Aristotle's Four Causes
Aristotle held that any contingent event (particularly
a material event) was explainable in principle. That is, for Aristotle there are no uncaused contingent events
in the universe. Much of his work in the Physics and Metaphysics is dedicated to articulating an exhaustive
account of causation. He built on the work of Plato and the Natural Philosophers who had offered various theories to
explain the observable universe. However, Aristotle believed all the previous accounts of causation were incomplete; they
either failed to account for the rational element which explains order (nous) or they failed to account for the natural elements
out of which order is formed (phusis). This commonly known as the hylomorphic composite, the explainable
combination of matter (hulos) and form (morphos) that is the observable universe.
Aristotle attempts to bridge the seeming gap between mind and matter by synthesizing the previous accounts of causation
into a single four-fold account:
- Material Cause - the stuff out of which something is made
- Formal Cause - the defining characteristics of (e.g., shape) the thing
- Final Cause - the purpose of the thing
- Efficient Cause - the antecedent condition that brought the thing about
According to Aristotle, to have knowledge of some event, to
know a thing, is to fully grasp all four causes of the event/thing.
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