From the book
Stobaeus, Volume I
John Stobaeus · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordHypokeimenon is what lies beneath or serves as a subject.
- In StobaeusThe report on Plato identifies matter as what underlies coming to be and passing away, distinguishing it from divine mind and the pattern.
- In this editionUse “underlying subject” in the argument; “substrate” is a compact technical alternative when its role has been explained.
- A place to beginMatter is distinguished from maker and model as the underlying recipient.
- English renderings
- underlying subject; substrate
Meaning
Hypokeimenon is what lies beneath or serves as a subject. In accounts of change, it is the bearer that undergoes different conditions.
Use in the book
The report on Plato identifies matter as what underlies coming to be and passing away, distinguishing it from divine mind and the pattern. Ocellus uses the same vocabulary to contrast a changing subject with an abiding causal subject. The term therefore requires a relational question: underlying what change, predicate, or activity?
Places to read
- I.10.16a.2Matter is distinguished from maker and model as the underlying recipient.
- I.20.3.3Persistence and change are contrasted with reference to their subjects.
Translation in this edition
Use “underlying subject” in the argument; “substrate” is a compact technical alternative when its role has been explained.
Source note
Wachsmuth, volume I, printed pp. 127–128, 174. The location of form in divine thought in I.10.16a.2 belongs to the reporter’s interpretation of Plato, not a quoted Platonic sentence.