De Vittori
2010, 4–5: “l’eau est incompressible. De même Patrizi annonce que la glace a un volume moindre
que l’eau (c’est de l’eau contractée), or c’est le contraire. L’argumentation est faible mais les idées
avancées sont d’une importance capitale pour la compréhension de la suite de la démarche de
l’auteur.” Thus Patrizi ends up supporting the presence of the void and the plenum in the world, and
calls into question Aristotle’s model of place.
64
See the remark by Védrine, in the introduction to her edition of Patrizi’s text, (Patrizi 1996, 31):
Void space exists prior to the body. In any case, space is not “un vide absolu, puisque l’espace est
parcouru par la lumière, la chaleur et le fluor. Ici, vide signifie seulement absence d’antitypie,
plenum is accidental to this mundane space, being a vacuum will belong to its
essence. For both half of mundane space is a vacuum and the universe outside mun-
dane space is empty.”65
In this way, Patrizi posits a void around the last sphere, such that the enclosed
world, finite and full of bodies, is surrounded by another space, void, and both finite
and infinite.66 Extra-mundane space, which in itself is unlimited, can be described
from two angles, according to whether it touches the edge of the world or stretches
to infinity67:
Taking another way, we say that the space that is outside the world is both finite and infinite.
For it is finite by that part that is contiguous with the outermost surface of the world, not
indeed by its own proper and natural boundary, but rather by the ends of the world. But by that
part by which it departs from the world and stretches away from it, it goes on to infinity.68
7.3.5 Definition of Space
In order to philosophize correctly about space, Patrizi proposes going beyond the
Aristotelian categories, since space precedes all of them. Space is neither accident
nor substance, but “the substantial [hypostatica] extension that is self-subsisting,
depending on nothing” (De spatio physico, §9). Patrizi then gives a demonstration
of his thesis that space transcends all of Aristotle’s definitions of substance.
According to Patrizi, space is certainly a substance in the sense that it “subsists by
itself,” “exists by itself,” “maintains itself under everything,” “has no need of others
in order to be,” “is found before everything,” but space – inasmuch as it is “more
substance than any other substance” – is prior to the category of substance. In other
words, space includes all the characteristics of substance, but simply is not a sub-
stance. Indeed, space “is not an individual substance, because it is not composed of
matter and form [...] and it is not a genus, because it is not predicated of species or
of singulars.”69
c’est-à-dire de résistance matérielle. Aussi n’est-il pas étonnant que l’espace contienne tous les
corps, mais les pénètre également et soit pénétré par eux. En somme, l’espace se réduit à l’extension
suivant les trois dimensions, mais il possède, comme toutes les réalités ‘médiatrices,’ une sorte de
privilège qui le fait participer au corporel et à l’incorporel.”
65
Patrizi 1591, f. 64v: “Quare si plenum esse, spacio huic mundano accidit; vacuum esse ad essen-
tiam eius pertinebit. Nam, & dimidia mundani spacii pars vacua est, & universum illud extra
mundanum est inane.”
66
Patrizi 1996, 29.
67
Patrizi 1591, f. 64r: “Neque ergo a se ipso, neque a mundo, spacium, quod a mundo est. procul,
terminatur. […] A corpore ergo nullo, vel finito, vel infinito, spacium illud primum, a mundo
abiens terminatur, aut terminari potest.”
68
Ibid.: “Nos alia ingredientes via, dicimus, spacium quod est extra mundum, & finitum esse, &
infinitum. Finitum quidem ea parte, qua mundi extimam superficiem contingit, non quidem pro-
prio, & naturali fine suo, sed mundi terminis. Qua vero digreditur a mundo, ab eoque proculabit, in
infinitum transit.”
69
Ibid., f. 65r.
150 O. Ribordy
Transcending the categories of substance and accident, space cannot be described

only as a body or as incorporeal. Indeed, space has three-dimensionality like a body
but, like a spiritual being, it lacks resistance. It is at once body and incorporeal, to
the point that Patrizi defines it as corporeal non-body (noncorpus corporeum) and
incorporeal body (corpus incorporeum), perfectly immobile.70
Moreover, in his Italian-language work, Della nuova geometria, Patrizi summa-
rizes some of the major results obtained in the De spatio physico et mathematico,
notably including the characteristics of space, this time conceived from a mathemat-
ical perspective. Thus he states that “space is extension, and extension is space,” that
“all space is either long, or long and wide, or long, wide, and deep.”71 From this
geometrical perspective, Patrizi insists on the priority of space with respect to any
element that is placed in it, and he particularly emphasizes that space is prior to a
point. A point, which does not have quantity, is thus not a space, but is in space.
From this, the first magnitude is the line. The line is continuous and in actuality –
and it is not infinitely divisible, contrary to the claims of mathematicians from
Antiquity, including Euclid. Patrizi states that a line is not composed of points; it is
simple, primary, and minimal.72 As De Vittori explains in his analysis of this trea-
tise, one of Patrizi’s goals is to philosophically found the geometrical principles that
Euclid simply presupposed without giving them the necessary demonstrations.
According to Patrizi’s reasoning, thus, every mathematical object is defined with
respect to space; his project of ‘geometricizing space’ does not consist in abstract-
ing geometrical figures from sensible objects, but rather in discovering within space
(understood as first principle) the connections between geometric figures.73 For
example, a line is ‘delimited’ at its extremities by points, but not insofar as the
human mind would perceive points, but in virtue of the intrinsic connections
between these mathematical objects placed in space. Thus the line can be finite and
limited (by these points), all while being stretched to infinity.74 Finiteness and exten-
sion to infinity can perfectly well be admitted at the same time for the smallest
70
Ibid., ff. 65r-65v: “Itaque corpus incorporeum est, & noncorpus corporeum. […] Itaque nec toto,
nec partibus movetur. Est ergo & immotum prorsus, & omnino immobile.” See also Védrine,
(Patrizi 1996, 30): “Comme espace de l’univers, il est vide, infini; comme espace du monde, il est
fini et rempli de corps. Simple et homogène sous sa première forme, il est complexe sous la sec-
onde. Divisé par les corps, les contenant tous et les limitant, l’espace du monde perd, dans une
certaine mesure, sa pureté originelle, bien qu’il reste fondamentalement, comme l’espace de
l’univers, ‘corpus incorporeum’.” On the strong links between Patrizi and Proclus, who had
described space as “immaterial body,” see Deitz 1999, at 155.
71
For the discussion that follows, see De Vittori 2010, 1–28, at 9–10, 20–25; Patrizi 1586, lib. I, 3.
72
Patrizi 1586, lib. III, 49 (Book III, conclusion of the XVII first propositions).
73
Although Makovský 2014, 294–295, 307–310 acknowledges that, in his Della nuova geometria,
Patrizi includes in his discussion of space relational aspects (between geometrical figures), he is
highly critical of the work, recalling Leibniz’s judgment that “the preface to his New Geometry,
dedicated to the Duke of Ferrara, is admirable, but the content is deplorable” (Leibniz 1999, A VI,
4A, 966). See also De Risi 2016, 92–96.
74
As shown by De Vittori 2010, 23. Patrizi 1586, lib. III, 50–51 (“risoluzione delle seconde XVI
proposizioni”): “E cio perche la linea si puo allungare in infinito […] E cio perche due punti
estremi, da ambi i lati la fan finita” (our italics).
spatial entity, the minimal line. On the other hand, the infinite division (in potency)
of a minimum constitutes a physical barrier, which, to Patrizi’s eyes, mathematics –
a domain that he is less familiar with – does not seem to be able to cross.75
It is above all in his study of space from a physical perspective that Patrizi reveals
his undeniable originality in describing immobile space as both finite and infinite,76
full and empty, corporeal and incorporeal. Nevertheless, he leaves one issue open:
space cannot be understood as a whole, composed of finite parts – as the author
himself recognizes in his final chapter (De spacio physico, §10). For space, the cost
of its transcendence (finite/infinite, full/empty, corporeal/incorporeal) is a certain
lack of uniformity77 – even if the two types of space identified by Patrizi, namely the
space of the world and the space of the universe, share three-dimensionality and the
capacity for receiving bodies.
And yet the enclosed, finite world is not replaced by the infinite universe. Stoic
authors in Antiquity and various Platonizing authors in the Renaissance believed
that they coexisted in and often supported an enclosed world inside an infinite uni-
verse.78 For the immobility of the universe allows one to think of a delimited world
within. An author steeped in the Renaissance of Platonic sources, Agostino Steuco,
described in his Philosophia perennis (1540, published in 1591) the world as a
particle drowning in an infinite universe.79 Patrizi shares Steuco’s claim of the com-
patibility between the infinite universe and the enclosed world.80
75
See Védrine (Patrizi 1996, 33–34), who emphasizes Patrizi’s “réalisme mathématique” and his
less detailed mathematical hypotheses, contrasted with physical and ontological barriers: he
accepts the infinitely large in actuality, but holds that it is impossible for a minimum to be infinitely
divisible, even in potency. “Patrizi […] s’arrête à un géométrisme simpliste lié à des spéculations
physiques sur l’élément ultime de l’espace” (ibid., 33).
76
This notion, developed in a Stoic vein, would be criticized by Giordano Bruno, without, however,
targeting Patrizi by name, as shown by Del Prete 1999, 42 (with reference to Bruno 2006, 60–66).
See also infra n82.
77
Muccilllo 2010, 64, states that Patrizi’s doctrine of space, considered from a mathematical per-
spective, appears as homogeneous, infinite, and isotropic. For Patrizi space stays the same, for
geometry as for physics, as emphasized by Makovský 2014, 302. On the mathematical implica-
tions of Patrizi’s actually infinite space, and on his rejection of mathematical constructivism, that
is, his refusal to resort to the imagination to construct figures, see De Risi 2016, 90–91.
78
For this line of argument, see the study by Mehl 2017, 229–248, at 233. For the Stoics see also
Section 3.2.2 of Bakker’s Chapter 3 in this volume.
79
Mehl emphasizes that, without doubt ascribing to Empedocles a thesis that he did not hold,
Agostino Steuco had tried to show that the world was included like a particle in the infinite uni-
verse, assimilated to God. In support of his reasoning, Mehl cites Steuco 1591, vol. 3, f. 50v
(Philosophia perennis III, 8): “Cum vero dicat tantum interesse inter universum ac mundum, quan-
tum inter immensum quiddam ac brevem particulam, palam fit, hoc universum, aliquid a mundo
diversum eum sensisse. […] Ergo superiorum Philosophorum vestigia sequutus Empedocles,
ipsum universum dicebat Deum, cuius quasi particula esset iste mundus.” Steuco understands
space both as a representation by a subject and as an interval between two realities.
80
Even more stunning, the Philosophia perennis appears among the chief sources that Francisco
Suárez mentions in the proemium to his De angelis – at the moment when he reveals his project
and indicates that a study of spiritual creatures belongs to natural theology or metaphysics, and that
such a study is also important for natural philosophers, since it bears on the movement of celestial
152 O. Ribordy
7.4 C
oncluding Remarks: Different Approaches to Place
and Space
If Suárez shares with Patrizi the criticism of the Aristotelian definition of place as
surface of the surrounding body, the two thinkers draw from this criticism largely
divergent conclusions.
The humanist Patrizi favors a Neoplatonic cosmology, which allowed for a void
between bodies in the world as well as a void beyond the last sphere81; Patrizi holds
that void is the very essence of space. He defines three-dimensional space as the true
place (locus verus) that is capable of receiving bodies. While Aristotle, opposed to
the very hypothesis of the void, would deny that something incorporeal like the void
could have three-dimensionality, Patrizi, to the contrary, emphasizes this aspect and
distinguishes corporeity from dimension.82 Patrizi separates Aristotelian locus
(defined, incorrectly, according to just the two dimensions of length and width)83
from a notion of spatium, which is three-dimensional and precedes all substances
and permits the localization of everything. Space is prior to the categories, prior to
substance. It is neither purely a body, because it has no resistance, nor is it com-
pletely incorporeal, because it is three-dimensional and is able to bound bodies.
More than anything, space is a substance, without belonging to the category of
substance (“Spatium maxime omnium substantiam esse, sed non est categoriae sub-
stantia illa”).84 Patrizi’s doctrine considers immobile space in some way as the con-
dition for the reception of bodies and souls as animated beings.85 Space is an
incorporeal body and a corporeal non-body.
bodies. Suárez 1856, (Prooemium, XII), where, following the aforesaid general passage and after
having mentioned several authors who studied separate substances (including Plato, Thomas
Aquinas, and Marsilio Ficino), he names Steuco: “Et alia ex Philosophis congerit de Angelis
Augustinus Eugubinus, in lib. 8 peren. Philosoph.”
81
See De Risi 2016, 67, which observes that Patrizi admits (i) the microscopic or disseminated
void, (ii) the observable, coacervated void, and (iii) the extracosmic void.
82
See Henry 1979, 572: “the first systematic attempt to completely reject Aristotle’s place and to
establish the vulgar opinion of space as a philosophically sound, even philosophically necessary
concept was made by Patrizi.” By contrast, Giordano Bruno considers Patrizi a “pedant” and
judges that he uselessly befouled pages with his Discussiones peripateticae. See Bruno 2016,
165–167: “de quali è un francese arcipedante, ch’ha fatte le Scole sopra le arte liberali e
l’Animadversioni contra Aristotele; et un altro sterco di pedanti, italiano, che ha imbrattati tanti
quinterni con le sue Discussioni peripatetiche.” See Henry 1979, 551 and Védrine, (Patrizi 1996,
21), who emphasizes that Bruno nevertheless extensively used the results of Patrizi’s research.
83
Patrizi 1591, f. 62v: “Locus ergo integer erit, non superficies ambientis sola, sed profunditas
etiam, intra superficiem existens, simul cum illis.”
84
Ibid., f. 65r.
85
Ibid., f. 65v: “immobile autem in mundo nihil est, praeter spacium ac terram.” Cf. ibid., f. 61r:
“this must be prior to all else; when it is present all other things can be placed in it, when absent all
others are destroyed” (also quoted by Henry 1979, 554).
While Patrizi favors a space (as true place) that exists before bodies, Suárez pre-
fers a place that inheres in bodies, the ubi intrinsecum,86 and distinguishes it from
the locus extrinsecus. Rejecting any model that defines place through an emphasis
on exteriority – be this as a containing surface, physical limit, exterior form, or even
corporeal space to be filled – Francisco Suárez argues in favor of the interiority of
place and brings localization into the heart of the being. Through his analysis of the
ubi intrinsecum, he explains localization as common denominator of all creatures,
corporeal and spiritual.87
By their diversity and by their speculative density, the models of Suárez and
Patrizi illustrate the richness of conceptions of place and space at the dawn of the
modern period, and attest to the fruitful debates that built up on the foundation of
Aristotelian doctrines.
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Chapter 8
Giordano Bruno’s Concept of Space:
Cosmological and Theological Aspects
Miguel Á. Granada
Abstract Bruno’s concept of space remains constant throughout his entire work.
Its main tenets are: (1) the rejection of Aristotle’s concept of ‘place’ as an accident
of bodily substance and the ensuing notion of ‘natural places;’ (2) the notion of
space as an infinite, homogeneous receptacle of matter; and (3) the idea that void,
though conceptually prior to matter, is always and everywhere filled with matter.
Edward Grant (in his masterful Much Ado About Nothing, Cambridge, 1981) argued
that “the consequences of Bruno’s description of space and the properties he
assigned it lead inevitably to an infinite space that is coeternal with but wholly inde-
pendent of God.” In the present chapter I show that Grant’s conclusion is incompat-
ible with the foundations of Bruno’s ontology. De immenso and Lampas triginta
statuarum allow us to establish Bruno’s true concept of the relation between God
and space in accordance with the doctrine of the six ‘infigurable’ primary principles
distributed in two triads: Mind or Father-Intellect-Spirit; and Chaos or Void-Orcus
or Privation-Night or Matter. Both triads represent, in accordance with the ontology
of De la causa, the two (non hierarchized) aspects of God’s essence as a coinci-
dence of opposites: potency and act, matter and form, void space and mind. As a
consequence, since God is space and matter no less than mind and form, we can
confidently say that Bruno – relying on Biblical passages describing God as unity of
contradictories – had already gone as far as Spinoza in conflating God, extension,
matter, and space.
This article is the result of research conducted within the project “Cosmología, teología y antrop-
ología en la primera fase de la Revolución Científica (1543–1633),” funded by the Spanish
Government (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Project FFI2015-64498-P for the trien-
nium 2016–2018). I wish to thank Patrick J. Boner for his careful reading and improvements on the
original English version of this article, as well as for his aid with the English translations of several
passages from Bruno’s Latin works.
M. Á. Granada (*)
University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: granada@ub.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_8
158 M. Á. Granada
8.1 Introduction
In his still fundamental From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe, Alexandre
Koyré stated that “never before [Bruno] had the essential infinitude of space been
asserted in such an outright, definite and conscious manner.”1 Even if he did not
consider contemporary authors such as Bernardino Telesio and Francesco Patrizi –
as has been objected, among others, by Edward Grant2 – Koyré’s analysis still
remains correct if we take into consideration the role that the concept of space plays
in their respective cosmologies: in Bruno that of an infinite, homogeneous universe
with infinite planetary star-centered systems, as opposed to a finite geocentric uni-
verse in a finite space (Telesio) and a finite geocentric universe (Patrizi) in an infi-
nite space filled with spiritual light.3
Bruno’s concept of space pervades almost all his work. We may turn to three tell-
ing moments: (1) the Italian cosmological dialogues, in particular De l’infinito, uni-
verso e mondi (1584), but also La cena de le Ceneri (also 1584); (2) his Latin poem
De immenso et innumerabilibus, published in Frankfurt in 1591; and (3) an interme-
diary state when, in Germany around 1587, Bruno expands the Parisian Articuli
adversus peripateticos of 1586 into the Camoeracensis acrotismus, eventually pub-
lished in Wittenberg in 1588. This intermediary period (though we should be aware
that the composition of De immenso covers an extended period, the beginning of
which cannot be fixed exactly) also covers the Lampas triginta statuarum (written
in 1587, but not published until the nineteenth century). This last work, unattended
by both Koyré and Grant, offers some fundamental insights in its examination of the
‘unfigurable principles’ of Chaos, Orcus and Night (i.e. Void, Appetite and Matter),
in connection with the opposite triad of Mind, Intellect and Spirit, particularly into
the ontological condition of space and void, as well as their relation to God or the
One.
Bruno’s concept of space remains basically the same throughout all these works.4
While there is no structural modification in the doctrine, some differences emerge
between its presentation in the Italian dialogues and in the writings of 1587, where
we find the first occurrence of the doctrine of De immenso. These differences are
mainly that the presentation in the Italian dialogues, especially in De l’infinito,
focuses on the cosmological aspects of space and the void, as well as on the criti-
cism of the Aristotelian and Stoic doctrine. By contrast, from 1587 Bruno pays more
attention to the ontological and theological foundation of space and the void, while
he tries to determine the nature of space (and the void) in itself, as well as its relation
to God.
1
Koyré 1957, 39. On Bruno’s concept of space and the infinite, homogeneous universe see ibid.,
39–55.
2
Grant 1981, xiii, 380 n69, 389 n163. On Bruno’s concept of space see ibid., 183–192.
3
For Telesio’s concept of space see Schuhmann 1992, Grant 1981, 192–-194; Granada 2007, 274.
On Patrizi see Grant 1981, 199–206, Henry 1979; Granada 2007, 277 f.
4
See the accurate general presentations of the concept in Amato 2006; Fantechi 2014a. Cf. also
Fantechi 2014b.
8 Giordano Bruno’s Concept of Space: Cosmological and Theological Aspects 159
8.2 Space in the Italian Dialogues, Mainly in “De l’infinito”
In the Italian cosmological dialogues, the main subject of demonstration is the infin-
ity and homogeneity of the universe. This requires the existence of infinite space
and as a consequence, in these dialogues (but mainly in De l’infinito) Bruno argues
for this premise, which despite its secondary character with respect to the infinite
universe, is given wide attention and established in its major cosmological
features.
Since Bruno is fully aware that Aristotle’s concept of space must be destroyed for
the infinite universe to be built, he begins De l’infinito with an outright assault on
the Aristotelian concept of place as outlined in the fourth book of the Physics.5 If
place is an accident of bodily substance, and more precisely, if it is the unmoved
internal surface of the containing body, it follows that the universe (which for
Aristotle is necessarily finite) is nowhere or in no place (in the extreme, it is in
itself), since there is no body outside to contain it. Accordingly, as the much quoted
sentence in De caelo, I, 9 states, “it is obvious that there is neither place nor void nor
time outside the heaven, since it has been demonstrated that there neither is nor can
be body there.”6 In addition, since the existing intellectual substances (the unmoved
movers of the celestial spheres) and the first of them (God in the monotheistic reli-
gions) are incorporeal and unextended, they cannot act as place and limit of the
world, this task additionally being unworthy of them.7
Against Aristotle, Bruno introduces the old and well-known thought experiment
of the hand stretched out beyond the convex sphere of heaven (in the introductory
epistle of De l’infinito the Lucretian flying dart thrown against the “furthest coasts”
of the world).8 It is unimaginable that either the hand or the dart would be nowhere,
and even “would not exist.”9 As a consequence, beyond the purported limit of our
world, there is something, namely space, be it void (as the Stoics affirm) or filled
with other worlds (as the Epicureans purport), Bruno notably inclining to the latter
option10:
what is beyond [this surface]? If the reply is nothing, then I call that void or emptiness. And
such a void or emptiness hath no measure and no outer limit, though it hath an inner; and
this is harder to imagine than is an infinite or immense universe. For if we insist on a finite
5
volume.
6
De caelo, I, 9, 279a, 16–18, in Aristotle 1939.
7
De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 61–67. See also On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 251–254.
8
See On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 231 for the quotation of Lucretius (De rerum natura, II, 968–
983), and 253 for the mention of the hand; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 11 and 65. For Lucretius’
version of the thought experiment see Section 3.2.2 of Bakker’s Chapter 3 in this volume.
9
De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 55 and 11; On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 253 and 231.
10
For an account of Epicurean and Stoic conceptions of extracosmic void see Section 3.2 of
Bakker’s Chapter 3 in this volume.
160 M. Á. Granada
universe, we cannot escape the void. And let us now see whether there can be such a space
in which is naught.11
Space is, then, unavoidable – a prerequisite for the actual or potential presence of
bodies. As it is said in Bruno’s final encomium: “an infinite space is not impossible
but is necessary.”12 This necessary space is presented in the initial criticism of the
Aristotelian concept as an aptitude or ability to contain bodies,13 that is, as a recep-
tacle (continente, ricetto),14 for which Bruno employs a plurality of names through-
out this dialogue, unfortunately sometimes translated into English as the generic
term ‘space.’15
Space, as a receptacle able to contain bodies, is not a body; it is incorporeal, but
has dimensions. The passage in On the Infinite is worth quoting: “that which is not
corporeal nor doth offer sensible resistance is wont, if it hath dimension, to be
named Void, since people usually understand as corporeal that which has the prop-
erty of offering resistance.”16 Space is, then, a (three-dimensional) extension or
dimension, non-resistant to the presence or motion of bodies because it is incorpo-
real. For that reason, Aristotle’s argument against three-dimensional space is null,
grounded in the erroneous assumption that three-dimensional extension is an attri-
bute unique to bodies and, as a consequence, such a space filled with a body would
violate the axiom of the impenetrability of dimensions.17 For Bruno, then, space (as
the ability to contain or as a receptacle) and bodies can coexist, since they belong to
different genera of being, sharing the common property of three-dimensionality,
bodies being received generously by the spatial womb or grembo as a condition for
the possibility of bodily presence. The quoted passage clearly shows that, in the
11
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 254; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 67–69. For the identification of
both positions with those of the Stoics and Epicureans see De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 115; On the
Infinite in Bruno 1968, 272. For the greater plausibility of the filled space see De l’infinito in Bruno
2006, 171–173; On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 298–299.
12
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 377; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 369.
13
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 254–255; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 69: “aptitudine di conte-
nere;” 71: “attitudine alla recepzione di corpo.” This description corresponds closely to the Stoic
definition of place. See Algra 1995, 263–281; Alessandrelli 2014.
14
De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 125: “uno infinito, immobile, infigurato, spaciosissimo continente de
innumerabili mobili;” 181: “tutto è un ricetto generale.” For the later Latin works see Acrotismus
Camoeracensis in Bruno 1879, 123, art. xxviii: “[Spacium] est igitur receptaculum corporum mag-
nitudinem habentium;” De immenso, IV, 1, in Bruno 1879, 78: “Spacium sane nullum est corpus,
sed corporis receptaculum.”
15
Grembo, seno (“infinito spacioso seno,” De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 175; “infinitely spacious
bosom,” On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 300; campo (“generale e spacioso campo,” De l’infinito in
Bruno 2006, 183; “the vastness of universal space,” On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 302; inane,
vuoto, vacuo, etere, cielo (“l’infinito spacio, cioé, il cielo continente e pervagato da quelli [gli
astri],” De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 355; “the infinite space, the heaven comprehending all, tra-
versed by all,” On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 370.
16
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 273, translation modified; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 115: “ciò
che non è corpo che resiste sensibilmente, tutto suole esser chiamato (se ha dimensione) vacuo:
atteso che comunmente non apprendeno l’esser corpo se non con la proprietà di resistenza.”
17
De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 113: “incompossibilità delle dimensioni di uno et un altro.”
Italian dialogue, Bruno is already acquainted with John Philoponus’ anti-Aristotelian

concept of space, which he will adopt, with explicit reference to the Greek com-
mentator, in the famous chapter of De immenso, brilliantly analyzed by Edward
Grant: “Space is a certain physical quantity, continuous and three-dimensional, in
which the magnitude of bodies is comprehended.”18
This follows from the fact that bodily dimensions require the previous presence
of the dimensional container: “for where there are no dimensions of a body, there
shall be the dimensions of space, in which bodily dimensions may be received.
Indeed, those [bodily] dimensions can be nowhere without the latter ones.”19
Moreover, many of the attributes of space, indicated and commented by Bruno in
the Latin poem after the definition, are already present in the Italian dialogue. Space
is the place, but in itself it has no place. The Latin poem says that space is “illoca-
bile” and the Italian dialogue that “this space cannot be conceived as existing within
another space.”20 Most importantly, as has often been highlighted as the most sig-
nificant characteristic of Bruno’s concept, space is identical in all its infinite exten-
sion; it is homogeneous or indifferent. Some statements may be cited in support of
this interpretation: “the indifference throughout the vast space of the universe;”21
18
De immenso, I, 8, in Bruno 1879, 231: “Est ergo spacium, quantitas quaedam continua physica
triplici dimensione constans, in qua corporum magnitudo capiatur.” See Grant 1981, 186. On this
page Philoponus is praised as the commentator who more audaciously (“audactius”) has attacked
the Aristotelian concept of place. Bruno may have known Philoponus’ criticism and his novel
concept of space directly, since Philoponus’ Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (containing his
“Corollaries on Place and Void”) had been published in Latin translation in eight editions between
1539 and 1581. But he may also have found a sympathetic presentation of Philoponus’ views in
Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola’s Examen vanitatis doctrinae gentium et veritatis Christianae
disciplinae, printed in Basle in 1573, and demonstrably known to him. Philoponus, however, con-
sidered that space was finite and coextensive with the finite spherical world of the cosmological
tradition; see Philoponus 1991. On Philoponus see Duhem 1913–1958, vol. I, 313–320, Sedley
1987; and Section 2.3 of Algra’s Chapter 2 in this volume. For Gianfrancesco Pico’s presentation
of Philoponus’ concept see Schmitt 1967, 138–159. Pico was also the first to present in Latin the
concept of space of the Hebrew Hasdai Crescas, whose affinity with Bruno was even stronger,
since he stated the reality, beyond the outermost sphere of the world, of an infinite void space, in
which God’s omnipotence could have created a plurality of other worlds. On Crescas’ views see
Schmitt 1967 (index), and Wolfson 1929. According to Wolfson 1929, 36, “knowing as we do that
a countryman of Bruno, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, similarly separated from Crescas in
time and space and language, obtained a knowledge of Crescas through some unknown Jewish
intermediary, the possibility of a similar intermediary in the case of Bruno is not to be excluded.”
We think, however, that such a possibility is rather remote. Since Pico’s comments on Crescas’
views are rather scarce, we are inclined to consider the striking similarities between Bruno and
Crescas an effect of their common knowledge of the Stoic conception of extracosmic infinite void
space, and of the assertion in Christian thought after 1279 of the possibility (by God’s absolute
power) of a plurality of worlds.
19
De immenso, I, 8, in Bruno 1879, 231: “ubi quippe nullius corporis sunt dimensiones, spacii
dimensiones esse decebit, in quibus illae recipi possint. Quinimo illae dimensiones nusquam abs-
que dimensionibus istis esse possunt.”
20
21
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 361; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 331: “la indifferenza de l’ampio
spacio dell’ universo.”
162 M. Á. Granada
“since in the immensity of space there is no distinction of upper, lower, right-hand,

left-hand, forward or backward;”22 “all the rest of space, which is identical in natu-
ral character with our own.”23
There is no difference, therefore, between the region of universal space contain-
ing our world and every other region. Space is indifferent with respect to particular
matters, elements or bodies, and this implies that elements and composite bodies
have no natural places to which they naturally move by virtue of this reciprocal
implication of natural places and elementary composition. True, space has an appe-
tite for matter,24 but it is indifferent as to which kind of matter occupies it.
This point allows us to perceive the cogency of Bruno’s transition from infinite
homogeneous space to the infinitely filled universe. Indifference of space, together
with the principle of sufficient reason,25 allows Bruno to deduce from the occupa-
tion of a particular portion of space (indifferent to space as a whole) by a world (our
world) the convenience and even necessity of infinite space filled with an infinite
plurality of worlds (in the sense of planetary systems): “For just as it would be ill
were this our space not filled, that is, were our world not to exist, then, since the
spaces are indistinguishable, it would be no less ill if the whole of space were not
filled. Thus we see that the universe is of infinite size and the worlds therein without
number.”26
It is true that Bruno must accept that homogeneity and indifference, along with
the principle of sufficient reason, may only allow us to state the possibility and con-
venience of the existence of infinite worlds in infinite space once the existence of
one world in this space is given, but not an absolute necessity of their existence:
I declare that which I cannot deny, namely, that within infinite space either there may be an
infinity of worlds similar to our own; or that this universe may have extended its capacity in
order to contain many bodies such as those we name stars; or again that, whether these
worlds be similar or dissimilar to one another, it may with no less reason be well that one
than that another should exist. For the existence of one is no less reasonable than that of
another; and the existence of many no less so than of one or of the other; and the existence
of an infinity of them no less so than the existence of a large number. Wherefore, even as
22
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 362; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 333: “nell’immenso spacio non
è differenza di alto, basso, destro, sinistro, avanti et addietro.” By contrast, Epicurean space admits
an ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards;’ see Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus, 60, and Konstan 1972.
23
24
De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 113: “Ora se la materia ha il suo appetito, il quale non deve essere
in vano, perché tal appetito è della natura e procede da l’ordine della prima natura, bisogna che il
loco, il spacio, l’inane abbiano cotale appetito;” On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 271. It is important
to note that, if space is indifferent to the kind of matter occupying it, it is not indifferent with
respect to being occupied or empty, since space desires matter. This point separates Bruno from the
triumphant representation of space and matter in the scientific revolution. More in accordance with
ancient atomism and Epicureanism, authors like Galileo, Gassendi or Newton will maintain that
space is indifferent to being void or filled. For this point of contrast with Lucretius see Fantechi
2006, 579–581. The cause of this divergence is precisely Bruno’s concept of the relation of void
space to God, as will be shown in what follows.
25
Cf. Koyré 1957, 44 and 46.
26
the abolition and nonexistence of this world would be an evil, so would it be of innumerable
others.27
However, the fact that for Bruno homogeneous space desires matter indifferently is
a powerful argument in favor of the plenitude of space. This trend of thought is, in
addition, warranted and brought to fulfillment by two other principles governing
Bruno’s thought: the first is the so-called ‘principle of plenitude,’ derived (as suffi-
ciently shown by Arthur O. Lovejoy)28 from the Platonic tradition; the second is
Bruno’s rejection of the scholastic distinction between the absolute and ordained
power of God (potentia absoluta et ordinata).29 If this distinction had been intro-
duced in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in order to preserve God’s freedom and
the contingency of the creation, its rejection enables Bruno to affirm the necessary
derivation of the universe from God’s power, while still not abolishing God’s free-
dom. De l’infinito makes clear the necessary character of God’s production, but it is
in De immenso, where Bruno, after presenting his concept of space with all its attri-
butes, establishes the series of ‘common principles’ (principia communia) granting
the absolute simplicity and unity of God’s essence30 and the coincidence of neces-
sity and freedom in His production.31 Accordingly, since all His attributes are coex-
tensive and one, God acts in His one and unique production (the universe) with all
His infinite power; and as a result the universe is infinite, eternal, and the infinite
space totally filled with informed matter.32 Any presence of empty, or void, should
contradict the principle of plenitude, according to which “the Good is diffusive of
itself” (bonum est diffusivum sui),33 since it would indicate that infinite divine
27
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 259; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 81–83.
28
Lovejoy 1936, 116–124; cf. also Koyré 1957, 42. Regarding, however, the derivation of this
principle also from Aristotle, see Del Prete 2003. Even Epicurus and Lucretius already subscribed
to a version of the ‘principle of plenitude’ without giving up the necessity of void; see e.g.
Lucretius, De rerum natura, II, 1048–1089.
29
For the history of this distinction see Courtenay 1990. On its rejection by Bruno see Granada
1994, 2002.
30
De immenso, I, 11, in Bruno 1879, 242, principle IV: “Deus est simplicissima essentia, in qua
nulla compositio potest esse, vel diversitas intrinsece.”
31
Ibid., 243, principle IX: “Necessitas et libertas sunt unum, unde non est formidandum quod, cum
[Deus] agat necessitate naturae, non libere agat: sed potius immo omnino non libere ageret, aliter
agendo, quam necessitas et natura, imo naturae necessitas requirit.” Accordingly, the adversary
should prove the (impossible) assertion that “necessity in God is different from freedom” (“pro-
bandum est adversario: [...] VI. necessitatem in Deo aliud esse a libertate,” ibid., 244).
32
De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 89: “Qual raggione vuole che vogliamo credere che l’agente che può
fare un buono infinito lo fa finito? E se lo fa finito, perché doviamo noi credere che possa farlo
infinito, essendo in lui il possere et il fare tutto uno? Perché è immutabile, non ha contingenzia
nell’operazione, né nella efficacia, ma da determinata e certa efficacia depende determinato e certo
effetto inmutabilmente;” On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 262: “What argument would persuade us
that the Agent capable of creating infinite good should have created it finite? And if he hath created
it finite, why should we believe that the Agent could have created it infinite, since power and action
are in him but one? For he is immutable, there is no contingency in his action or in his power, but
from determined and assured power there immutably do follow determined and assured results.”
33
See Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names, chap. 4, §20; Saint Thomas Aquinas,
Summa theologiae, I, 27, art. 5, obj. 2. Cf. Lovejoy 1936, 49 f.
164 M. Á. Granada
g oodness ‘envies being’ (“invidia l’essere”), contrary to Plato’s assertion in Timaios

29e that God, according to the Latin translation by Ficinus (who employs the same
term – invidia – as Chalcidius, the first Latin interpreter, to translate the Greek
φθόνος), “bonus erat. Bonus autem nulla unquam aliqua de re invidia tangitur. Ergo
cum livor ab eo alienissimus esset, omnia sibi quantum fieri poterant simillima fieri
voluit.”34 Void would also contradict the coextension and identity of power and will
in God, since it would entail either that God’s power is finite, or that He does not
want to produce all He can produce.
At the same time, and because production is, like power and will, an essential
attribute of God, the infinite universe is a necessary and free production; and the
same applies to infinite and homogeneous space, since it is a necessary condition for
the existence of matter and the universe. Moreover, the infinite and eternal universe
is not external to God (a creatio ad extra marked by contingency); rather, it has the
properties of necessity and infinity governing the generatio ad intra, that is, the
derivation of the Son and the Holy Spirit in the trinitary process. And after the dia-
logue De la causa, principio et uno has interpreted the (divine) intellect as the most
eminent faculty of the universal soul, and the Holy Spirit as this universal soul
which is the form of the universe, it can be argued, with Hans Blumenberg, that
Bruno (in accordance with his rigorously unitary concept of God) has identified the
generatio ad intra with the production of the infinite and necessary universe, and
conceived it as an internal process in God. As a result, the universe becomes the
Verbum of God and His self-production and explication.35
Infinite void space is therefore filled everywhere with informed matter. First, and
immediately, with liquid and continuous pure air, also called ether and even spiritus
inasmuch as it penetrates us36; secondly, with stars (suns and planets forming
34
“He was good; and in the good no jealousy in any matter can ever arise. So, being without jeal-
ousy, he desired that all things should come as near as possible to being like himself,” as translated
in Cornford 1935, 33. Unfortunately, Cornford’s translation misses the connection with the Latin
tradition, preserved instead by Bruno with his terms invidioso, invidia (De l’infinito in Bruno 2006,
85 and 87). The same happens in Singer’s translation; see On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 260:
“remain grudgingly sterile;” 262: “Omnipotence doth not grudge being.”
35
See Blumenberg 1976, 127: “Ein Gott, der realisieren muss, was er kann, bringt sich selbst noch
einmal hervor. Zeugung und Schöpfung fallen zusammen. Wo die Schöpfung die hervorbringende
Macht Gottes erschöpft, kann für den trinitarischen Prozess kein Raum mehr sein. Wenn aber, und
das ist der nächste Schritt, die absolute Selbstverwirklichung der göttlichen Allmacht ‘Welt’ ist
und nicht ‘Person,’ dann muss der Charakter der Personalität auch schon dem sich selbst reproduz-
ierenden Grunde abgesprochen werden;” 179, n148: “Bruno hat eine der dunkelsten
Unterscheidungen der Dogmengeschichte nicht mitgemacht, die von generatio und creatio: die
Hervorbringung des Gottessohnes als ‘Zeugung,’ die Hervorbringung der Welt als ‘Schöpfung.’ Er
hält an der cusanischen Grundidee fest, dass das absolute ‘Können’ sich in dem Hervorgehen der
aequalitas aus der unitas manifestieren müsse – aber die Stelle der aequalitas wird bei Bruno nicht
durch den Sohn, sondern durch das unendliche Universum besetzt.” On the trinitary issue in Bruno
see also Fantechi 2007; Scapparone 2008.
36
See De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 357, 117 and 177; On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 372, 273 and
300. The fact that the air internal to animals is called “spirto” shows the influence of Stoicism. The
denomination “ether” for this fluid, inasmuch as it is pure and fills the space where the stars dwell
p lanetary systems or, in Bruno’s terminology, synodi ex mundis).37 And ether (as
well as eterea regione, etereo corpo, etereo seno) is the term Bruno usually employs
for space inasmuch as it really offers itself to observation, whereas vuoto or vacuo
refers to the space when conceived as the pure, absolute (a priori, we could say in
Kantian terms) dimensional receptacle, not merely formal, but really existing as a
necessary condition for matter. Indeed, ether (or pure air) can be rightly termed
space, since it possesses the properties of space: the ability to be traversed38 and
absence of resistance to the motion of heavenly bodies (the ether “is without tenac-
ity or resistance, more rare and subtle than the air we breathe”).39 Nonetheless, it is
wrong, pace Edward Grant, to affirm that “because the ether seems able to perform
all the functions of void, the latter appears as superfluous.”40 Just as matter and form
(soul), though coinciding in the one and single substance, can and must be con-
ceived separately as the two principles of substance, void is also a principle concep-
tually prior, which deserves to be regarded and understood independently of the
universe to which it offers a place or location, despite the fact that void space never
exists and appears separately.
Some weeks before the publication of De l’infinito, Bruno had affirmed in De la
causa that intellect, form or universal soul and matter are aspects or expressions of
God. What can we say about space? Is it also an attribute or aspect of God? Or is
and through which they move, manifests a remnant of the ancient wisdom preceding Aristotle,
since the true meaning of this term is “percurribile:” “in quanto poi che è puro e non si fa parte di
composto, ma luogo e continente per cui quello si muove e discorre, si noma propriamente ‘etere,’
che dal corso [Greek verb θεῖν] prende denominazione,” ibid., 357. Cf. also De immenso in Bruno
1879, IV, chap. 14, 78–79, where a second etymology [ether, from Greek aithein, to burn] is also
adduced: “Aether vero est idem quod coelum, inane, spacium absolutum [...] qui omnia corpora
circumplectitur infinitus. Quia maiori ex parte ardet. [...] Aether enim nullius qualitatis, virtutis, vel
operationis, vel passionis esse potest subiectum; et sic coelum dicimus vere inalterabile impassi-
bile ingenerabile incorruptibile immobile; quia in eo debent moveri, et currere astra. Hoc totum de
spacio et vacui dicimus: hoc est coelum et regia deorum (id est astrorum) ab initio philosophanti-
bus et vulgo cognita.” As pure air, this fluid is identified with the biblical firmamentum and with the
image or symbol of Atlas in ancient pagan wisdom. See Acrotismus Camoeracensis in Bruno 1879,
165 (art. lxv): “Ipse [pure air] est figuratum firmamentum per vectorem Atlantem, omnia sine
labore sustinentem;” cf. the Italian translation: Acrotismo in Bruno 2009, 125. For the first etymol-
ogy of ether see Plato, Cratylus, 410b 6–7; Aristotle, De caelo, in Aristotle 1939, 270b 22–23. For
the second etymology see [Arist.] De mundo, 392a, 5–6.
37
On this concept see Granada 2010, 2013. In De immenso, I, 3, in Bruno 1879, 213, Bruno pres-
ents the concept of synodus ex mundis as secretly transmitted by the Homeric myth of the banquet
of the Olympic Gods (suns) among the black Ethiopians (planets). This is a second point of ancient
wisdom transmitted to us in the veiled form of etymology and myth concerning the principles and
true structure of the universe.
38
De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 249: “il spacio è tale, per quale possano discorrere tanti astri;” 355:
“l’infinito spacio, cioè il cielo continente e pervagato da quelli [the stars].” De immenso, IV, 14, in
Bruno 1879, 79: “spacium dicitur aether quia decurritur” [space is called ether because it is run
through].
39
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 362; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 333. Cf. On the Infinite in Bruno
1968, 340: “so subtle and liquid a body as the air which resisted naught;” De l’infinito in Bruno
2006, 279: “sì liquido e sottil corpo, che non resiste al tutto.”
40
Grant 1981, 189.
166 M. Á. Granada
Edward Grant right when he concludes that “the consequences of Bruno’s descrip-
tion of space and the properties he assigned it lead inevitably to an infinite space that
is coeternal with but wholly independent of God [...]. It does seem that the space
God occupied was not of His own making”?41 This very significant issue and the
problem of the relationship between God and infinite space will be our primary
concern in what follows.
8.3 The Relation Between God and Space
De l’infinito already presents, in 1584, some ambiguous passages in which the sub-
ject is often assumed to be the infinite corporeal universe. They can arguably be
referred to infinite space as well, with the implication that space is not ontologically
prior to or independent from God but, like matter and form, an expression or aspect
of God. In the fifth dialogue, when Albertino asks Bruno to proceed with his mis-
sion of enlightenment, he says: “Proceed to make known to us [...] how an infinite
space is not impossible, but is necessary; how such an infinite effect beseemeth the
infinite cause.”42
This infinite effect, is it the universe or the space containing it? It is difficult to
say, and possibly both answers are correct. In this case, if the clause refers to space,
then it is explicitly declared an effect or production of God, not something existing
per se, independently from God. On the contrary, if it refers to the universe as an
effect of the divine cause, the fact that space is not an effect of God does not entail,
as Grant suggests, that space is independent from God, but (as will be argued later)
rather that space is an aspect or expression of God himself.
In addition, in the first dialogue, when the infinity of space is discussed for the
first time, Bruno affirms: “Why should not that infinite which is implicit in the
utterly simple and individual Prime Origin rather become explicit in his own infinite
and boundless image able to contain innumerable worlds, than become explicit
within such narrow bounds?”43 Even if we take the universe as the subject rather
than space, since the universe is usually named the explicatio and simulacrum of
God, it could be argued that properly “capacissimo” is not the universe, but the
41
Grant 1981, 191.
42
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 377; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 369: “Séguita a farne conoscere
[...] come non è impossibile ma necessario un infinito spacio; come convegna tal infinito effetto
all’infinita causa.”
43
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 257; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 75: “Che repugna che l’infinito
implicato nel simplicissimo et individuo primo principio [i.e. God as the One], non venga esplicato
più tosto in questo suo simulacro infinito et interminato, capacissimo di innumerabili mondi, che
venga esplicato in sì anguste margini [...]?” And on the next page, the passage “bisogna che di un
inaccesso volto divino, sia uno infinito simulacro nel quale come infiniti membri poi si trovino
mondi innumerabili quali sono gli altri [mondi],” 77 – the image (simulacro) of the inaccessible
deity is not necessarily the space, but more probably the infinite universe in it with its infinite
worlds.
space as void receptacle, the universe being contained in it and consisting in innu-
merable worlds.44 Thus, space is (like the universe) the explicatio or unfolding of
“the utterly simple and individual Prime Origin,” far removed from the ontological
independence attributed to it by Grant.
Finally, with the same ambiguity we read in the second dialogue: “even as there
is in truth one infinite and utterly simple individual entity, so also there is an
immense dimensional infinite within that other, and within which is that other, in the
same fashion as he is within the all and the all is within him.”45 The dimensional
infinite is the universe, but it is also the infinite dimensional space containing both
the universe and God himself inasmuch as the universe is the explicatio, unfolding
or expansion of God, that is, the external side of the one infinite substance. A beauti-
ful passage from De immenso explicitly states that infinite space is God’s abode,
with clear biblical echoes indicating that we are confronted with a doctrinal point
deriving (like the synodi ex mundis, the firmamentum or Atlas, and the ether) from
ancient wisdom:
Space is called ether because it is run through. There are as many heavens as heavenly bod-
ies, if we understand by heaven the space contiguous to and encompassing every heavenly
body, just as the heaven of the Earth is called not only the space where the Earth is placed,
but also so much space that surrounds it, as distinct from the space that surrounds the Moon
and other worldly bodies around us. The heaven of heaven is the space of one system in
which this sun is placed with its planets. The heaven of heavens is the greatest and immense
space, which is also called ether because it can be entirely run through and all [stars] burn
through it entirely [...]. As a consequence, the seat of the blessed are the heavenly bodies,
the seat of the gods is the ether or heaven (I call the heavenly bodies gods in a second sense).
The seat of God is, in fact, the universe in its entirety and in every part, the immense heaven,
the void space whose plenitude [He] is, the father of the light filling the darkness,
ineffable.46
44
Cf. De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 77: “per la continenza di questi innumerabili si richiede un spa-
cio infinito;” On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 257: “to contain the innumerable bodies there is
needed an infinite space.”
45
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 270 (we have modified the translation); De l’infinito in Bruno
2006, 111: “come veramente è uno individuo infinito simplicissimo, cossì sia uno amplissimo
dimensionale infinito il quale sia in quello, e nel quale sia quello, al modo con cui lui è nel tutto, et
il tutto è in lui.”
46
De immenso, IV, 14, in Bruno 1879, 79–80: “Spacium dicitur aether quia decurritur. Tot sunt
caeli quot astra, si caelum intelligamus contiguum et circumstans configuratum uniuscuiusque
spacium, ut caelum Telluris dicitur non solum spacium in quo est, sed et quantum spacii perambit
ipsum distinctum a spacio perambiente Lunam, et alia (quae circa sunt) corpora mundana. Caelum
caeli est spacium unius synodi sicut in quo hic sol est cum suis planetis. Caelum caelorum e<s>t
maximum et immensum spacium; quod et aether dicitur, quia totum est percurribile, et quia in toto
maxime flagrant omnia. [...] Sedes ergo beatorum sunt astra: sedes deorum est aether seu caelum:
astra quippe Deos secunda ratione dico. Sedes vero Dei est universum ubique totum immensum
caelum, vacuum spacium cuius est plenitudo; pater lucis comprehendentis tenebras, ineffabilis,”
(italics are ours). Regarding the biblical terms (coelum, coelum coeli, coelum coelorum) see Pépin
1953. Bruno, for obvious reasons, prefers the singular coelum coelorum (Nehemias 9:6) to the
more frequent coeli coelorum, besides interpreting coelum coeli and coelum coelorum not as incor-
poreal and intelligible regions and entities, but as more or less extended regions in the unique
infinite space and corporeal universe.
168 M. Á. Granada
Accordingly, the heaven (coelum) is the space of a single star or heavenly body (e.g.
the earth) through which it moves; the heaven of heaven (coelum coeli) is the space
of a synodus or planetary system; the heaven of heavens (coelum coelorum) is the
entire infinite space, also called ether (as the first configuration of matter filling it)
and filled also by God as totus in toto (all in all and in every part of the all).47
God thus fills space and the universe that fills space. This parallelism between
space as vacuum and space as ether, heaven, and ultimately universe, in the relation
to God is easy to understand. It is, indeed, like the parallelism between (void) space
and matter. Though they are different, as void receptacle and substantial principle
contained in it and immediately filling it, they are strongly related, as shown by the
Platonic concept of χώρα in the Timaeus (49a, 51a–b, 52 a–b), in which space and
matter mingle or coincide without being identical. Bruno twice mentions in De
l’infinito the Platonic confluence of space and matter approvingly: “this world,
called by the Platonists matter;”48 “Space and the void, if not identical with matter,
have a resemblance thereto, as it would seem is sometimes maintained perhaps not
without reason, by Plato and by all those who define position as a certain space.”49
Resemblance is not identity, and for that reason Aristotle was wrong when he criti-
cized Plato in Physics (IV, 2, 209b 11–13) for simply identifying space and matter.
As the Acrotismus stated 4 years later, “Plato could reasonably have said that matter
is a certain receptacle and that place is a certain receptacle. On that account, there
was no place for slander, so that, in accordance with Aristotle’s censorship, the
receptacle was for him [Plato] the same as matter and matter the same as receptacle.”50
As Bruno explains, the reason for the confusion is that both matter and space are
receptacles, but of a different order: matter being an indifferent receptacle of forms,
and space (which is “non formabile,” according to De immenso)51 being an indiffer-
ent receptacle, first of matter and secondarily of extended bodies, besides also being
“sedes Dei,” that is, God’s abode. However, inasmuch as void or absolute space
never presents itself to observation, but always appears filled by matter, we can
understand how De l’infinito concedes, in the passage quoted above, that beyond
“resemblance,” perhaps they are the same thing (“se pur [spacio] non è la materia
47
De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 87: “dico Dio ‘totalmente infinito’ perché tutto lui è in tutto il
mondo, et in ciascuna sua parte infinitamente e totalmente;” On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 261: “I
say that God is all-comprehensive infinity because the whole of him pervadeth the whole world
and every part thereof comprehensively and to infinity.”
48
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 254; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 69: “[il mondo] da Platonici è
detto materia.”
49
On the Infinite in Bruno 1968, 271; De l’infinito in Bruno 2006, 113: “il luogo, spacio et inane
ha similitudine con la materia, se pur non è la materia istessa: come forse non senza caggione tal
volta par che voglia Platone, e tutti quelli che definiscono il luogo come certo spacio.”
50
Our translation. Cf. Acrotismus Camoeracensis, in Bruno 1879, art. xxx, 126–127: “Potuit sane
Plato dixisse, materiam esse receptaculum quoddam, et locum quoddam receptaculum esse. Non
propterea calumniae locus erat, ut, juxta Aristotelis censuram, receptaculum illi [i.e. Plato] idem
fuerit quod materia, et materia idem ac receptaculum.” See also Acrotismo in Bruno 2009, 92–93.
51
De immenso, I, 8, in Bruno 1879, 232 (ninth attribute of space): “non formabile: hoc enim mate-
riam oportet esse seu subiectum et omnino alterabile.” Cf. the comment by Amato in Acrotismo, in
Bruno 2009, 92, n6.
istessa”). And this assimilation is reinforced when it is added immediately that

space has an appetite for matter, like matter has an appetite for forms.52
Now, if matter is, like form (or soul) and intellect (or efficient cause, “padre e
progenitore,” “artefice interno”),53 the unfolding or expansion of God, is it plausible
to argue, with Grant, that space is existent per se and independent of God, some-
thing coeternal with Him, “who appears to have utilized it merely as the container
of His infinite universe” and of Himself, inasmuch as space is His place? If this
assumption were true, it would follow that space is prior to God Himself and neces-
sary for God in order to act and display all His infinite power. God would be, there-
fore, not causa prima et unica, but dependent on space. The implications of Grant’s
solution are rather incompatible with the foundations of Bruno’s ontology; more-
over, Grant’s conclusion is hardly compatible (if not totally incompatible) with the
sixth ‘common principle’ of De immenso, I, 11, according to which God’s will (or
God’s essence) is ‘above all things:’ “Consequenter Dei voluntas est super omnia.”54
In order to find a solution and confirm the nature of space as a ‘fifth genus of
cause’ (in addition to the four classical causes analyzed in De la causa), and like the
four others related to God as His unfolding or explicatio, we must search for evi-
dence in the Acrotismus. In particular, we turn to a contemporary work regrettably
unattended by Grant, namely the Lampas triginta statuarum.
8.4 S
pace and God According to the “Lampas Triginta
Statuarum”
Written initially in 1587 (the date of the manuscript copy preserved in the
Stadtbibliothek Augsburg), but subject to profound revision in the following years,
as witnessed by the copy written in 1591 by Bruno’s disciple Hieronymus Besler
(preserved in Moscow, in the codex Norov), the Lampas aims to offer a new presen-
tation of Bruno’s ontology. The revision, as shown by the modifications introduced
in the later copy, mainly replaces the Neoplatonic character of many initial state-
ments (derived from the sources on which Bruno had relied) with an exposition
more in line with the ontology formulated in the Italian dialogue De la causa.55
Perhaps the most salient aspect of this work is the choice of an exposition method
that translates the ontological concepts into symbolic images, in imitation (Bruno
says) of the method employed by ‘ancient wisdom,’ in order not to veil knowledge,
but to grant easier access to it.56 Thus, even if the six primary ontological principles
52
This point has been rightly emphasized by Fantechi 2006, 582.
53
De la Causa, dialogue iii, in Bruno 2016, 113–117.
54
De immenso, I, 11, in Bruno 1879, 243. Cf. principles IV and V.
55
On this see the note by Nicoletta Tirinnanzi in Bruno 2000a, xcviii ff. See also Tirinnanzi 2013a,
b. Unfortunately, Tirinnanzi pays no attention to the issue of ‘void’ (chaos in Lampas) and limits
her examination to the concept of matter (nox).
56
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 938–940: “Ordo erit procedendi a notioribus nobis sensibilibus et phan-
tasiabilibus ad intelligibilia et contemplabilia universalia, quae sunt causae et rationes omnium
170 M. Á. Granada
Table 8.1 Superior and inferior triads

Derivation: Father —› Son
Superior triad (male) Pater Intellectus Spiritus
Mens Apollo Lux
Plenitudo Fons idearum
Inferior triad (female) Chaos Orcus Nox
Void Privation Matter
Space Desire
(which will be our only concern) admit no visual representation through a figure or
statue, because they are essentially infigurable and lack form, they are described in
imaginative terms transmitting their indeterminacy and indifference prior to deter-
mination through form.
These six primordial principles appear in two triads, respectively called ‘infe-
rior’ and ‘superior’ (inferna and superna). These adjectives, though they evoke the
cosmological and ontological hierarchy of being and the ensuing superiority of
intellect over matter, have no hierarchical import, and are in accordance with the
equivalence of the opposite ontological principles established in De la causa. The
first, ‘inferior’ triad is that of Chaos, Orcus and Nox, respectively representing the
void or space,57 the appetite of void (or passive potency, privation) and matter.58 The
second, “superna” triad is that of Pater (Mens, Plenitudo), Intellectus (Apollo uni-
versalis, Fons idearum) and Spiritus (Lux).59 In each triad the succession of the
second and third with respect to the preceding member is described as one of son
and father. Thus, Orcus or Abyss (the appetite in void space) is described as the son
of Chaos,60 and Night (or matter) as the daughter of Orcus61; in the other triad,
Intellect is the son of father mens, whereas spiritus is described as amor, clearly
summoning a derivation from the Christian Trinity, but with obvious cosmological
meaning (see Table 8.1)62.
particularium: et ideo ab iisdem – tamquam a causis et principiis – facillimo negotio media desu-
mere licebit. [...] [I]taque usum atque formam antiquae philosophiae et priscorum theologorum
revocabimus, qui nimirum arcana naturae eiusmodi typis et similitudinibus non tantum velare con-
sueverunt, quantum declarare, explicare, in seriem digerere, et faciliori memoriae retentioni
accommodare” (italics are ours).
57
For Chaos as a denomination of void space, Bruno refers to Hesiod (Theogonia, vv. 116–117).
The reference is also present in the contemporary Acrotismus; see Acrotismus Camoeracensis, in
Bruno 1879, 124 and the Italian translation: Acrotismo in Bruno 2009, 90 (art. 28). Most probably,
Bruno owes the reference to Aristotle, whose description of Hesiod’s chaos in Physics, IV, 1, 208b
29–33, he accepts as true against the Stagirite. Thus, Hesiodic chaos is another point of true phi-
losophy present in ancient wisdom.
58
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 942.
59
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 1008, 1024 and 1044.
60
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 958: “Sequitur, tanquam filius patrem, Chaos ipsa Abyssus seu Orcus.”
61
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 972: “Orci filiam primogenitam Noctem esse intelligimus.”
62
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 1026: “Hic licet contemplari in patre essentiarum essentiam, in filio
omnem pulchritudinem et generandi appetitum, in fulgore ipsum spiritum pervadentem omnia et
vivificantem.”
The sequence from the first to the third step in each triad is not a causal process
in time. Every instance is coeternal to the others; e.g., chaos or void is ontologically
(or perhaps better, conceptually) prior to matter, but void is initially, or from the
beginning, eternally filled with matter, due to the fact that the medium (Orcus as
passive potency, privation or infinite desire) instantaneously gives place to infinite
matter. In the same way, even if the second and third steps are described as father
and son, they are not causal effects of the preceding steps, since they are explicitly
said to have no cause. Thus, nox or matter “bears some resemblance to God, inas-
much as it is a cause without cause;”63 likewise, chaos or void space “is not from a
cause or caused, but wholly without cause.”64 In my opinion, this means that all the
aspects in each triad cannot be interpreted according to a causal process, but as
aspects or conceptual moments in a single essence.65
With regard to the relation between both triads, every step in the inferior triad is
connected with the equivalent in the superior one, that is: matter or nox is related to
spiritus (the universal soul), orcus or privation to intellect (fons idearum, appetitus
generandi), and chaos or void space to the father or mens innominabilis. The rela-
tion within each pair is presented as that of a married couple. This appears more
clearly in the relation between universal soul and matter, whose union (or coitus)
produces the series of natural beings constituting the universe.66 It is easy to see that
this presentation in the Lampas of the ontological principles and causes of the infi-
nite universe is an expansion of the one previously presented in De la causa: if nox
and lux correspond to matter and universal soul as the infinite coextensive material
and formal principles or causes of the universe, intellect as “fons idearum,” “activis-
sima efficacia” and “appetitus generandi” in the Lampas corresponds to the intellect
as the efficient cause in the Italian dialogue, satisfying as infinite active potency the
infinite passive potency, aptitude, privation and desire in Orcus as the son of Chaos.
From their union proceeds or results infinite matter informed with the infinite diver-
sity of natural beings in the universe. We are left, then, with the pair Chaos (Void
space) and Father (Mens innominabilis, Plenitudo) respectively related as female
and male. If we take into account the previously quoted (roughly contemporary)
passage from De immenso IV, 14, we find a confirmation of this relation as one of
infinite contraries (like matter and form). The passage concludes: “The seat of God
is, in fact, the universe in its entirety and in every part, the immense heaven, the void
63
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 994: “similitudinem quippe habet cum Deo ex hoc quod causa
incausata;” 984: “ipsa [nox] causam non habet.”
64
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 952: “non est a causa seu causatum, sed incausabile prorsus.”
65
For the application of the category of relation to the primordial principles, as well as to the con-
nection between God and the universe, inasmuch as they are reciprocally dependent or mutually
implicated, see Del Prete 2016. Del Prete, however, limits her study to the superior triad and to the
Trinitary issue, paying no attention to the question of void space and its relation to God.
66
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 988: “[Matter] est natura seu naturae species, condistincta ab alia
natura – quae est lux –, e quorum coitu naturalia generantur;” 994: “in quibus esse distinguitur ab
essentia, in his Noctem intueri licet matrem, et lucem patrem.”
172 M. Á. Granada
space whose plenitude [He] is, the father of the light filling the darkness, ineffable.”67
Void space (chaos) is the abode of God (of the first element in the superior triad,
precisely called Plenitudo, Pater, lux infinita, innominabilis).68
We are, then, confronted with the opposition of two infinite contraries as the
ultimate principle and cause of the universe: Father (also called God), and Chaos or
Void space. But the first presentation of the Father in Lampas clearly indicates that
the three members of each triad are in reality one entity or essence (a tri-unity, so to
speak). In the Father “three run together, so that anywhere and everywhere He may
be sun, ray and illumination, without any distinction in Him, but unity and identity
of all three.”69 The Sun is, of course, the Father, but radius and fulgur (with whom
he is identified) are also images or denominations of the intellect and the spirit.
Obviously, Bruno has in mind here the Christian Trinity, as is confirmed later in the
presentation of intellect:
The ancient theologians understand by this center the paternal mind which, when it con-
templates itself, produces a certain circle and engenders the first intellect, which they call
son. With this conception accomplished, and pleasing itself through the image of its
essence, it sends out a brightness, which they call love, that departs from the father when he
contemplates himself in the son. Here can be contemplated in the father the essence of
essences, in the son all beauty and desire of generation, in the brightness the very same
spirit pervading all things and vivifying them.70
There is no need to argue that this Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit has a cosmo-
ontological dimension, reflecting or consisting of the infinite universe. Generatio
ad intra and creation of the universe (creatio ad extra) are one and the same neces-
sary and infinite thing or process. But the same can be said for the opposite triad:
void space, privation and matter (or filled space) are also a tri-unity, the same thing
or process, related to the other and complementing it, just as the production of the
infinite universe is the explication or realization of God, a God containing in Himself
(as Nicholas of Cusa, Bruno’s mentor in this matter, had stated), as unity of the
contradictories, potency and act or matter and form.
67
See n46 above: “Sedes vero Dei est universum ubique totum immensum caelum, vacuum spa-
cium cuius est plenitudo; pater lucis comprehendentis tenebras, ineffabilis.”
68
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 1008: “De patre, seu mente, seu plenitudine. [...] Typus tamen ipsius est
lux infinita.”
69
“Tria concurrunt, ut undique et ubique sit sol, radius et fulgur, ut in eo nulla distinctio sit, sed
omnium horum trium unitas et identitas,” ibid.
70
Lampas in Bruno 2000b, 1026: “Antiqui theologi per centrum illud paternam mentem intelligunt,
quae – dum se ipsam contemplatur – circulum quendam producit [recall that the circle is defined
and produced by its radius], et primum generat intellectum, quem filium appellant; qua concep-
tione perfecta, in imagine essentiae suae sibi complacens fulgorem emittit, quem amorem appel-
lant, qui a patre seipsum in filio contemplante proficiscitur. Hic licet contemplari in patre
essentiarum essentiam, in filio omnem pulchritudinem et generandi appetitum, in fulgore ipsum
spiritum pervadentem omnia et vivificantem” (italics are ours). Cf. also Fantechi 2007, 392–396,
and 405–406. Unfortunately, Fantechi’s analysis focuses uniquely on the ‘superior’ triad or trinity,
leaving aside the ‘inferior’ one of space-matter, structurally and substantially connected with the
other.
We therefore arrive at the relation of void space (chaos) to God, the same prob-
lem which became such a source of perplexity for Edward Grant, who suggested the
solution, wrong in our opinion, that space is not God’s own making, but an eternal
principle independent of Him, a principle necessary for God to locate Himself and
His infinite universe. Two passages in De la causa can provide a solution to the
problem, both terminologically and conceptually. In the third dialogue of this first
presentation of Bruno’s mature ontology, when Dicson (Bruno’s disciple) com-
ments on the absoluteness of God and His incomprehensibility by the human intel-
lect, he describes God as being at the same time “sublime light and so profound an
abyss.”71 And Bruno, through his mouthpiece Teofilo, confirms that God is, indeed,
the coincidence of the contradictories light and darkness (that is, mens and space-
matter) with a biblical quotation as further testimony of the presence of this doctri-
nal point in ancient wisdom:
The coincidence of this act with the absolute potency has been very plainly described by the
divine spirit, when it says, “Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as
the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.”72
Accordingly, both light and matter (as filled space) belong equally to God or they
both coincide in the simple essence of God, who is filled space as well as, or not less
than, mind filling it with forms.
Later, in the fifth, concluding dialogue, Teofilo comments on the non-unified
dualism between the two principles, intellect and matter, according to Aristotelians
and Platonists:
The philosophical method of the Peripatetics and of many Platonists is to have the multitude
of things as middle term, preceded by the pure act at one extremity, and the pure potency
[i.e. matter] at the other; similar to other philosophers who affirm metaphorically that the
darkness and the light come together in the constitution of innumerable degrees of forms,
images, figures and colours.73
And immediately, this parallelism and non-unified correspondence (in which God is
the purest act or light, and space-matter the opposite ontological point, the worthless
pure potency (or darkness) alien to divinity) is cancelled by summoning the ‘ene-
mies’ of the duality of principles, that is, Bruno’s own concept of God as coinci-
dence of contradictories:
71
Cause in Bruno 1998, 68; De la causa in Bruno 2016, 213: “altissima luce e sì profundissimo
abisso.”
72
Cause in Bruno 1998, 68; De la causa in Bruno 2016, 213: “La coincidenzia di questo atto con
l’assoluta potenza è stata molto apertamente descritta dal spirto divino dove dice: ‘Tenebrae non
obscurabuntur a te. Nox sicut dies illuminabitur. Sicut tenebra eius, ita et lumen eius’.” The quote
is from Psalms 139:12.
73
Cause in Bruno 1998, 93; De la causa in Bruno 2016, 291: “Con il suo modo di filosofare gli
Peripatetici e molti Platonici alla moltitudine de le cose, come al mezzo, fanno procedere il puris-
simo atto da uno estremo, e la purissima potenza da l’altro. Come vogliono altri per certa metafora
convenir le tenebre e la luce alla costituzione di innumerabili gradi di forme, effigie, figure e
colori.”
174 M. Á. Granada
But beside all these philosophers, who take into consideration two principles and two
princes, others rise up who, impatient with and hostile towards polyarchy, make the two
principles coincide into one, which is at the same time abyss and darkness, clarity and light,
profound and impenetrable obscurity, and supernal and inaccessible light.74
8.5 Conclusion
We may conclude, then, with a correction of Edward Grant’s theory. If space is not
God’s own making, this does not entail that it is wholly independent of Him.75 Void
or Space is God Himself, in the same way that He is the mind-intellect-spirit filling
it. This is the true meaning of the expression in De immenso, “void space whose
plenitude [God] is” (“vacuum spacium cuius est plenitudo”). God is the space no
less than its plenitude, the chaos-abyss-darkness no less than the mind-intellect-
spirit, because both of these trinities are equivalent as well as one and the same
essence. God and the infinite universe are one.
According to Bruno, ‘poor Aristotle’s’ error basically lies in the fact that he
remained ‘snared’ by the wrong assumption ‘that contraries cannot concur in the
same subject:’
Poor Aristotle was tending to this [the coincidence of contraries in the One] in his thought
when he posited privation (to which a certain disposition is joined) as the progenitor, parent
and mother of form, but he could not get to it. He failed to attain it because, stopping at the
genus of opposition, he remained snared by it in such a way that, […] he did not reach or
even perceive the goal. He strayed completely away from it by claiming that contraries can-
not actually concur in the same substratum.76
74
Cause in Bruno 1998, 93; De la causa in Bruno 2016, 291: “Appresso i quali, che considerano
dui principii e dui principi, soccorreno altri nemici et impazienti di poliarchia, e fanno concorrere
que’ doi in uno, che medesimamente è abisso e tenebra, chiarezza e luce, oscurità profonda et
impenetrabile, luce superna et inaccessibile” (italics are ours). The reference to two ‘princes’ (of
light and darkness respectively) clearly alludes to Gnosticism, beyond Platonism and
Aristotelianism. The rejection of polyarchy is clearly inspired by Homer’s Iliad, II, 204 (“The rule
of many [πολυκοιρανίη] is not good; let there be one ruler”) as quoted by Aristotle in Metaphysics,
XII, 1076a 4. This is a further reference by Aristotle to ancient wisdom, which he is unable to fol-
low, contrary to Bruno. As W.D. Ross comments, “Aristotle is not a thoroughgoing monist. He is a
monist in the sense that he believes in one supreme ruling principle, God or the primum movens.
But God is not for him all-inclusive. The sensible world is thought of as having a matter not made
by God,” in Aristotle 1924, II, 405. As Aristotle states in the Physics (II, 7, 198a 22–26), the effi-
cient, formal and final cause “many times come to one” or coincide; cf. infra, n76.
75
Grant 1981, 191.
76
Cause in Bruno 1998, 100; De la causa in Bruno 2016, 315: “A questo [the coincidence of con-
traries in the One] tendeva con il pensiero il povero Aristotele ponendo la privazione (a cui è con-
gionta certa disposizione) come progenitrice, parente e madre della forma: ma non vi poté
aggiungere, non ha possuto arrivarvi; perché fermando il piè nel geno de l’opposizione, rimase
inceppato di maniera, che non […] giunse né fissò gli occhi al scopo: dal quale errò a tutta passata,
dicendo i contrarii non posser attualmente convenire in soggetto medesimo.”
Aristotle (as well as Plato) transmitted this error to the metaphysical tradition that
followed him. This tradition conceived matter as entirely separate from the other
three coinciding causes, as we find clearly stated by Maimonides in his Guide of the
Perplexed: “One of the opinions of the philosophers, an opinion with which I do not
disagree, is that God [...] is the efficient cause, that He is the form, and that He is the
end [...] in order to comprise these three causes – that is, the fact that God is the
efficient cause of the world, its form, and its end.”77 We can therefore understand
why matter was perceived (to speak in the same imagery as Maimonides in his
Guide) to be “a strong veil preventing the apprehension of that which is separate
from matter as it truly is [...] namely, that we are separated by a veil from God and
that He is hidden from us by a heavy cloud, or by darkness.”78 If Spinoza was able
to dispel the cloud of matter preventing the knowledge of God precisely by substi-
tuting for the false concept of matter the true one of matter-extension as God’s
attribute parallel to thought,79 the same, or something very similar, had been done
77
Guide, I, 69, in Maimonides 1963, 167. Cf. the Latin translation: Dux, I, 68, in Maimonides
1520, xxvii verso: “De credibilitate vero ipsorum [philosophorum] et opinione cui ego non con-
tradico, est: quia credunt quod creator est causa eficiens & forma [&] finis: & ideo vocaverunt
ipsum causam ut coniungantur in ipso tres causae: & sit ipse factor mundi & forma & finis.”
78
Guide, III, 9, in Maimonides 1963, 436–437. Cf. Dux, III, 10, in Maimonides 1520, fol. lxxv
recto: “Materia paries magnus est ante nos: unde non apprehendimus intelligentiam separatam
secundum quod est. [...] Propter hoc igitur cum noster intellectus nititur apprehendere Creatorem
vel aliquam de intelligentiis separatis, invenit parietem illud magnum dividentem inter ipsum et
illa intelligibilia. [...] Ipse vero absconditus est a nobis in nube et caligine.”
79
Ethica, II, 7, scholium, in Spinoza 1925, 46: “substantia cogitans, & substantia extensa una,
eademque est substantia, quae jam sub hoc, jam sub illo attributo comprehenditur. Sic etiam modus
extensionis, & idea illius modi una, eademque est res, sed duobus modis expressa; quod quidam
Hebraeorum quasi per nebulam vidisse videntur, qui scilicet statuunt, Deum, Dei intellectum,
resque ab ipso intellectas unum, & idem esse,” (italics are ours). That Spinoza refers to Maimonides
is clear from Guide, I, 68, in Maimonides 1963, 163: “You already know that the following dictum
of the philosophers with reference to God [...] is generally admitted: the dictum being that He is
the intellect as well as the intellectually cognizing subject and the intellectually cognized object,
and that those three notions form in Him [...] one single notion in which there is no multiplicity”
[Dux, I, 67, in Maimonides 1520, xxvii recto: “Iam scis verbum manifestum quod philosophi dix-
erunt de Creatore, quod ipse est intellectus & intelligens & intellectum: & quod ista tria sunt unum
in Creatore: & non est ibi multitudo”]. The ultimate philosophical source is, obviously, Aristotle,
Metaphysics, XII, 9, 1074b 33–35 (“Therefore it must be itself that thought thinks (since it is the
most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking,” Aristotle 1985, vol. 2) through
the interpretation of Themistius in his Paraphrasis of Metaphysics Book Lambda. See Pines 1996,
Harvey 1981; Fraenkel 2006. Interestingly, near the end of eighteenth century Germany, Salomon
Maimon (1751–1800) would use, in Give’at ha-Moreh (his second commentary on the Guide of
the Perplexed), Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s partial German translation of Bruno’s De la causa for
arguing, without mentioning Spinoza, that Maimonides should have conceived God as material
cause too, and accordingly as extended. See Maimon 1999, 98–100 and 261–268, especially at
261: “comparé à toutes les autres causes, Dieu est la cause ultime. Car si nous posons que Dieu
qu’il soit exalté, est la forme et la fin sans qu’il soit la cause matérielle, il nous faudra envisager
l’existence d’une matière éternelle, c’est-à-dire non causée. Or ceci contredirait au concept de
Dieu, qu’il soit exalté, lui qui est la cause universelle de tous les existants. [...] Dieu, qu’il soit
exalté, est, de tous les points de vue, la cause ultime. Eu égard à la complexité de la question, j’ai
jugé bon de reproduire ici les propos du philosophe italien Jordan Bruno de Nola tirés de son livre
sur la cause.”
176 M. Á. Granada
previously by Bruno when he dispelled that cloud or veil through his unitary con-
cept of God as coincidence of potency with act, and of void, privation and space
with mind, intellect and soul; and when he conceived infinite space as being God no
less than mind is God, that is, as being one of the two opposites coinciding in God’s
unity. In his splendid and provoking Much Ado About Nothing, Edward Grant sum-
marized the transformations in the ideas on space in the early modern period, saying
that “from the introduction of the Greek concept of a separate, infinite, three-
dimensional void space in the sixteenth century to Spinoza’s Ethics in 1677, approx-
imately 150 years, space had become indistinguishable from God Himself. Spinoza
took the final step and conflated God, extension, matter, and space as one infinite,
indivisible substance.” Finally, Grant added: “One could go no further and few, if
any, would go as far.”80 I would dare to suggest that Bruno had already and volun-
tarily gone as far.
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Chapter 9
Libert Froidmont’s Conception
and Imagination of Space in Three Early
Works: Peregrinatio cœlestis (1616), De
cometa (1618), Meteorologica (1627)
Isabelle Pantin
Abstract Libert Froidmont defended a single conception of space in the three

books he published as a professor of philosophy at the University of Leuven before,
as a professor of theology, he became involved in a series of open controversies
(against heliocentrism and in defence of Jansenius). This conception of space was
anti-Aristotelian; it was influenced by Stoicism, by the impact of the work of Tycho
Brahe, and that of the new telescopic discoveries. However, the style, aim and focus
of the successive expositions of this conception did change, as Froidmont became
more and more invested both in his theologian studies, and in his defence of the
geocentrist cosmology supported by the Roman Church. The Peregrinatio cœlestis
(1616), which belonged to the tradition of humanist joco-seria, was meant to con-
tribute positively to the debate first prompted by the publication of the Sidereus
nuncius. The De cometa (1619), a dissertation on the 1618 comet, openly supported
the 1616 decree against Copernicus. In the Meteorologicorum libri sex (1627), a
traditional Aristotelian paraphrase, the demonstration was mainly supported by ref-
erences to contemporary exegetes, and showed that the interpretation of Scripture
was henceforth the issue that most interested Froidmont.
9.1 Introduction
Libert Froidmont defended an almost unchanging conception of space in the three

books he published as a professor of philosophy at the University of Leuven, before,
as a professor of theology, he became involved in a series of open controversies
(against heliocentrism, and in defence of Jansenius). This conception of space,
closely related to Froidmont’s cosmological views, was influenced by new trends in
I. Pantin (*)
Ecole Normale Supérieure – PSL Research University, Paris, France
e-mail: isabelle.pantin@ens.fr

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_9
180 I. Pantin
philosophy, as it was, broadly speaking, anti-Aristotelian, but it was also, in many

respects, conservative. However, there is a contrast between the stability of the
underlying philosophical position Froidmont expressed in his successive works, and
their marked evolution in style, aim and focus. In particular, by using fiction, irony
and other literary devices Froidmont initially showed that he relied on imagination
as a tool for undermining the prejudices that hindered the acceptance of new ideas
based on recent observations. By contrast, his later works displayed more and more
mistrust in anything not founded on experience, reason and authority, and avoided
indirect modes of expression, as well as any recourse to fiction.
Froidmont’s first published work, Saturnalitiæ cænæ (1616), which records a
playful quodlibetal session held at the University of Leuven in the preceding winter,
included a jocular narration of an imaginary voyage among the planets. Its title,
Celestial Journey (Peregrinatio cœlestis), somewhat echoed the title of Galileo’s
pamphlet, The Starry Messenger (Sidereus nuncius, 1610), and its humorous and
fanciful tone did not reveal whether Froidmont meant to join, or to gently mock,
Galileo enthusiasts. Three years later, Froidmont published a dissertation on the
1618 comet (De cometa, 1619), in which he advocated, without ambiguity, two dif-
ferent though not unrelated positions: first, he supported the Tychonian theory of
comets; and second, he openly supported the 1616 decree against Copernicus. The
third exposition of his conception of space was embedded in an academic treatise: a
commentary on Aristotle’s Meteorologica (1627).
In order to inform this evolution and investigate its causes, I shall first explain the
complex background of Froidmont’s early works, then summarise the main features
of his conception of cosmological space, and finally analyse how each of these
books addressed the same issue.
9.2 A Complex Background
Libert Froidmont is a historical figure resisting a broad, rigid categorisation or a

positivist oversimplification of his character.1 He reminds us that it was possible, at
the beginning of the seventeenth century, to be a ‘new philosopher’ without being a
Copernican, and to belong to different intellectual spheres simultaneously, implying
different kinds and degrees of allegiance to varied institutions and schools of
thought.
As a professor of philosophy at the University of Leuven Froidmont was to give
his students a general, if not refined, knowledge of the Aristotelian doctrine; he did
this, but not without utilising the great malleability of scholastic thought towards the
end of the Renaissance for his purposes.
His teaching duty did not prevent Froidmont from accepting the legacy of Justus
Lipsius, the reviver of Stoicism. Froidmont continued Lipsius’s work by editing and
commenting on Seneca’s Quæstiones naturales, although he increasingly distanced
On Froidmont’s life and work, see Monchamp 1892, Ceyssens 1963, Bernes 1988.
1
9 Libert Froidmont’s Conception and Imagination of Space in Three Early Works… 181
himself from Lipsius’ almost unquestioning acceptance of Stoicism.2 At Leuven he

further inherited another humanist tradition, which can be traced back to Erasmus:
that of wit and irony, mingled with satirical and fantastical fiction. Froidmont’s
1616 Peregrinatio cœlestis was deeply influenced by the humanist tradition of
Menippean satire, which, as Ingrid De Smet has shown, had been developed espe-
cially in Leuven, from the works of Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540) to those of Lipsius
and Erycius Puteanus.3 The literary genre of Menippean satire can be traced back to
Antiquity (in works like Petronius’s Satyricon, Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis and
Lucian’s Icaromenippus). In the Renaissance it was revived by Leon Battista Alberti
(in Momus) and Erasmus, as a serio-comic genre that combined fanciful fiction and
mythological burlesque in a rhapsodic composition intended to ridicule pedantry
and dogmatism.4 In Leuven, Petrus Nannius (1496–1557) mixed allegorical dream
and Menippean satire, and his Somnia are referred to as models of the genre at the
beginning of Froidmont’s Peregrinatio.5
Geert Vanpaemel has recently shed light on another aspect of the impact of uni-
versity culture on Froidmont’s work: like other professors, Froidmont wished to
educate his students, and to teach them versatility, acuity and rhetorical skills for
use in public disputations, or in other academic or social contexts. He therefore did
not adopt a purely scientific and demonstrative style in his writings, but intermin-
gled philosophical argumentation with poetical digressions, and even entertaining
narratives. From this perspective, a topic could be handled satisfactorily even if the
discussion did not produce a definite conclusion: in universities, “natural philoso-
phy was mainly considered a mere training of the mind, rather than a useful set of
ideas.”6
However, in the case of Froidmont the choice between venturing assertive con-
clusions in philosophical matters and avoiding them was clearly informed by a criti-
cal aspect of his personality: from the start, Froidmont wished to become a
theologian, and he would gradually become the first collaborator of the most promi-
nent theologian in Leuven, Cornelius Jansenius. As early as at the time of his phi-
losophy studies at the Falcon College in Leuven (1604–1606) Froidmont intended
2
Froidmont’s comments on Seneca would appear in the third printing of the Lipsian edition
(Seneca 1632). A new edition, with additions, was published twenty years later (Seneca 1652). On
the way in which Froidmont distanced himself from some aspects of Stoic physics, see Pantin
2008.
3
From 1514 onwards Vives mainly lived in the Netherlands. In 1517, as a tutor to the young
Cardinal Guillaume de Croy, he moved to Leuven and obtained permission to teach publicly at the
university, which he did until 1523. In December 1522 he presided over the jocular Disputationes
quodlibeticæ, with considerable success. Lipsius (Somnium, 1581) and Erycius Puteanus also
wrote satirical dreams. See Lipsius 1581, Puteanus 1608, De Smet 1996.
4
On this genre see Relihan 1993, Weinbrot 2005.
5
Nannius succeeded Conrad Goclenius at the Collegium Trilingue in 1539. He wrote two satirical
dreams (1542 and 1545). See Sacré 1994.
6
Vanpaemel 2014, 67.
182 I. Pantin
to become a theologian. He suspended this project, probably for economical rea-

sons, but had already entered the Church. Notably, he established close links with
the Premonstratensian order, and lived at Park Abbey near Leuven.7 In 1613, he
began to study theology in Leuven while teaching philosophy at the University.
From 1616 onwards, he is likely to have become acquainted with Cornelius
Jansenius who had returned to Leuven one year before completing his own doctor-
ate, and had been given the charge of the new college of St. Pulcheria, founded to
host the Dutch students of theology.8 Jansenius, a former student at the Leuven
Falcon College, had studied theology in Paris, where he had met Jean Duvergier de
Hauranne in 1609, and in his company he embarked on the enormous task of explor-
ing the Bible and the work of the Church Fathers, especially Augustine, to solve the
debate about the foundation and efficiency of Grace, and to refute the Molinist
theses.
On the title page of his commentary on the Meteorologica, which was published
in early 1627, Froidmont bore his title of Licenciate in Theology (S. TH. L.). In the
dedication he expressed his gratitude to the bishop of Tournai for having elected
him as a canon of Tournai. He obtained his doctorate in 1628, while still Philosophiæ
Professor Primarius at the Falcon College of the University of Leuven, and already
Jansenius’s first collaborator. In 1627, Jansenius and Froidmont had appealed to
their patrons for the provision of a house in which they could pursue their work on
Augustine and the Church Fathers. This house was partially acquired in April 1628
thanks to the generosity of Andrea Trevisi, court physician, patron of the University,
and adversary to the Jesuits.9 Froidmont lived in this house with Jansenius from
September 1628 onwards, until he succeeded Jansenius as Ordinarius Professor of
theology at the University in 163010; Jansenius was then appointed Regius Professor
Scripturæ sacræ. In the following years (1631–1636) Froidmont also read Holy
Scripture at the Park Abbey.11 In 1637 he succeeded Jansenius (who was elected
bishop of Ypres) as Regius Professor Scripturæ sacræ. Subsequently, while prepar-
ing the edition of Jansenius’ Augustinus (1638–1640), he was elected Rector of the
University of Leuven, Dean of St. Peter of Leuven, vice-chancellor of the University,
and director of the Leuven branch of the Grand Séminaire of Liège.
7
His Saturnalitiæ cænæ (1616) are dedicated to Jean Druys, Abbot of the Park and visitor to the
university.
8
Jansenius also taught courses at St. Pulcheria, notably on Hebrew language and Thomistic theol-
ogy. Jansenius was once more absent from Leuven from early 1623 to April 1627.
9
Orcibal 1989, 158–159. Andrea Trevisi was also the dedicatee of Froidmont’s Anti-Aristarchus
(1631).
10
Orcibal 1989, 159 and 163; Wils 1927. Froidmont was legens at the University from April 1630
(nominated in August 1630), and regens from 30 September 1634.
11
Orcibal 1989, 159; Jansen 1929, 194. The stipend was forty or fifty florins. Froidmont and
Jansenius approved the reformed status of the Abbey (Augustinian in spirit) in 1631.
The turmoil created by the publication of Jansenius’ Augustinus did not diminish
the support of those patrons who had backed Froidmont for so many years12: the
University authorities and the government of Brabant. Indeed, Froidmont was a
bright and well-accepted member of the Theological Faculty at Leuven; he agreed
with its main orientation, both intellectual and political. Although a pillar of the
Counter-Reformation, the Leuven Faculty retained some autonomy in its relations
with Rome, for instance, in its own form of censorship, and its own theological
tendencies. From the sixteenth century onwards it had placed much emphasis on the
study of Scripture and of the Church Fathers,13 and developed a specific direction of
Augustinianism, which was particularly defended by Michael Baius (1513–1589).14
Another of the Faculty’s own traditions was its constant opposition to the Jesuits.
Historians have investigated the social and political implications of this conflict,
notably Bruno Boute in his remarkable study of the Leuven Privileges of Nomination
to Ecclesiastical Benefices.15
9.3 Froidmont’s Conception of Space in His Early Works
I have persisted with outlining this complex background since it is in part respon-
sible for the strong idiosyncratic character of Froidmont’s writings – in spite of the
fact that his philosophical ideas, taken by themselves, are not really original for a
man living in the Netherlands in the initial decades of the seventeenth century.
In the three works that will be analysed below, Froidmont called into question
the division of the universe into two regions, one (extending from the Earth to the
vicinity of the Moon) elementary and corruptible, and the other (from the Moon to
the firmament) holding nothing other than incorruptible quintessence. He did not
believe in the existence of an orb of fire between the orb of the highest air and the
orb of the Moon, which was still represented in many treatises of the sphere. If it
was possible to mention ‘fire’ when speaking of the space above the Earth, the word
referred to something different: the hot quality possessed by pure air (or ether),
12
On his death bed (on 6 May 1638) Jansenius had entrusted his manuscript, ready for the press, to
his chaplain Reginald Lamæus, the canon Henricus Calenus, and to Froidmont. Froidmont’s role
was critical in seeing the manuscript through to publication. The book was printed in Leuven in
1640, with a royal and imperial privilege, and a dedication to the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand,
Governor of the Spanish Netherlands. Throughout the remainder of his life (until his death on 27
October 1653) Froidmont fought in vain for the abolition of the ban imposed on the book by Urban
VIII (bull In eminenti, March 1642) and Innocent X (bull Cum occasione, June 1653).
13
Plantin published the main achievements of the theologians of Leuven in print in Antwerp, nota-
bly the Biblia Polyglotta (1568–1572) and a new edition of Augustine, supervised by Johannes
Molanus (1576–1577).
14
Pius V (bull Ex omnibus afflictionibus, 1567) and Gregorius XIII (Provisionis nostrae, 1579)
condemned several Baius’ theses, but this did not prevent the latter from being given the most
important responsibilities at the university.
15
Boute 2010.
184 I. Pantin
notably due to (or compatible with) the presence in it of inflammable stuff. In

Froidmont’s view an uninterrupted space extended from the top of the mountains
(above the region of the clouds) to the firmament: it could be called ‘pure air’
beneath the Moon, and ‘ether’ above it, but these linguistic differences ought not to
mask the unified nature and continuity of the entire area. This space was fluid, and
exhalations could ascend and circulate through all of it. These exhalations emanated
from the Earth, but also, most probably, from all the planets, and even the fixed
stars. When a large quantity of them assembled, comets could be produced, not only
below the Moon, but also far above. As the heavens contained no ‘solid’ spheres,
circles or wheels, the planets had nothing to support them and carry them along;
they also had their own motion in the form of the diurnal rotation, driven by a kind
of general westward current, or, in the case of their proper movements, thanks to an
inner power. In any case, each planet, and more generally each celestial body, was
likely to possess its own centre of gravity.
Most of these theses had been proposed, or re-proposed, in the sixteenth century,
by Copernicus (the multiple centres of gravity and movement in the cosmos),16
Jacob Ziegler and Jean Pena (the continuity of space, demonstrated by optical
arguments),17 Tycho Brahe, Christoph Rothmann, and earlier philosophers (the flu-
idity of the heavens).18 Others (those that concerned the causes and processes of the
motion of the stars, and the similarity between the planets and the Earth) had been
reinforced or transformed at the beginning of the seventeenth century, thanks to
Kepler’s physical astronomy and the Galilean telescopic discoveries (the lunar
mountains, the phases of Venus, and the sunspots, linked to the idea of the rotation
of the Sun on itself).
However, if these ideas were not new, and if some of them gained a larger audi-
ence after the publication of Galileo’s Sidereus nuncius (Venice, 1610), they were
still untraditional and paradoxical, since they contradicted Aristotle, and were still
not included in the university textbooks. Even the most advanced astronomers
showed some resistance. Christoph Clavius, the head of the Jesuit mathematical
school, opposed cosmological novelties until his death (6 February 1612), and when
some of his disciples and successors – like Christoph Grienberger (1561–1636),
Giuseppe Biancani (1566–1624), and Christoph Scheiner (1573–1650) – tried to
introduce these novelties in the astronomical doctrine taught at the Colleges of the
Society, their efforts where often suppressed due to the conservative climate that
prevailed under the leadership of Muzio Vitelleschi (1615–1645). Although the
Jesuits rallied to the geo-heliocentrical system of Tycho Brahe soon after the 1616
condemnation of Copernicanism, they were more reluctant to accept the fluidity of
the heavens, the existence of supra-lunar comets and the automotricity of planets; in
their view, these concepts radically undermined the Aristotelian cosmology, and the
16
Copernicus 1543, I, 9. The plurality of the centres of gravity and of movement was already
asserted in the first and second postulates of Copernicus’s Commentariolus, written between 1510
and 1514. See Copernicus 2015, I, 232–240.
17
See Lerner 1997, 11–15; Barker 1985.
18
See Lerner 1997, 3–66; Granada 2002, 2006.
complete destruction of Aristotelian cosmology would have dangerous theological

consequences.19
The defence of this anti-Aristotelian conception of space formed the central
topic of the three books published by Froidmont between 1616 and 1627. Any
differences between them – each book discusses the elements of this conception in
more or less detail – resulted from their different themes, purposes and styles, and
these, in turn, from their respective literary genres, intended audiences, and the
arguments they proposed.
9.4 Imagining Space: Peregrinatio cœlestis (1616)
The Peregrinatio cœlestis, published as part of the Saturnalitiæ cænæ (1616),

belonged to the tradition of humanist joco-seria, with the title’s allusion to the
Saturnalia referring to the carnivalesque tone of the work.20 Froidmond here appears
to have published the text of his interventions as chairman to the precedent session
of quodlibetal questions (22 paradoxical and even facetious questions) in order to
insert among them the Peregrinatio, a fanciful narration of an interplanetary voyage
which showcased his rhetorical skills, but also contributed to the debate that had
started with the publication of the Sidereus nuncius.
The Peregrinatio is an entirely imaginary narrative and presents a response to
Kepler’s Dissertatio cum nuncio sidereo (Prague, 1610), in which Kepler, encour-
aged by Galileo’s telescopic discoveries, urged so-inclined philosophers in every
respect to contradict the practices of the more traditional, quarrelsome, over-serious
and stiff-necked professors.
Whereas most debaters get all heated up, I regard humour as a more pleasant tone in discus-
sions […]. I seem by nature cut out to lighten the hard work and difficulty of a subject by
mental relaxation, conveyed by the style.21
He also alerted them to the fact that celestial navigations are, once more, possible,
as they had been for the travellers of Lucian’s True Story:
as soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will
not be lacking […]. Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those
who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.22
The association of Kepler with imagination is clearly positive in the first and main
part of the Peregrinatio, even given that in a Menippean satire irony may reverse
19
See Lerner 1995; Pantin 2013. Ugo Baldini has shed light on the inner tensions in the Society
concerning these subjects, by analysing documents relating to preliminary censure (Baldini 1992).
20
On the relationship between Roman Saturnalia and Christian Carnival see Grafton et al. 2010,
116.
21
“To the reader,” Kepler 1965, 5.
22
Kepler 1965, 39.
186 I. Pantin
meaning. Notably, in the last part of the book, the Copernicans and their eccentric
fantasies – rather than the traditional philosophers’ short-sightedness – become the
principal target of the satire: the first step in a development that would lead, 15 years
later, to the condemnation of Copernicans as inveterate lunatics. In his controversy
with Philip Landsberg, Froidmont reproached the Copernicans for “prefer[ring] the
little flame of a foolish imagination” to the light of truth.23
Nevertheless, in the Peregrinatio, imagination – the motor of fantastic comical
fiction – is not only a potent weapon against the narrow-minded Magistri nostri (the
traditional professors), in a genuine Erasmian manner; it also helps to broaden the
philosophical mind, and free it from prejudices. In his preface Froidmont blames
those who, instead of believing that which is in front of their eyes, refuse to give
credit to anything “that would not have been anticipated by short-sighted old fogeys
coming from a mouldy Antiquity.”24 Thus, he metaphorically invites the stupid phi-
losopher (matula philosophi) to take a scythe and cut the brambles and weeds that
infest the road, and were long fertilised by common opinion.25
In this satirical dream, the narrator, riding pillion on Pegasus, converses with the
Genius, who has abducted him, on the celestial landscapes they are traversing. This
narrator plays the role of the dutiful philosophy professor, who clings to the ideas he
is accustomed to teaching in school, while the Genius shows these ideas not to cor-
respond to the real cosmos he is now exploring.
The discussion is fully developed for the first part of the travel, from the Earth to
the Moon. The Genius explains in great detail why the orb of elementary fire cannot
exist,26 why what pervades the space between the Earth and the stars can be called
“air, or ether if you prefer,”27 and why there can be no solid orbs in the heavens.28 He
advances as a proof the comets that sometimes (albeit rarely) wander among the
planets, and even above them, and that are made from the hot and viscous exhala-
tions which ascend freely in the heavens, without being hurt by the solid matter of
any orb.29 The Genius also proposes a new hypothesis: the above-mentioned exhala-
tions, which are materia mortalis, may have agglomerated around what would
become the nova stella in Cassiopeia, and made it visible.30 The idea that the move-
23
Froidmont 1631, 108, quoted and translated in Vanden Broecke 2015, 86: “fatuellae imaginatio-
nis luculam tam manifestae veritatis luci anteponunt.”
24
Froidmont 1616, a3r: “et nihil credere, nisi lippientibus aliquot e mucida Antiquitate senecioni-
bus prævisum, affirmamus.” Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine.
25
Froidmont 1616, a3r: “Sentium, scio, spinarumque aliqua cæde opus, quas diu aluit opinio com-
munis: sed adhibe manum.”
26
Froidmont 1616, 68: “Ignis ille tuus nusquam est; neque si adsit pilum tibi fortasse an unum
crispabit.”
27
Froidmont 1616, 73.
28
Froidmont 1616, 74–76.
29
Froidmont 1616, 76–77: “Idem illud, aut fallor, impressissime adferebant sidera comantia, quæ
etsi rarenter, inter Planetas tamen, vel supra quandoque, arbitrantibus etiam vobis, nata. Materia
ergo, habitus pinguis et flammæ diu nutriens, adeo inoffensa cæli cujusquam solido ascendit.”
30
Froidmont 1616, 76–77: “Ab hac eadem caussa sidus illud insignitum Anno 1572 in imagine
Cassiopœæ novitium. Cælica enim et stellans in fornice Firmamenti pars est, quam ampliavit ad
speciem circumvoluta materia mortalis, cum sola fallat.”
ment of the heavens could dissipate the soft and malleable matter of the exhalations
is absurd: do not rivers transport tenuous bodies with their current without damag-
ing them? Do not fragile birds fly easily even against the winds?31 Then, the Genius
makes clear that the mountainous aspect of the Moon, which is a regular cælestis
Terra, eliminates beyond all doubt the hypothesis of epicycles and deferent circles.32
And he sneers at the efforts of the narrator to preserve the old theory.33
Then the travellers continue on their upward journey. They encounter battalions
of small, previously unknown planets, and as a precaution seek shelter under the
roof of the firmament. The narrator notes the usefulness of this wall enclosing the
cosmos. Certainly, it must be solid, “lest the light elements should ascend without
obstacle and spread through imaginary spaces, unless perhaps the fear of the void
above should sufficiently retain them.”34
However, neither character explains what could be these “imaginary spaces”
beyond the borders of the world. Does the narrator actually allude to the Stoic con-
cept of a finite world surrounded by infinite void?35 Or does he use the term ‘imagi-
nary’ to discredit this concept? In any case, the voyage across the upper celestial
region is not recounted with precision. The narrator confesses that he has lost almost
all memory of the marvels he has seen during his travels. He remembers
only that all the planets, except the Sun, were porous and permeated with light, like clouds,
though light could not traverse them; and that they reflected this light differently, depending
on how much they were mixed with opacity.36
The partial lapse of memory suffered by the narrator is all the more unfortunate in
that the topics subsequently introduced are of the highest interest; they include,
among other things, the theory that the planets (the Sun excepted) are likely to be
populated (pp. 82–83); the probability of Venus’ rotating around the Sun which, in
turn, rotates around himself (pp. 84–85); the proposition that the stars and planets
are moved by a virtue imparted to them by the first mobile, i.e. the firmament; and
the explanation that there is no other movement in heaven than the westward revolu-
tion (pp. 88–91, 94–99). Additional puzzling problems are introduced when the
Copernican hypothesis is examined, such as the question of the location of hell.
This second part of the Peregrinatio is both more original and more ambiguous than
31
Froidmont 1616, 78.
32
Froidmont 1616, 80. A marginal note calls attention to this issue: “Asperitas manifesta Lunæ non
belle patitur Epicyclo circumvinciri.”
33
Froidmont 1616, 80–81.
34
Froidmont 1616, 81: “Et tale profecto esse debuit hoc Universi tectorium; ne Elementa levia
sursum obice nullo in Spacia Imaginaria effunderentur: nisi periculum deorsum Vacui, fortasse
tamen valide satis retineret.”
35
On this concept, see Algra 1995, 261–239; Sorabji 1988, 125–141, and Sect. 3.2.2 of Bakker’s
Chapter 3 in this volume.
36
Froidmont 1616, 82: “Sed quantulum tamen adhuc memini: palantes omnes stellas, excipuo sole,
fungosas, bibulasque (impervias tamen) lucis, ut nubes, vidi; quam reflectunt varie, et pro mixtura
opacitatis.”
188 I. Pantin
the first part. Here the Genius is not as talkative, didactic or assertive as in the first
part, and the irony aimed at the Copernicans is biting.37
Nevertheless, the use of references and quotations in this second part is interest-
ing. Kepler’s works are the ones most frequently quoted and alluded to here, espe-
cially his Dissertatio cum nuncio sidereo and the preface of his Dioptrics.38 The
neo-Stoic tendencies of Froidmont’s conception of space are also perceptible – at
least as far as the fluidity of the heavens is concerned, while, as mentioned before,
the question of the extra-cosmic void is avoided. Seneca’s Natural questions are
quoted several times (though not always in a positive manner), Pena’s optical dem-
onstration of the fluidity of the heavens is pressed into service (probably via Kepler’s
preface to the Dioptrics), and the character of the Genius may have been inspired in
part by Lipsius’s Physiologia stoicorum, which devotes three dissertations to the
topic of the genies who, according to the Stoic, are ministers of the divine provi-
dence.39 One reference to an unusual source is also worth noting: when calling into
question the Aristotelian definition of air as an element (since it does not have natu-
ral qualities) Froidmont commends the Chinese philosophers for not having
included air among their five elements.40 Froidmont here probably relies on the De
Christiana expeditione apud Sinas, which had been published in early 1616 by the
Belgian Jesuit Nicolas Trigault.41
With regard to the Jesuits it is further worth noting that no Jesuit is quoted in the
Peregrinatio, not even François d’Aiguillon, whose Optica (Antwerp: Plantin,
1613) had proposed (in spite of the telescopic discoveries) a defence of the
Aristotelian conception of celestial space and bodies42; or Christoph Scheiner, who
still rejected the analogy between the Earth and the Moon in his Disquisitiones
mathematicæ (1614), but admitted the presence of irregularities on the Moon’s sur-
face.43 Froidmont held the view, shared by both aforementioned Jesuits, that the
37
See Pantin 2001. This paper opposes the idea, often expressed elsewhere, that Froidmont was
sympathetic towards Copernican ideas before the Decree of 1616. See Monchamp 1892, 49–52;
Favaro 1893, 738–743; Redondi 1988, 83–85 and 102–103; Van Nouhys 1998, 244–245 and
295–297.
38
Kepler 1611.
39
Lipsius 1604, L. I, diss. 18–20.
40
Froidmont 1616, 73: “applaudamque hac parte saltem Philosophiæ Chinensi, quæ igne, aqua,
terra, metallo, ligno Elementa circumscribit, expuncto aere.” A marginal note places further
emphasis on this point: “Quinque Elementa Chinensium Philos.”
41
Trigault 1616, 350: “elementa quinque numerari, nec de ea. re apud eos dubitare fas est, aut
disceptare. elementa vero sic numerant: metallum, lignum, ignis, aqua, terra, &, quod intolera-
bilius est, alterum ex altero nasci affirmant. Sed neque aërem, quia non vident, agnoscunt. ubi enim
nos aërem, ibi vacuum esse volunt.” The permission from the Provincial Superior of Lyons is dated
10 April 1616. Froidmont’s Saturnalitiæ cænæ were published towards the end of 1616.
42
See, notably, Aiguillon 1613, 419–423: “Disputatio quo pacto luna a Sole lumen accipiat, sus-
ceptumque ad nos transmittat.” Aiguillon was the rector of the Jesuit College of Antwerp.
43
See Pantin 2005; Pantin 2013.
planets were like clouds, permeable by light,44 but his conception of the cosmos
opposed theirs in his denial of an essential difference between the infra-lunar and
the supra-lunar worlds, and he obviously chose not to include their works in his
discussion. Froidmont did not attack the Jesuits directly, but only through covert
allusions, e.g. when the Genius mocks the explanation of lunar phenomena with the
assumption that the Moon, with its mountains, is enclosed in a crystal globe or
epicycle – an idea which circulated in the Society around 1613.45 The anti-Jesuit
trend is thus perceptible in Froidmont’s Peregrinatio, even if not explicitly expressed.
Finally, three references to the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers are
worth mentioning, which are introduced in a semi-jocular context. The assumption
of Enoch (Genesis 5:22–24) and Elias (Kings II 2:11) is situated within a humorous
discussion on the inhabitants of the planets. Even greater emphasis is placed on this
by a marginal note: “Elias and Enoch live on a planet, unless it displeases our
masters.”46
There is further a reference to the Flood in Genesis 7 in the narrator’s observation
that the valleys on the Moon’s surface might hold oceans (he is not certain), and that
these bodies of water might have caused the “cataracts poured down by God when
he wanted to punish men’s sins.”47 He then mentions that, according to the
Copernicans, each planet has its own centre of gravity. In this case (but the narrator
does not venture to endorse this opinion himself),
it will not be the case that this water falls automatically and spontaneously towards the
centre of our planet (the Earth, I mean), more than these oceans do towards the Moon.
Accordingly, the man who—according to Heraclides—fell from the Moon, would be a
manifest prodigy, if not a mere fable.48
Thirdly, Froidmont ironically praises the possibility of transporting hell from the
centre of the Earth to the centre of the Sun – an opportunity for Copernicans to roast
the damned and the demons more thoroughly. This would be quite convenient “if
Sacred Scripture had not buried them in the centre of the Earth.”49 However,
44
See above, note 37.
45
Froidmont 1616, 80–81. See Pantin 2013.
46
Froidmont 1616, 83: “Elias et Enoch Planetam aliquem incolunt, nisi displicet Magistris
nostris.”
47
Froidmont 1616, 84.
48
Froidmont 1616, 84: “Non erit igitur, ut aqua illa automatôs et spontali lapsu magis ad Planetæ
nostri (Telluris dico) centrum ruat, quam hæc maria ad Lunam. ut prodigiosus palam fuisset, nisi
fabulosus, homo ille quem Luna excidisse tradidit Heraclides.”
49
Froidmont 1616, 86: “nisi sacra Scriptura tamen eos in corde Terræ defodiat.” This may be a
reference to Apoc. 12:9: “Et projectus est draco ille magnus, serpens antiquus, qui vocatur diabolus,
et Satanas, qui seducit universum orbem: et projectus est in terram, et angeli ejus cum illo missi
sunt.”
190 I. Pantin
Froidmont adds, according to Augustine and Gregory the matter is so unclear that it
would be irresponsible to settle it without the aid of the Holy Spirit.50
9.5 D
e cometa (1619): An Anti-Aristotelian and Anti-
Copernican Tract
The De cometa (1619) forms part of a collection of three Dissertationes on the 1618
comet, published by two professors at Leuven, professor of medicine Thomas
Fienus and Froidmont. Froidmont must have been the one to initiate the publication,
since he wrote the dedication to the royal physician Francisco Paz, as well as a short
letter to Fienus asking him to report on his observations of the recent comet, and to
pass his judgment on this phenomenon. Fienus’s response (pp. 9–78), is followed by
a second letter by Froidmont, divided into chapters to form a small treatise
(pp. 79–140). The book concludes with a short demonstration of the immobility of
the Earth, addressed by Fienus to two young Englishmen, Tobie Matthew and
George Gays, to continue a conversation begun three days previously during a ban-
quet that Matthew and Gays had hosted.51
The work emphasises, on the one hand, Fienus and Froidmont’s reasoned adher-
ence to the idea that celestial comets exist, which had been demonstrated by Tycho,
and even to Tycho’s geo-heliocentric system, or at least its Capellian variant,52 as
well as their willingness to celebrate the collapse of Aristotelian cosmology; and on
the other hand, their full rejection of Copernicanism.
With regard to the first point, the treatise conforms to the existing model of sci-
entific tracts on comets. After congratulating Fienus for having “jugulated their
common father Aristotle, stimulated by this beard,”53 Froidmont provides a method-
ical survey of the literature on the question, ending with his own observations. His
focus is on demonstrating the supra-lunar location of the comet, so that the cosmo-
50
Froidmont 1616, 86: “quod certe tam clare non facit, quin Augustino, Gregorioque nebula, imo
tota nubes reliqua manserit. Ille 20. de Civit. c. 16. In qua parte Mundi Infernus sit, scire neminem
arbitror, nisi cui divinus spiritus revelavit.” This reference was traditional. See Petrus Lombardus,
In IV Sententiarum, Dis. 44, qu. 3, Art. 2: “Ad tertiam quæstionem dicendum, quod sicut Augustinus
dicit, et habetur in littera, in qua parte mundi infernus sit, scire neminem arbitror, nisi cui divinus
spiritus revelavit; unde et Gregorius in 4 dialog., super hac quæstione interrogatus respondet: hac
de re temere definire non audeo.”
51
Froidmont 1619, 152–153: “Hæc scripsi Generosi D.D. in gratiam D.D.V.V. occasione confabu-
lationis desuper in convivio vestro nudius quartus habitæ; quae ut æqui bonique consulatis, rogo.”
Tobie Matthew, a friend of Bacon and Benedetto Castelli, is likely to have informed Fienus of the
1616 edict against heliocentrism pronounced by the Roman Inquisition.
52
According to the ‘Capellian system’ Mercury and Venus moved around the Sun (and the Sun and
the superior planets around the Earth). This attenuated form of geo-heliocentricism, described in
Martianus Capella’s De nuptiis, was popular in the Netherlands; see Vermij 2002, 32–42.
53
Froidmont 1619, 79: “Ut patrem nostrum jugulares te barba illa stimulavit.”
logical background is only vaguely sketched, and more complete explanations

deferred to the last part of the dissertation.
Then, in the middle of chapter VII (“Distance and magnitude of the comet”),
immediately following a laudatory mention of Kepler (“the prince of Copernicans
in Germany”), whose observations on the 1607 comet are eagerly anticipated,
Froidmont digresses with a dramatic note. “But about Copernicans, what is it that
you have just made me understand?”54 He evokes the decree of 1616 and forcefully
expresses his astonishment about the fact that so momentous a decision was only
known to a narrow circle, when it would have been crucial to publish it throughout
Europe, “especially in universities where there are scholars much exposed to such
opinion.”55 He speculates about the underlying motives, and notes the link between
the Pope’s concern that Scripture should be read “rigorosissimo sensu” and the
spiritual magisterium he exercises on Christendom:
If the Pope has decreed that the Earth stays still and the heaven moves, and if he has judged
that it matters for the spiritual government of Christendom, I think that [he took this deci-
sion because] he had regard for Holy Scripture, notably Joshua 10 and Ecclesiastes 1 […].
Nothing is more evident if you take Scripture in its strictest meaning.56
He then alludes to the principle of accommodation in a negative manner, as the sole

and ultimate recourse of the Copernicans: “Let them surrender, unless perhaps they
should try this: that sometimes the Bible is accommodating to the common concep-
tions of men.”57
The conclusion to the treatise on the comets, in which Froidmont presents his
theories on the matter of the celestial comets and the planetary system in which they
circulate, follows this vehement digression on the 1616 prohibition of heliocen-
trism. Froidmont points out specific uncertainties, such as the time and origin of the
generation of the comets: “their birth is sudden and random (although I do not
exclude [the possibility] that the stars might have some influence on the process),
and straight afterwards they begin to grow older, as many things do here below.”58
Their principal efficient cause is the Sun, “which, with its rays, inflates their head
and extends it into a tail.”59 The most difficult aspect is their matter: according to the
54
Froidmont 1619, 122: “Sed de Copernicanis quid ex te nuper intellexi VIR CLARISSIME?”
55
Froidmont 1619, 123: “Maxime per Academias, ubi viri docti, quibus talis opinionis forte
periculum.”
56
Froidmont 1619, 123–124: “Si tamen Pontifex terram stare, cœlum circumagi decrevit; et hoc ad
spiritualem Reip. Christianæ gubernationem pertinere putarit, credo Scripturam sacram adspex-
isse, Josue praesertim 10. & Ecclesiast. 1 […]. Quo nihil evidentius, si Scripturam in rigorosissimo
sensu accipis.”
57
Froidmont 1619, 124: “Dent manus [Copernicani], aut forte hoc. Scripturam communibus quan-
doque hominum conceptionibus obsecundare.” On the exegetical principle of accommodation see
Laplanche 1991; Granada 1996; McMullin 1998.
58
Froidmont 1619, 130: “Nihil ergo (iterum dicam) de Cometarum generationis tempore certi,
nihil comprehensi. Nascuntur subito, fortuitoque (nec tamen nego stellas huc aliquid adferre) ac
deinde statim consenescunt, ut multa in his inferioribus.”
59
Froidmont 1619, 130–131: “nam de caussa efficiente, dictum ante, potissimum esse Solem, qui
radio Cometæ caput inflat et extendit in caudam.”
192 I. Pantin
Copernicans, all the planets, like the Earth, exude exhalations as they rotate around
themselves (the Moon excepted). And these exhalations, in turn, naturally rotate
around the Sun.60 This, Froidmont adds, “you can even maintain without approving
the entire Copernican system of the world.”61
Then Froidmont states that he considers the geo-heliocentric system plausi-
ble. Consequently, there is no reason why the planets should not emit exhala-
tions, which, in turn, may rotate around the Sun and produce comets. The fact
that we cannot observe any loss of substance in the planets is not a valid objec-
tion (p. 132). Of course, the old traditionalist masters may find Froidmont
unreasonable, and therefore he must deal with the objections and explore alter-
native hypotheses – for instance, the theory that nodes could be formed in the
ether and produce comets before being dissolved by the rays of the Sun.62
Froidmont also repeats the hypothesis, already examined by Tycho, that the
nova of 1572 might have been generated by a detached part of the Milky Way.
In this case the Milky Way, instead of being a part of the firmament, would be a
sort of ring, formed by myriads of stars and suspended between Saturn and the
firmament.63 Froidmont concludes briefly that the comet is a “star that wanders
among the planets, it is made from ethereal substance, and describes a great
circle of the sphere, like the planets, by virtue of their proper form – or, if you
like, you can attach to them an intelligence.”64
This conception of space is not contradictory to that developed in the
Peregrinatio, although it is founded on observations and rational arguments
instead of fiction. The rejection of traditional cosmology is as marked here as it
was in Froidmont’s earlier work, even if the satirical vein is confined to rare rhe-
torical bursts. This rejection is all the more remarkable in that it is associated with
a dramatic and solemn acceptance of the ban of Copernicanism, out of obedience
to the papal decree, and an acknowledgement of its exegetical justification. At the
end of his dissertation, Froidmont states that he will go no further, but return to his
theological studies after this philosophical interlude.65 The order of his priorities
is thus clearly defined.
60
Froidmont 1619, 131: “Itaque sicut Copernicus terram circa suum centrum, nubesque et exhala-
tiones, et quicquid cum terra et aqua cognationem habet, motu circulari et eo naturali volvi sciscit,
ita forte omnes Planetas (excepta tamen Luna) cum exhalationibus in circumfusum ætherem ex
corporibus eorum elicitis, rotari naturaliter circa Solem, ut suum centrum velit.”
61
Froidmont 1619, 131: “Imo hoc asserere potes, licet Copernicanam mundi ordinationem non
totam probes.”
62
Froidmont 1619, 133.
63
Froidmont 1619, 133–134.
64
Froidmont 1619, 136: “Breviter ergo Cometa peregrinum in Regione Planetarum sidus est,
cohæsum de substantia ætheris, et circulum in Sphæra, majorem, ut Planetæ a propria forma (vel
alliga intelligentiam, si vis) describens.”
65
Froidmont 1619, 136: “Non ibo jam longius (videbo quid alias facturus:) et redeo ad alia studia
quae hoc labore dies aliquot intercalavi.”
9.6 R
espectfully Dissenting from Aristotle: Meteorologica
(1627)
Froidmont uses the same conception of space, and the same idea of the exhalations
exuded by celestial bodies (the Sun excepted),66 in his 1627 Meteorology.67 This
work forms part of the academic tradition of Aristotelian paraphrases: while not a
straightforward commentary, nor a compendium, it evidently takes Aristotle’s trea-
tise, which is frequently referred to, as a major basis for its discussions. Yet
Froidmont’s Meteorology showed at least one important original trait: it was signed
by a licenciate in theology (as mentioned in the title), who considered all knowledge
of the natural world subordinate to theology.
As we have seen above, Geert Vanpaemel considers the Meteorology primarily a
work written (in its content, style and argumentation) for a specific audience, with
Froidmont adopting the role of a typical professor: “the impersonation of erudition
and universal knowledge, based on a broad familiarity with books and doctrines,
and in full awareness of the social status of knowledge claims.”68 In Vanpaemel’s
view, the display of such competences was Froidmont’s aim, not the production of
definite doctrines and conclusions. However, as far as the conception of cosmologi-
cal space is concerned, Froidmont is quite clear and unambiguous. At the beginning
of the work he criticises Tycho for having maintained a dividing line between the
elementary and the celestial world, and his belief that the exhalations, which circu-
late among the planets “have a celestial nature, different from what is here below.”
According to Froidmont, since it is certain that at least some terrestrial exhalations
ascend above the Moon, Tycho’s theory would imply that it is possible for these
exhalations to move around in a quintessential space. This theory would “mix mor-
tal things with divine and incorruptible ones, which is not appropriate.”69
The Meteorology differs significantly in tone, style, and the choice of arguments
from Froidmont’s earlier works. Notably, Aristotle is dealt with respectfully.
Whenever possible Froidmont adapts Aristotle’s doctrine to his own conceptions;
and when it is not, he either points out that Aristotle remained doubtful on the issue
66
Froidmont states that he disagrees on this point with Camillo Gloriosi and Willebrord Snellius
(see Gloriosi 1624; Snellius 1619): he thinks that the Sun, the lamp of the universe, must be
“exempted from the law of exhalations,” not to suffer losses, as it must be “more immortal” than
the other celestial bodies (Froidmont 1627, 119: “quia magis immortalis hæc publica Mundi lam-
pas esse debuit, ne ea. extincta, esset sine lumine”).
67
In the Meteorologicorum libri Froidmont occasionally refers to the De cometa. See, notably,
Froidmont 1627, 118–119.
68
Vanpaemel 2014, 58.
69
Froidmont 1627, 3: “Tycho tamen id quod Planetas interfluit, auram quamdam naturæ cælestis,
et diversæ ab his inferioribus, credit: sed nondum mihi persuasit […]. Halitus etiam terreni, effusis-
sime rarefacti, supra Lunam scandent quandoque, […] miscebunturque mortalia divinis et incor-
ruptibilibus: quod non decet.”
194 I. Pantin
in question,70 or removes him from the basis of the argument. Thus, Froidmonts
suggests that Aristotle, in contrast to the scholastics, was not firmly opposed to the
conception of a vast aerial or ethereal space extended from the superior region of the
air to the Moon, and even further:
So that you do not think that [in matter of exhalations] the air immediately above the clouds
is meant, [Aristotle] adds that this exhalation carries away with itself the air close to it: that
is, the air that we thus far usually call the supreme region of air. This [air] is what Aristotle
properly called air; the other, which is above, and stretches as far as the Moon, or, to speak
more truly, to the vault of the firmament, he has called fire, because a great quantity of burn-
ing exhalations are mixed in it.71
This paradoxical presentation of the way in which Aristotle distributed the elements
in the cosmos is based on his passage on the two kinds of terrestrial exhalations,
moist and dry, the latter similar to smoke, and rising above the former, in the region
just “below the circular motion [of the heavens],” where “the warm and dry element,
which we call fire” is located, above the region of the air. The so-called fire, which
is “spread round the terrestrial sphere,” is “like a kind of fuel [hupekkauma],” as the
slightest motion will cause it to “burst into flame,” so “whenever the circular motion
stirs this stuff up in any way, it catches fire at the point at which it is most inflam-
mable,” and that explains the generation of igneous meteors.72 Almost all Aristotle
commentators position this region of fire under the Moon. But Froidmont likely
knew the interpretation that, according to Simplicius, John Philoponus (the early
Christian opponent to the doctrine of quintessence) had given to ‘hupekkauma,’
translated by Froidmont as ‘fuel of fire,’ “fomes incensionis.” In the standard
Neoplatonist reading of Aristotle’s cosmology the ‘hupekkauma’ comprehended
both the pure air above the mountains and the elementary fire below the Moon, and
it followed the diurnal motion. But Philoponus, quoted and refuted by Simplicius,
went much further: to confirm his claim that the entire cosmos was corruptible, he
asserted that heaven itself could be some kind of fire, moving in a circle.73
This probable link with Philoponus is significant: Froidmont’s main goal for his
discussion of exhalations in his Meteorology appears to be the demonstration of the
corruptibility of the heavens.74 And to strengthen this position, Froidmont’s major
70
According to Froidmont, Aristotle (in De caelo, II, 5) confesses that it is extremely difficult to
make any certain pronouncements about the heavens. Thus, if it had been possible to convince the
Philosopher “by better reasons” that the heavens are corruptible, he would have agreed (Froidmont
1627, 119).
71
Froidmont 1627, 4: “Ac ne putares intelligi de aëre proxime supra nubes, addit, exhalationem
istam rapere secum aërem sibi continuum: id est, illum quem hactenus supremam aëris regionem
appellare solemus. Hic ergo est, quem Aristoteles proprie aërem; alterum vero qui superest, et ad
Lunam usque, aut verius ad ipsum Firmamenti fornicem, pertingit, propter exhalationum ferven-
tium copiam et mixturam, ignem vocavit.”
72
Aristotle, Meteorology, I, 4, 341b; W.E. Webster’s translation, Aristotle 1931.
73
Simplicius, De cælo I, cap. 2, 34:5. See Simplicius 2011, 28–29. See also Sorabji 2010 (chs. 6
and 7 on space); Wildberg 1988.
74
On Froidmont’s opposition to the partisans of the incorruptibility of the heavens, see also
Froidmont 1627, 118. He is more indulgent towards those who simply propose that comets and
references are to biblical passages, through the Church Fathers’ commentaries,75

and to contemporary theologians, all of them Jesuits. Thus, Froidmont quotes Luis
de Molina, who in his commentary on Genesis affirms that the heavens (with the
probable exception of the Empyrean), must be made of a matter similar to that of the
sublunar world, as it was formed from the primeval water.76 The quotation is from
the fifth disputation of Molina’s De opera sex dierum, which resolves the objections
advanced against Molina’s thesis: “in the beginning, God has created only the
Empyrean, the Earth and Waters, then from Water all the other simple bodies were
fabricated, including all the celestial moving orbs.”77 The De opera sex dierum
forms an appendix to Molina’s commentary on the first part of Thomas Aquinas’s
Summa theologica (1592), and was more widely circulated in its second edition
(1593), which was reprinted in 1594 and 1622. This second edition also contains
extracts from Molina’s Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiæ donis (1588), the work
that Froidmont and Jansenius examined for their refutation of Molina’s theory of
efficacious grace in the Augustinus.
Froidmont also quotes two Jesuit theologians favourably who had been radically
opposed to the exegetical principle of accommodation, when used in support of
Copernicanism.78 He quotes Nicolaus Serarius’s injunction always to read Scripture
literally, without being misled by ill-founded Aristotelian prejudices.79 Then he
refers approvingly to Cornelius a Lapide’s commentary on the first chapter of
Genesis. Like Molina and Serarius, Cornelius asserted that, according to Scriptures,
the heavens and the sublunar world had been made from “the abyss of waters,” and
were therefore equally corruptible.80
novae might be permanent celestial bodies, like Fienus, who “has given this thesis a new and
remarkable verisimilitude, though in a playful style, without being obdurate” (Froidmont 1627,
107: “novam iis et egregiam – licet ludenti nec pertinaciter inhærenti calamo – probabilitatis
speciem fecit”).
75
He refers to Bede, St Jerome, Cyril and Clement of Alexandria, who affirm that heaven was made
from the water that filled the world at the beginning (Froidmont 1627, 119).
76
Froidmont 1627, 119: “Ex Scriptura Sacra aperte colligi arbitramur materiam cælorum (si
Empyrium excipias: de quo contrarium probabiliter defendi posset) convenire in specie cum mate-
ria rerum sublunarium;” quotation from Molina 1592, 1963.
77
Molina 1592, 1960: “Deum a principio solum creasse Empyreum, terram et aquas, ex aquisque
fuisse fabricata cætera simplicia corpora, etiam cœlestes omnes orbes mobiles.”
78
See Kelter 2015.
79
Froidmont 1627, 119–120: “nec esse cur Scripturam non tam proprie accipiamus, nisi anticipa-
tam tantum Aristotelicarum quarumdam, quae facile solvi possunt, rationum opinionem;” quota-
tion from Serarius’s commentary on the second epistle of Peter, ch. 3, qu. 2 (Serarius 1612, part II,
52). Nicolaus Serarius (1555–1609) had occupied the chairs of theology and Sacred Scripture at
Würzburg and Mainz. In his Josue, ab utero ad ipsum usque tumulum he went so far as accusing
Copernicus of heresy (Serarius 1610, 1004–1006).
80
Froidmont 1627, 120. Reference to Lapide 1616, 12. Cornelius van den Steyn (1567–1637) had
been professor of Holy Scripture and of Hebrew at Leuven before teaching the same subjects in the
Collegio romano, from 1616 onwards. He wrote commentaries on the Canon and the Deuterocanon,
the Book of Job and the Psalms excepted.
196 I. Pantin
Froidmont’s mitigation of his criticism of Aristotle in the 1627 Meteorology, and

his respectful acknowledgment of the excellence of Jesuit exegetical work, are bet-
ter explained by referring to the historical context. Froidmont was a close c ollaborator
of Jansenius at the time. He knew of the importance of maintaining, as far as pos-
sible, a peaceful climate, to facilitate the composition of the Augustinus, and its
reception afterwards. It is likely, therefore, that he was keen to emphasise points of
agreement between himself and the Jesuits, such as the rejection of Copernicanism
and the necessity of a literal reading of the Bible.
9.7 Conclusion
As we have seen, during his entire career as professor of philosophy, Froidmont

proposed a single (or nearly the same) conception of the cosmos. However the char-
acter, and even the target of his different expositions did change. Initially, Froidmont
played the part of the witty and brilliant opponent to scholastic philosophy, in the
wake of the revived interest in Stoic cosmology and the recent telescopic discover-
ies. But over time Froidmont’s interests revealed themselves more and more clearly
to be theological in nature. This evolution could help us to shed more light on the
complex relationship between Froidmont’s philosophical work and his engagement
with Augustinianism, and later Jansenism, as a professor at the University of
Leuven.
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Chapter 10
Questioning Fludd, Kepler and Galileo:
Mersenne’s Harmonious Universe
Natacha Fabbri
Abstract This chapter examines Marin Mersenne’s main objections to Robert

Fludd’s, Johannes Kepler’s and Galileo Galilei’s views of the cosmos in order to
delineate his own idea of space, as well as several significant changes in his inter-
pretation of the universe. I will discuss how Mersenne sought to single out a model
of space and the universe that could perfectly agree with the Mosaic cosmos: he
selected different explanatory models and contrasted them with each other to find
out which one provided the most reliable explanation of natural phenomena, and
was therefore the best ally in his war against atheism and heresy.
Mersenne’s definition of a harmonious universe arose from the questions he
addressed to his interlocutors, and from his thorough examination of their writings.
This essay focuses on Mersenne’s arguments against Fludd’s qualitative and pan-
spermic cosmos; on the theological and metaphysical underpinnings that urged him
to abandon Kepler’s geometrical cosmos and harmonic archetypes; and on his refu-
tation of Galileo’s universe, which relied on the intertwining of Scholastic argu-
ments and the seventeenth-century debate about the vacuum and mechanics.
Mersenne’s final conclusions, setting forth both metaphysical and physical reasons,
marked the sunset of the traditional idea of the harmonic cosmos: across his works
the musica mundana begins to fade, and the movements of the bodies within the
plenum of the cosmos no longer reveal divine and geometrical archetypes.
I would like to thank the editors for their useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. All
translations are the author’s except where otherwise noted.
N. Fabbri (*)
Galileo Museum, Institute and Museum for the History of Science, Florence, Italy
e-mail: n.fabbri@museogalileo.it

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_10
202 N. Fabbri
10.1 Introduction
Marin Mersenne has largely been acknowledged as the most representative of the
seventeenth-century philosophers who devoted his life to studying the harmonie
universelle. It is therefore particularly significant that Mersenne’s idea of space and
cosmos grew to be incompatible with both the idea of musica mundana and the
Neo-Platonic or Pythagorean readings of the harmony of the universe.
This chapter has two principal aims, which are intertwined with each other. Firstly,
I will show how Mersenne very rarely directly put forward his own theories or philo-
sophical reflections. Instead, he preferred questioning his numerous interlocutors and
correspondents by addressing to them queries relating to his main concerns and inter-
ests, chiding or praising their interpretations, examining their writings in great depth,
and contrasting different theories with each other in order to find the most reliable
explanation for natural phenomena. Mersenne’s view also emerges from stylistic
choices that were strongly indebted to the medieval quaestiones; nevertheless, the
sources he employed and considered in his ‘questions’ were not by ancient and medi-
eval ‘authorities,’ but rather by his contemporaries, whose theories and conclu-
sions informed Mersenne’s respondeo. Of Mersenne’s many direct and indirect
interlocutors this article considers particularly Robert Fludd, Johannes Kepler and
Galileo Galilei, and his reading of their works, not merely because they provided
three very influential accounts of harmonic cosmos, but also because they embodied
three diverging ways of interpreting the order of the universe. By examining
Mersenne’s main objections to these thinkers’ views of the cosmos it may be possible
to discern his own idea of space, as well as to map several significant changes in his
interpretation of the universe and, more specifically, a harmonious universe. Fludd
exemplified the hermetic philosopher and Rosicrucian alchemist who threatened
Catholic orthodoxy, and against whom Mersenne declaimed in his first writings.
Kepler was initially a significant source for Mersenne, as he provided a wide range
of arguments against both Fludd’s qualitative cosmos and Giordano Bruno’s infinit-
ism, and also effective analogies to face anti-Trinitarian issues. The merging of meta-
physical and physical concerns also characterizes Mersenne’s analysis of Galileo’s
heliocentric universe and the debate concerning his theory of void and atoms, which
were refuted in light of both the statements of contemporary philosophers – in primis
Descartes – and Mersenne’s tireless checking of Galileo’s claims.
Secondly, I will examine the significant changes Mersenne’s idea of universe
underwent over time. His survey on space and the cosmos fit perfectly the idea of
the scientia ancilla theologiae, according to which research in natural philosophy
was to be adapted to theological matter, and mathematics was a tool for answering
apologetic needs – just as it had been done in several of Mersenne’s sources, for
instance Augustine’s De quantitate animae and De musica, Joachim of Fiore’s
Trinitarian theology, and Grosseteste’s survey on optics.1 This article will trace how
1
See Fabbri 2008, 47–57. Vincent Carraud (1994, 145, 147) claimed that, in Mersenne’s thought,
“occupying oneself with physics and mathematics corresponds to occupying oneself with natural
theology.”
10 Questioning Fludd, Kepler and Galileo: Mersenne’s Harmonious Universe 203
Mersenne moved away from the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic synthesis, followed Kepler

against Fludd, and later abandoned Kepler in favor of a stance that was closer to the
debates arising from Descartes’ and Galileo’s philosophy. Nonetheless, from 1623
onwards and up to his last work, Mersenne’s space, enclosed in the Empyrean
sphere, was still crossed by swift angels – according to the Thomistic model – and
needed to agree with God’s revelations in the Holy Scriptures.2 Mersenne’s work
always resorted to a somewhat reversed accomodatio principle, in view of which he
attempted to single out, or to work out, an interpretative model of the universe and
space that ‘adapted’ to the traditional reading of biblical passages.3
Although Mersenne’s studies in the arena of the middle sciences (astronomy,
mechanics, acoustics, optics, ballistics, etc.) were never carried out separate from
his theological concerns, his interest in physical issues mostly arose from contem-
porary debates. The subject of acoustics, mainly unison, clarifies this stance:
Mersenne analyzed this musical consonance in the manuscript text Livre de la
nature des sons by examining different phenomena of vibration, but only in the
Harmonie universelle did he unveil the great utilité of unison for Catholic apologet-
ics, regarding it more useful than mathematicae purae (pure mathematics) in talking
per analogiam (by analogy) about the essence of Trinity.
For a more comprehensive view of the development Mersenne’s concept of cos-
mos underwent, and of the different ways in which he intertwined metaphysical and
physical issues, I will examine and compare the different images of the universe and
the diverse approaches that surfaced in his writings, and in particular, in the largely
unknown manuscript Livre de la nature des sons (dating back to circa 1626)4 and the
1648 Liber novus praelusorius. Along the same lines, I shall also focus on the Traité
de l’harmonie universelle (published in 1627), the Préludes de l’harmonie univer-
selle (1634), as well as the Harmonie universelle (published in 1636–1637) and its
marginalia.
I will start with Mersenne’s vehement rebuttal of Fludd’s theories and his fluctu-
ating judgment on Kepler’s cosmos. My examination of Mersenne’s criticism of
Galileo addresses three issues that rely on the combination of physics and meta-
physics, specifically, his attitude towards those who upheld the idea of a heliocentric
universe; his survey on the vacuum; and finally, his distrust of those who interpreted
nature with geometrical models. For this purpose I will need to examine some of
Mersenne’s statements concerning the epistemological status of mixed mathemat-
ics, since they elucidate the philosophical underpinnings of the questions he
addressed to his contemporaries.
2
Mersenne c. 1648c, 442–456; idem c. 1623c, 336–337. On the similarities between the
Commentaire and the Brouillon, see Buccolini 2000, 101–107.
3
That approach was so widespread that even Lodovico delle Colombe – one of Galileo’s most bit-
ter opponents – blamed those theologians who required philosophical subjects to be “accommo-
dated” to Scriptural passages. See Delle Colombe 1608, 92r.
4
Mersenne c. 1626. See Fabbri 2007, 287–308.
204 N. Fabbri
10.2 E
xamining Sounds and Cosmos in the Twenties:
The Project of the Harmonie universelle
Mersenne’s research on acoustics and the manuscript Livre de la nature des sons
provide strong evidence for the fact that Robert Lenoble’s theory of a straight and
clear shift from metaphysical and theological concerns to mechanism has been
stressed unduly to date. Mersenne was, actually, ever more interested in natural
philosophy – mainly due to the debates that arose around Descartes, Galileo,
Gassendi, and Roberval, among others; nevertheless, he went beyond a passive
summary of his contemporaries’ theories, and also considered these topics from a
theological perspective. As his survey on the science of sound attests – and in par-
ticular the Livre –, his mechanistic approach did not suddenly emerge at the begin-
ning of the Thirties, and the 1634 treatises were not the first writings adopting such
a philosophical approach. Nor did this approach result from his laying aside theo-
logical matters: the coexistence of mechanism and theological issues continues
through to his final works.5
The draft of the Livre manuscript and the Traité de l’harmonie universelle (pub-
lished in 1627 under the pseudonym of François de Sermes, and referred to in the
Livre)6 are roughly contemporaneous: in Mersenne’s original project – which is out-
lined in the index (Sommaire) of the Traité – they were intended to be part of a more
extensive work. The Traité is composed of two books, although the Sommaire
announces 16 books, and the third was to tackle the very topic the Livre addresses.
Indeed, the incipit of the unpublished Livre identifies the text as the “third book”: “I
will deduce everything belonging to sounds in this 3. Book, as they are the subject
and the fundament of music, which I will do in the following theorems.”7 In 1626–
1627 Mersenne, therefore, planned to write a sizeable treatise on universal harmony.
The Traité continues the survey Mersenne carried out in La vérité des sciences and
L’impiété des déistes: he tackles and refutes cabalistic, astrological and hermetical
interpretations of the harmonic cosmos, focusing on Kepler’s astronomical and
metaphysical model. At the time, two different approaches to harmony and music
coexisted: the Livre addressed it on the basis of natural philosophy, whereas the
Traité de l’harmonie universelle presented a strong metaphysical reading. Both
recurred in Mersenne’s interpretation of the harmonic structure of the cosmos, and
played a role in his rebuttal of Fludd’s and Kepler’s ideas of the cosmos and har-
monic space.
Before analyzing the Livre’s statements on the cosmos, it is worthwhile to con-
sider its structure, to clarify its similarities and differences with that of the Harmonie
5
Buccolini (2000, 110) has shown that “science is at the service of exegesis” still at the end of the
Forties. Conversely, Lenoble 1971 had tried to trace Mersenne’s gradual passage from theological
concerns to a mechanistic approach.
6
See note 92.
7
Mersenne c. 1626, f. 1r: “Or ie déduirai tout ce qui appartient aux sons dans ce 3. Livre, car ils
sont le sujet, et le fondement de la musique, ce que ie ferai aux theoresmes qui suivent.”
Table 10.1 A comparison of the theories of sound in the Livre de la nature des sons and in the
Harmonie universelle
Harmonie universelle, Livre premier de la
Livre de la nature des sons nature et des proprietez du sons
Le son ne se produit pas, ou du moins ne se Le son ne se communique pas dans un
communique pas selon toute son etendue, et toute moment, comme fait la lumiere, selon toute
sa puissance en un moment (théoreme II) son estenduë, mais dans un espace de temps
(proposition VIII)
Le son ne s’étand pas si loing, comme fait la Le Son ne depend pas tant des corps par
lumiere, ni ne depend pas tant des corps par lesquels il est produit, comme la lumiere du
lesquels il a ésté produit, comme depend la corps lumineux (prop. IX)
lumiere du corps lumineux (th. VI)
Le son est en quelque chose plus subtil que la It is a part of Expliquer enquoy le son est
lumiere, et en quelque chose il est moins subtil plus subtil que la lumiere, et s’il se reflechit
(th. VII) (prop. X)
Le son represente souvent la grandeur, et les Le Son represente souvent la grandeur, et
autres qualitez des corps par lesquels il a esté les autres qualitez des corps par lesquels il
produit (th. X) est produit (prop. XI)
universelle – which was published roughly 10 years later – and its complementarity
with the Traité de l’harmonie universelle (Table 10.1).
Although this outline concentrates on correspondences between the titles of
some théoremes of the Livre and some propositions included in the first book of the
Harmonie universelle (titled Livre premier de la nature et des proprietez du sons),
it should be noted that the content of the Livre also largely mirrors that of the
Harmonie universelle – yet with some significant differences –, especially in their
analysis of the echo and musical consonances, and of unison. It is not without sig-
nificance that one of the most striking differences between the Livre and the Traité
on one hand, and the Harmonie universelle on the other, is the issue of void, espe-
cially of intra-cosmic void: as will be shown later, Mersenne approached this topic
by merging contemporary debates and Scholastic arguments.
Even the matters addressed in the last book of the Harmonie universelle, namely
the book De l’utilité de l’harmonie, had already been mentioned in the Index of the
Traité de l’harmonie universelle: once again, this choice testifies Mersenne’s longue
durée interest in showing the usefulness of harmony and music in ethics, rhetoric,
upbringing, religion, and theology.8 Mersenne reframed his reading of universal
harmony many times, alongside the emergence of new philosophical and mathemat-
ical theories: the choice to leave the Livre unfinished, to publish only 2 books of the
16 listed in the Index of the Traité, to add a great number of textual marginalia to the
Harmonie, as well as to adjoin the Liber novus praelusorius to the second edition of
the Harmonicorum libri, can all be seen as continuous attempts to update his work
on the basis of the emerging different theories on the nature of matter, and on the
structure of the universe, in those years.
8
Mersenne 2003, Sommaire des seize Livres de la Musique, 23–26.
206 N. Fabbri
10.3 B
elaboring Imaginary and Magical Harmonies:
Toward a Universe of Strings
Mersenne’s heated debate with Robert Fludd lasted many years: it started in the
Quaestiones in Genesim, went on in the Traité de l’harmonie universelle – to which
Fludd composed an answer with his Sophiae cum moria certamen (Frankfurt 1629)
and Medicina Catholica (Frankfurt 1629) –, carried on in the pages of the Harmonie
universelle, and eventually also saw the involvement of Pierre Gassendi, who was
asked by Mersenne to refute Fludd’s alchemy – to which Gassendi devoted several
pages of his 1630 Exercitatio.9 Fludd then, once more, replied to these attacks with
the Clavis philosophiae et alchymiae Fluddanae (1633).
Fludd’s Utriusque cosmi proposed an original chaos, which was then ordered by
God, an infinite and fertile divinity who was also natura infinita et natura naturans
(infinite nature and nature naturing).10 Mersenne refuted Fludd’s immanentism, the
idea of a primordial, infinite and shapeless matter, as well as the Manichaeism that
lay in the struggle, division and union of the opposing principles of light and dark-
ness, voluntas (volition) and noluntas (nolition) – the latter emerging from the con-
traction of light –, which gave rise to the hierarchical structure of the universe.11
According to this model, the spheres of the universe were characterized by the per-
meation of two opposing pyramids of light (form) and darkness (matter), which
reached a perfect balance in the Sun, the sphaera aequalitatis. Such a hierarchical
order agreed rather well with the structure of a monochord, by means of which
Fludd represented the world by analogy,12 hinting at a widespread Renaissance tra-
dition that had reached its peak with Franchino Gaffurius’ and Cornelius Agrippa’s
monochord, as well as Francesco Giorgi’s cosmos.13 The universe was equated with
a monochord tuned by the divine hand, and alongside it the spheres of the elements,
ether (planets) and Empyrean (angelic hierarchies) were arranged.14 The musical
intervals mirrored the degrees of the formal principle’s descent into the matter.
God – who was the sol invisibilis (invisible Sun) – embraced creation with a process
9
See idem 1636–1637, De l’utilité de l’harmonie, 48–49; Gaultier to Peiresc, 22 May 1631, in
Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. III, 162–163. On Mersenne’s and Gassendi’s refutation of Fludd see
especially Cafiero 1964a, b; Mehl 2000; Mehl 2001, 243–253, 263–270; Taussig 2009.
10
Fludd 1617–1621, vol. II, tract. I, 21. Mehl (2001, 264–266) has shown how Fludd alternated
statements on immanentism with words proving divine transcendence.
11
Fludd 1617–1621, vol. I, tract. I, 25, 29.
12
See ibid., 79: “the machine of the world is almost like a monochord, whose string – whereby it
introduces the agreement of parts – is the intermediate matter of the whole world.”
13
See Gaffurio 1496; Agrippa 1993, b. II, 387; Giorgi 1525, vol. VIII, chaps. XIV–XVI,
ff. 178v–180v. The second edition of the book appeared in Paris 20 years later.
14
The Roman decree of February 4, 1627 placed the Utriusque cosmi into the Index librorum pro-
hibitorum. Among the many aspects of Fludd’s work worthy of censure, in addition to his ideas
about creation and primordial matter, the decree also disapproved of the monochordum mundi that
flowed from those impious assumptions: Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
in the Vatican, Index, Protocolli BB, ff. 392r–393v; 408r–409v.
of light emanation, by giving light to the Sun through the harmony of the formal
octave, and spreading its influences on the Earth through the material octave. The
proportions arising from these hierarchical essences did not correspond to geometri-
cal proportions, nor to quantitative numbers; they were numeri numerantes (num-
bering numbers), rational and formal numbers that sprang from the divine essence’s
emanation.15 According to Mersenne, Fludd, together with Francesco Patrizi, was a
dangerous exponent of the metaphysics of light: by drawing even on Cabbala, he
indeed focused on the identity ‘God-unity-light’ and composed everything of parts
of light.16
In the Quaestiones in Genesim and, chiefly in the Traité,17 Mersenne analyzed at
length the cosmological model of this “heretic,” “magician,” and Rosicrucian
alchemist,18 by referring to the criticism voiced by Kepler in the Harmonices mundi
libri V (1619) and in the Pro suo opere harmonices mundi apologia (1622).
Mersenne focused on and disparaged Fludd’s numeri numerantes and his impious
reading of the anima mundi (world’s soul),19 which identified the latter with God.
Neither his monochord nor the two pyramids of form and matter took into account
the actual measurements of the universe, as they assumed the existence of the same
distance between Earth and Sun, and Sun and Empyrean. Instead, they should have
at least represented the dimensions provided by Tycho Brahe’s hypothesis, which –
Mersenne claimed – Fludd would not dare to refute.20
The most dangerous aspect of Fludd’s theory of the universe, apart from it being
the result of an unruly imagination rather than careful analysis, was that it contrib-
uted to the spread of atheism, as it provided readers with a misleading idea of God
and the Christian faith. The cosmos of this “evil magician” and – ironically – “more
than luminous man”21 was as treacherous as Bacon’s idola specus (idols of the
cave)22: they were even more detrimental than ignorance, because people could not
readily release themselves from wrong theories relying upon imagination: “it is
much better not to know this Harmony than to imagine it entirely different from
what it is; as fake imaginations exert I do not know what tyranny over our minds,
from which they can only free themselves with great difficulty.”23
15
Fludd 1617–1621, vol. II, tract. II, sec. I, b. I, chap. XVI, 50.
16
Mersenne 1625, 281. On Patrizi’s metaphysics of light see Deitz 1999.
17
See Mersenne 1623a, 709–710, 716, 1102, 1556–1558, 1561–1562, 1743, 1750; idem 2003,
b. II, th. XII-XIV, 387–427. See also idem 1636–1637, De l’utilité, 49.
18
On Mersenne and alchemy see Beaulieu 1993.
19
See Mersenne 2003, b. II, th. XIII, 409–419. Mersenne widely rebutted the idea of anima mundi:
see, for instance, idem 1623a, 1452; idem 1623b, 23–24; idem 1624b, 365–385.
20
Concerning Tycho’s hypothesis, Mersenne identified a distance of 1142 semi-diameters of the
Earth between the Earth and the Sun and 128,8 similar semi-diameters between the Sun and the fir-
mament. Mersenne 2003, b. II, th. XIII, 411.
21
Mersenne to Gassendi, 5 January 1633, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. III, 356.
22
Mersenne (1625, 206–208) examined Francis Bacon’s idola.
23
Mersenne 2003, b. II, th. XIV, 418–419: “il vaut beaucoup mieux ne connoistre point cette
Harmonie, que de se l’imaginer tout autrement qu’elle n’est; car les fausses imaginations exercent
ie ne sçay quelle tyrannie sur nos esprits, dont ils ne se peuvent dégager qu’avec une tres-grande
208 N. Fabbri
Although the Livre (f. 16r) claimed not to address the topic of planetary music,
Mersenne developed this in a manner complementary to the Traité de l’harmonie
universelle and akin to the analysis carried out in the Harmonie universelle. His
distance from Fludd’s illustrations – but also from Kepler’s geometrical harmony –
can be seen in both the monochord Mersenne described in the Livre, and the one he
outlined in the Harmonie universelle.
Folio 33r of the Livre contains calculations of how many octaves there were
between the center of the Earth and the firmament (Fig. 10.1).
The table towards the left of the page displays the number of octaves (from the
first to the 20th) in roman characters, whereas the lengths of the string are given in
inches, in arabic numerals. The text clarifies that the length of the semi-diameter of
the firmament would embrace about 37 octaves – i.e., it would be the 37th progres-
sion of the double proportion –, which would correspond to 577.332.000.000 inches.
Once Mersenne sketched out this data, he explained that this string could actually
generate actual sounds, although man would not be able to hear them because of the
physiological limits of his hearing.
In the Harmonie universelle Mersenne further developed this analysis and per-
spective by integrating it with comments taken from astronomical debates. He
shifted his attention from the length of a virtual string to the weight of the planets
that were hung upon it. Here he needed to decide whether each planet was com-
posed of the same matter as Earth, and whether it might be the center of its own
astronomical system. He thus needed to admit the ontological homogeneity of the
cosmos and the plurality of the reference systems of revolution – two tenets refused
by the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view, but in effect in both the Copernican and Tychonic
systems. He wrote down a table in which the weight of the Earth corresponded to a
range between the 41st and the 43rd octave.
We might similarly know the harmony of the seven Planets, and of the Earth which are hung
on eight identical chords which have the same thickness and length, as long as we know
their weight which we can find based on their magnitude, by assuming that each part of the
Planets is as heavy as each part of the Earth, as is claimed by some of those who build
particular systems with them and who say that if a part were separated from the Planets, it
would come back to them as to its center.24
In conjunction with the idea of a finite universe, which would be enclosed in the
outmost sphere of the firmament, Mersenne even claimed that “we can continue the
same progression as long as we find a number that corresponds to the weight of the
thickness of the firmament.”25
As early as in the Questions Théologiques Mersenne had sought to employ
sounds in his investigation of the quantitative dimension of the firmament: in the
44th question he wondered “what strength voice needed to be carried and heard up
difficulté.” This judgment followed the words La Mothe Le Vayer had employed in his Discours
sceptique sur la musique, which Mersenne published in the Questions harmoniques (1985b, 154).
24
Mersenne 1636–1637, Des mouvemens et du son des chordes, 185–186.
25
Ibid., 187.
Fig. 10.1 Mersenne, Livre de la nature des sons et de la manière qu’ilz s’épandent par le milieu
et qu’ils arrivent à l’oreille et au sens commun. Paris: Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 2884, f. 33r
210 N. Fabbri
to the Moon, the Sun and the firmament, both naturally and artificially.”26 The voice
might be directed into a tube to increase its extension, as “we can compensate in
length what it will loose in width” – a statement that was in full agreement with the
principle of mechanics set out by Galileo.27 Nevertheless, in raising this question
Mersenne ended up resorting to a traditional theological argument: although no
voices or sounds were strong enough to reach the sky, angels could make the human
sounds audible even in the Empyrean, thus creating a concert performed by the
union of the Triumphant and Militant Churches.28
The debate on the actual dimension and setting of the cosmos played a key role
in establishing the reliability of the different models of harmony that had been put
forward to that date. Mersenne did not acknowledge the superiority of the Copernican
system, much less that of the Keplerian model, despite praising the harmonic pro-
portion of their planetary arrangements. In the Traité the search for musical conso-
nances was, indeed, applied to not only the heliocentric system and Kepler’s cosmos,
but also the Ptolemaic and Tychonic worlds, with the admission that “we do not
know the distances, or the motions of planets, precisely enough.”29
Although he clarified that Kepler’s planetary harmonies were subject to a fair
approximation, Mersenne drew a clear distinction between Kepler’s model – worthy
of consideration and study – and Robert Fludd’s in the Utriusque cosmi. They epito-
mized the discrepancy between mathematics and hermetical symbolism30: Kepler’s
analysis was based on geometry and used the compass, whereas Fludd’s reading
drew on alchemy and employed fire and alembics.31 Nevertheless, even Kepler’s
geometrical model of space and the universe would eventually cause Mersenne to
be bewildered.
10.4 H
armonic Archetypes and Unfathomable God: Moving
Away from Kepler’s Geometrical Cosmos
In the Livre and the Harmonie universelle Mersenne did not propose the actual pres-
ence of musical consonances or of perfect scales in the skies, but only the possibility
of defining which sounds planets might correspond to. By contrast, the Traité was
quite different in this regard. Especially regarding the relationship between mathe-
matics, metaphysics and physics, Mersenne’s thought underwent several changes.
26
Mersenne 1985c, 417.
27
Ibid., 417–418: “If the strength of the voice does not lose anything from one side that she does
not recover from another side (as we say of moving forces, and of Machines, which do not lose
anything in length of time that they do not recover in strength [...]), we need to conclude that the
voice of a man, and every other sound can be heard from the Earth until the firmament.”
28
Ibid., 421–422.
29
Mersenne 2003, b. II, th. VIII, 361.
30
See idem 1623a, 1556–1557.
31
See idem 2003, b. II, th. V, 338.
In the wake of Kepler, Mersenne established a point of union between metaphysics

and mathematics in the Traité, thus leaving open the possibility for man to grasp
divine harmony and, therefore, the harmonious archetypes of creation – even
though, at this time, he had already pointed out the discrepancy between physics
and mathematics, often stressing that geometrical models and natural phenomena
only approximate each other, but do not fully match each other.32 In the Harmonie
universelle this possibility was denied in a rather definite manner, and the change in
his epistemological thought brought about the harsh tones he then directed against
Kepler – thus passing on from praising to blaming him.33
The Traité summed up Kepler’s idea of a harmonic cosmos: Mersenne sketched
out three outlines that displayed the information provided in the Harmonices mundi
libri V, albeit with several clerical mistakes.34 Moreover, in the Traité the archetypal
divine music was adopted as reference point for all kinds of music:
The Divine Music, on which our own depends, is in the divine intellect. […] The created
music lies in the Divine one, and can be divided into as many parts as the species in the
world; it is nothing else than the order and the harmonic proportion that is between the parts
of the world and each individual in particular. […] The World music is the harmonic order
and proportion, that is pleasant to the intellect, which is in the fabric of the heavens and of
the elements, and their properties and motions.35
In this text, Mersenne claimed a perfect co-essentiality between God and mathemat-
ical propositions, which were said to be as eternal as God’s essence.36 Indeed, the
interior divine music consisted of the harmonic proportions that were originally
contained in the essence of God, intellectually in his intellect, in an exemplary man-
ner in his ideas and practically in his will.37 This bears traces of the Keplerian model:
the musica mundana (music of the world), which depended on the divine music,
was pleasant to the human mind and seemed to be able to provide a gateway to
accessing the divine intellect and essence.38 Mersenne narrowed the definition of the
interior divine music to the concept of cosmic harmony, with the specific aim of
showing how the movements, intervals and magnitudes of planets were comparable
to musical consonances. However, he always refers to ‘comparisons,’ never a per-
fect match or identity. In the Traité, those statements that were more indebted to
32
See Boutroux 1922, 286; de Buzon 1994; Fabbri 2003, 151–156.
33
Mersenne’s rebuttal of Kepler throughout the Harmonie universelle has been examined in Field
2003, 29–44.
34
See Mersenne 2003, b. II, th. VIII, 356–358.
35
Ibid., b. I, th. XIII, 80; th. XIV, 83; th. XV, 86.
36
See Mersenne 1624a, 446–454. Jean-Luc Marion proposed a reading of Mersenne’s first three
writings (Quaestiones in Genesim, Impiété and Vérité) in light of the theory of the univocity
between God’s ideas and essence on one hand, and mathematical truths on the other – and this
theory recurs in the Traité as well: Marion 1991, 161–178. See also idem 1994.
37
See Mersenne 2003, b. I, th. XIII, 82. See also idem 1623a, 332, 436; idem 1624a, 411; idem
1624b, 311–312.
38
Nevertheless, neither did Mersenne embrace the Platonic doctrine of innatism and reminiscence
in the Traité, nor did he undertake a stronger rebuttal of Kepler’s reading of it in the Harmonie
universelle. See Mersenne 1636–1637, Des consonances, 86.
212 N. Fabbri
Kepler’s thought indeed coexisted with an incomplete mathematization of nature,

which relied on a difference between mathematics and physics which increased in
the course of his subsequent writings.
The identity of the essence of God and the archetypal world containing the divine
ideas was still mentioned in the Harmonie universelle, but Mersenne at the same
time firmly denied the possibility that the human mind could rise to the archetypical
world by means of mathematics. This was mainly due to the increasing divergence
between mathematics, physics and the realm of possibilities from which God chose
freely: “the intelligible world, or archetype, as in the divine ideas, is not different
from the divine essence; but the big challenge is to know how he made it visible, and
how he made it subject to time and place.”39
Mersenne ruled out any analogy that could have agreed with immanentism, in
the form in which it appeared in Kepler’s belief in the Trinitarian image that God
would have engraved in the spherical structure of the world and in his interpretation
of the planetary animae motrices (moving souls) of the planets.40 The unique anal-
ogy between God and the physical world that Mersenne held – and developed
throughout the years – was one between the divine Trinitarian essence and unison.41
Mersenne’s emphasis on the divine transcendence prevented him from continuing to
follow Kepler’s model: the perfect congruence between space and geometry, and the
co-essence and co-eternity between God and mathematical truths that featured in
Kepler’s thought, made the relationship between God and cosmos, Creator and
Creation, a controversial and puzzling issue.42 The geometrical image of the divine
essence that God would have impressed into the cosmos and every level of creation
(which Kepler often referred to in his works and correspondence) was at odds with
the statements on the unfathomable will of God, and also with the voluntarism that
characterized most of Mersenne’s work. Nor, as is well known, did Mersenne
embrace the Cartesian model of creation of mathematical truths, or agree with the
consequent distinction between divine essence on one hand, and mathematical
propositions and archetypes on the other.43 Nevertheless, he regarded the perfect
knowledge of several mathematical propositions as not sufficient for grasping the
concept of divine archetypes, which concerned everything that did not contain any
contradiction.
39
Idem 1636–1637, Des instrumens de percussion, 78.
40
See Kepler 1938, Praefatio antiqua, 23; chap. II, 45–46. Idem 1953, b. I, 51. On Kepler’s inter-
pretation of the planetary souls, see, for instance, idem 1940a, b. IV, 264–286.
41
See Bailhache 1994, 22–23; de Buzon 1994, 126–127; Fabbri 2008, 58–67; Van Wymeersch
2011, 261–274.
42
Within the broad literature on the theological roots of Kepler’s cosmology, see especially Field
1984; eadem 1988; Methuen 2008, chap. 7.
43
By referring to Descartes’ letter of April 15, 1630, Lenoble (1971, 277) stated that Descartes and
Mersenne shared the same view with regard to the absolute freedom of God’s will and the rebuttal
of Naturalism. Conversely, Jean-Luc Marion (1991, 163–167, 174–176, 178–203) emphasized the
difference between Mersenne’s and Descartes’ readings, by viewing Kepler as the implicit inter-
locutor in the 1630 letters from Descartes to Mersenne, as well as the model Mersenne gestured to
in defining the mathematical truths.
The unfathomableness of the decreta Dei (decisions of God), which ensued from
the voluntarist theology, had significant repercussions on Mersenne’s rebuttal of
three cosmological models – Bruno’s, Kepler’s and Galileo’s – which he interpreted
as reliant on necessitarism or, at least, on a serious attempt to limit God’s free will.
Mersenne’s emphasis on the absolute omnipotence and freedom of God embraced
both the spatial and the temporal dimensions of the universe. Mersenne’s analysis
and refutation of Bruno’s arguments concerning the relationship between God’s
infinite power and the necessary creation of an infinite universe – which would be
the infinite effect of God’s infinite power – have been largely examined with refer-
ence to the infinity of space.44 Even when Mersenne seemed to be open to the pos-
sibility of such an infinite universe, he continued to refer to voluntarism: God could
have created – not should have created, as Bruno had claimed – an infinite universe,
if he had wanted to do so.
As for Jordan, although he uses bad fundaments, it is, however, rather probable that the
world is infinite, if it can be so. For why do you want an infinite cause not to have an infinite
effect? On other occasions, I had other demonstrations against this, but the solution is
effortless.45
The greatly praised simplicity of Copernicanism was also not looked upon as a
parameter according to which its superiority over other astronomical hypotheses
could be established, inasmuch as God, who was absolutely free in his ad extra
(external) activity, might have created a more or less complex universe.46
But we have neither science nor revelation concerning the way in which God regulated the
movements of the Universe; since, although He makes nothing in vain and there is nothing
superfluous in His works, there can be significant reasons for which He arranged for the
firmament to turn and for the Earth to rest. This is the reason why it seems to me that it is
more appropriate to suspend our judgment than to be carried away by conjectures.47
Mersenne’s voluntarism also had consequences for the difficult issue of the eternity
and immutability of the world. “Why could not God cease conserving the
Universe?”48 God might interrupt the existence of the universe at any given time and
he would be able to change the course of nature.
As Mersenne stressed in many of his writings, God could have chosen to order
the celestial world differently from the regularity observed in the sublunary world,
or in a way that differed from the simplicity on which Copernicus and Galileo built
44
In L’impiété des déistes Mersenne paraphrased and refuted meticulously Bruno’s De l’infinito
and De immenso. See Del Prete 1998, 139–161; Buccolini 1999; Del Prete 2000; Granada 2000;
Margolin 2004. For Bruno’s infinitism see also Granada’s Chapter 8 in this volume.
45
Mersenne to Rey, 1 April 1632, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. III, 275: “Quant à Jordan, encore
qu’il se serve de mauvais fondemens, neantmoins il est assés probable que le monde est infini, s’il
le peut estre. Car pourquoy voulés-vous qu’une cause infinie n’ait pas un effet infini? J’ay autres-
fois eu d’autres demonstrations contre ceci, mais la solution en est aisée.” See also Mersenne 2003,
b. II, th. I, 334.
46
See idem 1623a, 844.
47
Idem 1985b, Epistre, 108–109. See also idem 1623a, 914; idem 1985c, 216. Idem 1985a, 37.
48
Idem 1624a, 324–325.
214 N. Fabbri
their cosmos, and from Kepler’s geometrical space. If some propositions of arith-
metic and geometry were recognized by the human mind as being apodictically
true, such a degree of certainty could hardly be found in physics – nor, therefore, in
astronomy. This led Mersenne to tirelessly conduct research: such certainty was
considered necessary to claim the truthfulness of an astronomical or mechanical
theory.49
Mersenne’s forsaking of the Keplerian model of cosmos – which was chiefly the
aftermath of his disapproval of Kepler’s metaphysical underpinnings – involved the
issue of the planetary concert as well. Mersenne questioned the existence of a
musica mundana, both in the form of an audible sound produced by planets, as well
as in the form of a rational concert caused by exact musical proportions that the
human mind might be capable of discovering by comparing the orbital speeds of the
planets, as well as their distances from the center of the cosmos (both in the helio-
centric and in the geocentric system).
10.5 The End of the Planetary Concert
Leaving behind the refutation of deism, alchemy and hermetism – which had char-
acterized his early works up to the 1634 Questions, and to which his rebuttals of
Fludd, Patrizi, and Bruno are to be counted –, Mersenne focused on the geometriza-
tion of nature often advocated by his contemporaries. His idea of the universe at the
time can be summed up as a finite Tychonic cosmos, in which planets revolved
through a generic plenum of subtle air, and their movements were ordered accord-
ing to a harmonic setting – even though he did not specify a model for this order.
Spurred on by contemporary debates, he put all his effort in discussing – and, in the
end, rejecting – both Kepler’s and Galileo’s models of cosmos and space.
This stance mostly arose from Mersenne’s definition of the epistemological sta-
tus of the mathematicae mixtae, and among them astronomy. As has been pointed
out since Popkin first published his sharp analysis, Mersenne never presented a true
explanation of the universe, only the most probable one50: the interplay between his
‘mitigated skepticism’ and theological assumptions prevented him from gaining
exhaustive knowledge of the physical world.51 Mersenne selected from different
explanatory models, and from time to time he chose one as both the closest to the
true constitution of nature, and his best ally in his war against atheism and heresy.
49
In this regard, one of Descartes’ answers to Mersenne is enlightening: “Requiring from me a
geometrical demonstration in a matter that depends on physics is wanting from me impossible
things” (Descartes to Mersenne, 17/27 May 1638, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. VII, 231).
50
On Mersenne’s ‘methodological skepticism,’ see Popkin 1957; idem 1979, 130 sq. See also Dear
1988, 25–47. Mersenne’s epistemological skepticism is instead advocated by Joly 1999, vol. II,
257–276.
51
Of the scholarly literature on the relation between voluntarist theology and modern science, see
esp. Harrison 2002; idem 2005; Henry 2009.
In order to place Mersenne’s survey on space and his attitude about contempo-
rary theories into context, it is useful to follow a brief diversion into the epistemo-
logical status of the mathematicae mixtae. As a passage of the Questions théologiques
epitomizes:
As we cannot know the true reasons, or the science of what happens in nature, since there
are always some circumstance, or instance that make us doubt whether the causes we figure
out are true, and whether there are any at all, or whether there might be other ones, I do not
see how we have to call for any other thing from the most savants than their observations,
and the comments they will have made about the different effects or phenomena of nature.52
Nevertheless, within the mathematicae mixtae Mersenne had a predilection for

optics and acoustics, as he valued them for carrying a higher level of certainty due
to their strong geometrical roots. He clarified that human reason was, indeed, also
gifted with an intellectual light – the ‘natural light’ given by God – that relied on the
soul’s incorruptibility and immortality. The soul, which was just as eternal as math-
ematical truths, was also able to formulate arithmetical and geometrical proposi-
tions. This epistemological model had the advantage of managing the inaccuracy of
sensible experience and of ensuring that a very high level of reliability could be
attained, at least in those mathematicae mixtae that were more closely related to
geometry, such as optics and acoustics.
It is most certain that the mind has a being that is distinct from body and matter, and that
depends only on the one who has the being of himself, whose image we bring on […]. From
there it comes that it [i.e. the mind] makes propositions that are eternally true, for example
[…] that all the lines drawn from the center of a circle to its circumference are equal […],
and an infinite number of similar propositions that the mind of man knows, or can know
perfectly. This cannot happen unless it holds them formally, or eminently, and unless it has
the same incorruptibility that it knows in them […][;] suffice it here to assume that the mind
of the musician which considers sounds is incorruptible and immortal.53
Human knowledge of mathematical truths no longer flowed from the grasping of

divine ideas, as Mersenne was more inclined to suggest in the Traité de l’harmonie
universelle. It is God who gave man an incorruptible and immortal mind, enabling
him to have perfect knowledge of the things endowed with the same perfection and
eternity as he himself. Although Mersenne often denied the possibility of reaching
apodictic conclusions in mixed sciences, he nevertheless admitted that the method
and the experiences carried out in those sciences help man perfect natural light:
[the intellect] makes up for the failings of the external senses, as well as of the internal ones,
and it does so through a spiritual and universal light that it has of its own nature since the
52
Mersenne 1985c, 224: “Puisque nous ne pouvons sçavoir les vrayes raisons, ou la science de ce
qui arrive dans la nature, parce qu’il y a tousjours quelques circonstances, ou instances qui nous
font douter si les causes que nous nous imaginons sont veritables, et s’il n’y en a point, ou s’il n’y
en peut avoir d’autres, je ne voy pas que l’on doive requerir autre chose des plus sçavans que leurs
observations, et les remarques qu’ils auront faites des differens effets, ou phenomenes de la
nature.”
53
Mersenne 1636–1637, Livre premier de la Voix, 80 (my emphasis).
216 N. Fabbri
beginning of its creation […]. This natural light of the mind is improved and put into prac-
tice by means of meditation, study, experience, as well as the sciences.54
The natural light is spiritual, in that it belongs exclusively to the mind and depends
directly on God; it is universal, as it belongs to all of mankind; and it is perpetual,
as it has been present since the beginning of the creation of man. The mind does not
hold innate principles: the natural light – upon which the main difference between
men and animals relies – needs to resort to the recta ratio (right reason), whose acts
are possible in men that are of sound mind in their adulthood, by leaving behind the
sensory illusions, as well as by carrying out research and having experiences.55
However, the natural light achieves the highest perfection only after entering into
the glory of Christ, when the supernatural light enables it to know the divine essence.
This position provides a good explanation for Mersenne’s need to repeat experi-
ments, and to compare his results with the information provided by his contempo-
raries. Furthermore, his claims about the impossibility of considering physics as
exact a science as pure mathematics, as well as his rejection of transposing geo-
metrical patterns and apodictic demonstrations to the field of natural phenomena,
rule out the possibility that the mathematicae mixtae can reach any exhaustive
knowledge. These assumptions led Mersenne to suspend judgment – as in the case
of astronomical issues – or to an endless checking of other philosophers’ experi-
ments – as happened with the research carried out mostly in the mixed sciences,
such as optics, acoustics, ballistics and mechanics. In the case of cosmic harmony,
Mersenne could not verify quantitative variables and planetary patterns, and there-
fore he could not provide rigorous demonstrations or formulate the relevant apodic-
tic conclusions, based just on an alleged likeness between the planets and other
physical bodies.
This epistemological position, in addition to the theological voluntarism that
underlay Mersenne’s works, played a crucial role in marking the fall of the tradi-
tional idea of harmonic cosmos. Notwithstanding the fascinating theory of Kepler’s
harmonic cosmos, his geometry of space – which drew on the Neo-Platonic philoso-
phy and, especially, on Proclus’ reading of Euclid’s Elements – turned out to be
unsatisfactory. This was not the case for metaphysical reasons only. Kepler’s model
still assumed the subordination of the musica instrumentalis to the musica mun-
dana, yet it was no longer based on the numeri numerantes: the music played by
man employed the proportions according to which God had created the world, and
which corresponded to the rationes that resulted from the inscription of a diameter,
triangle, square, hexagon, octagon, and pentagon within a circumference.56
54
Idem 1625, 193: “[… l’entendement] supplée aus manquemens des sens exterieurs, et même des
interieurs, ce qu’il fait par une lumiere spirituelle, et universelle qu’il à de sa propre nature des le
commencement de sa creation […]. Cette lumiere naturelle de l’esprit est perfectionée, et mis en
acte par le moyen de la meditation, de l’étude, de l’experience, et des sciences […].”
55
Denying the existence of that lumen would imply that one is agreeing with skepticism and reduc-
ing man to the animal-like status: Mersenne indeed blamed skepticism for “reducing us shamefully
to the vilest level and to the lowest state of beast” (Mersenne 1625, Dédicace, 8).
56
See Kepler 1940a, books I, II, III.
Conversely, in the wake of Vincenzo Galilei, Mersenne abandoned the parallelism

between these two musicae and relied on research carried out within the empirical
dimension. According to Mersenne, the legend of Pythagoras – who was said to
have defined the ratios of the sounds produced by both the planetary concert and the
hammers in a smithy by means of experimentation with the monochord, glasses,
pipes, etc. – implied, firstly, the perfect overlap of the musicae instrumentalis and
mundana, establishing the dependence of the second on the first57; secondly, the
dialogue between the a priori and the experimental arena. The traditional interpreta-
tion of Pythagoras’ discovery of musical consonances – put forward by Franchino
Gaffurio58 and Gioseffo Zarlino, among others – was questioned and refuted thor-
oughly by Vincenzo Galilei, and thereafter by Mersenne59: they reproduced the
experiments ascribed to Pythagoras and pointed out their errors, arguing that the
procedure he had adopted was strongly indebted to the a priori process and belonged
primarily to numerology (the so-called numeri numerantes). This new reading also
entailed the liberation of music (and techne) from its subordinate role of the ‘imita-
tion of nature,’ as well as breaking the parallelism between the numerical propor-
tions that corresponded to the consonances and proportions which shaped the
planetary order. In his diatribe against the music theoretician Gioseffo Zarlino,
Vincenzo Galilei came to assert the artificiality of every tuning system, including
the one that had been largely regarded as natural until then. Mersenne, too, in his
Harmonie universelle, overturned Zarlino’s statement by claiming that even the
syntonic-diatonic intonation was founded on art rather than nature.60 Although
Mersenne did not subscribe entirely to Vincenzo Galilei’s strict position, the line
they traced between cosmic harmony and music played by man represented a water-
shed in the interpretation of the harmonic space of cosmos.
Mersenne’s attempts, in the Traité and, partially, in the Quaestiones in Genesim,
to define a credible model of cosmic harmony, and to subordinate the musica instru-
mentalis to the musica mundana, were ultimately ineffective. He rejected this the-
ory also because the numerical proportions of musical consonances in human
concerts did not derive from either ‘natural proportions’ or divine rationes. Kepler’s
idea of harmony – which the Traité often echoed – called for a co-essence of God,
geometrical shapes and musical consonances, whereas in Mersenne’s thought the
unison (1:1) – which he often returned to when discussing the concept of the
Trinity – turned out to be no more than a very effective analogy in his attempt to
convert his readers to the truthfulness and rationality of Catholicism, as well as to
employ music as one of the most powerful weapons in his campaign against
anti-Trinitarians.
57
See Mersenne 2003, b. II, th. VIII, 359–360.
58
See Gaffurio 1492; Galilei 1581, 134. Vincenzo Galilei’s survey was analyzed by Palisca 2000,
509 sq.
59
Mersenne 2003, b. II, Préface, 295; th. XIII, 413. Idem 1636–1637, Nouvelles observations,
25–26. On Mersenne’s indebtedness to Vincenzo Galilei see the seminal work by Palisca 1998. See
also Cohen 1984, 85, 101–102, 183–184.
60
Mersenne 1636–1637, Livre des Instruments, 8–9.
218 N. Fabbri
The absence of musical consonances in Galileo’s interpretation of the harmonic

order of the cosmos61 – which largely drew on the ‘very perfect harmony’ of the
Copernican system – might instead have urged Mersenne to analyze bodies, space
and the structure of the universe only with the ‘tool’ of acoustics, rather than with
patterns based on harmonic proportions and musical archetypes.
10.6 M
ersenne’s Reading of Galileo’s Universe: Contrasting
Atoms, Void and Heliocentrism
Galileo’s research had aroused Mersenne’s interest since the end of the Twenties: in
addition to engaging with Galileo’s studies through his correspondence, in 1634 the
Minim published the first edition of the Mecchaniche in French translation; he
summed up the first 2 days of the Dialogo in the Questions théologiques – and at the
end of the summary, he added the text of the 1633 sentence against Galileo and his
abjuration; he also provided a French rendition of the Discorsi under the title
Nouvelles pensées de Galilée.62 As the following sections shall show, Mersenne’s
idea of the Mosaic cosmos was, indeed, strained by the issue of the void as well as
the alleged existence of an infinite number of atoms.
Galileo’s geometrization of nature was, alongside Kepler’s and Descartes’, one
of the most recurrent debating points in Mersenne’s thought. It was, indeed, based
on a merging of Platonic and Archimedean readings of the universe, which still
seemed to rely on an unfounded faith in the cognitive ability of men, who would
have perfect knowledge of the mathematical propositions according to which God
created and ordered nature. However, Galileo did not run the risk of opening up the
knowledge of divine essence and archetypes to human beings, as he neither offered
a strong theory about the coessentiality between divine essence and mathematics,
nor a doctrine based on innatism. Mersenne did not join Galileo’s Platonism with
Kepler’s: Galileo’s model of ‘intensive knowledge’ – according to which the human
knowledge of several mathematical propositions equals that of God – did not agree
with Kepler’s knowledge of the divine reasons and Trinitary’s essence.63 The well-
known excerpt on the intendere intensivo (intensive knowledge) – which is deliv-
ered at the end of the first day of the Dialogue – was, indeed, not formulated in the
61
See Galileo 1933b, 148. On the geometrical order of the Galilean universe see Galluzzi 1979. On
Galileo’s idea of the harmony that pervaded the heliocentric system see Fabbri 2008, 211–228.
62
On Mersenne-‘editor’ of Galileo, see Costabel and Lerner 1973, vol. I, 15–43; Shea 1977, 55–70;
Raphael 2008. Mersenne owned a copy of the Saggiatore, too: Buccolini 1998.
63
See Galileo 1933b, 128–129. Conversely, Jean-Luc Marion supposed that Galileo and Kepler
shared the same reading with regard to the definition of the ontological status of mathematical
truths, and the univocity between divine and human science: Marion 1991, 204–227. On the differ-
ence between Galileo’s and Kepler’s mathematization of nature see, rather, Fabbri 2008, 189–196.
Galileo’s distance from Kepler’s epistemological model also emerged from the pages of Galileo’s
letter to Gallanzoni (July 16, 1611). For an enlightening comparison of these two natural philoso-
phers, see Bucciantini 2003.
course of an emphatic extolling of human abilities: in those pages Galileo expressed

his distrust towards those who believed that men were capable of knowing nature
exhaustively, and that any finalistic reading could interpret the book of nature cor-
rectly: “Very great seems to me the smallness of those who would like God to have
made the universe more proportionate to the small capability of their discourse
rather than to His immense, or more exactly infinite, power.”64 Only few mathemati-
cal propositions could be saved from the uncertainty that surrounds the world of
man, which was eventually comparable to the world of earth-worms and maggots –
as Galileo had written in his 1624 letter to Francesco Ingoli.65 According to Galileo,
the existing relation between nature and human mind was established in keeping
with the temporal order of Creation. God created the universe by choosing freely
from the realm of possibilities66; only afterwards did he create the human mind, giv-
ing it the ability to discover – even if with great effort – a part of the universe: “But
I would reckon sooner that nature made things beforehand, according to her manner,
and then fabricated human discourses so that they were able to understand (albeit
with great difficulty) something about her secrets.”67 However, it was not possible to
state the opposite: man would not be able to narrow the divine model of creation
down to what his mind could conceive; man had to be bound to the description of
nature as de facto, without inquiring how it could be de jure.68 Indeed, man could
not say or know anything about the essence of God, his plans, as well as the essence
of natural bodies. The possibilities of human knowledge that Galileo traced were
secured by the metaphysical underpinnings underlying his natural philosophy:
firstly, God’s immutability – which expressed itself both through nature’s inexora-
bility, and the fact that God neither intervenes with miracles in the regular course of
nature nor breaks the laws he gave to it69; secondly, the mathematical structure God
imparted to nature, which could finally be grasped by the human mind thanks to
geometrical demonstrations and sensible experiences.
Of the regularities uncovered in the movement of natural bodies the principle of
simplicity that nature seems to follow epitomizes Mersenne’s and Galileo’s diver-
gence. In Galileo’s thought it played a crucial role both in his astronomical model –
surfacing in his adhesion to heliocentrism and to the circularity of planetary
orbits – and in his survey on how bodies behaved on the Earth. The third day of the
Discorsi sheds light on how Galileo’s belief in the principle of simplicity was the
64
Galileo 1933b, 397. See also ibid., 126–127, 394.
65
See Galileo 1933a, 530.
66
See idem 1933b, 45.
67
Ibid., 289: “Ma io stimerei più presto, la natura aver fatte prima le cose a suo modo, e poi fab-
bricati i discorsi umani abili a poter capire (ma però con fatica grande) alcuna cosa de’ suoi seg-
reti” (my emphasis). With “discorsi umani” Galileo also refers to mathematical definitions: see
idem 1933d, 74.
68
See idem 1933b, 289. See also ibid., 444–445; idem 1932, 351. On the distinction between de
facto proof and de jure legitimacy (geometrical principles) in Galileo’s physics, see Stabile 2002,
225 sq.
69
On Galileo’s ‘inexorable nature’ see Stabile 1994; idem 2003.
220 N. Fabbri
result of a balance between mathematical demonstrations and sensible knowledge.

Galileo claimed that he did not grow confident about the exactness of his law of free
fall until after verifying that the law was in agreement with what naturalia experi-
menta revealed to human senses. Moreover, he had considered nature’s customs
(consuetudines) and procedures in other fields as well, remarking that “she habitu-
ally employs the first, simplest and easiest means.”70 Therefore, Galileo did not
propose simplicity as an a priori principle, but rather as something that was observed
and noticed with sensory experience, and that concerned how nature acted de facto.
Mersenne shared this belief that nature usually follows the simplest way: “if
nature did not follow the shortest way, it would do useless movements and it would
work in vain.”71 Nevertheless, he refrained from inferring anything from this about
the simplicity of God’s plans and actions. Nature was not ‘inexorable,’ and God
could change her course and make her complicated at any time.72 Furthermore,
Mersenne clarified, any definition of what was considered simple and easy by the
human mind would not be valid if compared to God’s knowledge and power. In the
second day of the Dialogo Galileo had praised the simplicity of the heliocentric
hypothesis.73 At the end of Mersenne’s résumé of this part of Galileo’s Dialogo in
the Questions théologiques, he instead invoked God’s almightiness by claiming that
“for God it is not more difficult to make every part of the circumference immobile
than the center.”74
In addition to dissociating himself from the use that Galileo made of God’s
immutability – which clashed with God’s voluntarism, which Mersenne insistently
referred to –, Mersenne’s refusal of heliocentrism went through the rebuttal of the
mathematical structure of nature that underlay Galileo’s natural philosophy and led
him to advocate the truthfulness of Copernicanism. As Galileo formulated in his
more complete version of the correspondence between the mathematical analysis of
the continuum and the structure of matter, when abstracting from the imperfections
of matter, man could “produce no lesser demonstrations [when talking about mat-
ter] than the other rigorous and pure mathematics do.”75 This was another tenet
Mersenne could not share: man cannot neglect the accommodations to which math-
ematical models are necessarily subject when he adds matter to immaterial shapes,
forces, movements, etc.76 Such an approximation is not to be accepted: for instance,
bodies cannot be assumed to move in the vacuum since the existence of void is false,
as Mersenne still pointed out in his 1643 letter to the Accademia dei Lincei.77
Mersenne’s rebuke of Galileo’s mathematization of nature fully expresses itself in
70
Galileo 1933d, 197; trans. 1974, 153.
71
Mersenne 1636–1637, Des instrumens à vent, 250. See, for instance, also Mersenne to Rey,
1 September 1631, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. III, 188.
72
See also note 47.
73
Galileo 1933b, 148.
74
Mersenne 1985c, 385.
75
Galileo 1933d, 51. See idem 1933b, 234.
76
See idem 1933d, 155; trans. 1974, 113.
77
Mersenne to Lincei, 1 July 1643, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. XII, 222.
the emphasis he put on Galileo’s inaccuracies in the experiments – and failures – to

prove his assumptions: indeed, he often scolded Galileo, contrasting the results that
came from his great number of expériences with Galileo’s thought experiments.78
Mersenne intertwined this topic with the analysis of Galileo’s atomism as well,
and developed it throughout his private correspondence, in the Harmonie univer-
selle and its marginalia, in the Nouvelles observations added to the Harmonie uni-
verselle in 1638, in the Cogitata physico-mathematica of 1644, in the Nouvelles
pensées de Galilée of 1639, in the Novarum observationum tomus III of 1647, as
well as in the Liber novus praelusorius which had been added to the Harmonicorum
libri XII in 1648. Mersenne’s survey on void – which has been largely examined by
many scholars – would ultimately characterize all of his final works.79
Along these lines, in 1643 Mersenne wrote a letter to the Lincei in which –
implicitly drawing on Descartes’ opinions on Galileo’s Discorsi which he had
expressed 5 years earlier in reply to Mersenne’s request80 – he raised several ques-
tions as to what the Discorsi had stated.81 Galileo’s atomism, which stemmed from
the idea of transferring the mathematical analysis of the continuum to natural phe-
nomena and to the idea of matter, strongly piqued Mersenne’s interest.82 Galileo
replaced the Aristotelian definition of a continuous quantity that can be actually
divided only into continuous quantities83 with that of a continuous quantity com-
posed of an infinite number of indivisible and unquantifiable (“non quante”) parts.84
Descartes had questioned, and Mersenne would question later, the interpretation of
the Rota Aristotelis paradox Galileo provided in the Discorsi, as well as his defini-
tion of a continuum composed of an infinite number of unextended points, among
which an infinite number of indivisible vacua (“infiniti vacui non quanti”) were
interposed.85 Whereas Descartes stressed the fact that the existence of Galileo’s
78
See, for instance, Mersenne 1636–1637, Du mouvement des corps, 87, 112 (already quoted by
Rochot 1973, 11–12). On Mersenne’s attitude, see Lenoble 1971, 357–360, 461–471; Dear 1995,
129–132; Palmerino 2011, 101–125.
79
See Lenoble 1971, 426–437. A comprehensive overview of this topic has been provided by
Maury 2003, 179–238.
80
See Descartes to Mersenne, 11 October 1638, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. VIII, 96–99. See also
the recent analysis carried out by Renée Raphael (2017, 78–97), in which Descartes’ letter, the
Nouvelles Pensées, the marginalia Mersenne added to two copies of the Discorsi, and Mersenne’s
letter to the Accademia dei Lincei are compared.
81
See Mersenne to Galileo’s friends in Italy, 1 July 1643, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. XII,
221–223.
82
See, for instance, Galileo 1933d, 72; trans. 1974, 33: “What is thus said of simple lines is to be
understood also of surfaces and of solid bodies, considering those as composed of infinitely many
unquantifiable atoms.”
83
See Aristotle, De coelo, 298b; Aristotle, Phys., 231a sq. Galileo denied that definition both in the
first day of the Discorsi (Galileo 1933d, 77; trans. 1974, 38–39), and in the Postille alle eser-
citazioni filosofiche di Antonio Rocci (1933c, 682–683, 745–750).
84
Of the wide-ranging literature on Galileo’s atomism, see Shea 1970; Baldini 1976; Smith 1976;
Redondi 1985; Palmerino 2000, 275–319. See especially Galluzzi 2011.
85
On Galileo’s interpretation see Drabkin 1950, 179–198; Palmerino 2001, 381–405; Boulier
2010, 371–385.
222 N. Fabbri
interstitial “little vacua” (namely, the “vacui non quanti”) could not even be figured
out, and added that those arguments were merely sophisms, Mersenne wrote that
Galileo’s aim was more to astonish than to convince.86 The Galilean analysis of the
continuum was based on “little subtleties that are worthless”87: for instance, if no
line could be composed of a finite number of points but only of an infinite number,
all lines would therefore be equal: they would be neither longer nor shorter than
another, as all lines would be composed of an infinite number of points.88
As Lenoble had already pointed out,89 in the end, Mersenne preferred Descartes’
theory of subtle matter to Galileo’s model of space, to Gassendi’s atomism, as well
as to Roberval’s empty geometrical imaginary space.90 He did not accept Descartes’
subtle matter unreservedly, but did consider it to be more probable than atomism,
given that it was more compatible with his experiments and that, last but not least,
it was easier to bring into line with Catholic dogmas.91
10.7 Can Bodies Move in an Intracosmic Void?
In the Harmonie universelle, Mersenne attempted to define the space that lies
beneath the firmament by interlacing contemporary debates about the vacuum with
theological assumptions, as well as by using the ‘tool’ of acoustics. In order to draw
a more comprehensive portrait of Mersenne it is necessary to first consider his writ-
ings on this topic dating from circa 10 years earlier.
In the manuscript text Livre de la nature des sons, Mersenne examined the idea
of sounds produced by the movements of planets. He raised the question “How the
sky could produce sounds” (“Comment est ce que les cieux pourroient produire des
sons”):
This however will not make me grant the sound of the Heavens to the Platonists, unless we
assume two things, the first, that the Heavens are solid bodies that move; the second, that
every movement produces some sound, for then we should confess that the sky resonates;
nevertheless, it would not be necessary for the Heavens to be solid, as it would be sufficient
that the planets, and the stars, make their movements in the air stretched up beyond the fir-
mament. The solidity of the sky is far from necessary, it would rather impede the sound,
assuming that the air is necessary to produce the sound, and that there is not any air in the
sky. But I do not want to amuse myself here with these celestial sounds, both because they
are of no use to our sounds, and because we shall talk about this in another place.92
86
See Descartes to Mersenne, 11 October 1638, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. VIII, 97.
87
Mersenne 1973, 30. See Costabel 1964.
88
Mersenne 1973, 22–23.
89
See Lenoble 1971, 430, 436. On Mersenne’s opinion on the atomism of Galileo and Gassendi,
see especially ibid., 413–437.
90
See Mersenne to Descartes, 28 April 1638, in Mersenne 1945–1988, vol. VII, 174.
91
See Mersenne 1644, Hydraulica, 166; Tractatus mechanicus, 83–84. Idem 1648b, 2.
92
Idem c. 1626, 16r: “Ce qui ne fera pourtant pas que i’accorde le son des cieux aux Platoniciens,
si ce n’est que nous supposions deux choses, la premiere que les cieux sont des corps solides qui
The “other place” mentioned here by Mersenne was the Traité de l’Harmonie uni-
verselle: besides suggesting new arguments that testified to the impossibility of
hearing cosmic harmony, he focused on defining the conditions that enabled planets
to produce sounds, thus shifting the attention from the level of perception to the
level of production.93 Adhering to Brahe’s fluidity of the Heavens and assuming that
the density of air in the sky was uniform, Mersenne concluded that the motion of the
planets produced sounds, since even the very slow movements of cannon balls
(when compared to those made by planets) were capable of generating sounds.94 If
the dimension, movement, speed and material of a body were known, it would be
possible to apply acoustic laws to the movement of the planets, and to define the
sounds they corresponded to – although it would be very difficult to define which
one each of them was, because of the large dimension and the very high speed of
these bodies.95
Several years later, the Harmonie universelle attended to this subject again,
although it examined it from a different viewpoint. Prior to addressing the issue of
strings vibrating in the universe, Mersenne clarified the philosophical background
of this kind of analysis, by merging the Scholastic tradition and seventeenth-century
discussions. He introduced two hypotheses:
we can consider two types of void, namely the universal and the particular, the first of which
is nothing other than the privation of all bodies that are in the world; this would happen if
God stopped conserving the bodies He created, as nothing other than the space where they
are would exist – the space that we usually call imaginary. We can, however, consider
another void, one that is a little less universal than the first, namely the void that the air fills:
once the air is removed from the place it has now, through either annihilation or transport,
it leaves the concavity of the firmament empty of air.96
In the first hypothesis, Mersenne does not assume that the void and the imaginary
space precede, or exist prior to, the creation of bodies; following in Duns Scotus’
footsteps with regard to his discussion on imaginary space and intracosmic void,
Mersenne rests the possibility of their existence on voluntarism, and more precisely,
on a divine action that could cease to conserve bodies.97
se meuvent; la 2 que tout mouvement produit quelque son, car pour lors il faudroit confesser que
les cieux resonneraient; il ne seroit neantmoins pas necessaire que les cieux fussent solides, car ce
seroit assez que les planettes, et les estoilles fissent leurs mouvemens dans l’air étendu iusques par
dessus le firmament; tant s’en faut que la solidité des cieux fust necessaire, elle empecheroit plus-
tost le son, supposé que l’air soit necessaire pour produire le son, et qu’il n’y ayt point d’air entre
les cieux. Mais ie ne veus pas m’amuser icy a ces sons celestes, tant parce qu’ils ne servent de rien
à la force de nos sons, que parce que nous parlerons de ceci en un autre lieu.”
93
See idem 2003, b. I, th. XV, 89.
94
As early as in the Quaestiones in Genesim, Mersenne valued the idea of the fluidity of Heaven:
Mersenne 1623a, 813, 843. See also idem 2003, b. I, th. XV, 90.
95
See idem 2003, b. I, th. XV, 90–91.
96
Idem 1636–1637, Livre premier de la nature et des proprietez du son, 8. A reading of this passage
is also provided in Buccolini 2014, 389–392.
97
See Duns Scotus, Quodl. 11.17, 11.21. About Duns Scotus’ arguments concerning the intracos-
mic void, see Lewis 2002, 71–74. For an overview on the medieval discussion of the imaginary
space and the extra-cosmic void see Grant 1981, 116–147.
224 N. Fabbri
Mersenne’s second hypothesis is about the annihilation of air only, leaving all
other bodies intact. It is possible to foreshadow here the idea of the God mechani-
cus: God, the first mechanicus, would draw the air from the sphere of the universe-
machine, in a similar way to Mersenne’s and his contemporaries’ attempts with
other machines (e.g. Hero’s pneumatic machines described in the Cogitata physico-
mathematica), or through Torricelli’s and Valeriano Magni’s experiments, or lastly,
by putting a little bell inside a bell jar emptied of air, as the Liber novus praeluso-
rius illustrated.98 The image of the Deus mechanicus had first been discussed in the
sixteenth-century commentaries to Pseudo-Aristotle’s Mechanical questions –
which Mersenne himself referred to as early as in the Quaestiones in Genesim99 –
and had often been employed to emphasize the productive and ordering activity of
God, rather than the realm of possibilities and geometrical archetypes.100 Both
God’s inscrutability and the human inability to grasp all divine purposes resulted in
circumscribing the epistemological pattern to what God created de facto – in
Galileo’s model – or how he could have created the world – in Descartes’ fable.
If Mersenne’s theory was still strongly indebted to the Scholastic tradition –
which led him not to rule out the possibility of intracosmic vacuum by drawing on
theological arguments, and chiefly on the concept of divine omnipotence –, in order
to settle the question of the vacuum he also turned to the experimental dimension
and wondered whether sound could be generated in a universal or particular void.101
The question that arose from the first hypothesis is quickly solved: since sound
is produced by the movement of a body, it cannot exist in the universal vacuum,
which is defined by the absence of bodies. The setting of the second hypothesis is
very different: before considering the particular vacuum, it is first necessary to
examine the question whether bodies move in an alleged empty space.102 Should the
answer to Mersenne’s question be positive – as, in fact, it is – this would mean that
98
See Mersenne 1648b, 1–2.
99
See idem 1623a, 97–98, 111. Idem 1985c, 241. In those commentaries, Alessandro Piccolomini,
Bernardino Baldi, Alessandro Giorgi, and also Henri de Monantheuil, had described God as the
almighty mechanic. See, for instance, Giorgi 1592, 4r: “the machina mundi itself is arranged
according to measure, number and weight – as we read in the Book of Sapience; since Ctesibius
(as Vitruvius wanted) was not the inventor of pneumatic machines, nor were Vulcan, or Daedalus
of self-propelled machines, as asserted by the ancients, but it was the Master himself of this struc-
ture of the world.” See also Monantheuil 1599, 5; ibid., 6–7 (my numbering): “the greatest work of
works was made and conserved [...] by another ‘maker of machines’ who surpasses man infinitely
as to excellence, wisdom, and power: with the same amount this machine of the world surpasses
and is superior to the machine of all men, even of the Archimedeans.”
100
As stated by Hans Blumenberg, the absolute transcendence of God was one of the chief features
of the seventeenth-century world machine: “the expression ‘machina mundi’ pertains to a theology
which either – as in Lucretius – is directed against the Stoic metaphysics of providence (pronoia)
or in which God hides behind his work rather than manifesting himself in it” (Blumenberg 2010,
63–64).
101
Mersenne had been discussing the hypothesis of the existence of vacuum that ensued from
divine omnipotence since the Quaestiones in Genesim (1623a, 721–722).
102
See Mersenne 1636–1637, Livre de la nature des sons, 8: “since sound presupposes movement,
we firstly have to see whether one or more bodies can move in the vacuum: because if movement
is not possible, we have to conclude that sound cannot be made there.”
in the vacuum bodies can produce sounds, which, however, do not reach our ears.
Although this issue had been discussed at length before, Mersenne makes no refer-
ence to the atomists, nor to the Aristotelian philosophers: he turns his attention to
the empirical dimension and makes a distinction between sound emission and sen-
sory perception. He introduces the experiences carried out on a lute chord, which
would vibrate with the same ‘force’ both in the air and in the vacuum, as its speed
does not seem to be delayed. Since this issue is “very problematic” and “its diffi-
culty has not been sorted out yet,” Mersenne is inclined to conclude that the silence
that one might assume being created in an empty space does not equate with the
absence of sound: the movement of bodies always produces sound, although this
cannot always arrive at human ears – as seems to be the case here.103
In this passage, Mersenne does not mention Descartes’ subtle matter at all and
suddenly cuts off his analysis as “there is no void in nature.”104 He nevertheless
continues testing the existence of sound in an allegedly empty tube, and in the
Novarum observationum he actually returns to Descartes’ theory of matter.
Mersenne claims to have heard the sound of a bell which had been stimulated and
put into a state of emptiness of air: “from which it is noticed that it is possible to
conclude that sound is not only the percussion and movement of air, but also of the
subtle matter that is in that emptiness of air.”105 Moreover, he spells out that, if abso-
lute vacuum existed, no body would likely be able to move through it.
In the Harmonie universelle the universe was said to be full of air and the firma-
ment was compared to a huge vase full of water:
Those who are in Heaven can notice the movements of air made here, although they are
very weak when they arrive in Heaven. Because, if we are compelled to admit that a part of
water that is set in motion in the center of a vessel is the cause of the movement of all the
water, why isn’t it possible to conclude the same thing for air, which is a kind of less thick
water that is enclosed within the firmament or in the infinity of the universe, just like in a
very huge vase, which is a work worthy of God’s power and wisdom?106
In the Nouvelles observations physiques et mathematiques, Mersenne specified that

the difference between the air on Earth and the air surrounding the Sun and the
stars – he was actually thinking of a Ptolemaic or Tychonic cosmos – could be mea-
sured with a thermoscope (if the latter were to be extended to those heights): it
would, thus, be possible to quantify the diverse degree of density and heaviness. He
then added a reference to those who upheld the existence of the extra-cosmic void:
103
Ibid. See also idem 1647, 85–92.
104
Idem 1636–1637, Livre de la nature des sons, 8.
105
Idem 1647, Praefatio secunda, 4 (my numbering). See also ibid., 197; idem 1644, 166.
106
Idem 1636–1637, Livre de la nature des sons, 10–11: “[...] ceux qui sont dans le Ciel peuvent
appercevoir les mouvemens de l’air qui se font icy, quoy qu’ils soyent tres-foibles quand ils
arrivent au Ciel: car si l’on est contraint d’avoüer qu’une partie d’eau estant meuë au milieu du
vaisseau est cause que toute l’eau se meut, pourquoy ne peut-on pas conclure la mesme chose de
l’air, qui est une espece d’eau moins grossiere, laquelle est contenuë dans le firmament, ou dans
l’immensité de l’Univers comme dans un tres-grand vase, qui est un ouvrage digne de la Sagesse
et de la puissance de Dieu.”
226 N. Fabbri
We can figure out that if there is nothing besides void beyond the medium region of air – as
someone thinks – we can say that the vapors that are lighter than air start weighing more
when they arrive on the surface of the void, where they find a really cold temperature, since
there is no longer a subject capable of receiving and holding warmth and therefore that is
the highest place they can rise to.107
Although some might think that Mersenne was too daring in seeking to “take the
Harmony to Heaven, and to speak about sounds or about the movements of stars,”
he clarified that he was just trying to perform his duty, namely to be a witness to and
admirer of God’s almightiness and wisdom.108 It was in this context that he contin-
ued to try and assess the planetary speeds, by drawing on the Platonic myth that
Galileo had put forward in the first day of the Dialogo and in the fourth day of the
Discorsi.109 Mersenne analyzed the information given in Galileo’s description and
attempted to define the ‘sublime sphere’ from which God would have let the planets
fall, by combining the orbital period of each planet according to Kepler’s Mysterium
Cosmographicum (1621) with the dimension of orbits as stated by Lansberg, and
Galileo’s law of free-falling bodies.110 Galileo’s Platonic myth would have enabled
Mersenne to define the position and dimension of the firmament, besides being the
testing ground for the law of odd numbers.
Mersenne’s expectations were not met. The discrepancy between the Platonic
myth, observational data and computations provided an additional argument for
upholding the hypothetical status of the Galilean universe and, more generally, of
Copernicanism.111 In this case, just as in Galileo’s law of odd numbers, Mersenne’s
attitude toward Galileo was the result not only of his skepticism, but also of his
more general argumentative strategy.112 In 1627 Mersenne had already acknowledged
107
Idem 1636–1637, Nouvelles observations, 6–7: “Sur quoy l’on peut s’imaginer que s’il n’y a
plus rien que du vuide par delà la moyenne region de l’air, comme estiment quelques uns, on peut
dire que les vapeurs plus legeres que l’air, commencent à peser davantage lors qu’elles arrivent à
la surface du vuide, où elles trouvent un tres grand froid parce qu’il n’y a plus de sujet capable de
recevoir, et d’entretenir la chaleur, et consequemment que c’est le lieu le plus haut où elle puissent
monter.”
108
Idem 1636–1637, Du mouvement des corps, 103.
109
On the passage of the Timaeus which Galileo might have hinted at – many scholars have
assumed that it was Timaeus 38 C-39 A – and on the role it played in his astronomical system, see
Sambursky 1962; Wisan 1986; Barcaro 1984; Acerbi 2000. See Galileo 1933b, 44; idem 1933d,
284. See Florence: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Gal. 72, ff. 134, 135, 146. Studies on this
manuscript include Meyer 1989; Büttner 2001.
110
Mersenne 1636–1637, Du mouvement des corps, 103–107; idem 1648a, Praefatio, 3–4 (my
numbering).
111
See idem 1636–1637, Du mouvement des corps, 107.
112
In the 1634 collection Mersenne presented the odd numbers law as the explanation that better
agreed with the phenomena, whereas in the 1647 Novarum observationum he viewed it just as
possible as other explanatory models. It is likely that Mersenne’s thought was about the conclu-
sions reached by Descartes, Godefroid Wendelin, Honoré Fabri, Pierre Le Cazre, Ismael Boulliaud
and Giovanni Battista Baliani in the meantime. See Dear 1988, 215–218; Galluzzi 1993, 86–119.
Mersenne’s change of mind with regard to Galileo’s odd-number law was analyzed in depth by
Palmerino 1999, 274–324; eadem 2010.
that “I know that it is much easier to find fault in other people than to do better than
them, and that it would be more useful to establish something certain about the
Harmony of the World than to refute what others have said about it until now: but
the first does not impede the second.”113 As Galileo’s case attested, this approach
lasted until his final works.
10.8 Conclusion
Mersenne’s meticulous – at times pedantic – examination of the most debated

seventeenth-century concepts of space led him to overrule the traditional idea of the
harmonic universe. Now, the dance and choir of the planets and the stars held only
metaphorical value: he sought to display the order of the cosmos, even though this
order did not correspond to musical consonances or scales, and even though it did
not perfectly match the astronomical systems discussed to that date. Mersenne’s
God was still a musician, but not in the sense of Fludd and Kircher, or even Kepler.
Mersenne’s God musician did not entail a panspermic view, according to which
God permeated the cosmos with his fiat. Nor did he imply a Musician who built the
templum naturae (temple of nature) following harmonic archetypes composed of
precise musical ratios (as Kepler stated) or, more generally, adopting harmonic pro-
portions (according to Jean Bodin’s model). God was, first of all, a mechanicus,
virtually imagined in the act of hanging planets on a string, or of drawing air from
the sphere of the universe – if he wanted to –, without any possibility of accessing
his archetypes.
Music no longer revealed divine archetypes but was, firstly, one of the two pre-
ferred fields and tools employed by Mersenne for the investigation of the nature of
space. It was, however, still the cornerstone on the basis of which the ideas of God
and universe were outlined, since it gathered the three terms of which the world was
composed: measure, number and weight.114 In the 1634 Préludes, Mersenne had
already expounded this point by referring to the analysis carried out in the “first
book on Music,” which we can assume to be the work he had been undertaking on
the Livre manuscript to give it the form of the first book of the Harmonie univer-
selle.115 Notwithstanding the approximation of the mixed sciences, the survey car-
ried out in those fields helps man fulfill his duty, namely, to reach a degree of
knowledge that is as complete as possible with creation and God’s wisdom. In this
task, Mersenne reckons the science of sound to be more useful than other sciences:
indeed, it enables men to obtain a higher knowledge about natural phenomena as
“all the impressions that things make on us are not different from a sort of sound,
113
Mersenne 2003, b. II, th. XIII, 418.
114
See idem 1636–1637, Livre premier de la nature des sons, 43: “we can represent everything that
is in the world, and consequently all sciences, by means of the sounds, because, since everything
consists of weight, number and measure, and sounds represent these three properties, they can
signify everything one would like.” See also Mersenne 1623a, 1570.
115
See for instance Table 10.1.
228 N. Fabbri
since they consist of a movement by means of which the bodies transmit their prop-
erties to us.”116 “Our knowledge is very imperfect” since – contrary to the one pos-
sessed by the angels and the blessed – it also relies on a flawed sensory perception
which, for instance, is incapable of noticing very big and very small movements,
speeds, and numbers – e.g. in the case of the movement of the planets, falling bod-
ies, bodies on an inclined plane, or projectiles. If man was able to count the number
of movements and vibrations of the flame of a candle or of sunlight, he would also
know every proportion within the creation, and maybe even all the consonances and
dissonances existing in natural phenomena, as well as the precise dimension of the
universe. Instead, man needs to content himself with aspiring to – but yet not partak-
ing in – the perfect knowledge of saints.117
Mersenne still considered the universe as a harmonious creation, with ‘harmoni-
ous’ not so much relating to musical consonances, but to the orderly and systematic
arrangement of an Earth-centered and finite universe. Within the sphere of the fir-
mament, bodies most likely kept moving in a plenum of subtle matter: the sounds –
both audible and inaudible – did not generate a concert, but rather provided man
with a set of measurements concerning the movements and properties of natural
bodies. This information led Mersenne to enter into a process of discovery – albeit
always a partial one – of how nature works, and to question both contemporary
theories on matter and astronomical hypothesis on the structure of the cosmos.
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Chapter 11
Imaginary Spaces and Cosmological Issues
in Gassendi’s Philosophy
Delphine Bellis
Abstract Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) is often viewed mostly as an antiquarian

because of his interest in reconstructing Epicurean philosophy. Admittedly, Gassendi
was one of the main actors in the revival of atomism in the seventeenth century, but
he was also a supporter of Copernican cosmology, and he proposed a groundbreak-
ing theory of space: not only did he depart from the Aristotelian notion of place, but
he even proposed a new ontological conception of space as neither a substance nor
an accident. For Gassendi, space was a homogeneous, infinite, three-dimensional
entity which could be filled with bodies but was independent of them and could
remain void. This new conception of space was elaborated not only as a revival of
Epicureanism, or as a foundation for the new science, but also through a re-
elaboration of the scholastic notion of imaginary spaces. The aim of this paper is to
unravel some of Gassendi’s unacknowledged scholastic sources and explore how
Gassendi, a staunch anti-Aristotelian, relied on a reinterpretation of this scholastic
notion for his construction of a cosmological system immune to theological criti-
cisms otherwise directed at the Epicurean and Brunian infinitist worldviews. This
reinterpretation directly paved the way for a geometrical conception of space.
11.1 Introduction
Pierre Gassendi is often viewed mostly as an antiquarian, because of his interest in

reconstructing Epicurean philosophy, all the more so as he made no major contribu-
tion to the new science of the seventeenth century. However, Gassendi was not only
an erudite editor and translator of Epicurus, but also one of the main actors in the
Research for this article was made possible by a Veni grant (275-20-042) awarded by NWO (the
Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). All translations are the author’s except where
otherwise noted.
D. Bellis (*)
Department of Philosophy, Paul Valéry University, Montpellier, France
e-mail: delphine.bellis@univ-montp3.fr

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_11
234 D. Bellis
revival of atomism as an alternative theory of matter to Aristotelian hylemorphism.

He was a supporter of Copernican and Keplerian cosmology, as well as of Galilean
physics.1 Even if Gassendi did not contribute much to the elaboration of the new
scientific theories of his time, according to Alexandre Koyré, he did something that
was no less important, that is, Gassendi “provided [the new science] with the ontol-
ogy, or rather with the complement of ontology, it required.”2 Indeed, in his
Syntagma philosophicum, Gassendi proposed a theory of space that departed from
the Aristotelian notion of place and provided a new ontology of space by stating that
space is a homogeneous, infinite, three-dimensional entity, which can be filled with
bodies but is independent of them and can remain void.3 He proposed a new onto-
logical conception of space as neither a substance nor an accident because it has no
positive nature, but can subsist on its own.4 This new ontology of space was to
influence scientists like Newton significantly.5 Yet, this new conception of space
emerged as the result of various interests and constraints. Indeed, if Gassendi was
initially a supporter of Copernican cosmology, he had to revise his cosmological
views significantly after Galileo’s condemnation in 1633. Not only did he gradually
distance himself from a strong version of heliocentrism, and eventually, in the
Syntagma philosophicum, explicitly adopt Tycho Brahe’s system, but he also revised
his cosmological Brunian-inspired worldview and endorsed the idea of a finite
world surrounded by infinite void spaces which he was to call, in scholastic terms,
‘imaginary.’ What I will show is that Gassendi’s new conception of space was not
only elaborated as a revival of Epicureanism, or in Koyré’s view as an ontological
category suited to the new science, but that it was also forged by reappropriating this
scholastic category of imaginary spaces. Admittedly, Gassendi was a staunch anti-
Aristotelian.6 In his anti-Aristotelian work, the Exercitationes paradoxicae
adversus Aristoteleos, one finds statements such as: “Once I was on my own and
began to examine the whole matter more deeply, I soon became aware how vain a
1
On Gassendi’s support of Copernican and Keplerian cosmology, see Sakamoto 2009; Zittel 2013,
2015. On Gassendi’s interest in Galileo’s physics, see Clark 1963; Tack 1974, 161–188; Palmerino
1998, 2001, 2004a, b.
2
Koyré 1957a, 176: “il lui a apporté l’ontologie ou, plus exactement, le complément d’ontologie,
dont elle avait besoin.”
3
For an account of the various conceptions of place and space in antiquity see Algra’s Chapter 2 in
this volume.
4
That space is neither substance nor accident is a statement that can already be found in Francesco
Patrizi’s Nova de universis philosophia. Patrizi, however, remained trapped in a rather confused
ontology in which he claimed space to be “an incorporeal body, and a corporeal non-body,” Patrizi
1591, 65. On Patrizi’s conception of space, see Henry 1979; Muccillo 2010; De Risi 2016;
Ribordy’s Chapter 7 in this volume. Gassendi acknowledged his debt to Patrizi in the Syntagma
philosophicum: see Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 246a. Raffaele Aversa even anticipated the position
adopted by Gassendi and Patrizi according to which space is neither substance nor accident. But
contrary to Gassendi, for Aversa, space did not have extension or magnitude: “Hoc spatium [sc.
imaginarium] non est quicquam reale & positivum, neque substantia, neque accidens, neque exten-
sio seu magnitudo,” Aversa 1625, 788a.
5
See Westfall 1962; McGuire 1978.
6
See Brundell 1987.
11 Imaginary Spaces and Cosmological Issues in Gassendi’s Philosophy 235
discipline [Peripatetic philosophy] was and how useless in the pursuit of happiness”7;
and “every day [Aristotelians] pile up inanities and questions on rubbish that could
never have occurred to Aristotle.”8 Moreover, while Gassendi explicitly and fre-
quently referred to a host of Ancient texts, he almost never mentioned late scholastic
commentaries or textbooks, so much so that interpreters have suggested that he
never engaged with this type of sources.9 The aim of this paper will, consequently,
be twofold: first, to establish that the new conception of space that Gassendi put
forward actually relied on a close reading of the scholastic notion of ‘imaginary
spaces’ which became associated with a physical conception of void space; and
second, to show that this appropriation of late scholastic sources was not purely
instrumental but opened the way to a more geometrical conception of space, a con-
ception which was crucial to the new science of the seventeenth century. Therefore,
I deem the connection Gassendi established between his own conception of space
and the scholastic imaginary spaces to be far more than a “rhetorical trick.”10 On the
contrary, in my view, it epitomizes how a diverse philosophical tradition could offer
new conceptual resources to early modern natural philosophy and open the way to
renewed conceptions of space which would be inherited by Gassendi’s successors
like Newton.
11.2 T
he Immensity of Space Reinterpreted Against
the Background of New Cosmologies
In order to give an overview of Gassendi’s cosmology and theory of space, and their
evolution, I will start by tackling two issues which were initially connected, but then
parted ways in Gassendi’s philosophy: the first is his endorsement of heliocentrism
and his move towards Tycho Brahe’s theory; the second is his attitude towards the
issue of the infinity or plurality of worlds. In the 1620s Gassendi was never ambigu-
ous about his endorsement of heliocentrism, which he associated with an expanded
vision of the cosmos. In the preface to the Exercitationes paradoxicae he promised
to establish in book IV (which was never published, and probably not even written)
the following: “I put to rest the sun and the fixed stars and impute motion to the
earth as one of the planets. Then the multiplicity, or rather the immensity, of the
world is shown to be probable [...].”11 Gassendi correlated the issue of heliocentrism
with that of the extent of the cosmos. Notably, he here seemed to equate the immen-
7
Gassendi 1972, 18; 1658, vol. 3, 99.
8
Gassendi 1972, 23; 1658, vol. 3, 101.
9
See, for example, LoLordo 2007, 35: “None of the great diversity of views within late scholasti-
cism is apparent from Gassendi’s treatment of Aristotelianism, either in the Exercitationes or in his
later work. He almost never identifies individual scholastics or discusses their disagreements.”
10
LoLordo 2007, 122.
11
Gassendi 1972, 24–25; 1658, vol. 3, 102. Gassendi would later dissociate the immensity of the
world from the too Brunian-sounding issue of its plurality.
236 D. Bellis
sity with the multiplicity of world(s). In other words, a theologically acceptable

notion like that of immensity (which did not refer to an actually infinite cosmos)
seems to cover a more Epicurean cosmological conception. In a letter to Galileo of
August 1625, Gassendi expressed his support for the Copernican theory that allowed
his mind to wander “through immense spaces, now that the common barriers and
systems of the world have been broken.”12 In 1631 he observed the transit of
Mercury, which he saw as a confirmation of Kepler’s Rudolphine Tables, and hence
an indirect support of the heliocentric hypothesis, as well as an indication of cosmo-
logical distances.13 The issue of the dimensions of the cosmos indeed played a piv-
otal role in the vindication of the heliocentric system: in order to alleviate the
difficulties related to the absence of apparent stellar parallax – a parallax that was
supposed to occur if the Earth were to move – the dimensions of the cosmos had to
be pushed away exceedingly. In a letter to Peiresc dated 26 February 1632, Gassendi
did not shy away from stating his Copernican opinions explicitly, declaring that,
“following Copernicus’ opinion, I conceive of the Sun as located in the center of the
world and there rotating on its own axis in the space of twenty-eight days [...].”14
Further, in a letter of 1 November 1632 to Galileo, in which he thanked the latter for
a copy of his Dialogo, Gassendi clearly appeared to be an enthusiastic supporter of
Galileo’s cosmology.15 At the time, Gassendi displayed no doubt regarding the real-
ist significance of Copernican cosmology.
It is no wonder, then, that Gassendi was affected by Galileo’s condemnation in
1633. This led him to rethink his cosmological conceptions, so that he would end up
leaning towards the Tychonic system, at least in some explicit statements found in
the posthumous Syntagma philosophicum (1658).16 In the meantime, the way
12
Gassendi 1658, vol. 6, 4b: “Imprimis ergo, mi Galilee, velim sic tibi persuasum habeas, me
tanta cum animi voluptate amplexari Copernicaeam illam tuam in Astronomia Sententiam, vt
exinde videar mei probè iuris factus, cùm soluta, & libera mens vagatur per immensa spatia, effrac-
tis nempe vulgaris Mundi sistematisque repagulis.” (“First, my dear Galileo, I would like you to be
convinced that I receive your Copernican opinion in astronomy with such pleasure in my soul that
I seem honestly to be in my right when my mind, detached and free, wanders through immense
spaces, now that the common barriers and systems of the world have been broken.”). This might
recall Lucretius in De rerum natura, book I, 72–74.
13
Gassendi to Peiresc, 26 February 1632, in Peiresc 1893, 258: “je ne rapporte pas à un petit bon-
heur d’avoir fait ceste observation de Mercure devant le Soleil; elle est tres importante tant pour
estre la premiere qui a esté faite de ceste façon, que pour devoir servir à ceux qui viendront apres
nous soit pour determiner la grandeur et l’esloignement, soit pour regler les mouvements de ce
planete.” On Gassendi’s activities as an astronomer, see Humbert 1936. On his observation of
Mercury’s transit before the Sun, see Gassendi 1632; 1658, vol. 4, 499–510.
14
Peiresc 1893, 259: “suivant l’opinion de Copernicus je conçoy le Soleil logé au centre du monde,
et là tournant sur son propre escieu dans l’espace de quelques vint huit jours [...].” Indeed the rota-
tional period of the Sun viewed from the Earth is approximately 28 days. The fact that Gassendi
located the Sun at the center of the world suggests that the world or the solar system is finite – what
is infinite has no center – but this does not exclude the existence of an infinity of worlds or of an
infinite universe. In that case the center of the world, where the Sun is located, would only be rela-
tive to the solar system.
15
Gassendi 1658, vol. 6, 54a.
16
See Brundell 1987, 30–47. In the Syntagma philosophicum Gassendi claimed that the Ptolemaic
system is the “least probable” of all three cosmological systems. The Copernican one “seems
Gassendi dealt with cosmological issues was far from unambiguous. In De motu
(1642) he went to great lengths to show that the arguments based on the motion of
bodies and used to reject the Copernican system were not conclusive and, more
importantly, he based his explanation of the tides on the double motion of the
Earth.17 In his De vita et doctrina Epicuri, an early version of the Syntagma philo-
sophicum, the only cosmological systems he mentioned in 1641–1642 were the
Ptolemaic and the Copernican ones.18 In another part of De vita et doctrina Epicuri
(1642–1643), he still claimed that the Copernican system was “more probable and
evident.”19 But in 1645–1646 he finally introduced the Tychonic system, on a par
with the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems, in his lectures at the Collège Royal,
which were later published under the title Institutio astronomica.20 It is worth noting
here that his colleague, Jean-Baptiste Morin, who had been appointed Professor of
mathematics at the Collège in 1629, had fiercely expressed his disapproval of the
Copernican theory and his support of the Tychonic system.21 Interestingly enough,
in the Syntagma philosophicum, when Gassendi subscribed to the Tychonic system,
his endorsement of cosmological theories had undergone a conspicuous epistemo-
logical shift. Whereas at the beginning of his career as an astronomer Gassendi had
proposed mainly realist interpretations of astronomical phenomena in relation to his
adoption of the Copernican theory, after 1633, and in particular in De vita et doc-
trina Epicuri (1642–1643) and in the Syntagma philosophicum, he declared that it
was no more possible to prove that the Earth was stationary than that it was moved.22
He stated that even if there was a possibility that the heliocentric system was correct,
clearer and more elegant.” But on scriptural grounds, the Tychonic system should be preferred
because, according to the decree of the Church, the sacred texts attribute real motion to the Sun and
real immobility to the Earth, and do not deal only with appearances: Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 149a.
Zittel claims that there is no evidence in Gassendi’s Life of Tycho Brahe (Paris: widow of Mathurin
Dupuis, 1654) of his support of the Tychonic system, while Gassendi reported appraisals of the
Copernican system from Catholics in his Life of Copernicus: see Zittel 2015, 260–261. In the latter
text, Gassendi also briefly rebuked traditional objections against the Earth’s motion: see Gassendi
1658, vol. 5, 502b–503b. Be that as it may, the text from the Syntagma philosophicum I have just
referred to displays Gassendi’s explicit support of the Tychonic system.
17
De motu, in Gassendi 1658, vol. 3, 519a. See Palmerino 2004a.
18
Gassendi 1641–1642, f. 442r. On this see Brundell 1987, 42.
19
Gassendi 1642–1643, f. 627r.
20
In the Institutio astronomica the geocentric Ptolemaic system was presented in a schematic way
which is “the figure [schema] according to which the disposition of the world’s parts, such as they
are commonly conceived and taught, are represented,” Gassendi 1658, vol. 4, 2a. This system cor-
responds to the “commonly received opinion,” ibid., 2b: “receptam vulgo sententiam.” The
Tychonic and Copernican systems, by contrast, were presented as having gained the favor of
“noble supporters,” ibid. But Gassendi did not state which system he favored. On the chair of
mathematics at the Collège Royal, see Pantin 2006.
21
See Morin 1631.
22
Regarding his early realist interpretations of astronomical phenomena, Gassendi was clearly in
alignment with Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. In his Life of Copernicus, Gassendi defended the
realist import of Copernicus’ theory against Osiander’s interpretation: see Gassendi 1658, vol. 5,
510b, 514a. On Gassendi’s later positions, see Gassendi 1642–1643, f. 653v; 1658, vol. 1, 630a.
238 D. Bellis
he accepted the decision of the Church on that matter and considered the Tychonic
hypothesis both the most probable and the most apt to “save the phenomena.”23
Nevertheless, this did not deter him from presenting, in the same Syntagma philo-
sophicum, a modified theory of the tides which still presupposed the Earth’s motion.
Despite explicit claims to the contrary, Gassendi’s final scientific endeavors were
still based on a heliocentric cosmology.24
Interestingly enough, this period between 1633 and 1658 also saw an intensive
reworking of the notion of space, and we will observe similar ambiguities in
Gassendi’s thoughts on the extent of the cosmos. Gassendi was aware of the theo-
logical implications involved in cosmological issues, especially with regard to the
issue of the infinity of worlds which was part of Giordano Bruno’s cosmology.25 As
early as 1626 Gassendi was engaged in a philological and philosophical project
based on the revival of Epicurus’ thought. But the Epicurean cosmological model
was also based on the idea of an infinity of worlds in infinite space.26 Consequently,
Gassendi had to take a stand on this cosmological view. As we have seen, in the
preface to the Exercitationes Gassendi evoked the multiplicity of the worlds. In
1636, in book XII of De vita et doctrina Epicuri, Gassendi insisted on the argu-
ments that give some plausibility to the hypothesis of the infinity of the universe. At
that stage, this hypothesis was a consequence of the possibility of the hypothesis of
the infinity of bodies.27 While the driving motivation was the specific Epicurean
focus adopted in that text, Gassendi distanced himself from this cosmological view
mainly for religious reasons, because “the holy faith has rejected” it.28
But the question remains whether Gassendi was ever tempted to subscribe to the
theory of an infinite space full of worlds while being a supporter of heliocentrism.
The two positions did not go hand in hand, as is manifest in Copernicus’ and
Kepler’s cases. The limits of the cosmos could be moved away exponentially, but
this cosmological immensity was not necessarily equal to actual infinity, as Bruno
23
The idea of “saving the phenomena” was expressed in his Institutio astronomica (1647): see
Gassendi 1658, vol. 4, 25a. See also his Syntagma philosophicum in Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 615a,
617b, 630a. On Gassendi’s move from a realist to a hypothetical approach to astronomy, and from
a Copernican to a Tychonic cosmology after Galileo’s 1633 condemnation, see Brundell 1987,
30–47.
24
See Palmerino 2004a.
25
For Bruno’s infinitism see also Granada’s Chapter 8 in this volume.
26
See Bakker’s Chapter 3 in this volume.
27
Gassendi 1636, f. 161r–v: “Atque haec duo [sc. the infinity of spaces and infinity of bodies]
quidem sunt, quae defendere nihil obstat. Aliud superest, quod planè non liceat, videlicet non
modò plureis praeter hunc asserere Mundos; sed concedere etiam per inane illud immensum
infinita corpuscula, ex quibus vel creati sint, vel creari adhûc plures Mundi possint. Sane et sacra
fides id respuit, et ratio etiam naturalis, qua infrà edocebimur fabulosam penitùs esse, quam
Epicurus adstruit constituendi Mundi rationem.”
28
Ibid.
wished.29 Notably the use of the terms ‘immense’ or ‘immensity’ for the cosmos,
although adopted by Bruno in the title of one of his works, was also a convenient
way to circumvent the debate about the finiteness or infinity of the cosmos, while at
the same time hinging on terms that encapsulate the mode of presence of an infinite
God in his creation. As we will see, Gassendi would retain this terminology in his
later works, but dissociated it from the idea of an infinity of worlds and focused on
its theological import instead. Even if it were impossible to demonstrate that no
other worlds existed and even if the infinity of worlds could not be excluded on
purely logical or physical grounds, Gassendi came to openly acknowledge the
uniqueness of our world on scriptural grounds.30 However, he could not completely
abandon the “spatia immensa” opened up by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo.31
Gassendi owned a copy of Giordano Bruno’s De immenso and explicitly mentioned
Bruno in the Syntagma philosophicum.32 Antonella del Prete has convincingly
shown that, while in the Syntagma philosophicum Gassendi openly rejected the
Epicurean infinity of worlds on theological grounds, as far as more physical topics
like the shape of the world or its dimensions were concerned, many of his arguments
were still tinged with a Brunian cosmological view.33 Gassendi was thus led to envi-
sion that all fixed stars might not be located on the same surface, and that each of
them might be a sun surrounded by planets invisible to the eye. Even so, one should
add that, as an astronomer and as an empiricist philosopher, Gassendi did not need
to postulate a plurality of worlds. His realm of investigation was de facto limited to
the fixed stars. What was beyond could be full (of worlds like in Epicurus’ and
Bruno’s cosmologies) or void (like in the Stoics’ representation of the world), yet
this made no difference to the seventeenth-century science of astronomy.34 The
period from 1624 to 1658 thus represented a less-than-straightforward thought pro-
cess toward a mostly geocentric (hybrid) finite world system, that is to say, a system
consisting of a finite, though very extended, world with the Earth at its center in an
immense (infinite) void space which Gassendi called ‘imaginary.’
29
See Helden 1985.
30
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 141a–144b; 1641–1642, ff. 461r–463v.
31
Let us recall that Copernicus conceived the universe as being immense but finite. As for Galileo,
he seems to have leant toward a conception of an infinite universe, but in his letter to Ingoli (1624),
he only claimed that it was uncertain (and would most probably remain so for the human sciences)
whether the world was finite or infinite. See Galileo 1896, 529; Koyré 1957b, 95–99.
32
See Sturlese 1987, 123; Canone 1993, xxxi, referred to in Del Prete 2000, 57 n1. See Gassendi
1658, vol. 1, 140a where he explicitly refers to Giordano Bruno in a marginal note, evoking the
model of an infinite universe composed of worlds which communicate with one another (which is
distinguished from the Epicurean model in which worlds are separated by void space).
33
See Del Prete 2000.
34
For the opposition of the Stoic and Epicurean worldviews, see Section 3.2 of Bakker’s Chapter 3
in this volume.
240 D. Bellis
11.3 T
he Introduction of Imaginary Spaces in Gassendi’s
Cosmology
In order to show how Gassendi integrated some arguments of late scholasticism to

the development of his notion of infinite void space in the period between the 1630s
and 1658, I will first attend to book XIV, entitled “De Inani seu Loco et de Tempore,”
of Gassendi’s De vita et doctrina Epicuri which was written around 1636–1637.35
In chapter 4 Gassendi set out his arguments in favor of the existence of extramun-
dane void spaces which “are usually called imaginary.”36 Neither here nor in later
texts in which Gassendi appealed to this notion did he identify those who call these
spaces ‘imaginary.’37 This notion of imaginary spaces appeared in medieval philoso-
phy, in the wake of the bishop of Paris Étienne Tempier’s 1277 condemnation of
some Aristotelian propositions which tended to limit God’s power.38 As a conse-
quence, it was claimed that God, by his absolute power, could create a plurality of
worlds separated by void space, or move the existing world from one place to
another and leave a void behind. Imaginary spaces existing beyond the limits of the
finite world were then supposed to allow for God’s immensity, which could not be
limited to his presence in the finite world.39 Beyond the boundaries of the finite
world lay infinite spaces which were, however, non-dimensional (because for most
medieval authors no distance could be measured in void space, and because God’s
presence was not to be conceived as a local presence in three-dimensional space).40
They were initially labelled ‘imaginary’ because they could not be apprehended by
35
See Pintard 1943, 32–46; Bloch 1971, xxix–xxx, 173. This piece of writing was never published
and survives in manuscript form as shelfmark 709 at the Bibliothèque municipale in Tours, France.
36
Gassendi 1637, f. 201v. Chapter 4 is entitled thus: “Vt concipiendum Spatium, in quo Ratio loci
consistat.” Gassendi 1637, f. 202r: “Itaque suppono imprimis esse extra mundum spatia illa, seu
interualla, quae imaginaria vulgὸ adpellantur.” The early reference to imaginary spaces in book XIV
of De vita et doctrina Epicuri overturns Brundell’s statement according to which the introduction
of this notion in the Syntagma philosophicum might result from a reaction to Descartes’ Principia
philosophiae; see Brundell 1987, 68.
37
Gassendi who usually explicitly mentions all his sources did not do so with regard to imaginary
spaces. At best, he mentioned “Aristotle’s supporters” (Gassendi 1637, f. 203v: “Aristotelis
Sectarores”), “us,” that is to say the Catholics (Gassendi 1637, f. 206v: “nos”), or “the Doctors of
the Church” (Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 183b: “Sacrorum Doctorum”). There is no explicit reference
to late scholastics in his discussions on space, but some passages are conceptually and textually so
close to some scholastic texts on the topic that it is almost impossible to deny that Gassendi read
some of them. Given, on the one hand, his early philosophical training and his teaching position in
philosophy in Aix-en-Provence, and on the other hand, his fierce rejection of Aristotelianism, it
should come as no surprise that Gassendi was knowledgeable about late scholastic texts but
avoided claiming them among his sources.
38
See Grant 1981, 108–181.
39
Conimbricenses 1596, book VIII, chap. 10, qu. 2, art. 4, vol. 2, col. 519: “In hoc igitur imaginario
spatio asserimus actu esse Deum: non vt in aliquo ente reali, sed per suam immensitatem: quam
quia tota mundi vniuersitas capere non potest, necesse est etiam extra coelum in infinitis spatiis
existere.”
40
See Grant 1981, 123–124, 143.
the senses, but by reason alone. Reminiscent of these discussions, the argument in
Gassendi’s De vita et doctrina Epicuri proceeds as follows: it is possible to admit
that other worlds, even an infinity of worlds, could be created or that the existing
world could be expanded. For that, it is required to imagine spaces that have long
existed, and in which the things to be created could be located, and therefore to
conceive that our unique finite world was set in an infinite space in which this plu-
rality of worlds could be created.41 God created the world in a determinate part of
infinite space, but he could have created it elsewhere.42 This means that Gassendi
refused to consider the possibility that the required spaces might be created ‘on
demand,’ so to say, i.e. each time a new world was created.43 The assumption is that
void space must already exist for a new world to be created. Imaginary spaces
beyond the world constitute the condition of possibility for God to exert his power.
But one might say that God could create more space if he wanted to create another
world or a more extended world.44 Why does space have to be uncreated? Indeed,
Gassendi explicitly stated that space existed from eternity and had not been pro-
duced by God, which amounted to say “nothing more than those among us who
allow imaginary spaces.”45 Nicole Oresme, for example, thought that infinite void
41
Gassendi 1637, f. 202v: “haud-dubiè imaginantur spatia jampridem existentia, in quibus creanda
collocari possint [...].” Ibid., ff. 202v–203r.
42
Ibid., f. 202v: “Heinc etiam hunc mundum concipimus fuisse in hac determinata parte infiniti
spatij a Deo constitutum; qui in alia quauis parte constitui potuerat, & in quam adhûc posse agi
intelligitur, hac ipsa stante inuariabili; cùm siue illi aduenerit, siue ab illa recesserit mundus, ipsa
semper eadem constet.”
43
This is the solution adopted, for example, by Albert of Saxony, see his Quaestiones in Aristotelis
De Caelo, book I, qu. 11 in Albert of Saxony 2008, 139: “bene tamen concedo quod, quando
crearetur lapis extra mundum, crearetur spatium extra mundum [...].”
44
Gassendi would address this objection in the Syntagma philosophicum; Gassendi 1658, vol. 1,
189b–190a: “Respondebunt Deum, siue hunc Mundum ampliet, siue nouum creet, creaturum
simul spatium, quod à superaddita huic, aut à tota alterius mole occupetur; seu potiùs quod noua
ipsa moles, eiúsve extensio, dimensióque sit; neque enim esse aliud spatium volunt, quàm exten-
sionem corpoream, ipsásve corporis dimensiones. Verumtamen, praeter iam dicta, vt constet nihil
esse opus creare nouum spatium, & confirmetur dari extensionem, dimensionésque non corporeas,
quae Inani spatio competant; cùm possit Deus pro lubitu aut propè, aut procul ab isto nouum
Mundum condere, condat tantâ distantiâ ab hoc dissitum, quantum est, v.c. milliare; quaeso, ista
distantia ecquid aliud erit, quàm spatium?”
45
Gassendi 1637, f. 206v (my emphasis): “at spatium sive Intervallum non modo est locato prius,
sed ab aeterno etiam est. Postremὸ requiri heic potest, sit-ne Interuallum reale, an-non? [...]
Instabis, erit igitur aliquid reale, quod Deus non produxerit? Sed ne inuidiose id vrgeas, adtende vt
heic nihil ampliùs dicamus, quàm qui ex nostris Spatia Imaginaria vulgò concedunt. Caeterùm
enim et nos quoque, quicquid reale vulgo concipiunt, hoc est omneis substantias, omniaque acci-
dentia Deum verum habere autorem fatemur. Quid quod res saltem videtur esse longè tolerabilior
communi doctorum virorum Scholarumque sententia, quae statuit rerum essentias esse & aeternas,
& a Deo vt improductas, sic independenteis, cum sint tamen id, quod est in substantiis, accidenti-
busque praecipuum?” Raffaele Aversa already identified this kind of position as potentially risky
from a theological point of view: “Si hoc spatium esset ens reale & positivum, vel esset aeternum,
& improductum, ac independens a Deo: & hic esset grauis error in fide, ac etiam contra rationem
[...].” It cannot be something produced, either, because then it could be destroyed, but God would
be able to create bodies in the place which was occupied by this space, which would lead to an
242 D. Bellis
space needed to exist beyond the limits of our world, where God could create other
bodies or worlds.46 But why do imaginary spaces have to pre-exist the creation of
the world(s)? For Buridan, for example, no pre-existing space was required for God
to create bodies.47 Aquinas denied the existence of any space or place before the
creation of the world.48 And actually, the proposition according to which it was
necessary that a void space existed for God to create a world was condemned in
1277 by Bishop Tempier.49 The fact that Gassendi did not consider these alternatives
indicates rather clearly that he did not elaborate his conception of infinite extramun-
dane space out of theological concerns. Rather, his approach consisted of finding
available theological arguments that could give weight to a conception of space that
he was forging on conceptual grounds. In the 1649 Animadversiones, however,
Gassendi addressed the objection in a more straightforward way, claiming that the
creation of void space for each newly created world would not solve the problem of
the intermediate interval between those created worlds, which should also consist in
void space, since it could be measured.50
In book XIV of De vita et doctrina Epicuri Gassendi then proceeded with an
appeal to an annihilatio mundi, which is a type of thought experiment already
used by medieval authors like Henry of Ghent, Peter John Olivi, Richard of
Middleton, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, John Buridan, Thomas Bradwardine,
Nicole Oresme, and Albert of Saxony, and by late scholastics like Aversa or
Suárez, or by Patrizi.51 The matter comprised in the sublunary sphere could be reduced
absurdity. Consequently Aversa, contrary to Gassendi, concluded that imaginary space “non est
quid improductum nec productum,” Aversa 1625, 788b. One finds the same kind of statement in
Goclenius’ Lexicon philosophicum about imaginary space; Goclenius 1613, 1067b: “Non enim est
verum Ens, quia nec creatum est; nec increatum Ens [...].” The Coimbrans also stated that space is
uncreated and has always existed, but that it is not a positive being; Conimbricenses 1596, vol. 2,
518: “Item, nec esse vllum aliud reale ac positivum ens, cum nihil tale praeter Deum ab aeterno
fuerit; hoc verò spatium semper extiterit, semperque esse debeat.”
46
Questiones super Physicam, IV, 6 in Oresme 2013, 458: “Quarta conclusio <est> quod capiendo
vacuum primo modo, in infinitum spatium vacuum est extra mundum. Probatur ex descriptione,
quia vacuum primo modo est: ubi non est corpus et potest esse; sed conceditur quod Deus, qui est
omnipotens, posset ibi facere unum corpus aut unum mundum absque creatione novi loci, ergo ibi
est vacuum primo modo.” Oresme 2013, 459: “Tertio, quicumque ponunt mundum generatum
esse, necessario habent ponere vacuum esse, ubi factus est mundus; sed secundum veritatem
ponendum est quod mundus factus est, ergo etc.” This agrees with a passage in Aristotle, De caelo,
III, 2, 301b31–302a9.
47
See Buridan 1509, book IV, qu. 2, f. 68r, col. 1–2.
48
See Summa theologiae, part 1, question 46, article 1.
49
See Grant 1981, 111.
50
Gassendi 1649, 200: “Nam quòd nonnulli quidem dicunt, si Deus crearet mundos alios, spatia
quoque alia, in quibus collocarentur, creaturum esse; inextricabilem profectò difficultatem subeunt,
quae illis obiicitur de interiecto spatio inter duos quoslibet mundos; cum id cadere in mensuram
valeat, & per maiorem, minoremve distantiam possit explicari.”
51
On the appeal to annihilatio mundi in medieval philosophy, see Suarez-Nani 2017. See Henry of
Ghent 2007, 3–10; Olivi 1922, 590; Richard of Middleton 1591, vol. 2, 186, col. 2; Duns Scotus
1895, 441b; Ockham 1980, 45–46; Buridan 1509, book III, qu. 15, f. 57r col. 2-f. 57v col. 1;
Bradwardine 1618, 177–178; Oresme 1968, 166; Oresme, Questiones super Physicam, IV, 6 in
to nothing.52 But the three dimensions of the sublunary sphere would remain and we
could imagine this region void of all bodies. This should lead us to think that, inde-
pendently of bodies, there exist some incorporeal immense dimensions in length,
breadth and depth that constitute space. Gassendi justified the logical possibility on
which the argument rests with an indirect appeal to God’s power: this is no more
impossible than to accept the creation of vacuum in nature by divine force.53 The
argument of the annihilation of the world was here restricted to the sublunary
sphere, as it was by most medieval authors, who at most extended it to the finite
world. In the Animadversiones and in the Syntagma philosophicum Gassendi would
extend precisely this reasoning ad infinitum, thus justifying the infinity of extramun-
dane void spaces.54
Admittedly, Gassendi also attempted to connect the infinity of space with that of
God, or to derive the former from the latter, as was customary in medieval consid-
erations on imaginary spaces. In chapter 5 of book XIV of De vita et doctrina
Epicuri (entitled “Place is such space, and not the internal surface of the surround-
ing body”),55 Gassendi linked God’s infinity to that of space, but almost in passing.56
Later, in the Syntagma philosophicum, Gassendi elaborated further on the link
between the immensity of extramundane void space and the immensity of God:
From this, it is proved that God cannot exist, except as infinite and absolutely immense,
because if the divine substance had any limits, it would be for that very reason imperfect.
For however vast it would be, it would be limited by some boundaries; it could be regarded
as nothing by comparison with infinity; there would be an infinite variety of places in which
it would not be able to act at all; in which it would not know that something happens or does
not happen; it would be restrained as if by some force, so that it could not extend itself
beyond, since even if it wanted to, still it could not.57
Oresme 2013, 458; Albert of Saxony 2008, 132, 135, 136; Aversa 1625, 787a. Suárez, Disputationes
metaphysicae, disp. XXX, section VII, 34 in Suárez 1861, 106a: “Deinde, quis neget posse Deum
conservatis coelis annihilare totam sphaeram rerum generabilium et elementorum, vacuo manente
toto spatio medio.” See Patrizi 1591, f. 65r; 1943, 240. For the role of the annihilatio mundi
thought experiment in Suárez and Patrizi, see Ribordy’s Chapter 7 in this volume.
52
Gassendi 1637, f. 203r (my emphasis): “Cogitemus quippe vniuersam Aristotelis elementarem
regionem, corpora dico terrae, aquae, aëris, & ignis, sic in nihilum redigi, vt concaua illa coeli
Lunae superficies nullum prorsùs contineat, an-non semper cogitamus spatium, in quo illa corpora
fuerint? & in quo denuò collocari possint? an-non tanta ibi est longitudo, latitudo, ac profunditas,
quanta fuerit anteà? Non-ne semper cogitamus eundem circumferentiae diametrum? Nonne cen-
trum concipimus in hujus diametri dimidio? Non-ne semper imaginamur vbi regiones elemento-
rum discriminitae fuerint? Quae foret distantia duorum corporum si in hoc spatio collocarentur? &
id genus similia.”
53
Ibid., f. 203r: “Dices fortè suppositionem esse impossibilem: at neque impossibilis est ijs qui
posse vacuum vi diuina in rerum naturam induci concedunt [...].”
54
See Gassendi 1649, 615; 1658, vol. 1, 183a.
55
Gassendi 1637, f. 203v: “Tale Spatium, non Interiorem continentis corporis superficiem esse
Locum.”
56
Ibid., f. 204r: “Etenim Deus infinitus, cùm dicitur esse in loco, infinitum spatium statim cogitatur
[...].” This passage is taken up in Gassendi 1649, 618; 1658, vol. 1, 218a.
57
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 304a–b: “Non posse porrò esse Deum, nisi Infinitum, prorsúsque immen-
sum, ex eo probatur, quòd si diuina Substantia limites aliquos haberet, eo ipso imperfecta esset;
244 D. Bellis
God’s immensity cannot be limited to the finite world; it must extend beyond the
world, hence the necessity for infinite space to exist, even before any world is cre-
ated, i.e. to co-exist with God, and to be co-present with God. But Gassendi’s rea-
soning is actually very telling, because it does assume that some places could exist
independently of God if God were not infinite.58 The ground for space’s infinity is
first and foremost conceptual rather than theological for Gassendi. As he will later
write in the Syntagma philosophicum, space is infinite “of itself.”59 Moreover, it
seems to me that the development of Gassendi’s theory of infinite extramundane
void space did not originate from theological considerations, but rather from a
refinement of Epicurean cosmology: Gassendi attempted to preserve whatever he
could from the infinite Epicurean spaces, namely infinite uncreated spaces deprived
of their content of infinite worlds and instead filled with God.60 In the Syntagma
philosophicum Gassendi made explicit that God could have created a plurality of
worlds but did not actually do so.61 Already in a letter to Louis de Valois, dated 24
October 1642, after having expounded Epicurus’ conception of the infinity of space
and bodies, he added: “At this point, although the infinity of spaces can be tolerated,
since indeed even those of our confession usually admit that there are infinite spaces
beyond the world, which they call imaginary and in which they acknowledge that
God can make innumerable worlds, still the infinity of bodies cannot be tolerated in
the same way.”62 Gassendi’s train of thought here clearly started from the conceptual
acceptability of infinite worlds in void space, from which he removed, for theologi-
cal reasons, the overabundant worlds. The Epicurean or Brunian void spaces
deprived of their infinite worlds were, consequently, christened ‘imaginary spaces.’
Gassendi’s infinite void space acted as an acceptable substitute for the Epicurean or
Brunian infinity of worlds, while at the same time emerging as a fundamental cate-
gory of his ontology and an epistemologically required notion for a natural philoso-
phy based on the acceptance of the vacuum.
quoniam quantumvis ingens foret, finibus tamen concluderetur; haberi posset pro nihilo, compara-
tione infinitatis, infinita foret varietas locorum, in quibus agere nihil posset; in quibus quid vel
ageretur, vel non ageretur, nesciret; cohiberetur quasi vi quadam, ne se se vltrà protenderet, cùm
etsi vellet, non tamen posset.”
58
In a letter to Sorbière of 30 January 1644, Gassendi even reversed the conceptual order between
God and space usually observed by the theologians. Ibid., vol. 6, 179a: “so that by reasoning on
that [sc. place or the dimension of length, width, and depth], we conceive God as immense, and by
reasoning on this [sc. time] as eternal” (“adeò vt ratione illius concipiamus Deum Immensum, &
ratione huius Æternum”).
59
Ibid., vol. 1, 131b: “Spatium non potest limitari reipsâ, quasi vlteriùs spatium non sit; sed desig-
natione, seu positione dumtaxat. Spatium ex se infinitum est, concipitùrque etiam diffusum vltra
fineis Mundi.”
60
On the importance of Gassendi’s work on Epicurean philosophy for the genesis of his cosmology
and conception of space see Rochot 1944, 145–151.
61
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 139–144.
62
Ibid., vol. 6, 158a: “Quo loco cùm infinitudo spatiorum tolerari possit, si quidem & nostri plae-
rumque admittunt esse vltra Mundum infinita spatia quae Imaginaria appellant, in quibus fatentur
Deum posse condere innumeros Mundos: non perinde tamen tolerari potest infinitudo corporum.”
See also Gassendi 1649, 200, 234–235.
It is also telling that Gassendi appealed to the notion of imaginary spaces in an

obviously physical context, as is the case in De motu (1642). Here Gassendi dealt
with gravity, i.e. with the attraction of the Earth of heavy bodies. For Gassendi,
gravity is a magnetic attraction of the Earth working on heavy bodies, and not the
power exerted by the center of the world conceived as their natural place. Reminiscent
of the Epicurean explanation of magnetism, Gassendi’s account of gravity relied on
the Earth spreading corpuscles which attract heavy bodies. But the magnetic attrac-
tion decreases with distance. As a consequence, beyond a certain distance – for
example, as Gassendi wrote, beyond the Lunar sphere or outside the world – the
Earth can no longer attract a stone. Void spaces beyond the world are homogeneous
and isotropic. A stone at rest in those spaces would remain at rest because the Earth
would not be able to exert its attractive force on it: “Now picture a stone in those
imaginary spaces that stretch beyond this world and in which God could create
other worlds. Do you think that out there where it had been made it would fly off
straightway toward this earth instead of remaining motionless in the spot where it
was first put as if it did not have any up it could flee from or any down to tend
toward?”63
In order to make his argument more compelling, Gassendi then appealed to the
thought experiment of the annihilation of the world: “If you think it would travel in
this direction, imagine that not only the earth, but also the entire world was reduced
to nothing, hence that these spaces were empty as they were before God created the
world; at that time at least all spaces were alike [similia] since there was no center.
You will appreciate that the stone would not approach this way, but would rest fixed
in that place.”64
Therefore, Gassendi extracted the notion of imaginary spaces from its initially
mainly theological context, and distorted its conceptual content in order to draw
some specific conclusions in the realm of natural philosophy, and to fashion a cos-
mology which would be acceptable on theological grounds. But, as we will now see,
this was not all he did: in fact, the adoption of the scholastic notion of imaginary
spaces had additional, far-reaching consequences for his ontology of space.
11.4 T
he Ontological Status of Gassendi’s Imaginary Spaces:
Toward a Mathematical Conception of Space?
Now I would like to examine in more detail some of the consequences of Gassendi’s
adoption of the scholastic notion of ‘imaginary spaces’ in his identification of the
infinite void space surrounding his finite world. Obviously, Gassendi introduced
into his own conceptions of space and the structure of the world a notion which
63
Gassendi 1972, 136; 1658, vol. 3, 494b.
64
Gassendi 1972, 136 (trans. modified); 1658, vol. 3, 494b. Imaginary spaces are also the setting
for Gassendi’s formulation of the principle of inertia in the Syntagma philosophicum, see ibid., vol.
1, 349b, 354b.
246 D. Bellis
looked back upon a long philosophical and theological history dating back to the
Middle Ages. But instead of applying this notion to his theories as a somewhat
exogenous element which would have only a justificatory or apologetic function
(i.e., that of distancing his conception of infinite void spaces from Epicureanism or
Brunianism), Gassendi did something more subtle and more interesting from a con-
ceptual point of view, a kind of grafting that opened new conceptual paths. I will
first briefly explore some consequences of this grafting for the ontology and what I
deem to be a mathematization of space. Identifying the conceptual strategy elabo-
rated by Gassendi to forge his ontology of space is all the more important as it was
to be highly influential, especially on Newton’s theory of absolute space and time,
at least via Walter Charleton’s Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, which
was based on Gassendi’s 1649 Animadversiones.65
As far as the ontological status of space is concerned, the notion of imaginary
spaces provided Gassendi with an array of possibilities which proved useful in par-
ticular in the final version of his ontology of space in the Syntagma philosophicum.66
Here, Gassendi went as far as to formulate a final radical revision of the traditional
Aristotelian ontological categories: space and time are real beings and not entia
rationis. Gassendi’s space is even one of the most fundamental types of being,
because space and time are neither substance nor accident, but are specific and addi-
tional types of beings. In doing so, Gassendi relied on Patrizi’s anti-Aristotelian
theory of space, but succeeded where Patrizi had failed, namely in formulating a
coherent ontology of space, time, and bodies.67 Contrary to Aristotle, Gassendi did
not want to make of space or place a species of quantity insofar as it is usually con-
sidered as a corporeal accident. Gassendi thus disconnected the notion of space
from that of corporeal quantity to consider it as incorporeal quantity, therefore as a
specific type of incorporeal being:
On the other hand, because it seems to us that, even if there were no bodies, there would still
remain an immovable place and a flowing time, for that reason it seems that place and time
do not depend on bodies and are not in fact corporeal accidents. But they are not on that
account incorporeal accidents, as if they inhered in some incorporeal substance the way
accidents inhere, but they are incorporeal entities of a different kind than those that are usu-
ally called substances or accidents.68
65
See Westfall 1962, 172–173.
66
On Gassendi’s conception of space in his Syntagma philosophicum see Mamiani 1979, 93–121;
Schuhmann 1994; LoLordo 2007, 100–129.
67
Gassendi certainly borrowed from Francesco Patrizi this radical exclusion of space and time
from the Aristotelian categories of substance and accident. Gassendi acknowledged his debt to
Patrizi in the Syntagma philosophicum, recognizing his perfect agreement with Patrizi’s concep-
tion of three-dimensional space; see Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 246a. But Gassendi managed to remove
the ontological confusion between space and body that still pervaded Patrizi’s theory. Concerning
time, this amounted to a radical break from Epicurus, who considered time an accident of bodies
and void. On Gassendi’s evolution regarding the ontological status of time, especially his departure
from the Epicurean conception and the role of Galileo’s mechanics within it, see Bloch 1971,
181–194.
68
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 182a: “Nobis porrò, quia videtur, etsi nulla essent corpora, superfore
tamen, & Locum constantem, & Tempus decurrens; ideò videntur Locus, & Tempus non pendere
Gassendi also insisted on the physical independent reality of space and time:
[T]here is no substance, or accident which is not somewhere or in some place, and some-
time or in some moment, so that, even if such a substance or such an accident perished, the
place would no less continue to subsist or the time to flow. From this it follows that place
and time must be considered as true things or as real beings [res verae, Entiave realia]. For,
although they are not like what is usually considered as substance or accident, still they
actually do exist [revera sint tamen], and they do not depend on the intellect like chimeras,
since, whether the intellect thinks <about them> or not, the place will remain and the time
will continue to flow.69
Space is defined as “the three-dimensional interval consisting of length, <breadth>

and depth into which a body can be received or through which a body can pass,” and
more precisely, as “an incorporeal quantity.”70 Here again Gassendi intended to show
that space is identical with void by appealing to the thought experiment of the anni-
hilation of the world, in order to establish the existence of space independently of
bodies. God could reduce the sublunary sphere to nothing and we would be left with
empty space that can be measured by its dimensions:
Now, I ask, since the lunar sphere is circular, if we take a point on its concave surface, do
we not conceive that there is, in this empty region, between that point and the opposite
point, a certain interval or a certain distance? Isn’t this distance a certain length, namely an
incorporeal and invisible line, which is the diameter of the region, and in the middle of
which there is a point which is the center of the region and of the sphere, and which had
previously existed as the center of the Earth itself? Do we not immediately understand how
much of the region around this center had been previously occupied by earth, water, air, and
fire? Do we not in our minds designate how much of this corresponds to the surface and
how much of each of this to the interior? Hence, do the dimensions of length, breadth and
depth that we can very well imagine, not still exist there? Certainly, wherever it is possible
to conceive an interval or a distance, it is also possible to conceive a dimension, in so far as
such an interval or such a distance is of a determinate measure, that is to say, it can be mea-
sured. The dimensions that we call incorporeal and spatial are, then, of this kind.71
à corporibus, corporeáque adeò accidentia non esse. Neque verò idcircò sunt accidentia incorpo-
rea, quasi incorporeae cuipiam substantiae accidentium more inhaereant, sed incorporea quaedam
sunt genere diuersa ab iis, quae Substantiae dici, aut Accidentia solent.” On time as an entity that
would continue to flow independently of the existence of bodies, and on time as a continuous entity
in which it is not possible to distinguish parts, see Disquisitio metaphysica, Against Meditation III,
Doubt IX, art. 2, in Gassendi 1658, vol. 3, 346b–347b.
69
Ibid., vol. 1, 182a: “Id nempe, quia nulla substantia, nullum accidens sit, cui non competat esse
alicubi, seu quopiam in loco; & esse aliquando, seu aliquo tempore; atque ita quidem, vt, tametsi
talis substantia, taléve accidens pereat; non ideò minùs constare Locus, aut fluere Tempus per-
seueret. Ex hoc verò fit vt Locus, & Tempus haberi res verae, Entiáve realia debeant; quòd licet tale
quidpiam non sint, quale vulgò habetur aut Substantia, aut Accidens; reverâ sint tamen, neque ab
Intellectu, vt Chimaerae dependeant, cùm seu cogitet Intellectus, seu non cogitet, & Locus perma-
neat, & Tempus procurrat.”
70
Ibid., vol. 1, 182a: “Interuallum triplici dimensione, longitudinis, <latitudinis> & profunditatis
constans, in quo corpus recipi, aut per quod transire corpus possibile sit”; “incorpoream
Quantitatem.” “Latitudinis” is a correction found in the 1727 edition of Gassendi’s Opera omnia;
see Gassendi 1727, vol. 1, p. [li].
71
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 183a: “Quaeso autem in hac Inani regione, cùm orbiculare Lunae Caelum
sit, nonnè accepto vno in concaua illius superficie puncto, concipimus esse ab illo in punctum
248 D. Bellis
Notably, Gilles Personne de Roberval seems to have sustained exactly the same type
of reasoning as Gassendi, and appears to have drawn from it a conclusion that
Gassendi did not explicitly draw here, namely that space is the foundation of the
truth of geometry. This is reported in a letter from Mersenne to Descartes: “If we
suppose that God had created nothing, [Roberval] claims that there would still be
the same real solid space as exists now and he founds the eternal truth of geometry
on that space which is such as would be the space in which the bodies enclosed in
the firmament are, if God annihilated all those bodies.”72 This is related to the ques-
tion whether space is something created or uncreated, just as mathematical truths
might be considered either as eternal and uncreated, or created. For Descartes, just
as mathematical truths were created truths and there could not be any uncreated
entity apart from God, an uncreated space that would exist prior to God’s creation
was impossible as well.73 Notably, just as Gassendi rejected the creation of mathe-
matical truths, he considered space to be uncreated, which suggests that space might
belong to the same class of objects as mathematical truths.
On the one hand, space and time are real beings, and, on the other hand, Gassendi
claimed that space and time were not produced by God and were independent of
him.74 As a consequence, he was forced to steer between two abysses: from a physi-
oppositum certam intercapedinem, seu distantiam? Nonne haec distantia longitudo est quaedam,
incorporea puta, ac inuisibilis linea, quae regionis diameter sit, & in cuius medio sit punctum, quod
sit regionis, ac Caeli centrum, quódque priùs centrum ipsius Terrae exstiterit? Nonnè subinde intel-
ligimus quantum regionis circa hoc centrum occupatum priùs fuerit à Terra, ab Aqua, ab Aëre, ab
Igne? Nonne designamus mente quantum cuiusque superficiei, quantum profunditati vniuscui-
usque respondent? Nonnè proinde ibi supersunt, quas apprimè imaginemur, dimensiones longitu-
dinis, latitudinis, & profunditatis. Profectò, vbicumque concipere licet intercapedinem, aut
distantiam aliquam, ibi & dimensionem concipere licet; quatenùs talis intercapedo, aut distantia
determinatae mensurae est, siue cadere in mensuram potest. Huiusmodi ergo dimensiones sunt,
quas & incorporeas dicimus, & spatialeis.”
72
Mersenne to Descartes, 28 April 1638, in Descartes 1996, vol. 2, 117: “supposé que Dieu n’eût
rien créé, [Roberval] prétend qu’il y aurait encore le même espace solide réel, qui est maintenant,
et fonde la vérité éternelle de la Géométrie sur cet espace, tel que serait l’espace où sont tous les
corps enfermés dans le Firmament, si Dieu anéantissait tous ces corps.”
73
See Descartes to Mersenne, 27 May 1638, in Descartes 1996, vol. 2, 138; 1991, 102–103: “You
ask whether there would be real space, as there is now, if God had created nothing. At first this
question seems to be beyond the capacity of the human mind, like infinity, so that it would be
unreasonable to discuss it; but in fact I think that it is merely beyond the capacity of our imagina-
tion, like the questions of the existence of God and of the human soul. I believe that our intellect
can reach the truth of the matter, which is, in my opinion, that not only would there not be any
space, but even those truths which are called eternal – as that ‘the whole is greater than its part’ –
would not be truths if God had not so established, as I think I wrote you once before [...].”
74
Syntagma philosophicum in Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 183b–184a: “Neque enim illa Imaginaria dici
concedunt, quòd merè ab imaginatione, Chimaerae instar, pendeant, sed quòd illorum dimensiones
instar corporearum, quae in sensum cadunt, dimensionum, imaginemur. Non vertunt autem incom-
modo dici ea Spatia improducta, independentiáque à Deo, quoniam positiuum nihil sunt, hoc est,
neque Substantia, neque Accidens; qua vtraque voce comprehenditur quicquid rerum est à Deo
productum” (“Indeed, [the Doctors of the Church] allow these spaces to be called imaginary, not
because they would depend merely on the imagination, like the chimera, but because we imagine
their dimensions like corporeal dimensions which fall under the senses. But they are not deterred
cal point of view, space and time must have an independent reality and cannot be
mere fictions of the mind; but because they are uncreated entities they cannot be
assigned a plenary ontological status at the risk of being in competition with God.75
But Gassendi could find in the scholastic notion of spatium imaginarium the kind of
ontological entity which suited his goal. Leaving aside Suárez, who claimed that
imaginary spaces were entia rationis (which Gassendi potentially knowingly
rejected), we can turn to Fonseca’s and the Coimbrans’ conception of imaginary
spaces as an intermediary between pure nothingness and divine reality.76 Indeed for
those scholastics, imaginary spaces were not purely fictitious, and were not entia
rationis, but they were not real, positive beings either77; they were positioned in
between these extremes, so to say. Imaginary spaces are not nothing or fictions of
the mind, precisely because ‘imaginary’ is not a synonym for fictitious here, but
denotes a mental relationship with corporeal reality. Space is not imaginary in the
sense that it would depend only on the imagination, just like chimeras. As the
Coimbrans write:
because of the inconvenience there would be to say that these spaces are neither produced by God
nor dependent on him, since they are nothing positive, that is to say they are neither substance nor
accident, two words which include any thing that was produced by God”). Gassendi did not make
explicit what kind of independence space has with regard to God. One way to downplay the het-
erodox flavor of such a statement would be to consider that Gassendi envisaged this independence
as independence from God’s will, which would not exclude some kind of dependence regarding
God’s intellect. But Gassendi never formulated a clarification of this kind.
75
Gianni Paganini identified this tension in Gassendi’s conception of space in the Syntagma philo-
sophicum. In the 1649 Animadversiones, although Gassendi claimed that space and time are things
(res), are something real (aliquid reale), and do not simply depend on the imagination like a chi-
mera, he did not present them as entia realia that would be even more fundamental than substance
and accidents; Gassendi 1649, 614, 616. See Paganini 2005, 2008. However, as early as 1649,
Gassendi did claim that space “is not only prior to what is located, but also to everything since the
dawn of time,” Gassendi 1649, 622: “non modo est locato prius, sed omni etiam ab aevo est.”
76
Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae, disp. LI, section I, 24, in Suárez 1861, 979a–b: “Itaque,
quatenus hoc spatium apprehenditur per modum entis positivi distincti a corporibus, mihi videtur
esse ens rationis, non tamen gratis fictum opere intellectus, sicut entia impossibilia, sed sumpto
fundamento ex ipsis corporibus, quatenus sua extensione apta sunt constituere spatia realia, non
solum quae nunc sunt, sed in infinitum extra coelum […]. Ubi etiam annotavimus, cum corpus
dicitur esse in spatio imaginario, illud, esse in, sumendum esse intransitive, quia non significat esse
in alio, sed esse ibi ubi, secluso corpore, nos concipimus spatium vacuum, et ideo hoc, esse ibi,
revera est modus realis corporis, etiamsi ipsum spatium ut vacuum vel imaginarium nihil sit.” For
Suárez, there is no middle ground between real being and being of reason. If something is not a real
being, it can only be a being of reason: “si ens reale non est, quale ens esse potest, nisi rationis, cum
inter haec non sit medium,” disp. LI, section I, 24, in Suárez 1861, 979a. In themselves, imaginary
spaces are nothing; disp. LI, section I, 12, in ibid., 975b: “Sed nihilominus sufficienter videtur
posse convinci illud spatium, prout condistinctum a corpore continente et contento, revera esse
nihil, quia neque est substantia, neque accidens, neque aliquid creatum aut temporale, sed aeter-
num.” On late scholastic Jesuit conceptions of imaginary spaces, see Leijenhorst 1996.
77
Conimbricenses 1596, vol. 2, col. 518: “Spatium hoc non esse ens rationis[.]” Oresme refused to
assimilate space to a chimera: “non est sicut chimera aut hircocervus,” Questiones super Physicam,
IV, 6, in Oresme 2013, 461. Conimbricenses 1596, vol. 2, col. 518: “Item, nec esse vllum aliud
reale ac positivum ens, cum nihil tale praeter Deum ab aeterno fuerit [...].”
250 D. Bellis
This space is not a being of reason, for bodies are received by it in reality inside the world,
without any aid of the intellect, and could be so received outside the world (if they were
created there by God). Therefore, their dimensions are commonly called ‘imaginary,’ not
because they are fictitious or depend solely on a notion of the mind or do not exist outside
the intellect, but because we imagine that they correspond in space to the real and positive
dimensions of bodies by a certain proportion.78
Although Gassendi never explicitly referred to the Coimbrans, he had adopted

exactly the same position in De vita et doctrina Epicuri and in the Animadversiones:
space is imaginary insofar as its dimensions are imagined in the way we imagine
bodily dimensions.79 In the Syntagma philosophicum Gassendi explained:
[I]t is certain that, by these words ‘space’ and ‘spatial dimensions,’ we do not conceive
anything but those spaces that are commonly called imaginary and which the greatest part
of the Church Doctors admit as existing beyond the world. Indeed, they allow these spaces
to be called imaginary, not because they would depend merely on the imagination, like a
chimera, but because we imagine their dimensions like the corporeal dimensions which fall
under the senses.80
78
Conimbricenses 1596, book VIII, chap. 10, qu. 2, art. 4, vol. 2, col. 518–519: “Spatium hoc non
esse ens rationis, cum ab eo reipsa absque opera intellectus intra mundum corpora recipiantur, &
extra mundum recipi queant, si illic a Deo creentur. Quare eius dimensiones non idcirco imagi-
nariae dici consueuerunt, quod fictitiae sint, aut a sola mentis notione pendeant, nec extra intel-
lectum dentur; sed quia imaginamur illas in spatio, proportione quadam respondentes realibus ac
positiuis corporum dimensionibus.” That those spaces are called ‘imaginary’ not because they are
fictitious, but because they are imagined, was also stated by Aversa: “Et ideo vocatur imaginarium,
quia ita imaginatione nostra apprehenditur. At non per hoc est penitus fictitium, sed verè datur,”
Aversa 1625, 788a. This can also be found in Fonseca, see Fonseca 1589, 605: “Non est igitur
spatium, quod & corporibus occupatur, & extra caelum infinite in omnem partem distentum est,
quantitas ulla vera & realis, sed imaginaria. Non, quia ipsum spatium ex imaginatione pendeat,
quasi nullum sit vsquam nisi cum nos illud omnino fingimus; sed quia spatium, quod re vera suo
modo est, semperque fuit, ac erit, non est vera quantitas, sed ficta quantitas.”
79
Contrary to what Paganini claims, this apprehension of space by the imagination is not something
that appears only in the Animadversiones: see Paganini 2008, 189. Gassendi 1637, ff. 202v–203r:
“Et dicito has dimensiones aliquid non realeis, sed imaginarias; reuerâ tamen, ac nemine cogitante
sunt, quantumuis ipsas ex corporearum comparatione imagineris.” See also Gassendi 1649, 199:
“Primùm, nihil esse videtur, quod obstet asserere spatia vltra hunc mundum infinita. Quippe
Doctorum etiam nostrorum quam-plurimi illa defendunt, Imaginaria appellitantes, quod in iis lon-
gitudinis, latitudinis, altitudinis dimensiones, illis, quae in corporibus sunt, consimileis imagine-
mur”; ibid., 616: “Etenim constat nomine Spatij, Dimensionumque Spatialium, nihil intelligere
nos aliud, quàm quae Spatia vulgò Imaginaria nominant, qualiáque Sacrorum Doctorum maxima
pars dari admittit vltra Mundum: Neque enim illa Imaginaria dici concedunt, quòd merè ab imagi-
natione, chimaerae instar, pendeant, sed quòd illorum dimensiones instar corporearum, quae in
sensum cadunt, dimensionum, imaginemur.” This passage is reproduced in the Syntagma philo-
sophicum (see fn. 80). This undermines Paganini’s interpretation of the Animadversiones as down-
playing the reality of space in comparison both with book XIV of De vita et doctrina Epicuri and
the Syntagma philosophicum; see Paganini 2005, 298, 332.
80
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 183b: “Etenim constat nomine Spatij, dimensionúmque Spatialium, nihil
intelligere nos aliud, quàm quae Spatia vulgò Imaginaria nominant, qualiáque Sacrorum Doctorum
maxima pars dari admittit vltra Mundum. Neque enim illa Imaginaria dici concedunt, quòd merè
ab imaginatione, Chimaerae instar, pendeant, sed quòd illorum dimensiones instar corporearum,
quae in sensum cadunt, dimensionum, imaginemur.” Ibid., 189b: “Hoc sanè, vt iam aliquoties
insinuauimus, nihil aliud est, quàm quae pars maxima Doctorum vocat, admittitque spatia
Imaginaria, quippe Imaginaria dicunt, reputantque, non quòd non reuerâ seclusaque imaginatione
This explains that we can have some knowledge of space, even if space is not per-
fectly sensible. We can conceive the dimensions of space by analogy with the
dimensions of bodies.81
Admittedly, Gassendi’s notion of space is distinguished from the traditional
notion of imaginary spaces which, on theological elaborations, were conceived as
non-dimensional for the medieval and most late scholastics, because they were the
place for God and the angels.82 But Gassendi relied on the scholastic theory of
imaginary spaces to sustain the reality of an extramundane void space that is, con-
trary to the scholastic imaginary spaces, three-dimensional, but is deprived of any
positive nature. On a scholastic account, imaginary spaces were not an actual con-
tainer, but only a possible or virtual place for bodies. Imaginary space, for Suárez
and the Coimbrans, was non-dimensional and corresponded to God’s immensity as
long as it remained void, but could be filled with body and acquire dimensionality,
thus becoming real space.83 This explains why, according to the Coimbrans, one
could conceive geometrical objects, rather than real bodies, to be in those imaginary
spaces: “One must therefore understand […] that, beyond the sky, there is an infi-
nitely extended space; which is not something real, but imaginary, in which it is
allowed to conceive points, lines, and surfaces enduring in this same imaginary
interval [...].”84
non sint, sed quòd eas, quae in ipsis dimensiones spatiales sunt, instar corporearum, quae in cor-
poribus familiare est obseruare, imaginemur.”
81
The apprehension of space by the imagination as it is here stated by Gassendi might seem to
contradict one of his later claims, namely that we have no sensation or imagination of the infinite.
Gassendi indeed appealed to infinite spaces and times as that which goes beyond the limits of the
imagination and is seized only by the intellect. He was thus able to justify the existence of a human
intellect having some kind of autonomy in relation to the imagination because it relates to some
specific objects. Ibid., vol. 2, 452b: “quid verò, quod etiam dari spatia imaginaria vltra Mundum
disserimus, quae ratio omni fine carere, infinitave esse ostendat; & constat nihilominùs nullam in
nobis speciem, imaginemve infiniti esse; ac nostram proinde Imaginationem longè esse, vt tantam
illorum spatiorum, quanta est magnitudinem, extensionem, vastitatem capiat? Imaginatio quidem
nostra aliquovsque vltra Mundi amplitudinem exporrigitur; at breui tamen terminatur, soláque
ratio superest, quae superesse spatia absque vllo termino concludat. Sic et cùm profitemur Deum
Mundos per illa spatia infinitos posse producere, Imaginatio quidem nostra adnititur aliquovsque
hanc multitudinem prosequi: at quàm breui quaeso, resistit, soláque Intellectus vis est, quae super-
esse vltra omnem imaginabilem numerum innumerabilem multitudinem arguat.” This seeming
contradiction can be solved if one considers that space as a whole escapes the imagination due to
the fact that its infinity cannot be apprehended by the imagination. But its dimensions can be imag-
ined, i.e. some specific (namely geometrical) determinations can be apprehended by the
imagination.
82
Conimbricenses 1596, book VIII, chap. 10, qu. 2, art. 4, vol. 2, col. 518: “Hoc spatium non esse
veram quantitatem, trina dimensione praeditam; alioqui non possent recipi in eo corpora, cùm
plures eiusmodi dimensiones in eodem situ naturae viribus simul esse nequeant.” Grant 1981, 164:
“To identify imaginary, infinite space with God’s immensity and also to assign dimensionality to
that space would have implied that God Himself was an actually extended, corporeal being […]
[and] such a move would have been completely unacceptable in medieval and early modern
scholasticism.”
83
See Grant 1981, 156, 162–163.
84
Conimbricenses 1596, book IV, chap. V, qu. 1, art. 2, vol. 2, col. 31: “Sciendum igitur est […]
dari extra coelum spatium quoddam infinite patens; quod non est aliquid reale, sed imaginarium,
252 D. Bellis
Among the late scholastics, Gassendi’s theory of space appears closer to that of
Toletus. Indeed, for Toletus, imaginary spaces could be understood in two different
ways. Either they were something we imagine outside our world, and they were
fictitious. Or they were abstractions of bodies, similar to mathematical objects, and
then one could consider their dimensions.85 What Gassendi did is, I think, to unite
in his own concept of extramundane imaginary space that which Toletus considered
separately as two different concepts of space. For Toletus, according to the second
way of conceiving space, space was that which all bodies have in common when
their peculiarities were removed by abstraction. Even if, for Gassendi, extramun-
dane void space was a three-dimensional physical reality existing beyond the limits
of the world, the author of the Syntagma philosophicum also conceived of extra-
mundane void space in a way that made it akin to a geometrical entity. For Gassendi,
mathematical objects were, indeed, conceived through an abstraction from sensible
bodies. In the Syntagma philosophicum, Gassendi described this procedure of
abstraction as follows:
But truly, because matter and, through matter, every natural body, possesses, among other
properties, magnitude or quantity which consists in threefold extension or dimension,
namely length, width, and depth, for that reason the geometer or the mathematician who
selects that property mentally separates it from matter, examines it separately, and produces
demonstrations. And because the dimension of depth involves the two others and is such
that it is understood to be involved in them, for that reason it is also called body, but math-
ematical or geometrical body, and <is considered to belong to> the genus of quantity, and
not to the genus of substance or matter from which it is understood to be abstracted by a
mental or visual inspection. And this is the reason why you hear it said that the line is
regarded by the geometer as a length deprived of width, and the surface as a width deprived
in quo concipere fas est puncta, lineas, & superficies in eodem imaginario intervallo permanentes
[...].” Note that the relation between extramundane void space and mathematics can be dated back
to the medieval period. Albert of Saxony already presents the idea that the parts of such void spaces
could be distinguished by distance; see Albert of Saxony 2008, 131: “Quia Deus extra mundum
talem lapidem creatum posset movere motu recto, et facere eum distare plus ab ultimo caelo quam
prius; sed non posset talia facere nisi per spatium”; “si tales lapides non essent sibi invicem imme-
diati, sicut Deus posset eos creare, tunc unus videretur distare ab alio, et per consequens extra
caelum videretur esse distantia per quam tales lapides creati distarent.”
85
Toletus 1593, book IV, chap. V, qu. 8, ff. 121v-122r: “Est autem notatu dignum, locum, seu spa-
cium imaginarium bifariam nos posse considerare. Vno modo, vt sit res ficta omnino, & fingamus
esse, quod non est, vt extra caelum, vel in vacuo, vt diximus. Altero modo, in communi abstra-
hendo ab hoc, vel illo spacio vero singulorum corporum, spacium in communi totius mundi, in quo
modo sunt corpora, abstrahendo, inquam, ab hoc, vel illo corpore: & haec consideratio non est
ficta, sed vera […]. Sic ergo imaginamur illud spacium in communi totius mundi, tanquam quies-
cens, id est, abstrahendo a motu eiusdem, & a particularibus subiectis: & in communi similiter in
eo distantiam consideramus, & situm in communi, & singularium partium eius positionem, omnia
abstrahendo in communi, vt Mathematicus figuras […]. Et hinc est, quod spacium in communi
omnes sic abstrahunt, quia vident illa accidentia in communi remanere, nam quamuis mutetur
spacium, hoc tamen manet spacium, & aequale spacium.” See also Albert the Great’s Commentary
on Aristotle’s Physics in Albert the Great 1651, vol. 2, 177a: “vacuum non dicatur esse nisi dimen-
siones mathematicae [...].”
of depth; however, in reality, that is to say in matter or in material body, there is no length
without width, nor any width without depth.86
Gassendi considered both mathematical objects and space incorporeal: “In fact even
Aristotle does not seem to be able to give any other reason to explain why two con-
tiguous surfaces coincide or are considered to be one and the same thing, than that
they are incorporeal; which can also be said regarding several concurring points or
lines [...].”87 From that point of view, I would say that, in comparison with the
Coimbrans and Toletus, Gassendi’s conception of space can be seen as one more
step forward towards the emergence of physical space with a geometrical
structure.
Indeed, let us try to summarize the properties of Gassendian space. Extramundane
space “with its dimensions [is] extended to infinity in every direction.”88 Space is
three-dimensional infinite extension. It is measurable: “a larger and a lesser portion
of it can be designated, can be measured and can have, in short, all the relations
[comparationes] that the body itself has, in so far as it has quantity.”89 From that
point of view, Gassendi’s notion of imaginary spaces is close to that of Toletus, but
departs from that of the Coimbrans as well as from that of Fonseca who claimed, in
a refutation of Philoponus’ conception of space, that imaginary space cannot fall
under the category of quantity because it is pure negation.90 Gassendi reshaped the
notion of imaginary spaces by introducing quantification into it, which had been
impossible while they were considered as non-dimensional, especially during the
Medieval period.91 On the contrary, Gassendi’s space can be quantified, that is to
say, measured. Distance from one point to another can be delineated within space.
One can therefore claim that space has a metrical structure. Space is an entity in
which the rules of geometry apply: “it will certainly be possible, by a geometrical
postulate, to draw a straight line from one point to another or to understand it as
86
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 232a: “At verò, quia Materia, ac per ipsam corpus omne naturale, caeteras
inter proprietates praeditum est Magnitudine, Quantitatéve, quae extensione, dimensionéve trina,
vt putà longitudinis, latitudinis, & profunditatis consistit; ideò, Geometra, Mathematicúsve propri-
etatem hanc deligens, ipsam à materia mente separat, separatamque considerat, & de separata
demonstrationes texit: Et quia dimensio profunditatis reliquas duas complectitur, talísque est, qua-
lis inesse intelligitur; ideò ipsa quoque appellatur corpus, sed Mathematicum tamen, seu
Geometricum, & de genere quantitatis, non item verò de genere substantiae, seu materiae, à qua
intelligitur mente, considerationéve abstractum. Heinc est proinde, cur dici audias spectari à
Geometra lineam, quasi longitudinem expertem latitudinis, & superficiem, quasi latitudinem, quae
sit expers profunditatis; tametsi in re ipsa, hoc est in materia, materialíve corpore, nulla longitudo
sine latitudine sit; nulla latitudo sine profunditate.”
87
Ibid., 219a: “Quinetiam Aristoteles non videtur posse aliâ ratione dicere duas superficies con-
tiguas simul esse, seu pro vna eademque haberi, quàm quia illae sint incorporeae; quod quidem
dici etiam potest de pluribus concurrentibus seu punctis, seu lineis; ac sanè tantò faciliùs, quantò
puncta, lineae, superficies, aliud sunt à profunditate, cui tribuitur corporis nomen.”
88
Ibid., 183a: “quoquoversùm cum suis dimensionibus prolatatum in infinitum.”
89
Ibid., 184b: “potest illius portio maior, minórque designari, inque mensuram cadere, ac omneis
prorsùs comparationes, quas ipsummet corpus, vt quantum est, habere.”
90
For the Coimbrans see fn. 82. See Fonseca 1589, book V, chap. XIII, qu. 7, section 1, 603–606.
91
See Grant 1981, 122–127. Henry of Ghent and Jean de Ripa are noteworthy exceptions.
254 D. Bellis
almost drawn in such a way that it can be defined by the application of an ell or
another measure: therefore, although no body be found between those two points,
extension or dimension which is incorporeal is nonetheless found [...].”92 This
clearly presupposes some kind of homogeneous rectilinear space. Space is certainly
isomorphic and isotropic because Gassendi rejected the Aristotelian (and the
Epicurean) distinction between the up and the down. There is no reason to privilege
one part of space over another by nature. What we perceive as differently oriented
parts of the world is only a result of the constitution and order of the bodily parts
which occupy this or that part of space.93
Space is characterized as immense, immobile, incorporeal and penetrable. Space
is incorporeal in the sense that it is the negation of body: “with space and its dimen-
sions, the word ‘incorporeal’ does not denote anything but the negation of body or
of corporeal dimensions; and it does not denote any positive nature to which the
faculties and the actions <of space> would belong, since […] space can neither act
or be acted upon, but it only has the <non>-resistance that allows other things to
pass through it or to occupy it.”94 Because space has no positive nature it is not a
threat to the uniqueness of God. However, does this statement not introduce some
tension between a realist and a non-realist conception of space in Gassendi? If space
is nothing positive, and is just the negation of body, this might seem to contradict
what Gassendi said when he claimed that space and time were entia realia and not
fictitious entities. However, that an entity could be a pure negation without being an
ens rationis was precisely Fonseca’s conception of imaginary space. In his
Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Fonseca claimed that imaginary space is a
non-resistance to receive bodies.95 This capacity is not a privation (because a priva-
tion is an ens rationis), but rather a “pure negation” (negatio pura), a negation without
92
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 190a: “poterit sanè recta linea vel per Geometricum postulatum, ab vno
puncto ad aliud duci, seu quasi ducta intelligi, quae & vlnâ, aliáve mensurâ applicitâ possit definiri:
Quare & licet inter illa duo puncta nullum intercipiatur corpus; intercipitur nihilominus extensio,
seu dimensio, quae incorporea sit [...].”
93
Ibid., 220a.
94
Ibid., vol. 1, 183b: “in Spatio, eiusque dimensionibus vox Incorporei nihil aliud sonet, quàm
negationem corporis, corporearúmve dimensionum; non autem praetereà positiuam vllam naturam,
cuius facultates, actionésve sint; quippe cùm […] spatium neque agere, neque pati aliquid possit;
sed habeat solùm <non> repugnantiam, qua sinat caetera transire per se, aut se occupare.” The lat-
ter part of the quotation corresponds exactly to the Epicurean definition of body and void; see
Lucretius, De rerum natura, book I, 440–444. I correct the 1658 edition by adding non before
repugnantiam, just as in the text of the Animadversiones (Gassendi 1649, 616): “sed habeat solùm
non repugnantiam, qua sinat caetera transire per se, aut se occupare.” This is consistent with the
following passage: “corporeae <dimensiones> sine resistantia recipiantur in incorporeis,” Gassendi
1658, vol. 1, 219a. See also Fonseca 1589, 606: “est non repugnantia quaedam capiendorum cor-
porum commensurata corporibus locandis” and Goclenius 1613, 1068a: “Spatium Inane non est
verum Ens, sed capedo quaedam corporum, sed quid corporum capedo? nihil aliud, quam repug-
nantiae negatio ad capienda corpora.” Gassendi is here at variance with Bartolomeo Amico, who
had dismissed the very idea that imaginary space was the negation of body, i.e. vacuum. On Amico,
see Grant 1981, 168–169.
95
Fonseca 1589, book V, chap. XIII, qu. 7, section 1, 605–606.
a subject, because it is not the case that God could not create other worlds (in those
imaginary spaces).
Space, just like mathematical objects abstracted from things, is conceived by a
combination of affirmations and negations. On the positive side, space is three-
dimensional; it is a quantity. But on the negative side, those dimensions and that
quantity are designated as incorporeal.96 This is precisely why space cannot really
be divided. Whereas corporeal quantity can be divided at least up to a certain point,
that is to say, in principle into atoms, incorporeal quantity cannot be subject to real
division.97 The parts of space cannot be made really discontinuous, that is to say
separated the one from the other, moved and permutated. The continuity of space in
Gassendi’s view is based on the very impossibility to really separate its parts due to
the fact that they are immovable: “But if something is extended in all directions, so
that its parts cannot be conceived as separated from one another, nor are capable of
contact and resistance, it is called space.”98 “Place cannot be interrupted by any
force, but it always remains immovably continuous and identical [...].”99 Because
space is immobile and immutable, and because this is true of all its parts, it is not
possible to displace one part of it in order to separate it from the rest of space. This
is the sense in which Gassendi understood the continuity of space. Division oper-
ated on space can be apprehended by the mind; some parts can be delineated in its
extension, but they cannot really be separated from each other. It is possible to des-
ignate different parts in space, but these parts are not separate or naturally
separable.100 Gassendi’s space is not really divisible. Notably, mathematical objects
conceived by abstraction from sensible objects were considered indivisible by the
mathematicians according to Gassendi. In the Disquisitio metaphysica, Gassendi
mentioned “the ideas of geometric figures […] as they are conceived by geometers,
96
As Mamiani remarks, “il suo spazio è una quantità pura dotata di dimensioni autonome e asso-
lute,” see Mamiani 1979, 103.
97
Gassendi distinguished between corporeal quantity, which is divisible and separable, and incor-
poreal quantity, which can be determined but is not really divisible. Gassendi 1649, 621: “Dicendum
est, quantitatem aliam esse corpoream, aliam incorpoream; ac proprium quidem esse corporeae, ita
posse diuidi, vt partes abs se mutuò distrahantur; quod verò ad incorpoream, spatialemve attinet,
ea nec diuidi, nec, vt ita loquar, discontiuari vlla vi potest; sed licet dumtaxat designatione dicere,
hanc spatij partem non esse illam.”
98
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 131b: “Sin quidpiam ita extensum quoquouersum est, vt ipsius partes
concipi non possint à se inuicem distrahi, neque esse capaces contactus, atque resistentiae, appel-
letur Spatium.”
99
Ibid., 224b: “Locus vi nulla interrumpi potest, sed immobiliter continuum, idemque semper per-
manet […].”
100
Ibid., 219b: “Heinc, cùm vrgent praeterea interuallo conuenire, vt quantitas sit, & quantitatem
diuidi posse; dicendum est, quantitatem aliam esse corpoream, aliam incorpoream; ac proprium
quidem esse corporeae, ita posse diuidi, vt partes abs se mutuò distrahantur; quod verò ad incorpo-
ream, spatialémve attinet, ea nec diuidi, nec, vt ita loquar, discontinuari vlla vi potest; sed licet
dumtaxat designatione dicere, hanc spatij partem non esse illam.” The similitude between place
and what is placed is a similitude of dimension, see ibid., 219a. Their dimensions are
superimposable.
256 D. Bellis
namely indivisible” because they have no real parts.101 In mathematics, indivisibility

is just the result of a mental abstraction.102 However, one must recognize that
Gassendi had a peculiar understanding of space’s continuity. Indeed, his conception
does not amount to claiming that space is constituted of an infinity of mathematical,
unextended, points. In a subsequent section of the Syntagma philosophicum
Gassendi did not shy away from suggesting that space was constituted of indivisible
parts in finite number which were not to be confused with mathematical points.103
Therefore, the continuity of space can only be understood, in Gassendi’s approach,
as the perfect contiguity of innumerable extended parts which cannot be moved.
11.5 Conclusion
Due to the outlined conception of space in Gassendi it is possible to consider

Gassendi’s imaginary space a quasi-mathematical space physicalized or made real.
This space has almost all the properties of geometrical extension as conceived by
the mathematicians – except for continuity as we understand it today – but what
Gassendi elaborated upon is nothing other but a physical or cosmological reality,
namely what is to be found beyond the limits of our finite world. My claim is that
he expanded on the scholastic notion of imaginary spaces in order to develop his
theory of extramundane infinite three-dimensional void space. But the appropria-
tion of imaginary spaces by Gassendi was far from an unreflected endorsement of a
scholastic notion for the purpose of making his cosmological views immune to
theological attacks. This notion was used by Gassendi as a tool to reshape
101
Disquisitio metaphysica, in Gassendi 1972, 254: “It is false that the ideas of geometric figures
are not drawn from the senses and that they can exist in the world as they are conceived by geom-
eters, namely indivisible.”
102
Ibid., 257: “but that triangle composed of indivisible elements cannot exist except mentally and
by hypothesis.”
103
Gassendi 1658, vol. 1, 341a–b: “An proinde est ad eas responsurus, negando illam tam potestate,
quàm actu infinitatem partium; & concedendo insectilia, non Mathematica illa, atque infinita;
verùm Physica, finitáque, ac numero solùm per mentem incomprehensibilia? Declaratum certè est
quoque iam ante & infinitatem illam partium in continuo, & insectilitatem Mathematicam in rerum
natura non esse, sed Mathematicorum hypothesin esse, atque idcirco non oportere argumentari in
Physica ex iis, quae natura non nouit.” On this see Bloch 1971, 179–180; Palmerino 2011, 305–
306. Contrary to Bloch, I do not see a tension between the Syntagma philosophicum and the letter
to Sorbière of 30 January 1644. Contrary to Bloch, in the latter Gassendi did not claim that space
or place was “infinitely divisible” but that space had innumerable parts, i.e. that there were more
parts in space than one could enumerate or count. Gassendi 1658, vol. 6, 179a: “Vtrumque [tempus
et locus] etiam habens parteis inexhaustas” (“Both [place and time] have innumerable parts”). This
is coherent with the passage just quoted from the Syntagma philosophicum, in which Gassendi
suggested that the continuum could be made of finite physical indivisibles whose number went
beyond the understanding (“numero solùm per mentem incomprehensibilia”).
ontological categories according to the needs of epistemology and scientific require-

ments.104 Inheriting some of its late scholastic meaning, the notion took on a renewed
conceptual dimension in Gassendi’s philosophy, since it allowed for the conception
of a physical entity of the cosmos as an almost mathematical one. This is significant
in regard to a broader process of mathematization of the natural world in the early
modern period. Nevertheless, this did not amount to a mathematical approach to
physics, since Gassendi maintained a rather clear-cut separation between mathe-
matical entities as being continuous due to being abstracted by the human mind, and
physical reality made up of discontinuous atoms and contiguous spatial parts.
Rather than exactly providing later scientists like Newton the ontology of space that
could fit their new science, as Koyré claimed, Gassendi’s theory represented only
one more step towards a mathematical conception of space that would additionally
require the abandonment of its constitution out of extended parts. This step would
be made by Newton, who would give up the isomorphism of space and matter.105
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Chapter 12
Space, Imagination and the Cosmos
in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence
Abstract The famous correspondence between Leibniz and Clarke deals with fun-
damental physical and metaphysical questions, such as the soul-body interaction,
the freedom of will, the composition of matter, the possibility of a vacuum, mira-
cles, gravity, and the nature of space and time. With respect to most of these issues
the disagreement between Leibniz and Clarke results from their conflicting views
on God’s role in the world. While Clarke blames Leibniz for turning God into a
necessary agent, Leibniz accuses Clarke of having a wrong notion of God’s power
and wisdom. The aim of this chapter is to show how theological, metaphysical and
cosmological considerations shape Leibniz’ and Clarke’s respective theories of
space. In his letters, Leibniz repeatedly invokes the Principle of Sufficient Reason
and the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles in order to argue, against Newton
and Clarke, that space cannot exist independently from, and prior to, physical bod-
ies. Clarke, in turn, appeals to imaginary scenarios of medieval origin in order to
show that the metaphysical principles that underlie Leibniz’s theory of space imply
a limitation of God’s freedom. The chapter analyses in detail the role that imaginary
scenarios play in the discussion concerning the ontological status of space, and
attempts to provide a new interpretation of the function of the Principle of the
Identity of Indiscernibles in the Correspondence.
12.1 Introduction
In the final year of his life, Leibniz engaged in what was to become one of the most
famous epistolary exchanges in the history of science and philosophy with the
Newtonian theologian Samuel Clarke. In November 1715 Leibniz wrote a letter to
his former pupil Caroline of Ansbach – who had recently moved from Hanover to
C. R. Palmerino (*)
e-mail: c.palmerino@ftr.ru.nl

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_12
262 C. R. Palmerino
London with her husband, the future King George II – warning her about the nega-
tive religious implications of English philosophy and Newtonian physics. Caroline
forwarded an extract of Leibniz’s the letter to Samuel Clarke, who promptly drafted
a reply. Up to the moment of Leibniz’s death, in November 1716, the two thinkers
exchanged ten increasingly intricate letters, which were published by Clarke in
1717. The Correspondence deals with fundamental physical and metaphysical
issues, such as the soul-body interaction, the freedom of will, the composition of
matter, the possibility of a vacuum, miracles, gravity, and the nature of space and
time.
On most of these issues, the disagreement between Leibniz and Clarke results
from their conflicting views on God’s role in the world. As Steven Shapin has
observed, “the Newtonian schema stressed God’s voluntary capacities, while the
Leibnizian cosmology emphasized his intellectual attributes.”1
Leibniz’s intellectualist stance is already evident in the Discourse on Metaphysics
(1686). There he criticizes voluntarist thinkers “who say that the eternal truths of
metaphysics and geometry, and consequently also the rules of goodness, justice, and
perfection, are merely the effects of the will of God.”2 In Leibniz’s opinion, good-
ness, order and rationality are coeternal with God and constitutive of his under-
standing and can hence be used to judge his creation. God deserves praise because
he “does nothing which is not orderly and regular,” and because of all the possible
worlds he has chosen the most perfect, that is to say, “the one which is at the same
time the simplest in hypotheses and the richest in phenomena.”3
In the correspondence with Clarke, Leibniz repeatedly stresses that Newtonian
physics does not do justice to God’s goodness and rationality. For example, to admit
atoms and void in nature, like Clarke and Newton do, “is ascribing to God a very
imperfect work”: why should God leave space empty if he can fill it with matter?
and why should he prefer an atom to a corpuscle, which is “actually subdivided in
infinitum and contains a world of other creatures which would be wanting in the
universe if that corpuscle was an atom?”4
While Leibniz accuses Clarke of having “a mean notion of the wisdom and
power of God,”5 Clarke blames Leibniz for turning God into a necessary agent. For
“to assert that whatever God can do, he cannot but do is making him no governor at
all, but a mere necessary agent, that is, indeed no agent at all, but mere fate and
nature and necessity.”6 Clarke grants Leibniz that “nothing is without a sufficient
reason why it is, and why it is thus rather than otherwise,” but he adds that “this
1
Shapin 1981, 192.
2
Discourse on Metaphysics, in Leibniz 1989, 36.
3
Ibid., 39.
4
Both in the text and in the footnotes I use the letters ‘C’ and ‘L’ to indicate the respective author
of the letter, roman numerals to indicate the number of the letter, and Arabic numerals to indicate
the paragraph. L.IV, post scriptum, Alexander 1956, 44.
5
L.I.4, ibid., 12.
6
C.IV.22–23, ibid., 50.
12 Space, Imagination and the Cosmos in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence 263
s ufficient reason is oft-times no other, than the mere will of God.”7 The “wisdom of
God may have good reasons” for leaving some parts of space empty and for creating
matter “in what quantity, and at what particular time, and at what particular spaces
he pleases.”8
The clash between Clarke’s and Leibniz’ respective views on God’s omnipo-
tence becomes particularly apparent in their debate concerning the nature of space
and time. In the Correspondence Leibniz repeatedly invokes the Principle of
Sufficient Reason (henceforth PSR) and the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles
(henceforth PII) in order to argue, against Newton and Clarke, that space and time
are not ontologically independent entities but exist only as relations among objects.
Clarke, in turn, appeals to imaginary scenarios of medieval origin in order to prove
that Leibniz’ theory of space implies a limitation of God’s freedom.
In the present chapter, I shall try to shed light on the metaphysical, cosmological
and theological considerations that shape Leibniz’ and Clarke’s respective theories
of space, and on the role that imaginary scenarios play in their discussion. I shall,
moreover, provide a new interpretation of the role that the PII plays in the
Correspondence by arguing, against Fred Chernoff and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra,
that Leibniz formulated both a logical and a contingent version of this principle,
each applying to a different domain.
12.2 T
he Ontological Status of Space According to Leibniz
and Clarke
In his second letter to Clarke, Leibniz famously argues, in polemic with Newton,
that natural philosophy must be grounded on metaphysical, rather than on mathe-
matical principles. While the principle of non-contradiction constitutes the founda-
tion of mathematics, “another principle is needed” for natural philosophy, namely
that of sufficient reason, which requires “that nothing happens without a reason why
it should be so rather than otherwise.”9 Leibniz illustrates this principle by means of
a famous Archimedian example:
L.II.1: Archimedes, in his book De Aequilibrio, was obliged to make use of a particular case
of the great principle of sufficient reason. He takes it for granted, that if there be a balance,
in which everything is alike on both sides, and if equal weights are hung on the two ends of
that balance, the whole will be at rest. ‘Tis because no reason can be given, why one side
should weigh down, rather than the other. Now, by that single principle, viz. that there ought
to be a sufficient reason why things should be so, and not otherwise, one may demonstrate
the being of a God, and all the other parts of metaphysics or natural theology.10
7
C.II.1, ibid., 20.
8
C.IV.15, ibid., 49.
9
L.II.1, ibid., 16.
10
Ibid.
264 C. R. Palmerino
Leibniz’s analogy could not sound anything other than inadequate to someone who,
like Clarke, defined liberty as the “continual power” of choosing whether one
“should act or forebear acting.”11 In Clarke’s view, by claiming that God “could in
no case act without a predetermining cause, any more than a balance can move
without a preponderating weight,” Leibniz takes away “all power of choosing” and
introduces “fatality.”12 A balance in a state of equilibrium is bound to remain immo-
bile, whereas God must be able to exercise his will in a situation of indifference:
C.II.1: For instance: why this particular system of matter, should be created in one particu-
lar place, and that in another particular place; when, (all place being absolutely indifferent
to all matter) it would have been exactly the same thing vice versa, supposing the two sys-
tems (or the particles) of matter to be alike; there can be no other reason, but the mere will
of God.13
In his third letter, Leibniz turns his correspondent’s reasoning upside down. While
Clarke regards the creation of matter in space as a paradigmatic example of God’s
power of choosing in the absence of preponderating motives, Leibniz invokes the
PSR to argue that God could not have created the world in an independently existing
space:
L.III.5: I say then, that if space was an absolute being, there would something happen for
which it would be impossible there should be a sufficient reason. Which is against my
axiom. And I prove it thus. Space is something absolutely uniform; and, without the things
placed in it, one point of space does not absolutely differ in any respect whatsoever from
another point of space. Now from hence it follows, (supposing space to be something in
itself, besides the order of bodies among themselves,) that 'tis impossible there should be a
reason, why God, preserving the same situations of bodies among themselves, should have
placed them in space after one certain particular manner, and not otherwise; why everything
was not placed the quite contrary way, for instance, by changing East into West.14
In the lines just quoted, Leibniz argues that the creation of the world in a Newtonian
space would entail a violation of the PSR, as God would inevitably face a choice
between alternative, and yet equivalent, spatial configurations of matter. An East-
West switch, for example, would produce two mirrored worlds, with a different
location in absolute space, and yet the same spatial relations between their
components.15
According to a relational theory of space, however, it would not be possible for
God to find himself in a situation of indifference, as there would be no choice to be
made:
L.III.5: But if space is nothing else, but that order or relation; and is nothing at all without
bodies, but the possibility of placing them; then those two states, the one such as it now is,
the other supposed to be the quite contrary way, would not at all differ from one another.
Their difference therefore is only to be found in our chimerical supposition of the reality of
11
Clarke 1998, 74.
12
CII.1, Alexander 1956, 21.
13
Ibid., 20–21.
14
L.III.5, ibid., 26.
15
Cf. Rickles 2008, 33.
space in itself. But in truth the one would exactly be the same thing as the other, they being
absolutely indiscernible; and consequently there is no room to enquire after a reason of the
preference of the one to the other.16
In these lines, Leibniz invokes the PII in order to argue that, if space is nothing at all
“without bodies,” then two symmetrical configurations are indiscernible, and hence
identical. In the subsequent paragraph, he applies the same reasoning to time. The
question why God chose to create the world in one given moment of time, rather
than another, only makes sense if one believes, with Newton, that time flows inde-
pendently from anything external. But if one agrees with Leibniz that “instants,
considered without the things, are nothing at all,” then it would have been impossi-
ble for God to create the world sooner since “one of the two states, viz. that of a
supposed anticipation, would not at all differ, nor could be discerned from, the other
which now is.”17
Clarke’s reaction to Leibniz’s argument is very subtle and deserves to be anal-
ysed in detail. After reiterating his conviction that “mere will, without any thing
external to influence it, is alone that sufficient reason,” Clarke explains why, in his
view, the PSR cannot be used to criticize the Newtonian theory of space: in the
framework of Leibniz’s theory of space and time one can, in fact, still conceive of
spaces that “are really different or distinct one from another, though they be per-
fectly alike.” This, in turn, means that “even though space were nothing real, but
only the mere order of bodies” it would still be possible to conceive of situations in
which God would not be able to act according to the PSR, but would have to exer-
cise his freedom of indifference: “It would be absolutely indifferent, and there could
be no other reason but mere will, why Three equal Particles should be placed or
ranged in the order a, b, c, rather than in the contrary order.”18 Then Clarke proceeds
to observe the following:
C.III.2: And there is this evident absurdity in supposing Space not to be real, but to be
merely the order of bodies; that, according to that notion, if the earth and sun and moon had
been placed where the remotest fixed stars now are, (provided they were placed in the same
order and distance they now are with regard to one another,) it would not only have been,
(as this learned author rightly says,) la même chose, the same thing in effect; which is very
true: but it would also follow, that they would then have been in the same place too, as they
are now: which is an express contradiction.19
Richard Arthur has recently claimed that Clarke’s argument is circular, as it “pre-
supposes that the places of the earth, sun and moon are places in absolute space that
are individuated independently of those bodies,” and thereby ignores Leibniz’s
claim that, “given the homogeneity of mathematical space, the points can only be
individuated by what is situated at them.”20 I would like to propose a more charitable
interpretation of Clarke’s argumentative strategy. In my view, in the lines just quoted
16
L.III.5, Alexander 1956, 26.
17
L.III.6, ibid., 27.
18
C.III.2, ibid., 30–31.
19
Ibid., 31.
20
Arthur 2017, 118.
266 C. R. Palmerino
Clarke uses conceivability as a guide to determine possibility. Taking his cue from
Leibniz’s switch argument, Clarke suggests that the very fact that one can conceive
of the entire world being rotated (with the East being switched to the West), or of
the solar system being placed where the fixed stars are situated now, means that,
even within a relational theory of space, the alternative locations are not indiscern-
ible, and hence, that it must have been possible for God to assign to the world a
different position. To this, Clarke adds a second argument:
C III.4: If space was nothing but the order of things coexisting; it would follow, that if God
should remove in a straight line the whole material world entire, with any swiftness what-
soever; yet it would still always continue in the same place: and that nothing would receive
any shock upon the most sudden stopping of that motion.21
Both in C III.2 and C III.4 Clarke takes the actual state of the world as a starting
point for a counterfactual reasoning. In the former scenario, he imagines two pos-
sible worlds with the same internal arrangement and yet in a different location rela-
tive to one another; in the latter he imagines that God intervenes to change the actual
position of the world. As Chernoff has observed, with the former argument Clarke
asks about two states that, “if distinct, must comprise parts of separate possible
worlds,” whereas with the latter he asks about “two states that, even if distinct,
might constitute parts of the same possible world.”22
In his own rendition of Clarke’s second argument Chernoff, like other scholars,
simply speaks of the “entire material world” being “moved,” thereby omitting the
role that God plays in the thought experiment.23 In my view, however, the scope of
Clarke’s argument can only be fully understood if one takes into account its theo-
logical context.
In his masterful book Much Ado About Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum
from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution Edward Grant briefly dwells on
the Correspondence observing that Clarke’s argument of God displacing the world
in a straight line “might have come straight from Nicole Oresme’s Le Livre du Ciel
et du monde in the fourteenth century.”24 Grant is obviously thinking of the follow-
ing passage of Oresme’s book:
There is an imagined infinite and immobile space outside the world […] and it is possible
without contradiction, that the whole world could be moved in that space with a rectilinear
motion. To say the contrary is an article condemned at Paris.25
21
C.III.4, Alexander 1956, 32.
22
Chernoff 1981, 132.
23
Ibid. E.J. Khamara writes, along similar lines: “Hence Clarke allowed the following suggestion
(which I shall call Clarke’s hypothesis) to be a coherent logical possibility: that the material uni-
verse as a whole should, for any period of time and without any internal alterations, be in a state of
uniform rectilinear motion along a certain absolute direction” (Khamara 2006, 99). See also
Alexander 1956, xxvii.
24
Grant 1981, 249.
25
Quoted in Grant 1979, 230 (my emphasis).
Oresme here refers to the famous condemnation of 1277, when Etienne Tempier,
the Bishop of Paris, compiled a list of 219 philosophical and theological theses
which were not to be taught and discussed in the Faculty of Arts. This list includes
a number of propositions which were condemned because they implied a limitation
of God’s power. One of them stated that “God could not move the heavens with
rectilinear motion and leave behind a void.”26
Grant has convincingly shown that the preoccupation with God’s absolute power
which informed many articles of the condemnation acted as a “powerful analytic
tool in natural philosophy.” In the wake of the condemnation, medieval natural phi-
losophers formulated “a host of thought experiments that were, in one way or
another, contrary to Aristotelian physics and cosmology.”27 These thought experi-
ments, among them that of God displacing the world in a straight line, appealed to
the distinction between the potentia Dei absoluta, that is to say, God’s power to do
whatever does not imply a logical contradiction, and the potentia Dei ordinata, or
the power which God exercised in the Creation.
Given Clarke’s voluntaristic stance, it is no surprise that he invokes the medieval
scenario of God displacing the world. His goal is to show that such a scenario,
which is conceivable and hence should be regarded as possible, is incompatible with
Leibniz’s theory of space, according to which God’s actions would have no effect,
as the spatial relations among the parts of the world would remain unchanged. It is
important to note that Clarke modifies the medieval thought experiment slightly by
asking what would happen if God suddenly stopped the rectilinear motion of the
world. As will become clear in the fourth letter, Clarke was convinced that such a
stop would have the same noticeable effect on the bodies placed on the surface of
the earth as the sudden deceleration of a ship has on its passengers.
But how did Leibniz answer Clarke’s arguments? At the beginning of the fourth
letter, he reiterates the conviction that a “will without motive” is “a fiction, not only
contrary to God’s perfection, but also chimerical and contradictory; inconsistent
with the definition of the will.”28 Then he starts discussing his opponent’s arguments
one by one, dwelling on the conceivability and viability of Clarke’s imaginary
scenarios.
In response to Clarke’s observation that, even under the assumption of relative
space, two orders (abc and cba) would be indifferent, Leibniz argues that
L.IV.3: ‘Tis a thing indifferent, to place three bodies, equal and perfectly alike, in any order
whatsoever; and consequently they will never be placed in any order, by him who does
nothing without wisdom. But then he being the author of things, no such things will be
produced by him at all; and consequently there are no such things in nature.29
26
Grant 1996, 124. As Algra’s Chapter 2 in this volume recalls, the first extant version of this
thought experiment is found in the work of the Stoic philosopher Cleomedes.
27
Grant 1976, 241.
28
L.IV.2, Alexander 1956, 36.
29
Ibid.
268 C. R. Palmerino
In these lines Leibniz claims that, in the case of three equal bodies, it is impossible
to distinguish between the spatial arrangements abc, acb, cba etc., because the
arrangement would always be aaa. Hence God, who does nothing without wisdom,
would not be able to decide in which order to place the three bodies. However, such
a situation of indifference cannot occur, since God would not create three equal
bodies.30 As a confirmation of this fact, Leibniz quotes the anecdote of the gentle-
man who ran all over Princess Sophia’s garden, looking in vain for two leaves per-
fectly alike.31
In the subsequent paragraphs, Leibniz addresses the question whether God could
have created the world at a different time or in a different place than he did:
L.IV.6: To suppose two things indiscernible, is to suppose the same thing under two names.
And therefore to suppose that the universe could have had at first another position of Time
and Place, than that which it actually had; and yet that all the parts of the universe should
have had the same situation among themselves, as that which they actually had; such a sup-
position, I say, is an impossible fiction.32
According to Barry Dainton, Leibniz’s argument is not valid, as it is built on a prem-

ise that Clarke cannot accept. From a Newtonian point of view, the relations between
material bodies and absolute space and time “are real features of the world,” and it
is hence illegitimate to claim that alternative positions of the world in space and
time would be indiscernible.33 In my view, this interpretation misses the point. In the
fourth letter Leibniz is trying to respond to Clarke’s claim that, even within the
context of a relational theory of space and time, one can imagine situations in which
God would have to exercise his freedom of indifference. In IV.3 Leibniz argues that
the situation envisaged by Clarke is indeed conceivable, but is incompatible with the
PSR, and hence cannot occur in our world. In IV.6, by contrast, he claims that the
scenario described by Clarke is conceivable within the framework of a Newtonian
theory of space (according to which two different positions in absolute space are,
indeed, discernible), but is an impossible fiction, and hence unconceivable, from the
point of view of Leibniz’s own theory.
Leibniz seems to make a similar point with respect to the scenario of God dis-
placing the world in a straight line. In L.IV.13, he maintains that a rectilinear motion
of the whole world without “any alteration in it is another chimerical supposition.
For, two states indiscernible from each other, are the same state.”34 With respect to
Clarke’s thought experiments, Leibniz observes that
30
In the Confessio philosophi (1672–1673), Leibniz had admitted the possibility that two identical
bodies, for example two eggs, might be distinguished only by their situation in space. In a letter to
Casati, written in 1689, Leibniz used the same example of two eggs in order to argue that there are
not two things in nature which differ only extrinsically. A close examination will reveal that two
apparently identical eggs are discernible ‘in themselves.’ See Rodriguez-Pereyra 2014, 84–92.
31
L.IV.4, Alexander 1956, ibid., 36.
32
L.IV.6, ibid., 37.
33
Dainton 2010, 178.
34
Leibniz IV.13, Alexander 1956, 38.
L IV.15: These are idola tribus, mere chimeras, and superficial imaginations. All this is only
grounded upon the supposition, that imaginary space is real.
L IV.16: If space and time were anything absolute, that is, if they were anything else besides
certain order of things, then indeed my assertion would be a contradiction. But since it is
not so, the hypothesis (that space and time are anything absolute) is contradictory, that is,
it’s an impossible fiction.35
The parenthetical sentence “that space and time are anything absolute” was not part
of Leibniz’s original letter, but was added by Clarke and maintained in all later edi-
tions of the Correspondence. In a recent article Martin Lin convincingly claimed
that Clarke’s addition rests on a misinterpretation of the original text. What Leibniz
regarded as contradictory was not the hypothesis “that space and time are anything
absolute,” but rather “that God moves the world in a straight line.”36 I fully endorse
Lin’s interpretation. By invoking the medieval thought experiment of God displac-
ing the world in a straight line, Clarke wanted to show that Leibniz’s natural phi-
losophy (just like the Aristotelian natural philosophy from Tempier’s point of view)
imposed limits on God’s freedom and power. Leibniz understood that the only via-
ble defensive strategy was to reject the scenario tout court by claiming that it was
conceivable within the framework of Clarke’s own theory of space, but appeared as
an impossible fiction from the point of view of Leibniz’s own theory. It is interesting
to see, however, that Leibniz adduces two different reasons why Clarke’s imaginary
scenario should be rejected.
In section 13 of his fourth letter Leibniz invokes, as we have just seen, the PII in
order to claim that the scenario would be “a change without any change,” and would
hence not be brought about by God, who “does nothing without reason.”37 A few
paragraphs later, however, he denies the premise of Clarke’s thought experiment,
namely that the world is finite: “There is no possible reason that can limit the quan-
tity of matter, and therefore such limitation can have no place.”38
Clarke, as was to be expected, was not satisfied with Leibniz’s answer. To claim,
like Leibniz did, that “God cannot limit the quantity of matter, is an assertion of too
great consequence, to be admitted without proof.”39 Once again, what he asked
Leibniz was whether, supposing the world were finite, God could move it in a
straight line. Clarke observed, moreover, that it was too easy a way out to invoke the
PII in order to prove the impossibility of that motion. “Two places, though exactly
alike, are not the same place. Nor is the motion or rest of the universe, the same
state.” An “indiscernible motion of the universe” would still be real and would have
real effects upon a sudden stop.40 Incidentally, it is interesting to note that both
Leibniz and Clarke interchangeably speak of the “world” and the “universe” moving
35
Leibniz IV.15-16, ibid., 38–39.
36
Lin 2016, 455.
37
Leibniz IV.13, Alexander 1956, 38.
38
L.IV.21, ibid., 39–40.
39
C.IV.21, ibid., 50.
40
C.IV.13, ibid., 48.
270 C. R. Palmerino
in space, which seems to indicate that neither of the two terms is meant to include a
hypothetical extra-mundane space.
Scholars have rightly observed that Clarke’s conclusion is at odds with Newton’s
laws of motion. According to Corollary 6 to the laws of motion of the Principia
mathematica “a sudden deceleration of all the bodies alike at the same time would
not disturb their relative motions,” and hence could not be discerned.41 But this is
not the answer Leibniz gave to Clarke. Instead of addressing the question what
would happen if the world suddenly stopped, Leibniz limited himself to reiterating
his previous arguments:
L.V.29: I have demonstrated, that space is nothing else but an order of the existence of
things, observed as existing together; and therefore the fiction of a material universe mov-
ing forward in an infinite empty space, cannot be admitted. It is altogether unreasonable and
impracticable. For, besides that there is no real space out of the material universe; such an
action would be without design in it: it would be working without doing any thing, agendo
nihil agere. There would happen no change, which could be observed by any person
whatsoever.42
A few paragraphs later, Leibniz writes in a similar vein:

L.V.52: In order to prove that space, without bodies, is an absolute reality; the author
objected, that a finite material universe might move forward in space. I answered, it does
not appear reasonable that the material universe should be finite; and, though we should
suppose it to be finite; yet ‘tis unreasonable it should have motion any otherwise, than as its
parts change their situation among themselves; because such a motion would produce no
change that could be observed, and would be without design […]. The author replies now
that the reality of motion does not depend upon being observed […]. I answer, motion does
not indeed depend upon being observed; but it does depend upon being possible to be
observed. There is no motion, when there is no change that can be observed. And when
there is no change that can be observed, there is no change at all. The contrary opinion is
grounded upon the supposition of a real absolute space, which I have demonstratively con-
futed by the want of a sufficient reason of things.43
While in the fourth letter Leibniz dubbed Clarke’s scenario as “impossible” (L.IV.6)
and “chimerical” (L.IV.13), in the fifth letter he describes it as “unreasonable and
impracticable” (L.V.29; L.V.52). In his reply, Clarke stresses the ambiguous modal
status of Leibniz’s claims concerning space and the cosmos. Leibniz grants “that
God could make the material universe finite: and yet the supposing it to be possibly
finite, is styled not only as a supposition unreasonable and void of design, but also
an impracticable fiction.”44 Similarly, he sometimes admits the possibility of a void,
41
Arthur 2017, 120. See also Arthur 1994, 221 and Vailati 1997, 132–133. Newton’s sixth corollary
states that “If bodies are moving in any way whatsoever with respect to one another and are urged
by equal accelerative forces along parallel lines, they will all continue to move with respect to one
another in the same way as they would if they were not acted on by those forces,” Newton 1999,
423.
42
L.V.29, Alexander 1956, 63–64.
43
L.V.52, ibid., 74.
44
C.V.26–32, ibid., 100–101.
whereas at other times he speaks as if a vacuum was “absolutely impossible in the

nature of things; space and matter being inseparable.”45
Equally unsatisfactory, in Clarke’s eyes, is Leibniz’s analysis of the thought
experiment of God displacing the world in a straight line:
C.V.52–53: He must either affirm, that ‘twas impossible for God to make the material world
finite and moveable; or else he must of necessity allow the strength of my argument, drawn
from the possibility of the world’s being finite and moveable. Neither is it sufficient barely
to repeat his assertion, that the motion of a finite material universe would be nothing, and
(for want of other bodies to compare with) would produce no discoverable change: unless
he could disprove the instance which I gave of a very great change that would happen; viz.
that the parts would be sensibly shocked by a sudden acceleration, or stopping of the motion
of the whole: to which instance, he has not attempted to give any answer.46
Clarke’s questions were doomed to remain without an answer as Leibniz’s death, in

November 1716, put an end to the correspondence. In order to understand whether
Leibniz regarded the scenario of God displacing the world in a straight line as
impossible or simply as unreasonable, we must turn to a much-debated question,
namely that of the modal status of the PII in the Correspondence.
12.3 T
he Modal Status of the Principle of Identity
of Indiscernibles in the Correspondence
As we have seen in the previous section, in his polemic with Clarke Leibniz often
invoked one of the fundamental principles of his metaphysics, namely the
PII. Commentators have noticed, however, that the PII plays an ambivalent role in
the Correspondence.
In an influential article published in 1981, Fred Chernoff argued that, in his let-
ters to Clarke, Leibniz used two conflicting versions of the PII: (1) a logical version,
according to which two identical but distinct entities are inconceivable, and hence
cannot exist; and (2) a contingent, or non-logical version, which simply tells us that
two identical entities will not be found in the actual world.
According to Chernoff, Leibniz makes exclusively use of the logical version of
the PII in the third letter, while in the fourth letter he employs both the logical and
the non-logical version; finally, in the fifth letter he disavows the logical version and
only uses the contingent version. This situation demands, in his view, a “Darwinian
interpretation”: the two conflicting principles “battle with one another for domina-
tion,” and the non-logical version eventually proves to be the fitter.47
In the recently published book Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles,
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra also dwells on the ambiguous character of the PII in the
45
Ibid., 102.
46
C.V.52-53, ibid., 104–105.
47
Chernoff 1981, 137. Jolley 2005, 86, also points to a tension between a contingent and a neces-
sary version of the PII.
272 C. R. Palmerino
Correspondence: “For there Leibniz seems to assert and deny the necessity of the II,
without seeming to be aware of his inconsistency. So, it might be thought, either
Leibniz was really inconsistent in his correspondence, or else his views evolved
within the correspondence. The former is maintained by Clarke himself, the second
is maintained by Chernoff.”48 Rodriguez-Pereyra does not share either Clarke’s or
Chernoff’s opinions. According to him, Leibniz never stopped regarding the PII as
a necessary principle, but in the Correspondence he chose, for strategic reasons, to
present the principle simply as true, without dwelling on its modal status (i.e. with-
out specifying whether the principle was necessarily or contingently true). According
to Rodriguez-Pereyra, there is only one passage in the Correspondence in which
Leibniz commits himself to the necessity of the PII. Leibniz however regretted his
commitment, and “his strategy was to try to convince Clarke that he maintained that
the Identity of Indiscernibles was contingent (without actually saying so) in order to
focus on the issue of the truth of the principle […]. The passages from the
Correspondence with Clarke where Leibniz apparently commits himself to the con-
tingency of the Identity of Indiscernibles give us little reason to think that Leibniz
genuinely thought that the Identity of Indiscernibles was contingent.”49
In this section, I shall try to show that Leibniz neither changed his mind in the
course of the controversy, nor chose, simply for argument’s sake, to defend a prin-
ciple in which he did not believe. Rather, he formulated both a logical and a contin-
gent version of the principle, each applying to a different domain. Clarke’s thought
experiment of God displacing the world in a straight line, however, complicated
matters, as it was not entirely clear to Leibniz which version of the principle should
be applied to this imaginary case.
As we have seen in the previous section, Leibniz first invokes the PII when, in the
third letter (L III.5), he tries to prove that space is nothing other than an order of
coexistence. There he claims that in creating the world God did not need to choose
between two symmetrical spatial arrangements, as in relative space “the one would
exactly be the same as the other, they being absolutely indiscernible.”50 Although
Leibniz does not specify the modal status of the PII, I think that Chernoff is right in
concluding that the logical version is intended here. Leibniz maintains, in fact, that
within a relational theory of space it is impossible even to conceive of two opposite
states, as these are indiscernible and hence identical.51 In his reply, Clarke tries to
refute this argument by making an appeal to the imagination. He argues that, even
within the context of Leibniz’ theory of space, it is conceivable that the world had
been created in another place, or that God could displace it in a straight line.
According to Rodriguez-Pereyra, however, the only passage of the
Correspondence in which Leibniz commits himself to the necessity of the PII is
section 6 of the fourth letter, where he denies that the universe could have occupied
another position in time and space. Clarke’s envisaged scenario is an “impossible
48
Rodriguez-Pereyra 2014, 120.
49
Ibid., 25–26.
50
L.III.5, Alexander 1956, 26.
51
Cf. Chernoff 1981, 130; Rodriguez-Pereyra 2014, 163.
fiction” for “two indiscernible states are the same state.”52 Rodriguez-Pereyra finds
Leibniz’s argumentative strategy “odd.” The discussion between Leibniz and Clarke
at the beginning of the Correspondence “centers on the right understanding of the
principle of sufficient reason.” All Leibniz needs to do, in order to refute Clarke’s
view about God’s freedom of indifference, is “to argue that a mere will cannot serve
as a sufficient reason, and therefore indiscernibles are contrary to God’s wisdom
and rationality – pointing out that they are contrary to his power, that is, that indis-
cernibles are impossible is not relevant to the issue that Leibniz and Clarke are dis-
cussing in those passages.”53
I do not agree with Rodriguez-Pereyra’s interpretation. To begin with, L.IV.6 is
certainly not the only passage in which Leibniz commits himself to the necessity of
the PII. There, Leibniz simply renders explicit what he has already claimed in L.
III.5, namely that the counterfactual scenario of a world having the same internal
arrangement as our world, but occupying a different position in space, is impossible,
as there are no two such alternative positions. Moreover, Leibniz also seems to
appeal to the absolute necessity of the PII in section 15 of the fourth letter, where he
answers Clarke’s question whether God might have created the world sooner in
time:
L.IV.15: It is a like fiction, (that is) an impossible one, to suppose that God might have cre-
ated the world some millions of years sooner. They who run into such kind of fictions, can
give no answer to one that should argue for the eternity of the world. For since God does
nothing without reason, and no reason can be given why he did not create the world sooner;
it will follow, either that he has created nothing at all, or that he created the world before
any assignable time, that is, that the world is eternal. But when once it has been shown, that
the beginning, whenever it was, is always the same thing; the Question, Why it was not
otherwise ordered, becomes needless and insignificant.54
The lines just quoted make clear why, in responding to Clarke’s imaginary scenario,
Leibniz appeals to the logical version of the PII. In Leibniz’ view, space and time do
not exist independently from physical bodies, and hence are not created by God.
Therefore, it would make no sense for Leibniz to claim (as Rodriguez-Pereyra
thinks he should have done) that two indiscernible points of space or two indiscern-
ible instants of time are contrary to God’s wisdom or rationality. This is a claim
which Leibniz can only make with respect to created things, and which, in fact, he
makes with respect to material bodies. In section 3 of the fourth letter Leibniz main-
tains that atoms and vacuum are confuted “by the principles of true metaphysics.”
No two perfectly equal bodies are produced “by him who does nothing without
wisdom […] and consequently there are no such things in nature.”55 In his answer,
Clarke grants Leibniz that “no two leaves, and perhaps no two drops of water are
exactly alike; because they are bodies very much compounded.” This, however,
does not imply that there cannot be two equal “parts of simple solid matter,” that is
52
L.IV.6, Alexander 1956, 37.
53
54
L.IV.15, Alexander 1956, 38–39.
55
L.IV.4, ibid., 36.
274 C. R. Palmerino
to say two equal atoms. “And even in compounds,” Clarke adds, “there is no impos-
sibility for God to make two drops of water exactly alike.”56 Clarke argues, in simi-
lar terms, that “it was no impossibility for God to make the world sooner or later
than he did” or “to destroy it sooner or later than it shall actually be destroyed.”57
In his fifth letter, Leibniz accuses Clarke of playing “with equivocal terms”:
L.V.4: For we must distinguish between an absolute and an hypothetical necessity. We must
also distinguish between a necessity which takes place because the opposite implies a con-
tradiction; (which necessity is called logical, metaphysical or mathematical;) and a neces-
sity which is moral, whereby a wise being chooses the best […].
L.V.5: Hypothetical necessity is that, which the supposition or hypothesis of God’s fore-
sight and pre-ordination lays upon future contingents.58
In his book Rodriguez-Pereyra argues that the distinction between absolute and
hypothetical necessity is not relevant to the understanding of the PII as “Leibniz
never doubted that the Identity of Indiscernibles was hypothetically necessary since
for Leibniz even what is contingent in itself is necessary given the will of God.”59
Contrary to Rodriguez-Pereyra, I think that Leibniz introduces the distinction pre-
cisely in order to clarify the modal status of his claims regarding the non-existence
of indiscernibles. From Leibniz’s point of view, the two cases mentioned by Clarke
in the fourth letter are not equivalent: while it would have been absolutely impos-
sible for God to create the world sooner or later than he did, the creation of two
equal bodies is only impossible given the hypothesis of God’s wisdom.
As far as the creation of the world in time and space is concerned, Leibniz
observes that “things being resolved upon, together with their relations; there
remains no longer any choice about the time and the place, which of themselves
have nothing in them real, nothing that can distinguish them, nothing that is at all
discernible.”60 Clarke’s claim that God “may have good reasons” to create the world
“in what particular space and at what particular time he pleased” hence makes no
sense within the framework of Leibniz’s theory, because time and space, “consid-
ered without the things,” are an “impossible fiction.”61 Here, as in previous letters,
Leibniz uses the expression “impossible fiction” in order to indicate something
which cannot be conceived. Two identical pieces of matter or two identical drops of
water are, by contrast, conceivable, and this is why Leibniz considers their existence
morally, but not absolutely impossible:
L.V.21: I infer from that principle [i.e., the principle of sufficient reason], among other
consequences, that there are not in nature two real, absolute beings, indiscernible from each
other; because if there were, God and nature would act without reason, in ordering the one
otherwise than the other; and that therefore God does not produce two pieces of matter
56
C.IV.3-4, ibid., 46.
57
C.IV.15, ibid., 49.
58
L.V.4-5, ibid., 56.
59
60
L.V.57, Alexander 1956, 76.
61
L.V.58, ibid., 76–77.
perfectly equal and alike […]. This supposition of two indiscernibles, such as two pieces of
matter perfectly alike, seems indeed to be possible in abstract terms; but it is not consistent
with the order of things, nor with the divine wisdom, by which nothing is admitted without
reason.62
In V.25 Leibniz makes clear, once more, that when he denies “that there are two
drops of water perfectly alike, or any two other bodies indiscernible from each
other,” he does not mean that it is “absolutely impossible to suppose them; but that
‘tis a thing contrary to the divine wisdom and which consequently does not exist.”63
Contrary to Rodriguez-Pereyra, I see no reason to doubt the sincerity of Leibniz’s
claims. Leibniz’s scope, in sections 21 and 25 of the fifth letter, is not “to make
Clarke believe that he maintains the contingency of the Identity of Indiscernibles,”
but simply to clarify on which grounds he denies the existence of two indiscernible
material bodies.64
The fact that in the fifth letter Leibniz admits the conceivability of two identical
material bodies is, however, not sufficient reason to conclude, like Chernoff does,
that he has abandoned the logical version of the PII in favour of the contingent ver-
sion. For, as we have just seen, in the very same letter Leibniz uses the logical ver-
sion of the PII in order to deny “that the wisdom of God may have good reason to
create this world at such or such a particular time.”65
But although I believe that the logical and the contingent version of the PII coex-
ist in the Correspondence, there is one passage of the fourth letter in which, as noted
by Chernoff, Leibniz seems to invoke both versions of the principle at the same
time. In commenting upon the thought experiment of God displacing the world in a
straight line, Leibniz writes:
L.IV.13: To say that God can cause the whole universe to move forward in a right line, or in
any other line, without making otherwise any alteration in it: is another chimerical supposi-
tion. For two states indiscernible from each other, are the same state; and consequently, ‘tis
a change without any change. Besides, there is neither rhyme nor reason in it. But God does
nothing without reason; and ‘tis impossible there should be any here. Besides, it would be
agendo nihil agere, as I have just now said, because of the indiscernibility.66
In the first part of the argument (which was briefly discussed in the previous sec-
tion), Leibniz seems to suggest that the hypothesis of God moving the whole world
in a straight line represents a logical impossibility because, due to the PII, the two
positions are, in fact, one and the same. In the second part of the argument, however,
he invokes the PSR in order to argue that God would have no reason to displace the
world in a straight line. Contrary to Chernoff, I do not interpret this apparent incon-
sistency as a sign of a Darwinian struggle between the two principles, but rather as
an indication that Clarke’s thought experiment represented a difficult test case for
Leibniz’s theory of space.
62
L.V.21, ibid., 60–61.
63
L.V.25, ibid., 62.
64
65
L.V.58, Alexander 1956, 70–71.
66
L.IV.13, ibid., 38.
276 C. R. Palmerino
As mentioned above, in the Correspondence Leibniz uses the contingent version

of the PII when speaking about God’s potentia ordinata, that is to say the power
exercised at the moment of creation. The fact that it is possible for us to conceive
two equal atoms or two equal drops of water, means that, absolutely speaking, it
would have been possible for God to create them. The existence of indiscernible
bodies is, however, morally impossible, as the best possible world is one which
maximizes variety. Leibniz uses the logical version of the PII when talking about
God’s potentia absoluta, that is to say, about the possibilities that were open to him
at the moment of creation. According to his theory of space, the question whether
God could have created the world in another place does not arise as, in the absence
of bodies, two points of space “would not at all differ from one another.”67
The scholastic scenario of God displacing the whole world brings some confu-
sion into this distinction, as it entails a supernatural intervention in the created
world. This explains, in my view, why Leibniz does not offer a straightforward solu-
tion to the thought experiment. He denies, on the one hand, that the world is finite
and movable, and stresses, on the other hand, that even if it were finite, the situation
described by Clarke could not occur. It is, however, not clear whether Leibniz
regards the scenario as absolutely or rather as morally impossible. There are pas-
sages in which, as we have seen, he suggests that God could not move the world in
a straight line for the same reason for which he could not have created the world in
another place, namely that the successive positions the world would occupy during
its motion are, in fact, one and the same, and absolutely indiscernible from one
another. In other passages, however, Leibniz seems to maintain that the scenario of
God displacing the world in a straight line is conceivable, and hence possible, but
that God would have no reason to produce a motion which has no effect and cannot
be observed.
If considered from the point of view of Leibniz’s theory of space, the two coun-
terfactual scenarios discussed in the Correspondence, namely that of God assigning
another position to the world at the moment of creation and that of God displacing
the world in a straight line, are not equivalent. Clarke’s first scenario takes place in
what we might call a “pre-mundane” space, whereas the theatre of the second sce-
nario is an extramundane space. Leibniz’s definition of space as “the order of bodies
among themselves” (L.III.5) obviously rules out the possibility of a space existing
prior to the creation of the world. But what about a space beyond the created world?
As we shall see in the following section, it is not clear whether Leibniz was willing
to allow the possibility of such an extramundane space.
67
L.III.5, ibid., 26.
12.4 L
eibniz on the Possible Existence of Extramundane
Void Space
In a passage in the fourth letter to Clarke, Leibniz claims that “the same reason,
which shows that extramundane space is imaginary, proves that all empty space is
an imaginary thing; for they differ only as greater and less.”68 These lines have given
rise to contrasting interpretations. While, according to Michael Futch, ‘imaginary’
must here be understood as meaning ‘impossible,’69 Gregory Brown attributes to
Leibniz a view similar to that of Suarez, who called ‘imaginary’ a space that may be
occupied by a body.70 Edward Grant, by contrast, believes that Leibniz uses ‘imagi-
nary’ as synonymous with ‘non-existent,’ and thereby displays a wrong understand-
ing of scholastic authors.71
Grant’s interpretation is implicitly confirmed by a passage from Clarke’s third
reply, which was, in turn, written in reaction to an observation made in the private
letter – now lost – which accompanied Leibniz’s third paper. In the letter Leibniz
must have used the expression ‘imaginary space’ to deny the reality of both intra-
mundane and extramundane void, as Clarke felt the need to specify that the ancients
used the term ‘imaginary’ not to refer to “all space which is void of bodies, but only
extramundane space. The meaning of which is not that such space is not real; but
only that we are wholly ignorant of what kinds of things are in that space.” Clarke
added that “those writers, who by the word imaginary meant at any time to affirm
that space was not real; did not thereby prove, that it was not real.”72 Also in this
case, Clarke did not manage to persuade his interlocutor. If we look at Leibniz’s
fifth letter, we see that Leibniz uses again the adjective ‘imaginary’ to deny the real-
ity of space. In L.V.29, quoted in section 2 above, he claims that one of the reasons
why “the fiction of a material universe, moving forward in an infinite empty space
cannot be admitted” is that “there is no real space out of the material universe.”73 A
few pages later, Leibniz refers to both the void space out of the world and that
within the world as ‘imaginary’.
L.V.33: Since space is in itself an ideal thing, like time: space out of the world must needs
be imaginary, as the schoolmen themselves have acknowledged. The case is the same with
empty space within the world; which I take also to be imaginary, for the reasons before
alleged.74
68
L.IV.7, ibid., 37.
69
Futch 2008, 50. Futch who, somewhat unexpectedly, does not discuss the thought experiment of
God displacing the world in a straight line, maintains that according to Leibniz the PII is incompat-
ible not only with Newtonian space, but also with empty space. Nicholas Rescher also attributes to
Leibniz the view that void is impossible (Rescher 1967, 94).
70
Suarez 1597, Disputatio 51, sectio 1, 24. See Brown 2016, 209, n6. Ezio Vailati (1997, 117)
believes, like Brown, that Leibniz regarded extramundane space as metaphysically possible.
71
Grant 1981, 412, n86.
72
C.III.2, Alexander 1956, 31.
73
L.V.29, ibid., 63 (my emphasis).
74
L.V.33, ibid., 64.
278 C. R. Palmerino
The “reasons before alleged” are those which Leibniz had put forward in the fourth
letter. They were grounded “upon the necessity of a sufficient reason,” according to
which the universe is indefinitely extended, as “there is no possible reason, that can
limit the quantity of matter,” and no vacuum is found in nature, “for the perfection
of matter is to that of a vacuum as something to nothing.”75 But in Clarke’s view, an
affirmation, like Leibniz’s, that there is no void space beyond the world or within
the world does not amount to denying the possibility of an extramundane vacuum in
which a finite world could be moved. This is why Clarke polemically observes, in
the fifth letter, that Leibniz “must either affirm, that ‘t was impossible for God to
make the material world finite and moveable; or else he must of necessity allow the
strength of my argument [i.e., the argument of God displacing the world in a straight
line] drawn from the possibility of the world’s being finite and moveable.”76
As we have seen, when challenging Leibniz’s interpretation of ‘imaginary space’
Clarke invoked the authority of the ancients. One of the arguments ancient philoso-
phers had used in order to prove the existence of an extramundane empty space is
the thought experiment of the man at the edge of the universe, which is mentioned
in Frederik Bakker’s and Miguel Ángel Granada’s contributions to this volume.77
The thought experiment was a source of inspiration for several early modern think-
ers, among them John Locke, who presented it in the Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, Book II, Chap. 13, Sect. 2178:
A vacuum beyond the utmost bounds of body. But to return to our idea of space. If body be
not supposed infinite, (which I think no one will affirm), I would ask, whether, if God
placed a man at the extremity of corporeal beings, he could not stretch his hand beyond his
body? If he could, then he would put his arm where there was before space without body;
and if there he spread his fingers, there would still be space between them without body. If
he could not stretch out his hand, it must be because of some external hindrance […]: and
then I ask, – whether that which hinders his hand from moving outwards be substance or
accident, something or nothing? And when they have resolved that, they will be able to
resolve themselves, – what that is, which is or may be between two bodies at a distance, that
is not body, and has no solidity. In the mean time, the argument is at least as good, that,
where nothing hinders, (as beyond the utmost bounds of all bodies), a body put in motion
may move on, as where there is nothing between, there two bodies must necessarily touch.
For pure space between is sufficient to take away the necessity of mutual contact; but bare
space in the way is not sufficient to stop motion. The truth is, these men must either own
that they think body infinite, though they are loth to speak it out, or else affirm that space is
not body.79
Locke’s thought experiment, which took aim at the Cartesian identification of mat-
ter and extension, was based on the premise that material bodies were necessarily
bounded and finite, a premise which, in his view, Descartes’ followers could not but
accept.
75
L.IV.21, ibid., 39–40; L.IV. post scriptum, ibid., 44.
76
C.V.52–53, ibid., 104.
77
For an analysis of various ancient versions of this thought experiment, see Ierodiakonou 2011.
78
This and other Lockean thought experiments are discussed in Soles and Bradfield 2001.
79
Locke 1975, 175–176.
It is interesting to point out that Leibniz, who in the New Essays extensively
reacted to most of Locke’s thought experiments, did not comment on the scenario of
the man at the edge of the universe, but limited himself to rejecting the premise on
which it was based, namely the finitude of the world. When Philalethes, Locke’s
spokesman in the dialogue, declares that “no one will venture to affirm that body,
like space, is infinite,” Theophilus observes:
Descartes and his followers, in making the world out to be indefinite so that we cannot
conceive of any end to it, have said that matter has no limits. They have some reason for
replacing the term ‘infinite’ by ‘indefinite,’ for there is never an infinite whole in the world,
though there are always wholes greater than others ad infinitum. As I have shown else-
where, the universe itself cannot be considered to be a whole.80
In the New Essays, just as in the Correspondence, Leibniz speaks of the universe as
being indefinite or unlimited, but not infinite, for, as he explains in the manuscript
Quelques remarques sur le livre de Monsieur Locke intitulé Essay of Understanding,
“the real infinite cannot be found in a whole composed of parts.”81 The reason
behind this conclusion is that an infinite universe would violate the axiom according
to which a whole must always be greater than its parts.82 In the last sentence of the
passage quoted above Leibniz asserts, however, that even an indefinite or unlimited
universe “cannot be considered to be a whole.” This claim is clarified by a passage
of a letter to Des Bosses of 11 March 1706, where Leibniz observes that “it is of the
essence of number, of a line, and of a whole to be limited.”83
According to Michael Futch, in the New Essays Leibniz denies that the world is
an infinite whole, but not that “space is infinitely extended.” Futch interprets the fact
that Leibniz did not directly respond to the thought experiment from the Essay as a
sign that he tacitly approved “Locke’s conclusion, if not the route by which he
arrives at it. […] Had Leibniz wanted to deny that space is infinite it is hard to imag-
ine him passing on this opportunity.”84
However, as the title of Book II, Chap. 13, Sect. 21 of the Essay (A vacuum
beyond the utmost bounds of body) indicates, the function of Locke’s thought exper-
iment was not to demonstrate the infinity of space, but rather the existence of that
extramundane void which, according to Futch’s own interpretation, Leibniz consid-
ered impossible. There were only two ways in which Leibniz could express his
disagreement with Locke. The first was to propose an alternative interpretation of
the scenario, by denying that the man at the edge of the world would be able to
extend his hand into the void. The second – which Leibniz chose – was to refute the
very premise on which the thought experiment was based, by denying that the world
is bounded.
80
Leibniz 1996, 150–151.
81
“Le véritable infini ne se trouve point dans un tout, composé de parties.” (Leibniz 1875–1890,
VI.6, 7).
82
See Arthur 2001; Van Atten 2011.
83
Leibniz 1875–1890, II, 304, quoted in Arthur 2001, 112.
84
Futch 2008, 24.
280 C. R. Palmerino
As we have seen, both in the New Essays and in the Correspondence Leibniz
infers the non-existence of an extramundane void space from the non-finitude of the
world. But what would happen if the universe were finite? Would the man be able to
stretch out his hand into the void, and would God be able to move the world in a
straight line?
As far as Clarke’s thought experiment is concerned, Leibniz claims, as we have
seen, that the motion of the entire world is an “impossible fiction,” since the succes-
sive positions would be indiscernible from one another and hence coincide. Such a
conclusion is supported by the fact that, according to Leibniz’s relational theory of
space, there is no stable frame of reference in respect to which the entire world
would move. This is why Leibniz claims in the fifth letter that “what is moveable,
must be capable of changing its situation with respect to something else, and to be
in a new state discernible from the first: otherwise the change is like a fiction. A
moveable finite, must be therefore part of another finite, that any change may hap-
pen which can be observed.”85 This answer would, of course, not be applicable to
Locke’s thought experiment, in which the moveable finite (i.e. the hand of the man)
is part of another finite (i.e. the world). This explains, in my view, why Leibniz did
not comment on Locke’s thought experiment, but limited himself to claiming that
the universe “cannot be considered to be a whole.” Had he granted that the world is
finite, it would have been difficult for him to deny the conceivability, and hence the
possibility, of the scenario described by Locke.
As Edward Khamara has observed, Leibniz rules out “the possibility of a spatial
world containing no material objects at all,” but he “does not rule out the possibility
of unoccupied places” in a world in which material objects exist. For if an actual
frame of reference is given, then “all the possibilities of being situated relatively to
that frame of reference are also given. This at once guarantees, a priori, both the
continuity and infinite extent of relative space.”86 Put differently: while before the
creation of the world no space existed, and hence no frame of reference was given,
the actual physical objects constitute the very frame of reference in relation to which
unoccupied places can be located. This means that, if the world is finite, it must be
possible to individuate a place in the extramundane void space in which a man
would be able to extend his hand.
But if this is true, should one not also conclude that it is possible for God to indi-
viduate a point in the extramundane void space towards which he could move the
entire world? And is then Clarke not right in claiming that his proposed scenario is
“drawn from the possibility of the world’s being finite and moveable”?87 Leibniz’s
answer that one “ought not to admit a moveable universe; nor any place out of the
material universe” is based on the observation that motion depends “upon being
possible to be observed” and that “when there is no change that can be observed,
there is no change at all.”88 At the same time, however, Leibniz grants Clarke that
85
L.V.31, Alexander 1956, 64.
86
Khamara 2006, 42.
87
C.V.52–53, Alexander 1956, 104.
88
L.V.52, ibid., 74.
there is a difference between an absolute true motion of a body, and a mere relative change
of its situation with respect to another body. For when the immediate cause of change is in
the body, that body is truly in motion; and then the situation of other bodies with respect to
it, will be changed consequently, though the cause of that change be not in them.89
Scholars have proposed various interpretations of the latter passage, none of which
explicitly links Leibniz’s concession to Clarke’s thought experiment.90 As a matter
of fact, Leibniz is reacting here to a point made by Clarke in the fourth letter, accord-
ing to which God would impart to the world a “real motion” having “real effects.”
In his answer Leibniz looks at the thought experiment from two different points of
view, namely that of God’s action and that of the resulting motion. The very con-
ceivability of Clarke’s scenario makes it difficult for Leibniz to deny that it would
be possible for God to exert a force on the world. At the same time, however, he
stresses that God’s action would be without effect and would result in a non-motion,
as there would be no change in the relative position of physical bodies.
12.5 Conclusion
As we have seen in this chapter, imaginary scenarios play a central role in the debate
between Leibniz and Clarke concerning the nature of space and time. In order to
stress the, in his view, absurd implications of Leibniz’s theory, Clarke argues that “if
space was nothing but the order of things coexisting,” (C.III.4) then it would follow
that God could neither have created the world in a different place, nor could remove
the entire world in a straight line. In both cases the spatial relations among objects
would, in fact, remain unchanged.
In his reaction Leibniz invokes the PII in order to argue that Clarke’s thought
experiments are “impossible fictions” (L.IV.6; L.IV.13). He points out that, accord-
ing to a relational theory of space, the alternative locations and the successive posi-
tions of the world would, in fact, be indiscernible, and hence coincide. However,
while Leibniz is adamant that it would have been impossible for God to assign to the
world a different location in space, he seems not be able to decide whether the rec-
tilinear motion of the entire world would be “impossible,” (IV.6) or simply “unrea-
sonable” (L.V.29; L.V.52). Fred Chernoff has interpreted this hesitation as a sign of
the fact that in the course of the Correspondence Leibniz changed his mind regard-
ing the modal status of the PII, abandoning a logical version of the principle in
favour of a contingent version.
In the present chapter I have argued against Chernoff, but also against a more
recent interpretation of the PII proposed by Rodriguez-Pereyra, that two different
versions of the PII coexist in the Correspondence. Leibniz uses the logical version
of the principle when talking about the possibilities that were open to God prior to
the act of creation (potentia absoluta), and the contingent version when talking
89
L.V.53, ibid.
90
See, among others, Alexander 1956, xxvi; Cook 1979, 50ff; Vailati 1997, 131; Arthur 1994, 231.
282 C. R. Palmerino
about the created world (potentia ordinata). The thought experiment of God dis-
placing the world in straight line, which was used by medieval authors in order to
prove that God should be able to do anything that did not imply a logical contradic-
tion, represents a difficult test case for Leibniz, as it implies a divine intervention in
the created world.
Within the framework of a relational theory of space Clarke’s first thought exper-
iment is simply impossible, as there are no alternative locations from which God
would be able to choose. But once the world is assumed to be in place, as in the
second thought experiment, it is not unconceivable that God would impart a motion
to it. However, as Leibniz notices, this would be an action without effect (agendo
nihil agere), as the motion of the entire world would produce no observable change.
This explains why, in the fifth letter, Leibniz labels Clarke’s scenario as “unreason-
able” and “impractical” rather than as “impossible.”
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Correction to: The End of Epicurean
Infinity: Critical Reflections
on the Epicurean Infinite Universe
Frederik A. Bakker
Correction to:
Chapter 3 in: F. A. Bakker et al. (eds.), Space, Imagination and
the Cosmos from Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, Studies
in History and Philosophy of Science 48,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_3
Owing to an oversight on the part of Springer, Chapter 3 was initially published as

a regular chapter. However, this is an Open Access chapter.
The updated version of this chapter can be found at

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_3
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 C1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0_13
Index
A Aristotle, 2, 4–7, 11–38, 42, 45, 50, 61, 72, 73,

Acerbi, F., 226 76–80, 84, 85, 91–93, 95, 96, 98–100,
Aertsen, J., 70 102–104, 107, 108, 110–115, 117, 118,
Aëtius, 53 120–123, 127–129, 134, 136, 142–145,
Agostini, I., 71 147–149, 152, 159–161, 163, 165, 168,
Agrippa, H.C., 206 170, 174, 175, 180, 184, 185, 188, 190,
Aiguillon, F. d’, 188 193, 194, 196, 221, 234, 240, 242, 243,
Albert of Saxony, 241–243, 252 246, 252–254, 267, 269
Albert the Great, 73, 74, 77, 121, 137, 252 Arius Didymus, 48
Alberti, L.B., 181 Arnim, H.F. von, 45, 48
Albertson, D., 108, 120 Arrighetti, G., 43, 44
Alessandrelli, M., 160 Arthur, R., 265, 270, 279, 281
Alexander of Aphrodisias, 12, 34–37 Asmis, E., 42, 44, 45, 58, 59
Alexander, R.G., 262, 264–270, 272–275, 277, Atomists, 3, 5, 7, 29, 30, 42, 45, 53, 56, 98,
280, 281 108, 129, 225
Al-Ghazali, 121 Augustine of Hippo, Saint, 70, 77, 109, 110,
Algra, K., 4–7, 11–14, 16, 21, 23, 25, 27–31, 113, 122, 126, 182, 183, 190, 202
34, 38, 44, 46, 48, 160, 187 Augustinianism, 183, 196
Allen, J., 59 Avempace (Ibn Bajja), 13, 26, 35, 85
Amato, B., 158, 168 Averroes (Ibn Rushd), 13, 15, 21, 30, 34, 35,
Ambrose, Saint, 70 80, 82, 85, 93, 97, 99, 101, 102, 104
Amico, B., 254 Aversa, R., 234, 241–243, 250
Anfray, J.-P., 71 Avicenna (Ibn Sina), 117, 121
Annas, J.E., 115 Avotins, I., 42, 45
Archimedeans, 218, 224
Archimedes, 263
Archytas, 6, 45 B
Ariew, R., 138 Bacon, F., 190, 207
Aristotelianism, 2, 5, 12, 16, 18, 24–26, 28, Bailey, C., 43, 44, 46, 49, 55, 60, 62
31, 32, 36, 37, 70–73, 76, 79, 80, 82, Bailhache, P., 212
85, 86, 91–93, 95, 100, 108, 124, 129, Baius, M., 183
133, 142, 143, 149, 152, 153, 158–160, Bakker, F.A., 6, 7, 44, 45, 47, 49–53, 56, 59,
173, 174, 180, 190, 193, 195, 203, 208, 61–63, 278
224, 225, 235, 240 Bakker, P.J.J.M., 85, 108

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02765-0
286 Index
Baldi, B., 224 Cappelletti, L., 78

Baliani, G.B., 226 Caroline of Ansbach, Princess, 261, 262
Baldini, U., 185, 221 Carraud, V., 202
Barcaro, U., 226 Casati, P., 268
Barker, P., 184 Cassiodorus, 118
Beaulieu, A., 207 Castelli, B., 190
Bede, Saint, 195 Castellote Cubells, S., 134, 140
Bellis, D., 5–8, 143 Cazre, P. le, 226
Beltrán, M., 140 Cesalli, L., 111
Bénatouïl, T., 59 Ceyssens, L., 180
Bergson, H., 13 Chalcidius, 113, 164
Bernes, A.-C., 180 Chaldean Oracles, 72
Besler, H., 169 Charleton, W., 246
Biancani, G., 184 Chatelain, A., 74
Biard, J., 70, 71, 79, 80 Chernoff, F., 263, 266, 271, 272, 275, 281
Bloch, O., 240, 246, 256, 257 Chrysippus, 49
Blumenberg, H., 164, 224 Cicero, 44, 52, 54, 57, 63
Bodin, J., 227 Clark, J.T., 234
Boer, S. W. de, 85, 108 Clarke, S., 6–8, 14, 33, 92, 261–282
Boethius, 108, 110, 118–120, 122, 124, 127 Clarke, W.N., 57
Bonaventure (Bonaventura), 27, 72–74, 78 Clavelin, M., 71
Bostock, D., 14, 34 Clavius, C., 184
Boulier, P., 221 Clement of Alexandria, 195
Boulliaud (Boulliau), I., 143, 226 Cleomedes, 6, 32, 45, 49, 50, 57, 92, 147, 267
Boulnois, O., 76 Cohen, F.H., 217
Boute, B., 183 Coimbrans (Coimbra Jesuits /
Boutroux, P., 211 Conimbricenses), 6, 134, 240, 242,
Bradfield, K., 278 249–251, 253
Brahe, T., 180, 184, 190, 192, 193, 207, 208, Conti, A., 111
210, 214, 223, 225, 234–238 Cook, J.W., 281
Brown, G., 277 Copernicanism, 184, 190, 192, 195, 196, 213,
Brundell, B., 234, 236–238, 240 220, 226
Brunianism, 246 Copernicans, 180, 186–192, 208, 210, 218,
Bruno, G., 5, 6, 8, 56, 129, 151, 152, 157–176, 234, 236–238
202, 213, 214, 234, 235, 238, 239, 244 Copernicus, N., 4, 180, 184, 192, 195, 213,
Bucciantini, M., 218 236–239
Buccolini, C., 203, 204, 213, 218, 223 Cornelli, G., 118
Burkert, W., 118 Cornford, F.M., 62, 164
Burley, W., 121 Corsi, F.G., 63
Burnyeat, M., 33 Costabel, P., 218, 222
Büttner, J., 226 Coujou, J.-P., 138, 140
Buzon, F. de, 211, 212 Courtenay, W.J., 163
Cross, R., 70, 92, 93
Croy, Cardinal Guillaume de, 181
C Ctesibius, 224
Cabbala, 207 Cusa, Nicolas/Nicholas of, 64, 108, 129, 172
Cafiero, L., 206 Cyril of Alexandria, 195
Calenus, H., 183
Cambridge Platonists, 146
Campanus of Novara, 126 D
Canone, E., 239 Dainton, B., 268
Čapek, M., 2, 3 Damascius, 14
Capella, M., 118, 190 Darling, D., 42, 56
Index 287
Dear, P., 214, 221, 226 Ferrara, Duke of, 150

Deitz, L., 134, 147, 150, 207 Ficino (Ficinus), M., 152, 164
Delle Colombe, L., 203 Fienus, T., 190, 195
Del Prete, A., 151, 163, 171, 213, 239 Fludd, R., 202–204, 206–208, 210, 214, 227
Demange, D., 78 Fonseca, P. da, 249, 250, 253, 254
Democritus, 7, 42, 53, 98, 110–112, 126 Fortenbaugh, W., 12
Denifle, H., 74 Fowler, D.P., 56
De Risi, V., 134, 137, 144, 145, 150–153, 234 Fraenkel, C., 175
Des Bosses, B., 279 Franciscans, 81, 92, 94, 97, 98
Descartes, R., 6, 13, 14, 71, 82, 138, 143, 146, Francis of Marchia, 75, 78, 81–84
202–204, 212, 214, 218, 221, 222, Froidmont (Fromondus), L., 6, 179–196
224–226, 240, 248, 278, 279 Funkenstein, A., 3, 4, 71
Desclos, M.-L., 12 Furley, D.J., 12, 13, 42, 45, 47, 49–51
De Smet, I., 181 Futch, M., 277, 279
De Vittori, T., 145, 148, 150
Dick, S.J., 42, 56
Diels, H.A., 45 G
Diogenes of Oenoanda, 46, 54, 63 Gaffurio (Gaffurius), F., 206, 217
Dowd, M.F., 42 Galilei, G., 2, 71, 80, 82, 86, 129, 140, 162,
Drabkin, I.E., 221 180, 184, 185, 202–204, 210, 213, 214,
Drake, F.D., 56 218–222, 224, 226, 227, 234, 236, 238,
Druys, J., 182 239, 246
Duba, W., 5, 7, 95, 98, 99 Galilei, V., 217
Duhem, P., 27, 70, 81, 82, 92, 98, 101, 102, Gallanzoni, G., 218
161 Galluzzi, P., 218, 221, 226
Duvergier de Hauranne, J., 182 Gassendi, P., 2, 5–8, 71, 140, 145, 162, 204,
206, 207, 222, 233–257
Gaultier de La Valette, J., 206
E Gays, G., 190
Edelheit, A., 147 George II, King of England, 262
Einstein, A., 3 Gerald Odon (Gerardus Odonis / Guiral Ot),
Epicureanism, 2, 3, 159, 162, 234, 246 85, 98, 108
Epicureans, 2, 8, 42–65, 159, 160, 233, 236, Gilbert of Poitiers (Gilbert de la Porée), 114,
238, 239, 244–246, 254 137
Epicurus, 4, 7, 14, 21, 41–65, 162, 163, 233, Giles of Rome, 72, 80, 81, 84
238, 239, 244, 246 Giorgi, A., 224
Erasmus, D., 181 Giorgi, F., 206
Esmaeili, M.J., 78 Giovannozzi, D., 71
Étienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris, 7, 32, 101, Glauser, R., 138
240, 242, 267, 269 Gloriosi, C., 193
Euclid, 2, 108, 113, 126, 128, 150, 216 Goclenius, C., 181
Eudemus of Rhodes, 12, 26, 32, 37 Goclenius, R., 242, 254
Evans, G.R., 70 Goris, W., 98
Evans, J., 62 Gottschalk, H., 12
Grafton, A., 185
Granada, M.Á., 5, 6, 8, 158, 163, 165, 184,
F 191, 213, 278
Fabbri, N., 6–8, 202, 211, 212, 218 Grant, E., 2, 3, 8, 13, 31, 33, 70, 71, 107, 108,
Fabri, H., 226 158, 161, 165–167, 169, 173, 174, 176,
Faes de Mottoni, B., 73 223, 240, 242, 251, 253, 254, 266, 267,
Fantechi, E., 158, 162, 164, 169, 172 277
Favaro, A., 188 Gregorius XIII, Pope, 183
Ferdinand of Austria, Cardinal-Infante, 183 Gregory of Rimini, 79, 80, 84, 85
288 Index
Gregory the Great, 190 John Buridan, 13, 15, 79, 242
Grellard, C., 70, 98, 99 John Duns Scotus, 5–7, 74–78, 80–83, 92–94,
Grienberger, C., 184 97, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 137, 223,
242
John of Damascus (Damascenus), 73, 138
H John of Ripa (Jean de Ripa), 8, 32,
Hamesse, J., 100 71, 253
Hammerstaedt, J., 54 John Wyclif, 5, 7, 107–129
Harrison, P., 214 Jolley, N., 271
Harvey, W.Z., 175 Joly, B., 214
Hasdai Crescas, 108, 161
Heider, D., 137
Helden, A. van, 239 K
Henry, J., 137, 143, 144, 148, 152, 158, 214, Kaluza, Z., 113
234 Kambouchner, D., 146
Henry of Ghent, 5, 74–77, 242, 253 Kechagia, E., 53
Henry of Harclay, 98 Kelter, I.A., 195
Heraclides, 189 Kepler, J., 184–185, 188, 191, 202–204,
Hero of Alexandria, 224 207–208, 210–214, 216–218, 226–227,
Hesiod, 18, 170 234, 236, 238, 239
Hilary of Poitiers, Saint, 70 Khamara, E.J., 266, 280
Hissette, R., 74 King, P., 120
Hobbes, T., 71, 140 Kircher, A., 227
Homer, 174 Kirschner, S., 108
Horky, P.S., 118 Konstan, D., 44–46, 51, 162
Hugh/Hugo of St. Victor, 73 Koyré, A., 1–2, 4, 71, 129, 158, 162–163, 234,
Humbert, P., 236 239, 257
Hume, D., 58 Kranz, W., 45
Hussey, E., 14, 22, 34 Kretzmann, N., 109, 125
I L
Iamblichus, 14 Lafleur, C., 92, 101
Ierodiakonou, K., 6, 45, 278 Lahey, S.E., 110
Ingoli, F., 219, 239 Lamæus, R., 183
Innocent X, Pope, 183 La Mothe Le Vayer, F. de, 208
Inwood, B., 44 Lansberg (Landsberg), P., 186, 226
Ioannes Baptista Rasarius, 137 Lapide, Cornelius a (Cornelius van den Steyn),
Irigaray, L., 13 195
Itard, J., 145 Laplanche, F., 191
Leibniz, G.W., 6–8, 14, 33, 92, 145, 150,
261–282
J Leijenhorst, C., 71, 140, 249
Jacobi, F.H., 175 Leinkauf, T., 145
Jaffro, L., 71 Lenoble, R., 204, 212, 221, 222
Jammer, M., 3, 71 Leone, G., 63
Jansen, J.E., 182 Lerner, M.-P., 184, 185, 218
Jansenism, 196 Lettink, P., 13, 21, 26, 34, 35
Jansenius, C., 179, 181–183, 195–196 Leucippus, 42
Jerome, Saint, 70, 195 Levin, F.R., 118
Jesuits, 133, 134, 140, 182–184, 188–189, Levy, I.C., 110
195–196 Lewis, N., 121, 122, 223
Joachim of Fiore, 202 Liddell, H.G., 61
Index 289
Lin, M., 269 N

Lincei, Accademia dei, 220, 221 Nannius, P., 181
Lipsius, J., 180, 181, 188 Nardi, B., 72
Locke, J., 6, 278–280 Neoplatonism, 14, 57, 72, 118, 127, 134, 143,
Lohr, C.H., 137 152, 169, 194, 202, 216
LoLordo, A., 235, 246 Neopythagoreanism, 5, 108, 109, 111, 116,
Long, A.A., 43, 44, 51, 59 118–123, 127, 128
Lovejoy, A.O., 56, 163 Newton, I., 3, 4, 7, 8, 14, 71, 145, 146, 162,
Lucian (Lucianus), 181, 185 234, 235, 246, 257, 261–265, 268,
Lucretius, 6, 42–59, 61, 63, 64, 159, 162, 163, 270, 277
224, 236, 254 Nicholas Bonet (Bonetus), 5, 81–82, 92–94,
Lüthy, C., 71 97–105, 108
Lyceum, 12, 23 Nicholas of Autrécourt, 98, 108
Nicole Oresme, 33, 108, 147, 241–243, 249,
266–267
M Nicomachus of Gerasa, 118–119, 124, 127
Machamer, P.K., 3 Normore, C., 71
Macrobius, 118
Magni, V., 224
Mahoney, E., 74 O
Maier, A., 70, 92, 98, 121 O’Keefe, T., 51
Maimon, S., 175 Ophuijsen, J. van, 12, 13, 34
Maimonides, 175 Orcibal, J., 182
Makovský, J., 150, 151 Osiander, A., 237
Mamiani, M., 2, 246, 255 Oviedo, Francisco de, 142
Margolin, J.-C., 213 Owen, G., 14
Marion, J.-L., 211, 212, 218
Mash, R., 42, 56
Matthew, T., 190 P
Matthew of Aquasparta, 74, 78 Paganini, G., 71, 249, 250
Maury, J.-P., 221 Palisca, C.V., 217
McGuire, J.E., 234 Palmerino, C.R., 6–8, 86, 221, 226, 234, 237,
McMullin, E., 191 238, 256, 257
Mehl, É., 138, 151, 206 Panti, C., 74, 121
Mendell, H., 120 Pantin, I., 6, 7, 181, 185, 188, 189, 237
Mersenne, M., 6–8, 143, 201–228, 248 Pascal, B., 145
Methuen, C., 212 Pasnau, R., 71
Metrodorus, 42 Patrizi, F., 5–7, 133–134, 137, 142–153, 158,
Meyer, E., 226 207, 214, 234, 242, 243, 246
Michael, E., 109, 112 Paz, F., 190
Miller, D.M., 2, 4 Peiresc, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de, 206, 236
Molanus, J., 183 Pena, J., 184, 188
Molina, L. de, 182, 195 Pépin, J., 167
Monantheuil, H. de, 224 Peripatetics, 12, 23, 24, 99, 142, 173, 235
Monchamp, G., 180, 188 Petagine, A., 2, 71
Moraw, P., 70 Peter Abelard, 120, 121
More, H., 71, 145, 146 Peter Auriol (Petrus Aurioli), 5, 92–97,
Morin, J.-B., 237 103–105
Morison, B., 13, 31–33, 36 Peter John Olivi, 74, 78, 242
Muccillo, M., 145–146, 234 Peter Lombard, 70, 73, 77, 190
Mueller, I., 128 Peterschmitt, L., 2, 3
Müller, I., 111 Petronius, 181
Murdoch, J.E., 98, 121 Philip, J.A., 118
290 Index
Philoponus, J., 5, 12, 13, 16, 21, 23–25, 27, Rommevaux, S., 70
30, 34–36, 85, 108, 137, 161, 194, 253 Roques, M., 108
Piccolomini, A., 224 Roseman, P.W., 70
Piché, D., 74 Ross, W.D., 174
Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco, 161 Rothmann, C., 184
Pines, S., 175 Rouse, W.H.D., 42, 46, 47, 50, 52, 53, 55, 56,
Pintard, R., 240 58, 59
Pius V, Pope, 183
Plato, 4, 5, 14, 38, 42, 55, 57, 61, 62, 64, 97,
109, 110, 113, 118, 119, 122, 126–128, S
134, 148, 152, 164, 165, 168, 175 Sacré, D., 181
Platonism, 47, 57, 78, 99, 108–111, 116–118, Sakamoto, K., 234
129, 143, 146, 151, 163, 168, 173, 174, Sambursky, S., 14, 49–51, 226
211, 218, 222, 226 Scapparone, E., 164
See also Neoplatonism Schabel, C., 83, 92, 95, 97
Platonists, 47, 57, 146, 168, 173 Scheiner, C., 184, 188
Plutarch, 49, 50, 57, 59 Schmidt, J., 49
Popkin, R.H., 214 Schmitt, C.B., 161
Presocratics, 42, 57 Scholastics, 3, 5–7, 13, 92, 97, 99, 133, 134,
Prins, J., 147 139, 163, 180, 194, 196, 201, 205, 223,
Proclus, 14, 127–129, 150, 216 224, 233–235, 240, 242, 245, 249, 251,
Ptolemaic system, 72, 203, 208, 210, 225, 236, 252, 256, 257, 276, 277
237 Schuhmann, K., 158, 246
Puliafito Bleuel, A.L., 134 Scott, R., 61
Puteanus, E., 181 Sedley, D.N., 43, 44, 47, 49, 53, 56–59, 62,
Pythagoras, 126, 217 65, 161
Pythagoreanism, 6, 45, 78, 118, 122, 128, 129, Seneca, 180, 181, 188
202 Serarius, N., 195
See also Neopythagoreanism Sextus Empiricus, 12, 21, 24, 43, 50, 57
Shapin, S., 262
Sharples, R., 12
R Shea, W.R., 218, 221
Raban Maur (Rabanus/Hrabanus Maurus), 72 Simplicius, 12–14, 16, 26, 27, 30–36, 137, 194
Raphael, R., 218, 221 Singer, D.W., 164
Rashed, M., 12 Siorvanes, L., 12, 13
Redondi, P., 188, 221 Smith, A.M., 221
Regier, J., 2 Smith, M.F., 42, 46, 47, 50, 52–56, 58, 59, 63
Relihan, J.C., 181 Snellius, W., 193
Rescher, N., 277 Soles, D., 278
Rey, J., 213, 220 Sorabji, R., 12, 14, 25, 27, 31, 70, 71, 85, 187,
Ribordy, O., 2, 5, 7, 71, 136 194
Richard of Middleton, 72, 74, 78, 242 Sorbière, S., 244, 256
Rickles, D., 264 Speer, A., 70
Robert, A., 5, 7, 70, 78, 84, 98, 108, 120 Spinoza, B., 8, 157, 175, 176
Robert Grosseteste, 110, 117, 121–123, Spoerri, W., 53
125–128, 202 Stabile, G., 219
Roberval, G.P. de, 7, 204, 222, 248 Steuco, A., 151, 152
Robson, J.A., 121 Stobaeus, 48, 49
Rochot, B., 221, 244 Stoicism, 3, 4, 6, 12, 21, 32, 41, 42, 45,
Rodriguez-Pereyra, G., 263, 268, 271–275, 47–53, 57, 61, 64, 65, 147, 151,
281 158–161, 164, 179–181, 187,
Roger Bacon, 69, 74 188, 196, 224, 239, 267
Rohde, M., 70 Strabo, V., 72
Index 291
Strato of Lampsacus, 12, 13, 23 Van Nouhys, T., 188

Striker, G., 59 Vanpaemel, G., 181, 193
Sturlese, R., 239 Van Wymeersch, B., 212
Suárez, F., 5, 6, 133–142, 151–153, 242, 243, Védrine, H., 142–144, 148, 150–152
249, 251, 277 Veneziani, M., 71
Suarez-Nani, T., 2, 5, 7, 8, 70, 71, 73–76, 78, Venier, L., 98
81, 82, 140, 146, 147, 242 Verde, F., 59, 60, 62, 63
Sylla, E., 71 Vermeir, K., 2
Syrianus, 14 Vermij, R., 190
Vignaux, P., 8, 71, 72
Vitelleschi, M., 184
T Vitruvius, 224
Tack, R., 234 Vives, J.L., 181
Taub, L., 59
Taussig, S., 206
Telesio, B., 158 W
Themistius, 12, 16, 35, 175 Wallace, W.A., 71
Theophrastus of Eresus, 12, 14, 21, 33, 37 Walter Chatton, 78, 84, 108
Thijssen, J.M.M.H., 71 Warren, J., 56, 58, 60
Thomas Aquinas, 13, 27, 30, 72–74, 77, 80, Waterfield, R., 14, 24, 34
81, 97, 152, 163, 195, 242 Weill-Parot, N., 70, 79, 86
Thomas Bradwardine, 32, 242 Weinbrot, H.D., 181
Thomson, W.R., 111 Wendelin, G., 226
Tirinnanzi, N., 169 Westfall, R.S., 234, 246
Todd, R., 12, 32 Wildberg, C., 12, 13, 194
Toletus, F., 252, 253 William Crathorn, 108
Torricelli, E., 224 William of Champeaux, 120
Traphagan, J., 42 William (of) Ockham, 13, 242
Trevisano, M., 78 Wils, J., 182
Trevisi, A., 182 Wisan, W.L., 226
Trifogli, C., 70 Wolff, M., 27, 49–51
Trigault, N., 188 Wolfson, H.A., 161
Turnbull, R.G., 3 Wöller, F., 97
U X
Urban VIII, Pope, 183 Xenarchus of Seleucia, 12, 13, 23
Urmson, J.O., 12, 13 Xenophon, 56
Usener, H., 44, 50, 51, 59
Z
V Zarlino, G., 217
Vailati, E., 270, 277, 281 Zeno of Elea, 17–19, 36, 37
Valois, Louis de, 244 Zhmud, L., 118
Van Atten, M., 279 Ziegler, J., 184
Vanden Broecke, S., 186 Zittel, C., 234, 237

[Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 48] Frederik a. Bakker, Delphine Bellis, Carla Rita Palmerino - Space, Imagination and the Cosmos From Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (2018, Springer Internati

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[Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 48] Frederik a. Bakker, Delphine Bellis, Carla Rita Palmerino - Space, Imagination and the Cosmos From Antiquity to the Early Modern Period (2018, Springer Internati

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 48

Carla Rita Palmerino

ISSN 0929-6425 ISSN 2215-1958 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018965221

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018, corrected publication 2019

This volume derives from an international conference organized by Frederik Bakker,

1 Space, Imagination and the Cosmos, from Antiquity

9 Libert Froidmont’s Conception and Imagination of Space

Keimpe Algra University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Frederik A. Bakker, Delphine Bellis, and Carla Rita Palmerino

F. A. Bakker (*) · C. R. Palmerino

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 1

Milič Čapek insightfully noticed, a concept (like Aristotle’s) of the universe as

Abstract This contribution focuses on Aristotle’s account of place (not: space) as

2.1 Introduction: Aristotle’s Account in Context

This paper offers a synthesizing discussion of Aristotle’s ‘classic’ account of place,

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 11

He is even more explicit in chapter 4, in a passage in which we recognize our three

conception of place as three-dimensional extension also recurs in non-technical contexts in a later

2.2 The argument of Physics 4, 1–5

to have been prepared to do so as well. However, Sextus Empiricus’ accounts of

2.4 Place and the Explanation of Motion

The early-twelfth-century Arabic commentator Ibn Bajja (Avempace) argued, along

2.5 Natural Place and the Explanation of Natural Motion

So it is a thing’s being somewhere, as the actuality of its lightness or heaviness, that

On the Heavens), see Algra 1995, 195–221.

is important to note what some commentators have missed: ‘being somewhere’ is

2.6 The Problem of the Immobility of Place

the containing surface taken as the surface of a larger surrounding entity, or of a

2.7 The Emplacement of the Heavens

Abstract In contrast to other ancient philosophers, Epicurus and his followers

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 41

3.2 Cosmological Arguments for the Infinity of the Universe

3.2.1 Clarification of Concepts: Bodies and Void

In section 41 of his Letter to Herodotus, Epicurus provides the following argument

3.2.3 Refutation of a Rival Theory

individual bodies belong, whence it is communicated to the individual bodies

3.2.4 The Status of Lucretius 1.1052-1093 and 5.449-508

In the preceding section we encountered two mutually inconsistent Lucretian pas-

3.2.5 Provisional Conclusion

3.3 Theological Consequences of the Infinity of the Universe

3.3.1 The Epicurean Concept of Divinity

3.3.2 Infinite Worlds and the Demiurge

infinite number of others.68 Therefore, Lucretius’ argument against divine interven-

3.3.3 Chance and the Power of Infinity

3.3.4 Infinity and the Truth of Multiple Explanations

explanation is also true. This is yet another application of the principle of

According to Epicurus, providing a single explanation when other explanations are

Providing single explanations for celestial phenomena is typically practised by dev-

Although the infinity of atoms, and consequently of worlds, appears as a premise in

Oportet hic considerare de loco eorum [sc. substantiarum

Abstract This paper explores the contribution of medieval metaphysics to the

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 69

ries of movement, especially those focusing on the movement of indivisibles (that

new problems.3 These developments had considerable repercussions in medieval

4.2 Place, Space and Movement of Spiritual Creatures

4.2.1 Relationships to Place/Space

4.2.1.1 Henry of Ghent

‘situated’ somewhere, according to the mode of situs mathematicus; that is to say, it

4.2.1.2 John Duns Scotus

4.2.2 Movement of Spiritual Creatures

Medieval doctrines on the movement of angels attest to a similar dynamic of

4.3.1 Three Possible Solutions

4.3.1.1 Thomas Aquinas’ and Giles of Rome’s Solution

1 Space, Imagination and the Cosmos, from Antiquity

9 Libert Froidmont’s Conception and Imagination of Space

2.1 Introduction: Aristotle’s Account in Context

2.2 The argument of Physics 4, 1–5

2.4 Place and the Explanation of Motion

2.5 Natural Place and the Explanation of Natural Motion

2.6 The Problem of the Immobility of Place

2.7 The Emplacement of the Heavens

3.2 Cosmological Arguments for the Infinity of the Universe

3.2.1 Clarification of Concepts: Bodies and Void

3.2.3 Refutation of a Rival Theory

3.2.4 The Status of Lucretius 1.1052-1093 and 5.449-508

3.2.5 Provisional Conclusion

3.3 Theological Consequences of the Infinity of the Universe

3.3.1 The Epicurean Concept of Divinity

3.3.2 Infinite Worlds and the Demiurge

3.3.3 Chance and the Power of Infinity

3.3.4 Infinity and the Truth of Multiple Explanations

4.2 Place, Space and Movement of Spiritual Creatures

4.2.1 Relationships to Place/Space

4.2.1.1 Henry of Ghent

4.2.1.2 John Duns Scotus

4.2.2 Movement of Spiritual Creatures

4.3.1 Three Possible Solutions

4.3.1.1 Thomas Aquinas’ and Giles of Rome’s Solution

4.3.1.2 Duns Scotus’ and Francis of Marchia’s Solution

4.3.1.3 Gregory of Rimini’s Solution

4.4 Concluding Remarks

5.2 John Duns Scotus and Equivalent Place

5.3 Peter Auriol

5.4 Nicholas Bonet and the Philosophia naturalis

6.2 John Wyclif’s Mathematical Atomism

6.3 The Platonic and Neopythagorean Background

6.5 Concluding Remarks: Wyclif and Proclus

7.2 Localization and Space According to Francisco Suárez

pinions that Suárez Discusses Concerning the ubi

7.3.1 Definition of True Place

7.3.2 Finite and Infinite Space

7.3.3 Space as First Principle

7.3.4 Empty and Full Space

7.3.5 Definition of Space

8.2 Space in the Italian Dialogues, Mainly in “De l’infinito”

Italian dialogue, Bruno is already acquainted with John Philoponus’ anti-Aristotelian

g oodness ‘envies being’ (“invidia l’essere”), contrary to Plato’s assertion in Timaios

8.3 The Relation Between God and Space

9.2 A Complex Background

9.3 Froidmont’s Conception of Space in His Early Works

9.4 Imagining Space: Peregrinatio cœlestis (1616)