Topos: the place of the things, the place of each thing.

By: Maria Odete Madeira

Topos is the primitive Greek term for place, not a place available for the things but the place of each thing, each entity, its irreducible spatial extension.

Thus it was assumed the notion of topos by the Greek philosophers, and thus it was worked upon and expanded in conceptual terms, along the Western philosophical thinking, in which it had its origin.

Underlying the notion of topos is the philosophical assumption that all that exists has a place that is constitutively proper to it (Aristotle, Meta.7080b, 1083b; Phys.IV, 209a, 208a-213a, 212a, 208b, 209b).

Plato (Tim., 52a-c) and Aristotle worked on the concept, linking it to the notion of arché (principle), from which the nature of the things could be understood and explained, in what regards its origin.