Understanding Atomism Through Its Opposition to the Matter and Form System | Part 1 Chapter 73 (4) | Guide for the Perplexed 159 (Auto Translated)

Summary of the Lesson on the Kalam’s Premises According to the Rambam – Part 1

A. Introduction: The Purpose of the Rambam’s Summary

We are still trying to study the Rambam’s summary of the Kalam’s premises. We have already discussed this, and we need to discuss it much more. The Rambam makes here a summary of the Kalam’s physical system in a way that, in his opinion, captures the essence of their approach, without entering into all the various internal debates they have on these matters.

And also, as the Rambam – we brought this in the previous lesson, I think – what the Rambam writes at the end of this chapter, that he strongly believes that in order to be a consistent Kalam adherent, or essentially what underlies the theology of the Kalam, are these beliefs, or one could say these principles, this physical system.

Although ostensibly the Kalam are somewhat eclectic, they take ideas from here and there – which may be historically accurate, as the Rambam himself explained in chapter 71 – still there is some true, consistent way of looking at the world, from which emerges what happens here: their proofs for the four sought-after matters of God’s existence, God and the creation of the world, and the important attributes of God, namely His being non-corporeal and His being one.

B. The Central Theological Principle: God as Direct Agent

God is the Final Agent in Everything

And also essentially their theology, which is very important here. The theology that says – which the Rambam mentioned in chapter 69 – that says God is the final agent in everything. One of the main principles of faith of the Kalam, perhaps THE principle of faith, for which all of this is needed. Even the way they prove God’s existence apparently depends on this – I still need to understand how these things are connected – but this is a very fundamental and very important matter.

Denial of Intermediate Causes

The Rambam himself, already in the Eight Chapters, when he brings the… incidentally, when he enters into the matter of the Kalam’s approach, speaks precisely about this – that the Kalam denies the concept of what we call intermediate causes, yes? They believe that God directs the entire world, acts all things in the world directly, and therefore they are forbidden, they cannot believe in this concept of nature.

Not because – they claim, as the Rambam brings – that one who believes in the concept of nature, meaning in intermediate causes, in stages of causation between God and any small thing that happens, does not believe that God acts, yes?

A Fundamental Dispute Between the Systems

And this is a very fundamental dispute between the Kalam’s approach – which is also the approach, ultimately the orthodox Muslim approach – and the approach of Jews and Christians fundamentally. Yes, one can always speak of Hasidim or people who seem to follow the Kalam’s approach, but they themselves, those among them who understand this, present it this way. That’s not my concern now.

But in the Kalam they believe that God is the final agent in everything, He is the one who directly does all things.

C. The Connection Between Theology and Physics

The Kalam as a Consistent Philosophical System

Now, what’s important is that for this, because the Kalam are indeed a wise system, a system of sages, a system of philosophers, a type of scientists, etc., they don’t just say this. They still – they say this because their worldview fits this, yes? Their philosophy of physics allows God to do what He wants, without cause, without connection to anything, yes? This is essentially the fundamental thing.

The Limits of the System: The Law of Contradiction

And they also, for example, believe in the concept of impossibilities, as the Rambam himself will bring later in the chapter. They don’t say that God can create a contradiction, because on the contrary, they are a logical system. There cannot be a logical system that gives up the law of contradiction.

They do have a dispute about many things that the philosophers claim are impossibilities, that are impossible, where they say: no, they are only impossible because you believe in natural things, in causes that we don’t deny exist at all.

Example: The Table and the Star

So for example – and later the Rambam will bring an analogy, but when he reaches the seventh premise, and if I remember correctly, he will enter into exactly this analogy – he will say: if you say God can turn a table into a star or something like that, something very extreme, then the Kalam says: yes, He can. It’s true that usually tables don’t turn into stars, but there is nothing – this is what’s included in saying there is no nature.

The Meaning of Denying Nature

One needs to understand this, at least according to our framework. To say there is no nature is to say that the fact that my table is a table now is not at all connected to the fact that it was a table a second ago. It’s simply – God made it be a table now and He made it be a table in another second and He constantly makes it. Usually He does the same thing all the time, but sometimes He can decide that the table will be a star and that’s it, and it becomes a star.

Anyone who believes in nature, meaning in intermediate causes, believes that the fact that the table is a table now is somehow connected, yes? Part of the answer to why it’s a table is that it was a table a second ago. This is the important thing.

Atomism as a Physical Solution

And therefore, but, if you – so now, they thought, this is how the Rambam describes it, they thought to themselves how can we describe to ourselves a world in which it’s exactly as logical that the table will be a star in a moment as it is logical that the table will be a table in a moment. Of course they admit this isn’t common, but we’re talking about the philosophy of how the world works, yes, the philosophy, the principles of nature. So they found this atomism as what enables this essentially, yes?

The Rambam says: when you follow what follows from this atomistic system, you’ll understand that this is essentially what’s going on. And because of this they need all these premises, and also their proofs for God’s existence are based on these premises, but this is important.

Summary of the Theological-Physical Connection

So this – one needs to constantly close this loop, that there is a theological reason here, because their theology still doesn’t want to just say nonsense, like saying God can create a contradiction, or you can do anything without specifying what this “anything” means. In order to say “anything” you need some basic picture of what all things are and how they usually work, what can be an exception and what cannot be even as an exception, etc.

So because of this they actually go back and adopt a certain system, which generally is an atomistic system, with changes from the atomism that existed – the Greek atomism that we know – but they adopt a certain system, and from this it’s possible to derive their conclusions and state their approaches.

Okay, so that’s the point, one very important introduction, that we constantly remember.

D. Methodological Notes for Reading the Rambam

First Introduction: The Consistency of the System

The second introduction I noticed, that I understood, is that when we read the Rambam’s descriptions of them, as I said in the previous introduction, the Rambam makes of them a very logical and very consistent description that necessarily follows from itself, because their parts necessarily follow from each other. One can indeed take any one of these 12 premises – you cannot grasp them without all the other premises.

Second Introduction: The Rambam’s Point of View

And when we read his descriptions, we need to constantly remember that the Rambam looks at their system through the glasses of Aristotle’s system in which he believes.

There is No Objective Description of a System

When we describe a system, we always describe the system from a perspective, from a point of view of something. There really is no objective perspective from God’s eyes, it doesn’t exist. Always when we describe a system, we describe it from within another system.

Our Point of View as Readers

We constantly remember that we inherited – we are taught, we are brainwashed in school about the third system, which has characteristics similar to the Kalam’s system and characteristics that are not similar – but we always think within the third system, and from this we try to describe to ourselves what Aristotle actually says and what the Kalam actually says, etc.

The Rambam Describes Through Aristotelian Glasses

The Rambam constantly, even when he describes the system of his opponent, when he understands that he doesn’t accept all his foundational assumptions, but he describes it at least as a contrast to his own system. When he explains what is absurd according to their system, or what is difficult, and what needs to be said, etc., what is essential, what is secondary – this is all from within the framing, from within the questions that his system causes him to ask about them, and from within the way his system causes him to understand the system of his opponents, of the rival system.

The Importance of This Understanding

So this is something that needs to be remembered constantly, and so too the commentators here, who really knew Aristotle much better than the Kalam, so they constantly read it this way. And this means that really, in order to understand this, one also needs – one needs first, yes, the Rambam writes here in a dialectical manner, yes, first he goes to refute, to speak about the incorrect system, and afterward, at the beginning of the second part, he goes to present the correct system, yes?

Still, even when he starts from the incorrect system, he speaks about it from the perspective of his correct system. And yes, this is a difficulty. Many people don’t understand this.

E. A Note on the Commentary Attributed to Abarbanel

So I don’t know if we already discussed this, but there is a commentary – in Schweid’s edition they printed a commentary attributed to Abarbanel, it’s not Abarbanel, I have no doubt about this, but someone, his neighbor, I don’t know, a neighbor of his grandson, or something. Abarbanel didn’t write a commentary, he started to write a commentary on the entire book, but it stopped at some stage and he died. He didn’t have time to complete it.

And there are various completions of a few chapters that people added like this and they printed some. And here, in this chapter, only a note is written. Abarbanel – it’s true that he would challenge this Rambam, and didn’t agree with many of his approaches – but I don’t think he writes with such chutzpah as this commentary.

This commentary writes in… let’s see if it’s found here, I can bring it up. This commentary, yes, how do I…

F. Justification for Engaging with Erroneous Systems and Understanding Philosophy

Whoever Asks Such a Question – A Double Lack of Understanding

But this all comes from, whoever asks such a question, I think it stems from a lack of understanding both of the Rambam and of how philosophy itself works. Because appreciating and understanding incorrect systems is very important work. Because we are human beings, we are not God, we cannot begin the work, the work of understanding, from the end, from what is most truly true, and from that derive everything.

We constantly start from errors, this is the order of learning, as opposed to the order of the world. And therefore to dedicate much attention, much time, much… the Rambam here does very enormous, very important work, and to understand what his opponents say, what those with whom he fundamentally disagrees at all say. This is actually part of the… or the beginning, that the order is actually this order, yes?

The Political Reason and the Respectful Approach

Of course there is also a political reason for this, that you could say all the sages around him believe more or less in their system, so he needs to address this, he needs to explain it. But even this he does with much more respect, with much more composure, with much more genuine attempt to understand what they say. He somewhat understands them better than they understand themselves. But he does this in a very serious manner, because this is the way, the way of philosophy from its beginning. And the Rambam, although he often doesn’t do this, but in things that are important to him, we can see, like here, he is very open to entering the side of his opponent and explaining it, and not only where he is right and where he has a reasonable argument, at least for why he justified it, etc., this is a very important thing.

G. The Nature of the Division into 12 Premises

So let’s begin. So the division, therefore from all this it emerges that the division of principles here into 12 foundations is a division, meaning each one of them is some point, some principle needed for the entire system, but also the separation between them is somewhat artificial, it’s a matter of learning mainly and not a matter of the worldview itself, because in the worldview itself all these things combine into one thing.

H. The First Premise: Atomism as the Foundation of the World

Review of the First Principle

We read the first passage, and perhaps the second as well. We discussed that the first principle, the first premise, is that the world is fundamentally composed of what happens here, individual substances, atoms, as we call them, indivisible parts, which is the literal translation of the word atom.

Atomism in Contrast to Aristotle’s System

And we need to illustrate this a bit through the contrast to Aristotle’s system. We at least say that we also believe in atomism, although it’s not the same atomism, but it seems normal to us to explain something by breaking it down into components and saying, okay, what is the world?

Or one can translate the question more precisely, at least how Aristotle saw the question, what are the bodies in the world? The entire world is bodies.

What is a Body? – An Attempt to Understand the Concept

We say this word, body, many times in many contexts, God is not a body, etc., but we don’t notice what the word body means. We of course think of body primarily, perhaps of the human body. In physics they also speak of bodies, and modern physics, more or less, has no definition of what a body is, a body is a thing. There is some history that explains why they stopped trying to ask what this thing we call a body actually is.

But fundamentally we can see that the entire world is bodies. All the things we can see, there may be things that are not bodies, but all the things we can see are bodies.

The Problem of Change and Permanence

And now the question is how to explain them and as we discussed many times, mainly how to explain their change and their permanence. Yes, these bodies don’t always remain the same thing, they become something from something and change. On the other hand, they don’t change randomly, not everything becomes everything, rather there is some stability among them, there is something.

So atomism is one, originally, in the Greek manner, it is one of the attempts to try to solve, to understand this thing. Of course, Aristotle claims that it doesn’t solve this thing, and precisely because of this it’s not a good system.

I. The Difference Between the Kalam and Aristotle on the Question of Explanation

The Kalam: “God Does” as a Ready Answer

Therefore the Kalam are less actually occupied with fundamental physical questions, they are not really occupied with explaining change in the world, because they have a ready-made answer. Their answer is always God does.

Aristotle: Rejection of the Theological Answer Within Nature

And Aristotle, not because Aristotle doesn’t believe in God, but because he thinks this answer is not a real answer to anything. It may be a real answer to some other question, but to answer at least within nature, to say God does, is not a type of answer he can accept at all, and a person cannot accept either. Anyone who believes in the existence of nature, as we discussed, this means there is a certain good answer to why something is in such a way, and why usually from something comes something, etc., and the answer that God did it is not a good answer.

The Kalam: Non-Belief in Science

The Kalam, declaredly, their science is God, yes? This is their belief. You can argue, but when they ask why a body is a body of its type, their answer is God, His will. This is the answer, and that’s where it is, and therefore they genuinely don’t believe in science, not like today we say, we don’t believe in science because there’s concealment, various other excuses, which already do believe that at least part of the answer to why something is something is something specific, something additional to saying God’s will.

J. The Atomistic Answer: What is a Body?

The Body as a Collection of Particles

Therefore I return to read here. He says that the world in its entirety, meaning every body in it, body is the word guf, the same word, because this is the world. Basically we can see all kinds of things in the world, different types of things, and we say what is common among them. That they are bodies is the common thing among them. We need to understand what the word body means. We still haven’t understood this, but this is the primary way of thinking here. What’s common among all things in the world is that they are bodies.

Now, Aristotle has a different answer.

What Makes a Body Be a Specific Body?

The Kalam says, what are these bodies? These bodies, meaning, when we speak of bodies, primarily we speak of large bodies, bodies like animals, bodies like trees, bodies like stones, bodies like the elements themselves, the world in its entirety, it is composed of many bodies, we can break it down to elements, to fire, water, air, etc., but they are all bodies.

And now, the question is what makes each body be that body.

The Atomistic Answer: Substance and Accident

Now the Kalam answers, whoever believes in atomism answers, that what makes the body be a body, what causes a specific body to be a specific thing, is, well, the answer is substance and accident, the atoms and their accidents, yes? Because the atoms are all equal. But first of all, he says, this is based on these atoms.

There is No Such Thing as “Stone” or “Table” Fundamentally

Meaning, you take any body, you ask what is, for example, a table, or what is a stone, their answer is that there is no such thing as stone fundamentally. A stone is merely all kinds of very small parts that cannot be divided further, further, this is the smallest at the end, and when you gather various, as he concludes here, when you gather various parts, particles, yes, such atoms together in a certain way, and give them certain accidents, as we will see in the premises from the fourth to the seventh, what these accidents are and how they work, then it becomes a table, but a table is not an existing thing, there is no such thing as a table, neither its matter nor its form.

The Table as an Accidental Collection

The table is made, it is merely an accidental collection in the sense that there is no reason, there is no thing that makes the table be a table, rather as they say, God’s will, or Epicurus and Democritus, the Greek atomists would say truly chance, the Kalam simply replaces their chance with God’s will.

But what makes the table a table or the stone a stone? It’s simply that various particles gathered, stood next to each other in such a way, and received such and such accidents, color and size, etc., etc., and that’s the table.

I hope this is starting to become clear.

K. The Contrast Between Aristotle’s System and the Kalam’s System on the Question of Generation and Corruption

Clarification of Aristotle’s System – True Corruption of the Form

I need to contrast this with another system. For example, here it is written, and we need to understand what is written here. He comes here to say that generally we spoke about physics being the wisdom of generation and corruption, change. Now, there are various changes, but one basic change is that things begin and cease to exist.

Now, what does it mean that a thing ceases and begins to exist? Of course no system here actually says that it ceases to exist in an absolute sense. We don’t really recognize complete annihilation in this world. There may be a possibility of complete annihilation, one can describe the entire world ceasing to exist or something like that. But when we say something died – this is the basic example of corruption – or something broke, there was a person and now there is no person. A dead person is not a person, he is something that was once a person, but he is not, or an animal, or a tree, a living tree – it no longer is.

Now, the question is how we understand this, yes? So where did it go, yes? A basic question: where did the stone go when you broke it? Where did it go?

The Aristotelian Answer – The Form Truly Disappears

Now, Aristotle’s answer, for example, is that he disappears. He truly, there is such a thing – a person. A person is the combination of his matter and his form that together make the human being. I won’t be able to fully decipher this right now, but form is the definition of a human being, that he lives in such a way. A human being is a very complicated thing, but there is one form that unifies everything and makes him a human being. And therefore he becomes in some way – of course he needs all the materials in the simple sense from which he is made – but there is a possibility in these materials that enables them to become a human being. Not from everything can a human being come to be, from the seed of a father and mother a human being can come to be, not from everything. This means that there is in matter the possibility to become a human being, and then he becomes a human being when he is born or whenever we begin this.

And when a human being dies, when he stops being a human being, then this human being ceases to exist, truly ceases to exist. That is, what was before is the form of the human being – of this specific human being. The form of this human being does not remain, but the specific form that applied to this matter, that he was this specific person, disappears when he dies, and this does not exist. There is no problem of creation from nothing here, because he truly returns to being something else, he receives a different form. Now he receives the form of a corpse, a different form. This is called “removing one form and donning another form,” in the imagery brought in our books. His matter still exists, but matter is a type of thing that can be all kinds of things, but his form truly disappears, ceases to be. Yes, a human being is more complicated, all kinds of things, but basically this is how it is.

The Kalam Approach – There Is No Destruction At All

I’m only saying this in order to contrast it with the Kalam approach here. The Kalam says: No, you’re not correct. Nothing ever ceases to exist, and also doesn’t begin. That is, all things begin all the time, or began once during the six days of creation – that’s a different question – but if we pass over destruction, there is no such thing as destruction. It is written here: “destruction will not befall it.” They have no destruction. Destruction is simply death, or destruction is simply more or less a transliteration from Arabic, referring to what they call the cessation of things from being.

The Reason – There Never Was a Human Being

The point is that they say: There is no destruction, because there never was a human being. A human being is merely the atoms that compose him, because they had certain accidents and were next to each other in a certain way, in a way that creates an image of a human being, and afterward they were shaken and went to another place. This human being was not destroyed, because what truly exists? There are no forms, there is no such thing as a human being really. What exists is the accidental collection, or the divine will that makes the accidental collection of all these particles.

And therefore, when he dies, it’s not correct to say that this is destruction, because we can call it, from our point of view, perhaps human beings speak of death, of the stone being broken, but a stone was not broken because a stone never was. The stone was, yes? If we describe reality basically as a collection of atoms sitting next to each other in all kinds of different configurations, then we understand that this is what exists.

D. The Role of the Twelfth Premise – The Senses Are Not Correct

When a person looks at a human being, correct – and one must remember that the twelfth premise, that the senses are not correct, is a very enormous foundation in the Kalam approach, as the Rambam himself will say, a foundation in all atomism and also in modern science. He says that the fact that we look with our eyes and see human beings, see objects – this is a mistake, this doesn’t really exist. There is nothing truly metaphysical. Basically, reality is not composed of things, there are only atoms.

And therefore, already the belief that the world is atomic contradicts the senses, and for this one needs a principle that the senses do not give the truth. And modern science also believes this way. You see a table – you read, even childish introductory physics books say this – you see a table, there isn’t really a table. If there is no table, then the table also wasn’t destroyed. The atoms merely arranged themselves differently, and now they exist in a different form, but they don’t say the word “in a different form” in a true sense, because according to their view, form has no existence. Form is an accident, they simply gathered in a certain way.

The Ontological Meaning – Gathering and Dispersal

So this is very important. And therefore it turns out that to be and not to be, for them this is simply what happens – gathering, yes? Gathering and dispersal. Things simply stand next to each other and these atoms stand next to each other, yes? So this is one difference that shows us.

E. The Critique of Modern Physics

So I’m saying that if one looks from Aristotle’s point of view – we’re not used to this, because we’re quite used to thinking – first of all, modern science, truly, with all the statements about empiricism etc., it’s not correct. Science basically believes that our eyes are not correct, they don’t see real things. We don’t see what we see, it doesn’t really exist in a fundamental physical form, it’s only a collection of the particles that compose it, etc.

The Internal Contradiction of Modern Science

And then of course this is contradictory, because then you ask this scientist: Okay, and what you see in your microscope does exist? When does what we see stop being correct? If one truly denies the eyes, then it’s not clear where this can begin.

Therefore, modern science is built on a very strange compound of believing in what we see, but only in a certain way, and actually only in things that can be mathematically abstracted. So in some sense physics, for example, ours is the most abstract of all the systems. Aristotle is much more concrete in his physics than modern physics, because modern physics is – we believe only in certain observations and in a certain way, and mainly which observations do we believe in? Those that can be abstracted from all their physicality, from all their “is-ness,” from all the being that we see with our eyes, and we abstract this into mathematical formulas, and that’s what describes it.

The Paradox of Mathematical Abstraction

This is supposed to be – now you say: So there is only mathematics? No. No, I believe there is matter that is describable mathematically and only in such a way. So this is a bit contradictory, and therefore modern physics is very philosophically problematic, this is not something simple at all. Yes, when we say to understand this – I’m not talking about predicting what will be, that’s a different question. In order to understand this, there is a fundamental problem here.

The Problem of Ancient Atomism That Returns

In any case, this problem is already a problem of ancient atomism, not something new, and I’m just sharpening this here in order to understand the first principle, which is the existence of particles, that the things, the bodies, the physical objects in the world are actually particles, and therefore there is no destruction.

Scientists today too, you can hear them saying such things, and one must understand that in some sense everyone who believes in form – I’m not talking about the question of the soul, that’s a different question – but everyone who believes in form actually believes more in destruction than the materialist, because a materialist, in the sense of one who says the world is composed of materialistic atoms, things somehow exist – this too, as I said, is hard to describe.

The Metaphysical Difficulty of Atoms as Points

The Kalam too, truly, we already spoke about this, they said that their atoms are points, which is a mathematical abstraction. A point is not an existing thing, and then they said: Ah, but if you combine two points or six, then a thing comes out that has length and width and is a body. And then they have this contradiction: How did something that is a mathematical abstraction produce – where did the matter come from, where did the thing we touch come from? And truly this is one of the wonders in their system, this is never really explained, and so modern physics suffers from the same problem.

F. Paradox in the Question of Eternity and Transience

And on this I finished saying why something somewhat paradoxical emerges, that we’re used to thinking, for example, that in order to be a materialist you believe that all things are transient etc., and one who believes in forms or in more elevated things, then he believes in eternal things – which is true about the intellectual form and so on, which was never in matter, and therefore lives forever.

The Believer in Forms Believes in True Destruction

But specifically regarding the form of a living human being, for example, it’s not correct from an Aristotelian point of view to say, when you die, then you merely turn into flowers that grow above your tombstone. This whole style is a materialistic style. You’re saying: What defines the human being is not the human being. There is no such thing as a human being. When you look at a human being, you need to put on scientist’s glasses and say: No.

XIV. Deepening the Question of Continuity versus Atomism

1. Aristotle’s Position: Matter Is Continuous and Infinitely Divisible

But specifically regarding the form of a living human being, for example, it’s not correct from a serious point of view to say: “When you die, then you merely turn into flowers that grow above your grave.” This whole style is a materialistic style. You’re saying: What defines the human being is not the human being, there is no such thing as “a human being.” You look at a human being, you need to put on scientist’s glasses and say: “No, there are a million and a half atoms here and that’s it. By chance, in such a way, tomorrow they’ll be in a different way – what do you care?”

If you’re Aristotelian, you say: “No, I see a human being, and this is real. There is a form that defines the human being, and this form is not eternal – it dies completely, it disappears, it becomes nothing when a human being dies.” And this is necessary from the belief that there is such a thing as “a human being” at all, when there is such a thing in every object. This is not just a question about human beings, this is a question about everything.

And therefore, in a way that sounds somewhat paradoxical, the materialist believes less in change than one who believes in forms. And this is fundamentally correct, because Aristotle’s physics is entirely based on explaining change in a true way, and not saying there is no change or there is only change – the two extreme positions he constantly flees from. Therefore they say there is no destruction.

The Infinite Division of Matter

And there is also another very important thing. Therefore, for example, I can show you this also in the first line, apparently he says: “According to their view, everything is composed of very small parts, which will not accept division due to their minuteness, and not one of them has any quantity at all.”

Why can’t you divide the smallest particle? Simply because it’s the smallest thing. It’s metaphysically impossible, there is some minimal size that’s impossible.

Now, one must remember that according to Aristotle, Aristotle says the opposite. Here there is also the topic of infinity, which is also a very fundamental topic here, but I’m not entering into it now – there is an explicit premise about this later.

Aristotle claims – and this too must be read from his eyes – Aristotle claims: The property of matter – every material thing is infinitely divisible. Every thing you show me, I can imagine, I can understand that it’s possible to divide it one more time.

There are two very important limitations here that enable us to understand what he means. This is the meaning of saying that matter is continuous or that motion is continuous – it’s not discrete but continuous. You can always cut it.

And first of all, this is something that matches what our eyes see, again. We look at things, we don’t see pixels, we see continuous things. Of course, if we’re used to looking at screens, then it will also seem to us that we see continuous things, but they tell us: “No, that’s not really.”

Yes? So now here is the question: Is the world like a screen, where you see things that seem continuous? You look at a video, it seems you see continuous motion, or you look at a picture, it seems you see a continuous thing – they tell you: “No, understand that it’s all just small particles that seem to you like continuous things.” Both their existence and their motion is not really continuous, it’s really atomistic.

This is really true about how the screen for example works, but Aristotle claims this is not true about how the world itself works. And also in modern physics, in the end, in quantum mechanics there is a dispute about this, it’s not clear. But we still don’t know if the world is continuous or discrete.

In any case, Aristotle claims there are metaphysical reasons to believe the world is continuous. So these reasons – they could not maintain them.

Aristotle says: You see a continuous thing, a whole thing – so that’s what you see. Now, you think it’s possible to divide it? It’s possible to divide it infinitely. It will always be possible to divide it, and this is the essence of matter. Therefore matter has no existence in this sense, because you can always divide it more.

Again, now we remember that we never saw matter. Aristotle’s matter is also an abstraction. We never saw matter just as we never saw form. We see only matters and forms.

2. What Can’t Be Divided According to Aristotle?

Now, I’ll tell you, Aristotle: There are things that can’t be divided. That is, you can’t divide them and they’ll remain what they are.

Matter, as it were, as long as we divide it, it remains something – and this is precisely because something is not so much something. Matter is not exactly something, it can be anything. When you divide it, then it simply becomes something else, but it doesn’t stop being.

But every basic thing, you can divide it until it disappears. You take a cup – so there are measurements in tractate Kelim. When you make enough holes in a cup, then it stops being a cup. So yes, you divided it, and now you can’t divide it more. Not that you can’t divide the matter more, but the cup you can no longer divide.

You can divide a cup – maybe you can divide it into two cups, or make it smaller etc., that’s possible – but you reach a certain stage where it’s no longer possible. Why? Because you destroyed its form – it’s no longer a cup, it’s already something else.

The Difference Between Aristotle and Kalam on the Question of Division

Whereas according to the Kalam, which denies this, there is something that can’t be divided – not because you reached a stage where you’re already dividing the form, or doesn’t believe in form. Form is something that can’t be divided, it’s always whole. You can make it smaller, and it still keeps its form etc., but the form itself – form is such a binary thing, you can only destroy it, you can’t divide it.

Whereas according to the Kalam, there are these parts that can’t be divided, as it says “due to their minuteness” – simply because this is the smallest component. And here you can’t divide, not because if you divide it, it becomes something else. It’s simply because you can’t divide it, because you can’t – I don’t know. Here questions aren’t asked. This is how God made it, so there are the most basic things that can’t be divided, and that’s it.

So this is already another way to show the great difference between these systems.

An Important Distinction: Physical Limitation versus Essential

And again, there is this contrast, as it were. Specifically according to Aristotle it’s easier to break things, and they can no longer be broken – but this is simply because the moment you break them you destroyed the form. This is because of this belief, this understanding that form is mainly what defines things as what they are, and not the matter they’re made of – although of course we need matter.

Another thing: And there is one more limitation that Aristotle would also say. When I say you can divide everything infinitely, I don’t mean that you can divide them infinitely, yes? It could be that you need a very thin knife, and the knife is already made of a certain size, and we don’t have a sharp enough knife to cut the smallest thing – that’s not a problem. This is a physical limitation, not an essential limitation.

Whereas they say there is an essential limitation – at a certain stage you reach something that simply can’t be divided.

But this is also something that enables us to understand the dispute here about the continuity of matter versus atomism.

XV. Juxtaposition Composition versus Blending Composition

Now, another thing that is also written in it, that according to their view – and this is what will bring us to the second example – according to their view, as he writes here: “Being is destruction, and a body cannot be found as a body in any way, but composed of these equal parts, a juxtaposition composition.”

We already spoke about this a bit, but now it’s clearer. Juxtaposition composition is very different from composition, what they called in our translations blending composition.

1. What Is Juxtaposition Composition (Kalam Approach)?

And what is the difference? There is a very fundamental difference here, which can also be understood only if we start from Aristotle’s point of view, which looks at large things, whole things, as real things.

We’re very used to not thinking this way, and therefore it seems to us simply that the Kalam is correct. When I mix two things, then what happens? And after all the whole world, everything we see is a compound of all kinds of things, because after all we can break down most things into simpler elements.

And now, there is a question: Are all the things we see simply, as I say, that is, different configurations of these small particles sitting next to each other in different ways? This was the Kalam approach.

And therefore they say, they call this “juxtaposition composition” – simply everything we see, yes, clearly it’s composed of these small particles, but the small particles simply sit next to each other. They don’t talk to each other, there is never real communication between two particles in the world. They can move it perhaps, but they can’t connect, they don’t truly combine to create one thing.

There are no unified things in the world actually according to this approach – only the atoms are one thing. But more than this, all things are many.

Quantity According to Kalam: The Number of Atoms

And actually when we speak about the quantity of the thing, the size of the thing, we’re actually counting atoms. When we say there are six cubits here, a cubit is a certain number of atoms in the end.

So according to their approach, quantity is also – as we’ll see later, according to Aristotle quantity is an accident of the whole thing. According to their view, quantity is simply the number of atoms there are. So quantity is simply how much of something there is, it’s never “how much of something.” Therefore it’s not an accident, because an accident is being of something. I’m explaining this in order to understand something later.

But in any case, according to the Kalam this is what it’s called.

2. What Is Blending Composition (Aristotle’s Approach)?

Now, one must understand that according to Aristotle it’s not like this. According to Aristotle, when you combine two things – not all combinations, every combination that creates something natural or something real in some way – then it’s not correct to say that the smaller parts, the molecules, the atoms, whatever you call it, simply mixed with each other. That’s not what happens, but rather all the parts entered into all the parts. This is called blending.

And this actually matches very well what we see with our eyes. For example, if I pour wine – the word “blending” (meziga) is taken from there – I put water into wine. It’s not that really – we can imagine all the time, science constantly brainwashes us to say: “No, you see where the water is and where the wine is.”

So to our eyes it seems that simply in the whole cup there is wine. There isn’t a single crumb, there isn’t a single drop of water in the cup that isn’t water and wine together.

Implication for Halakha

In halakha, by the way, people also don’t understand many basic things because they think in an atomistic way, and halakha thinks in an Aristotelian way – because not only halakha, normal human beings think in such a way, yes? Philosophy is already another question, but a normal person understands that you combine two things.

Most things, yes, there is there – certainly there is also juxtaposition composition and many things – but generally, in a normal way, you mix two things.

XVI. Application of the Difference Between Atomism and Aristotle in Halakha and Life

Blending Composition in Halakha

In halakha, by the way, people also don’t understand many basic things because they think in an atomistic way, while halakha thinks in an Aristotelian way. Because it’s not just halakha – normal human beings think this way, right? Philosophy is another question, but a normal person understands that you combine two things. Most things – certainly there is also adjacent combination in many things – but generally, in a normal way, to combine two things means that a third thing is created.

One can say that the two things mixed into everything, into everything – not that a certain part of it entered a certain part of the other, and it’s very mixed up, and then it becomes a mixture. No – all the things became all the things. You can ask: which point of the water touched which point of the wine? The answer is: all of them and all of them – if you can even ask that question. This is called mizgi combination (temperamental mixture).

It’s like saying that a person is not all the atoms that compose him, but rather – yes, clearly he is composed of all sorts of things – but all these things became a person. This is again saying that change in the world is real. Before I existed, the materials that compose me were something else; now they are truly a person. It’s not that…

The Example of Eating: An Animal Becomes a Person

Yes, for example, someone will say: when a person eats – this is something Aristotle says, in De Anima, and the Kabbalists very much like to say – when a person eats, and then the food, let’s say plant food or also biological food, the animal becomes a person, right? We don’t understand this because we constantly think in an atomistic way, saying: no, inside the person there are living things and dead things and so on. No – after all, it became part of you.

Part of you – this means: you ask the person, where is that food you ate? Yes, clearly there’s a process. First it enters the stomach, but at the end of the process, all of what – not all of it, yes, part is completely expelled and exits – but the part that became you, where is it? It is in all of you. Yes, it is part of what makes the whole person a person.

Why the Rambam Views the Kalam as “Crazy”

So this is to explain, to sharpen for us why – yes, and now we need to understand why when the Rambam describes people who say that coming-into-being is destruction, or that coming-into-being is aggregation, or that coming-into-being is aggregation and separation and movement and rest and there is no destruction – he looks at this as something crazy.

This is someone who says there are no people, and when you put wine into water, there are actually many very small parts that simply sit next to each other, but a third thing that is diluted wine never comes into being here, etc. All these things are the basic differences between the atomistic system – which doesn’t believe in large things, doesn’t believe in things larger than an atom – and Aristotle’s system, which is the opposite of all this.

—

XVII. The Second Premise: The Question of the Void

So this is where we are. We’ll continue a bit more to the second premise, to the second introduction, which is the discussion of the void. One needs to understand something: the matter of the void is also something that requires much explanation just to get into our heads what’s happening here, because we all believe in the void – or at least that’s what they teach us.

The Paradox: “The Void Exists”

We hear all sorts of statements: Aristotle said that nature abhors a vacuum, all sorts of words that became slogans. We think these are just words, but one needs to understand again that this too is a philosophical principle connected to this whole matter.

For example, the Rambam – I don’t remember if I already read this to you once – the Rambam says that the Mutakallimun believe that the void exists. Now, first of all one needs to understand that saying this phrase – “the void exists” – is terribly strange, because void is something that is not. To say that the non-existent exists – it’s like saying that nothingness exists. Nothingness is precisely the thing that doesn’t exist.

The Modern Conception of Empty Space

Now, of course, what is void? Now, what is void? So here I return a bit to something. We are very accustomed to thinking since Newton – and the truth is that Einstein already doesn’t even believe this, but we’re still accustomed to thinking this way – when we imagine the world to ourselves, we imagine the world as: there is place, there is space fundamentally.

We think we can imagine it empty – there’s nothing in it. Not only are there no bodies, there are also no atoms, there’s nothing – because atoms are actually the bodies – so there’s nothing inside it. Now, inside this empty box all things move, all things exist, each in its place, and move within it, etc.

Where Did We Get This Picture From?

Now, if we think for a second where we got this picture from, why do we think this? After all, we never saw place. Place. Here you say, for example, that place is simply the conditions of our consciousness, it needs to think about things in place. But of course, Aristotle thinks that this thing simply doesn’t exist, so it can’t be a condition of cognition if there’s no such thing at all. What Kant said is a bit strange.

So as if – yes, and there are those who actually say this – so supposedly, if we describe the creation of the world, for example, the stages, that we imagine it as: first God made the basic stages, and then on top of them the more complex things built upon them. So first thing, He created empty space – or that we can supposedly imagine such a thing.

You take the entire world, eliminate part by part: you go over all the trees – no trees; no clouds, no sky, no grass, no people. What remains? We somehow invented for ourselves a story in which it makes sense to say: but the world remains. As if the most basic thing in the world is place.

What is Place? Extension

Now, some kind of place. Now they ask us: what is place? So we know how to answer. We answer: extension – meaning three dimensions. We can – within what is it to be a place? It’s to be something you can go in lengthwise and widthwise and heightwise, in three dimensions.

The Problem: We Never Saw and Cannot Imagine Empty

Now, if we think for a moment where we got this picture from, we understand that we didn’t get it – certainly not from the senses. I’ll explain in a moment where we think this from, but where did we get it? After all, we never saw, and also cannot imagine, an empty place.

Try to imagine an empty place – you’ll see that you’re imagining something. Say some very large room full of air. Air is not nothing, and also a room with walls is not nothing. So we’re imagining something. Or if we learned more mathematics, then we imagine – as Descartes taught us to imagine – a graph. We imagine some graph like this where you can draw three dimensions somehow, and that’s how it looks. So that’s also something. What we imagine is perhaps supposed to be a representation of that void – we draw it on paper, but it’s not void.

So there’s something here that we never saw, and we also cannot imagine. You do meditation, maybe talk about it, but generally we cannot imagine void. So where did we even get this idea, and to such an extent that we think it’s a basic thing? There’s something strange here.

Einstein Admits: It’s Not Logical

So I’ll tell you the answer. First of all, the answer is that they teach us in school, because Einstein said – and Einstein himself, they asked him, he writes – it’s not logical. So he says: forget that it’s not logical. I’m telling you that this is how you need to imagine in order to understand the world – not understand, in order to predict. He admits it’s not logical.

Now, not exactly – of course there are ways to make it logical – I’m just saying this isn’t some basic experience.

—

XVIII. The Source of the Concept “Place” According to Aristotle

What Is a Basic Experience?

What is a basic experience? I’m saying something novel here, but I didn’t invent it – it’s written in all the commentators. What is basic? So I’ll explain what’s basic.

What’s basic is that we see things in the world moving, or growing, moving – all types of movement and change that we see in the world.

The Relationship Between Two Bodies: The Example of the Chair

Now, there’s something interesting – Aristotle says this. Aristotle says that this is how we brought the word “place.” We notice that sometimes there’s some relationship between two things, where it seems the correct description of this relationship is not that they’re the same thing, but that they’re in the same place. Something strange, right?

The same chair I’m sitting on – so there’s some connection between my body… Forget this abstraction “place,” so we need to try to describe it without this abstraction. Now Yitzchak is sitting on the chair; tomorrow – I remember, I have memory – tomorrow Yanky is sitting on the same chair.

That is, my body now touches it, there’s some relationship – it holds my body, I place it with my body, etc. – and at another time someone else sits on the same body. Or one can say that my body itself is sometimes in a relationship with something with the chair, and in another hour it’s in a relationship with the chair in the kitchen.

The Fundamental Question: What Makes It the Same Place?

So I’m looking for something. So it turns out that there’s something where the same thing is sometimes in the same place as another thing. So you ask: wait, what’s happening here? How can a body be inside another body? That is, how does this work? What is the common thing in which I sit – that I sit on the chair and tomorrow you sit on the chair – what is the thing that makes these two things the same thing? There’s something strange here.

I sit on the chair – I know, it’s some relationship, some… I touch the chair, I sit on it. You sit on the same chair. Wait – how can you sit on the same chair as I sit? Ah, you can’t – it’s at a different time, it’s in a different way. Okay, so now: what does make it the same thing? What here is shared and what here separates?

This is the fundamental question of all physics: in what sense do I sit on the same chair as you sat? And I can also remove the chair and imagine the relationship between me and the room and many different things, but it’s always a relationship between two bodies.

The Conclusion: Place is Always a Relationship Between Bodies

We remember: when we talk about this thing that we explain to ourselves with the answer “place” – it’s never an abstract place, but rather a relationship between two bodies. Einstein also believes this in the end. Yes, one needs to remember that there’s no absolute place.

But in any case, I’m just explaining where we even got this abstraction of place, which we never saw and never imagined at all. The answer is: the abstraction comes from the fact that we sometimes see the same thing – two things in the same place, not at the same time, but two things in the same place. And we ask ourselves: how do we talk about this? We have language – how do we talk about two things being in the same place?

XIX. The Concept of Place: Aristotle vs. the Atomists

Place as a Third Thing

Ah, because there’s a third thing called place. We call it that for ourselves, and place is not the thing. Place is something third. Place is not the chair and not me. There’s a third thing here, which is the chair that somehow creates a place for a person to sit on it, and tomorrow you sit in the same place, right?

The word place actually comes from the phrase “same place,” not from absolute place, place, but rather same place. I think that in Hebrew and in language one can understand that it became this way. Therefore we say, “memale makom” (placeholder/substitute), which is another metaphor, another example for the word place. There’s a chapter on this in the Rambam, and that chapter too can only be understood according to his theory of place.

In any case, we understand that place is being in the same way, in the same relationship, with a third thing, but without it colliding. Without it, we’re not the same thing. And in any case, there’s still something we can say: I sit in the same place you sat yesterday. So what is this thing? This is the thing called place.

The Need for Memory to Identify Place

Now, there are different ways to solve, to decipher this fact. This is a fact we can see, right? At least if we have memory, right? Without memory I don’t know. But without memory you can’t see anything, right? So this is also, why the senses aren’t so much senses, right? Yes, because senses need memory to work.

Describing Movement Through the Concept of Place

In any case, I and you in the same place, or I push you from the place, you can also describe any such movement. I’m now moving the chair, what does it mean I’m moving the chair? You need some concept to describe that the chair moved, that anything moved. The chair is a chair, and the things, okay, so now I call it moving from place to place. That is, before it had some relationship, some… let’s say, touch, with such a body, and now it touches another body, or another part of the body, etc.

But mainly place derives from this unifier, that we with two things in the same place, so this forces us to think about something that is the place, that is not the things themselves.

Two Approaches to Solving the Problem of Place

A. Aristotle’s Approach: Place as a Relationship Between Things

Now, of course, this still doesn’t force us, there’s no reason, this doesn’t force us to say that there’s a third abstract place, that the whole world is built from some grid, as Newton imagined, from which all things exist, because no one ever saw absolute place. It may be needed for Newton’s calculations, but no one saw it. What we saw is changing relationships between things.

So we can say, Aristotle more or less arrives only from a certain type like this, that says that place is, what we call place is simply the surface of things, the surrounding part, as it were. I’m not explaining this correctly now, but I’m trying to see how one can talk about place, about the word place, that works, that solves the problem for which we invented the word place, without imagining absolute place, meaning void.

Because we simply say, place is a word for a relationship, for the point of contact between two things. Every thing has a place. What happens to all of us when there’s place? Simply, every thing has an external surface, it has its external layer as it were, where it touches other things. It also touches internally, that’s more complicated, but we’re talking about this simply. And when I say something is in the same place, we mean, it simply touches the same thing you touched before. That’s all.

Example: “Up” and “Down” as Relationships

Of course the whole world is stable in a certain way, so we can talk about place. When we say up, Aristotle says, when we say up, we mean close to the element of fire, or whatever, close to the spheres. And this we know as place. It’s not that there’s absolute up, this is actually his solution to many problems, the Rambam himself will mention this later in the chapter. There’s no such thing as up, yes. There’s no up in the universe. What we call up is the place, it’s the things, those bodies that are up, and now a relationship with them is called being up, a relationship with the earth is called being down. These are simply words we use for this, and therefore from here derives the whole theory of the natural place of things, etc.

One needs to remember that we read everything backwards, because our word place is already a construction and abstraction.

What’s the other option? This is his system, I didn’t explain it correctly, we’ll get to it. Not enough.

B. The Abstraction Approach: Empty Place

In any case, what’s the other option to solve the same problem? The other option is to make an abstraction, and this is actually what we do. Whoever says empty place, whoever talks about void does something like this, makes an abstraction.

What is Abstraction?

What is abstraction? Another thing we need to explain. But he says, I can describe this relationship, that the thing is in the same place as another thing, by my, let’s say, assigning numbers to every thing, let’s say, this is one cubit and this is a second cubit, and then I’ll start thinking, I can think about the number without the thing that composes it, right?

All mathematics is built on abstraction. Why is mathematics the most primary abstraction in the world? Because mathematics relates to the numbers of things without the things. It’s supposed to work on everything, and therefore the relationship it describes is not the relationship between the thing that has, that is one, but between the one itself. Now, there’s a question here about what we’re even talking about, etc., but the operation of mathematics, everyone agrees that it works this way, or that at least it seems to work this way, in any case.

Reification: Turning the Abstraction into a Thing

Now, now, those who talk about place in an empty way actually say that the world at its beginning is a mathematical abstraction. That we can describe distance in numbers, as we see, three dimensions, three ways in which a thing can distance itself from another thing, that’s what dimensions are. We invent this as something that exists. Dimension is simply, I can count, I can assign numbers to how far a thing goes, and the thing can be far in three different ways, from this side and from this side and from this side.

And we now do reification, we imagine that this abstraction is a thing, and of course it’s not a thing, because after all the whole point of it is to be an abstraction. So this is actually empty place, this is the void. It’s nothing. What’s there in this abstraction? Nothing. All things are inside it, but in itself it’s nothing.

XX. Return to the Rambam’s Words: Why the Atomists Need Void

Now, let’s return to what he says. Now we understand what’s happening here. He says that the Mutakallimun believe that the void exists, this mathematical abstraction, which is simply amazing dimensions, it exists. And what is it? It is one distance, simply distance, or two distances, I’m not getting into this interpretation, that there’s no thing between at all but voids from all body, devoid of them all substance, meaning, all particular substance, all atoms, simply void, but simply distance without it describing something that is far from this. This is the strange thing about assuming there’s empty place, or one of the strange things, there are more strange things.

The Premise Necessary for Them

And he explains why he needs this, and this is the premise necessary for them to believe in the first premise. If you trained in atomism, you remember, atomism says that no body can join another body, no atom, which are the basic bodies, they can stand next to each other. Now, what unites them? That they touch each other, one can say. But they cannot connect to each other. And now, there’s no possibility that one will become the other. No atom ever becomes another atom, that’s the whole point of atoms, because you can’t cut them.

The Difference from Aristotle: The Flexible Matter

The materials, Aristotle’s matter, constantly enters into the other because you can break it down infinitely and you can transform it, the whole point of it is that you can transform it into different things, it has no stability in terms of its matter. But the particles that are supposedly the matter, yes, but not the matter, these substances of atomism, they are very rigid, terribly rigid, you can’t do anything to them. They can only do one thing, move in space.

The Central Question: What is Space?

Now we think for a second, what is this space, upon which the world rests? Where did we invent it? After all, Aristotle doesn’t need space, because he simply, he has dense body, the whole world is full, but he has no problem that a body will become another body. So you can describe it as parts, and then you can say, parts of the general matter enter into other parts, and this is how things move in the world. This is movement in the world.

Movement doesn’t mean that things move within an empty void – you don’t need an empty void. On the contrary, an empty void is a strange thing. When I say I’m ascending to the heavens, simply the part of the world that is in one state becomes another state. This is normal – this is how all change occurs in the world. Things constantly enter into each other – that’s the answer. Meaning, they transform into one another, which is essentially movement.

The Necessity of the Void for the Atomist

But if you’re an atomist, then this cannot be – this cannot work. There are only atoms, and atoms are always identical to themselves; they cannot change. So therefore we have only two options: either the world is full of such particles – the world is full of atoms, because there is nothing but atoms, as we said – so how is movement possible? And it’s inconceivable that bodies would enter into each other. It’s impossible for one body to enter into another. According to Aristotle, this happens all the time – that one body enters into another. Of course, he has a concept of material resistance; there are things that can be inserted, and things that cannot, and it’s all according to the potential, according to the possibility of matter to become other matter, etc.

But, of course, with solid matter – for something to actually be inside something else is impossible. But things are not so solid, and that’s what enables movement. But if you’re an atomist, then it’s impossible.

21. The Need for Void According to the Atomistic System

The Problem: Movement in a World Full of Atoms

It needs air, as it were – not air, because air is also atoms, so that won’t help us. Air won’t help. If air is a full substance, then how can it enter? So gathering is impossible. The parts are in their separation and these are in their movement. After all, our entire assumption is that there are things that gather and separate, so they need to move. But within what will they move? They will constantly encounter other atoms and won’t be able to do anything. So behold, they will necessarily need to posit the void.

Democritus’s Position: Atoms and Void

So we need to invent, to say that the truth is – that the atomistic system doesn’t say that the world is entirely atoms, but rather the world is entirely two things: atoms and void. This was exactly the style of Democritus, who invented atomism. He says – this is his quote, a fragment, brought in Aristotle and in all the books – that what appears to us as things is only convention, only custom, and in truth there are atoms and void.

Because what is the void? According to the atomistic system, you must have void so that atoms can move, and of course movement exists in the world, because things do move in the world and do change in the world. So that those parts can gather and separate, and the movement of the moving thing can occur in the void, or where no body carries substance from one of them.

The Nature of the Void: Dispersed or Concentrated?

So now, of course, this void can be dispersed. When we say, for example, that there is air, the air is full – so they can say: no, perhaps it seems to you that the room is full of air, but within the air there is much empty space, and within this empty space different things enter when you move, etc. Of course, they don’t think we’re in a completely empty world, so things work out, but empty space always remains beside them.

And here there’s a question of how exactly to describe this: Is there void within everything, or is there only one general background void, etc., whether it’s the same background or whether the background divides – all sorts of questions like these. But I’m only explaining why according to the atomistic system one needs a true void, in which there is nothing, so that atoms can move and things can happen in the world.

The Difference from the Aristotelian System

Whereas according to the other system – it’s not needed. When I enter a room that is full of air, the room remains full and I remain full. Simply, I as it were – I don’t know if this description is sufficiently precise, but it’s as if it’s true that the air moves to the sides, etc., but this is all because the potential of this place, of this matter, which is not an abstract place but a concrete place, has the possibility to become a place for a person, to become a person now – or not exactly to become a person, but I don’t need an empty space in order to move. And the entire world moves all the time without being within a void – that’s a different matter.

Our Difficulty in Understanding Aristotle

In any case, this too – we constantly imagine movement within a void, which is exactly the system that has a bride, and has atomism, and Aristotle doesn’t think it. One needs, I’m saying, even in order to hear how he describes it, one needs to understand, to start from the other side. And this way we can perhaps describe to ourselves why he thinks this is an innovation, why he needs to explain why void is needed: only because of atomism is void needed; if there were no atomism, void wouldn’t be needed.

—

So that concludes the second introduction.

I think that’s enough.