ARISTOTLE'S REJECTION OF EXTRACOSMIC VOID AND THE REACTION IN GREEK ANTIQUITY

The idea of extracosmic void space reached the Latin West from a number of sources during the Middle Ages. As with so much else, it was Aristotle who conveyed the concept in the form that would be most widely known and that would be central to all subsequent discussion. In the course of rejecting the existence of a plurality of worlds in De caelo, Aristotle declared categorically that “neither place, nor void, nor time” can exist “outside the heaven.” He had earlier argued that no bodily mass could come into being beyond the heavens, or outermost circumference of the universe, and inferred from this that neither place nor vacuum could exist there because “in every place a body can be present” (no body, therefore no place) and because “void is said to be that in which the presence of body, though not actual, is possible” (no possibility of body, therefore no vacuum). Aristotle concluded that absolutely nothing existed beyond the universe, a nothing that was best characterized as a privation. His denial of extracosmic existence to place, void, time, and body was frequently repeated. Special reliance was placed upon the necessary connection between body and void. By definition, vacuum was conceived as a place devoid of body but capable of receiving it.