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In his discussion of prime matter in De rebus naturalibus, Jacob Zabarella (1533–1589) defends the position that prime matter is extended. However, it is less clear how he accounts for its extension. There is an important text where he apparently suggests that prime matter is extended in and of itself (the intrinsically extended view). However, there are two other texts apparently stating that matter is extended in virtue of a distinct accident in the category of quantity (the accidentally quantified view). Each interpretation has been represented by a contemporary commentator, based upon the corresponding texts. However, I argue that a decisive reading based solely upon any particular text(s) is not available. Nevertheless, examining Zabarella's writing on the topic as a whole, the trajectory of his overall argument is remarkably sympathetic to Averroes, who famously took the accidentally quantified position. Thus, from this systematic feature, the accidentally quantified reading is more reasonable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

In On Generation and Corruption, Aristotle rejects the very possibility of such a thing as Anaximander's apeiron. Characterized as a kind of intermediate stuff, the apeiron turns out to consist of contraries and as such is impossible. Commentators have rightly noted this point and some have also indicated that Aristotle offers an argument of sorts for his negative estimate. However, the argument has received scant attention, and it is fair to say that it remains unclear exactly why Aristotle rejects Anaximander's intermediate stuff. Indeed, it is unclear how Aristotle's argument is supposed to run in the first place. This paper offers a reconstruction of Aristotle's argument for the impossibility of the apeiron, and on this basis offers to explain Aristode's grounds for rejecting Anaximander's interme-diate stuff. This is especially called for in light of the fact that Aristotle himself thinks that there can be intermediate stuffs. Finally, some attention is given to the parallel between the apeiron and Aristotle's prime matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper examines the view held by Francesco Piccolomini (1523-1607) on the relation between prime matter and extension. In his discussion of prime matter in the Libri ad scientiam de natura attinentes Piccolomini develops a theory of prime matter that incorporates crucial elements of the viewpoint adhered to by the Neoplatonist Simplicius. The originality of Piccolomini's undertaking is highlighted by contrasting it with the ideas found in Jacopo Zabarella's De rebus naturalibus. The case of Piccolomini shows that, in order to classify early modern metaphysical theories of prime matter, the category 'prime matter as sheer dimensionality' is indispensable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To avoid reification of prime matter, or the indeterminate, yet determinable, substrate underlying all change, many readers of Aristotle have identified this per se unknowable "stuff" with its functional identity, i.e., as a conceptual placeholder of the sum of formal potencies abstracted from concrete particulars. Despite the appeal of this reduction, a case will be made in reference to Siger of Brabant's Metaphysics for the irreducibility of prime matter. This entails granting an extra-formal reality to prime matter beyond its functional role as a correlate passively receiving forms imparted by an agent without contributing anything of this own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]