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The view that prime matter possesses extension as an essential feature offers one way to explain the traditional role of prime matter while avoiding the twin charges of incoherence and vacuity. In this paper, I show that attributing extension to prime matter as an essential feature is not a viable interpretation of Aristotle, and indeed, is at odds with the concept of extension in his physical works. Nonetheless, one need not entirely reject Aristotle's commitment to prime matter; I suggest that the paradoxical nature of prime matter is not problematic, so long as the role of prime matter is restricted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that the prime matter that Leibniz posits in every created monad is understood by him to be a mere defect or negation, and not something real and positive. Further, I argue that Leibniz's talk of prime matter in every created monad is inspired by the thirteenth-century doctrine of spiritual matter, but that such talk is simply one way in which Leibniz frames a point that he frequently makes elsewhere--namely, that each creaturely essence incorporates a limitation that is the ultimate source of an original imperfection that affects the creature from the first moment of its existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues for the plausibility of Pierre Bayle's interpretation of Baruch Spinoza. Challenges to Bayle's interpretation; Continuity of the Baylean interpretation with the Spinozan concept of prime matter; Role of prime matter in scholastic metaphysics; Cartesian understanding of prime matter; Examination of Spinoza's understanding of prime matter in his "Ethics"; Defense of the Baylean interpretation of Spinoza's monism.