Ancient Atomists

1. Ancient Atomists The ancient atomists were the first to put forth theories about the actual nature of space. Many of their arguments centered around this idea that space is a void. More fundamentally, they believed that space was a void in which atoms could move freely about. What they were not so concerned with was the ongoing debate between the substantivalists and the relationists, whether space is a thing in and of itself or space is just the relations between two objects with no existence separate of these objects. Although they had no direct argument concerning the nature of space, the ancient atomists’ view of space is largely in favor of a relationist view. Epicurus was the first to put forth this idea of an atom, using reason

In there arguments it seems as the ancient atomists want to talk about it as this substance, almost like a dome inside of which the universe exists with space being what the objects take up as well as the absence of objects and outside of which is the heavens. This seems like the dome is a separate entity from the objects however the way they use the void in their arguments, they treat it more as a relationship between objects/atoms. The issue arises from the idea of the heavens during this time. The heavens were thought of as this realm above space which confines space to a set region, hence this dome like view of space where they are surrounded by the heavens which bounds them to this finite thinking of space. Not having the ability to perceive space as infinite locks them into this relative view of space. This is due to the fact that if space is finite, there is a point at which you can zoom out so far away that the universe seems like a point and therefore has no relation to anything, so space must be finite and the limits of that space seem to be the object that is furthest away from all others as any point past that no longer has anything to relate to. Where if space was infinite and a substance then there is no need for relations as all points are

At this point in history, it is known that the Earth is round and therefore must be in the center of the universe as if you drop any sort of object made of earth; it will fall to the ground. We also see this effect with water; however, there is water on the surface of the earth, which then defines our second region. We know that the region which contains air is above water since air trapped under water will rise to the surface. The region for Fire must be above that, as flames will rise in air. All of these regions make sense through observation, it’s ether where this view is different from observation. Aristotle then claims that spherical, celestial objects are made of a fifth element called ether. Ether is a perfect element so it is made of this element which exists as a perfect shape (the sphere) and moves in a perfect pattern (the circle). The example we are given is the moon, it is a spherical object moving around the Earth in a circle which is not in a region of space that an object could be in, therefore it is made of a different element which Aristotle defines as