9. Ouranos. The word ouranos (ούρανός) means
heavens, and it is a keyword in De caelo. In the asser-
tion that the world is finite, or rather in the arguments
that the “body” (soma) of the world is finite, Aristotle
uses either ouranos or to pan. But he uses mainly
ouranos in the speculation, which in the Renaissance
brought down upon him much condemnatory criticism,
that the heavens rotate around the earth in concentric
spheres. He also uses ouranos in his beautifully
reasoned assertion that there is only one world (De
caelo, Book I, Chs. 8 and 9).
Ouranos is a word of uncertain etymology. It occurs
in Homer and other ancient poetry and has there
always one complex meaning of “the region which
contains the stars and in which the phenomena of
weather take place, a region which was personified and
considered to be divine or to be the dwelling place
of the gods” (L. Elders, pp. 140-41). It thus had a
well-established standing even before Aristotle put his
imprint on it. Yet, Aristotle made it the center of a
system “which, although Aristotle was a naturalist
rather than a physicist, held the stage of physics for
almost two thousand years, and which, by its flashes
of insight and uncanny anticipations, evokes fascination
even today” (Bochner [1966], p. 178).
