382 ///-46 to ///-47
These arguments, then, and even additional ones, are offered by those
who abolish locomotion. We, however, are able neither to reject their
arguments nor the appearance followed by those who introduce the
hypothesis of motion, and so, at least as far as the opposition of appear-
ances and arguments is concerned, we suspend judgement regarding
whether motion exists or not.
Sextus PH 3.119-150 [III-47]
Ch. xviii On Place
- 'Place' is used in two senses, a proper sense and a loose sense;
the loose sense is broad as in '[the place that is] my city' whereas the
proper sense refers to [the place] that exactly contains, by which we are
exactly surrounded. We are, then, investigating place understood as that
which exactly contains. Some have posited this sense; some have abolished
it, and some have suspended judgement regarding it. 120. Of these, the
ones who say that it exists take refuge in the fact that it is obvious. For,
they say, who will say that place [in the principal sense] does not exist,
when he sees its parts: for example, right and left, up and down, before
and behind; and when he is in different places at different times; and
when he sees that I am now discoursing where my teacher used to
discourse; and when he grasps that the natural place of light things is
different from that of heavy things; 121. and, moreover, when he is hears
that the ancients said, "Surely, Chaos came first into being"^43 (for they
say that place is [called] chaos from the fact that it provides space^44 for
that which comes to be in it). Moreover, at least if body exists, they say,
place will exist. For without place there could be no body. And if there
exists the 'by which' and 'from which' there exists the 'in which', which
is place. But in each case the first; therefore, in both cases, the second. - But those who abolish place do not concede that place has parts,
for place is nothing besides its parts, and the attempted inference that
place exists, on the assumption that its parts exist, amounts to trying to
establish the matter under investigation by means of itself. Similarly,
those who say that something comes to be or has come to be in some
place are talking foolishly, when [the existence of] place has not at all
been conceded. They also seize upon the fact that the existence of body
has not been conceded in the first instance, and the 'from which' and
'by which' are shown to be non-existent much as place is. 123. Further,
Hesiod is not a worthy judge of philosophical matters. And so having
eliminated the considerations on behalf of the establishment of the exis- - Hesiod TheogonJ' 118.
- There is a word play on chora (space) and chaos.