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    Aristotle Four Causes

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    Masoud Nassor
    Aristotle believed that to understand anything, one must understand its four causes: (1) the material cause, or what it is made of; (2) the efficient cause, or the agent responsible for its creation; (3) the final cause, or its ultimate purpose or function; and (4) the formal cause, or its distinguishing essence or form. Unlike Plato, Aristotle argued that the physical world should be understood on its own terms rather than in relation to abstract ideal forms, and his theory of the four causes provided a methodology for comprehending physical objects without reference to non-physical essences.

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    Aristotle Four Causes

    Uploaded by

    Masoud Nassor
    352 views1 page
    Aristotle believed that to understand anything, one must understand its four causes: (1) the material cause, or what it is made of; (2) the efficient cause, or the agent responsible for its creation; (3) the final cause, or its ultimate purpose or function; and (4) the formal cause, or its distinguishing essence or form. Unlike Plato, Aristotle argued that the physical world should be understood on its own terms rather than in relation to abstract ideal forms, and his theory of the four causes provided a methodology for comprehending physical objects without reference to non-physical essences.

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    Four causes as explained by Aristotle.

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    Aristotle believed that to understand anything, one must understand its four causes: (1) the material cause, or what it is made of; (2) the efficient cause, or the agent responsible for its creation; (3) the final cause, or its ultimate purpose or function; and (4) the formal cause, or its distinguishing essence or form. Unlike Plato, Aristotle argued that the physical world should be understood on its own terms rather than in relation to abstract ideal forms, and his theory of the four causes provided a methodology for comprehending physical objects without reference to non-physical essences.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    352 views1 page

    Aristotle Four Causes

    Uploaded by

    Masoud Nassor
    Aristotle believed that to understand anything, one must understand its four causes: (1) the material cause, or what it is made of; (2) the efficient cause, or the agent responsible for its creation; (3) the final cause, or its ultimate purpose or function; and (4) the formal cause, or its distinguishing essence or form. Unlike Plato, Aristotle argued that the physical world should be understood on its own terms rather than in relation to abstract ideal forms, and his theory of the four causes provided a methodology for comprehending physical objects without reference to non-physical essences.

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    of 1

    Dr.

    Richard Clarke LITS2306 Notes 03A

    1
    ARISTOTLE ON THE FOUR CAUSES

    Aristotle was Platos student and did not openly deny his teachers basic premise that this physical world
    is an imperfect reflection of an ideal world beyond. In many ways, though, Aristotle held beliefs that
    were diametrically opposed to Platos. Where the latter was an idealist, Aristotle displayed a remarkably
    materialist and down to earth, as opposed to otherworldly, sensibility in many respects, contending that
    the here and now is best understood in its own terms rather than in terms of spurious ideal forms. To
    this end, he argued, humans needed a methodology that would allow us to comprehend the nature of
    physical objects per se without seeking to relate them to non-physical essences or forms which our
    earthly minds can grasp only in the abstract.
    To understand anything in the here and now, Aristotle argues, we must seek to understand its
    cause, its raison detre:
    We do not think that we know a thing until we grasp the why of it, that is the primary
    cause of it. It is plain that we must grasp the why of coming into existence, of ceasing
    to exist, and every natural change, so that knowing the origin of such things, we may try
    to refer each thing we investigate to its origin. (118)
    Each natural or humanly-made phenomenon has four conditions (causes) necessary to its existence:
    C
    the material cause: that out of which something comes into existence and which
    continues to exist in the result, for example, the bronze of a statue (118) (in other words,
    the material it is made of);
    C
    the efficient or moving cause: the primary source of the change or coming to rest
    (118) by which matter in one form is turned into another, for example, a father [is] the
    cause of the child, and in general the maker is the cause of what is made and one who
    changes is the cause of a thing being changed (118) (in other words, the agent
    responsible for something coming into existence);
    C
    the final cause: the end or that for the sake of which (118) something is done, for
    example, health is the end of taking a walk (118) (i.e. to what end it exists, its ultimate
    purpose, its characteristic function or effect; for example, the characteristic function of
    an axe is to cut while that of an eye is to see).
    C
    the formal cause: the form and model of a thing. This is the essence and definition of
    a thing (118) which makes it different from something else. The matter of which a ball
    consists, for example, takes a certain form which differentiates it from other forms of
    matter, such as a chicken or a stick or an eye. The characteristic function of an object
    (e.g. an eye sees) is a product of the form peculiar to the eye (as opposed to the form
    taken by an axe).
    Aristotles formal cause is evidently not to be confused with Platos ideal forms of which physical objects
    are imperfect imitations.

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