Concept of Matter in Greek and Mediaeval Philosophy

the long version

In the essays, comments, and discussion gathered together in this book, philosophers, physicists, and historians of science have collaborated in presenting a complex and detailed picture. Their concern on the whole is not so much with the history of ideas as with substantive questions of present philosophic and scientific concern. Their approach is to attack these questions through analytic case studies of historical examples. They are interested not only in what a particular philosopher said about matter, but in whether the reasons he gives for invoking his particular sort of "material principle" retain their validity today.