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TULASI-PRAJNA, March, 1990
"empty space" that existed between atoms. According to their atomic theory, matter did not consist only of the “Full”, but also of the "void”, of the empty space in which the atoms moved. Thus they accepted "matter" and "space" as independent objective realities. 1
Earlier, another Greek philosopher Parmenides (B.C. 450) had pointed out that since void or empty space is "not-being”, it cannot exist. But, in the philosophy of the atomists, the logical objection of Parmenides against the void was held invalid to comply with experience. They argued that without accepting the real existence of empty space, motion of the atoms would not be possible, and there. fore, they maintained that space was not nothing bu: that it was of the nature of a receptacle, which might or might not have any given part filled with matter.? The ancient Greek Philosophers have treated time almost at par with space. Epicurus accepted the real existence and thus believed it to be an objective reality.3
Plato and Aristotle
After the Greek atomists, Plato has though over the nature of space in his notable work Timeaus. Plato has used the term “Chora" for space. "Chora may be thought of as a substratum which remains when all the attributes of material bodies--weight, colour, etc -are abstracted from them. Moreover, the sensuous objects may be regarded as being actually constituted of Chora.”4 Thus Chora or space is invariably associated with matter and has no existence apart from it. Plato believed that God had created time together with the universe, and that space and time came into existence simultaneously.5 He maintained that God had created time as a reflection of the real
He did not believe in the ultimate reality and time. In the confessions of St. Augustine (4th Century), the problem of time is discussed. He, like Plato, considered time as a subjective reality and asserted that except present the division of time into past and future was only imaginary. He also maintained that time did not exist before the universe existed : “There is no time before he created the world."'8
Aristotle's concept of space is slightly different from the concept of “chora”. Being a realist, just as he assumes that material bodies are things that really exist, whether we happen to perceive them or not, so he assuines that the space and time in which they move are real features of the world that does not depend for its existence on our perceiving it. Aristotle conceives space as a sort of immovable
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