Solutions
There were three possible solutions to this obvious logic error and each was pursued by the ancient Greek philosophers. 
The first was to affirm the idea that a vacuum cannot exist and support an idea that the basic matter of the universe is not unitary. These Philosophers believed that the world around us was comprised of various different substances and the diversity in the substances around us is the product of mixing these basic substances in various proportions. Among these philosophers were Empedocles of Agrigento who said the basic units were fire, air, earth, and water, and Anaxagoras who believed that matter was the mixture of various qualities that were infinite and unchangeable. These qualities included wet and dry, light and dark, cold and hot. (Amaldi 19) Another solution was to affirm that these simple basic units are impenetrable, identical, and evenly spread throughout the universe but that they it is made up of many parts that were unique among themselves. (Amaldi 19) Aristotle would say that these philosophers believed that "...this plenum is not one but many things of infinite number, and invisible owing to the minuteness of their bulk. These are carried along in the void...and when they come together, they cause coming-to-be and when they dissolve, they cause passing away."
The final theory was quite radical when compared to the ideas of the other philosophers. These philosophers, called Elean philosophers, did not try and solve the question "What makes up the universe?" Rather, they asked "What are we capable of gathering knowledge?" Their very unique answer was that we could only know certain things. These philosophers believed that we cannot know the world around us through thought and reflection but only though the senses. They criticize the other philosophers for their ideas that they could simply think up the nature of the world around them.Previous
