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The four causes or four explanations are, in Aristotelian thought, categories of questions that explain "the why's" of something that exists or changes in nature. The four causes are the: material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause.
The idea of universal causation is formulated in western philosophy similarly for ages [when?], however the formulations contain some profound differences in methodology and philosophical assumptions. Examples: In addition, everything that becomes or changes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause.
For Aristotelian philosophy before Aquinas, the word cause had a broad meaning. It meant 'answer to a why question' or 'explanation', and Aristotelian scholars recognized four kinds of such answers. With the end of the Middle Ages, in many philosophical usages, the meaning of the word 'cause' narrowed. It often lost that broad meaning, and was ...
Final cause and efficient cause [ edit ] Simplicius argues that the first unmoved mover is a cause not only in the sense of being a final cause—which everyone in his day, as in ours, would accept—but also in the sense of being an efficient cause (1360. 24ff.), and his master Ammonius wrote a whole book defending the thesis (ibid. 1363. 8–10).
The modern [1] formulation of the principle is usually ascribed to early Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Leibniz.Leibniz formulated it, but was not an originator. [2] The idea was conceived of and utilized by various philosophers who preceded him, including Anaximander, [3] Parmenides, Archimedes, [4] Plato and Aristotle, [5] Cicero, [5] Avicenna, [6] Thomas Aquinas, and Spinoza. [7]
Philosopher Brian Leftow has argued that the question cannot have a causal explanation (as any cause must itself have a cause) or a contingent explanation (as the factors giving the contingency must pre-exist), and that if there is an answer, it must be something that exists necessarily (i.e., something that just exists, rather than is caused ...
A copy was sent to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who responded by inviting the author to his home on a regular basis, ostensibly to discuss philosophy but in reality to recruit the young philosopher into work on his Theory of Colors. [2] In 1847 Schopenhauer rewrote and enlarged the work, publishing a new edition.
In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption. First principles in philosophy are from first cause [1] attitudes and taught by Aristotelians, and nuanced versions of first principles are referred to as postulates by Kantians.