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, Physics

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—concerning the definition of place—I have inserted the Greek term topos (τόπος) in brackets, the original word Aristotle used and which is commonly translated into English as ‘place.’ By contrast, the word peras (πέρας), also in brackets, comes directly from Casey’s quotation and corresponds to the Greek for ‘limit.’ Both statements appear in Aristotle’s Physics: Book III (208b3), and Book IV (212a20-21), respectively.