Aristotle on the Concept of Place (Topos)

The potency of place must be a marvelous thing, and take precedence of all other things… That is what place [topos] is: the first unchangeable limit (peras) of that which surrounds.^[1]
Aristotle

Note

[1] In Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 52, 55.

In the second statement – the one concerning the definition of place – I have added the Greek word ‘topos’ between brackets, which is the original Greek term used by Aristotle, and which is usually translated as ‘place’ in English; conversely, the word ‘peras’, between brackets as well, belongs to the original quotation made by Casey, and it stands for the Greek translation of the English word ‘limit’. Both statements by Aristotle appear in Aristotle’s Physics: Book III (208b3), and Book IV (212a20-21), respectively.