1.2.2

Aristotle's Four Causes

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Aristotle's Four Causes - Efficient, Material & Formal

As an object cannot be both simultaneously potential and actual, how does it move from one to the other? Aristotle says it needs an agent to move it, which he called the efficient cause.

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Material cause

  • The agent must be in a state of actuality, not potentiality. It must exist to be a cause of change in an object.
    • You need actual water to effect the change of an acorn into an oak tree.
  • From this, we can see how Aristotle got the first two of his causes – there must be matter, which undergoes the change from one form to another. In other words, if someone asks for an explanation of it, we can say what it is made of – eg the statue is made of marble. This would be then the material cause.
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Explaining the 'how'

  • But as we have seen, this would not be a total explanation of the thing for Aristotle – he would want to know how the statue got its particular form.
  • This ‘how’ is what Aristotle called the efficient cause. In the case of the statue, the sculptor acted upon the stone with his chisel to make the potential statue in the marble an actual statue.
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Beyond material/efficient causes

  • Aristotle did not believe we could stop with just the material and efficient causes (the what and the how).
  • He believed that as the material has undergone a change of form from a potential thing to an actual thing, that part of its explanation was what the characteristics of it were.
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Formal cause

  • If we were to ask a person ‘what makes you the person you are?’ they would probably not list of the elements that compose them, such as carbon. They would probably talk about their upbringing or give a character trait, such as ‘I’m happy-go-lucky’.
  • So we need to add another cause to get a full explanation of a thing – we need to talk about its characteristics – eg. a chair is more than just some wood, it is an object with four legs and a space to sit. Aristotle called this the formal cause.
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Formal cause - statue example

  • The formal cause would be its particular qualities of marble sculpted into the form of a body, head etc.
  • The formal cause of something is the ‘form’ of the thing – the pattern which makes it what it is.
    • In the case of a building, it would be the blueprint.
  • This is not as easily understandable as the other causes and has been seen as slightly controversial.
  • But clearly, much debate surrounds the notion of a form and many agree that Aristotle’s notion is no less flawed than Plato’s.

Aristotle's Four Causes - Final Cause

The fourth cause is called the final cause and comes from the end of a thing, what it is for.

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Explanation of the final cause

  • This idea of a purposive cause is given by Aristotle because something’s aim or goal is also an important part of an explanation of the thing.
  • Aristotle gives the example of the final cause of walking, medicine, purging, surgical instruments etc. as all being for health.
  • For Aristotle, the aim of something can be seen as its greatest good. This is brought out in our use of language when we ask of an object 'what is it good for?'.
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Emphasis on the telos

  • This emphasis on the telos (the goal of something) is a key part of Aristotle’s thought.
  • For Aristotle, change is the actualisation of something’s potential with respect to its potentiality. In other words, something can only become what it has in it to be.
    • So a lump of wood can become a bed and a block of marble can become a statue. But a piece of iron cannot become a wombat, nor can a human become a bird.
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Achieving the telos

  • The potential of something may be latent until something else acts upon it.
  • But if that thing acts upon it in a directed manner and brings about its potential, then we can say the telos of something has been achieved.
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Modern science - efficient cause

  • Modern science focuses on the efficient cause when explaining the physical world. In fact, the final cause is not considered.
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Using teleological reasons

  • When we are talking about the human world, it makes sense to talk about why something happened in terms of a final cause. For example:
    • Why did John stay in last night rather than go to Mary’s party? He wanted to avoid seeing Jane who he dislikes.
    • Why did you make that cake for Peter? I wanted to cheer him up.
  • These are teleological reasons – they make sense in terms of what goal someone had in mind. We would not get a very good understanding of those actions if we left them out.

Jump to other topics

1Philosophy of Religion

1.1Ancient Philosophical Influences: Plato

1.2Ancient Philosophical Influences: Aristotle

1.3Ancient Philosophical Influences: Soul, Mind, Body

1.4The Existence of God - Arguments from Observation

1.5The Existence of God - Arguments from Reason

1.6Religious Experience

1.7The Problem of Evil

1.8The Nature & Attributes of God

1.9Religious Language: Negative, Analogical, Symbolic

1.10Religious Language: 20th Century Perspective

2Religion & Ethics

3Developments in Christian Thought

3.1Saint Augustine's Teachings

3.2Death & the Afterlife

3.3Knowledge of God's Existence

3.4The Person of Jesus Christ

3.5Christian Moral Principles

3.6Christian Moral Action

3.7Development - Pluralism & Theology

3.8Development - Pluralism & Society

3.9Gender & Society

3.10Gender & Theology

3.11Challenges

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