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Aristotle's Four Causes illustrated for a table: material (wood), formal (structure), efficient (carpentry), final (dining). 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.
However, if the cosmos had a beginning, Aristotle argued, it would require an efficient first cause, a notion that Aristotle took to demonstrate a critical flaw. [ 22 ] [ 23 ] [ 24 ] But it is a wrong assumption to suppose universally that we have an adequate first principle in virtue of the fact that something always is so ...
Aristotle assumed efficient causality as referring to a basic fact of experience, not explicable by, or reducible to, anything more fundamental or basic. In some works of Aristotle, the four causes are listed as (1) the essential cause, (2) the logical ground, (3) the moving cause, and (4) the final cause.
Aristotelianism (/ ˌ ær ɪ s t ə ˈ t iː l i ə n ɪ z əm / ARR-i-stə-TEE-lee-ə-niz-əm) is a philosophical tradition inspired by the work of Aristotle, usually characterized by deductive logic and an analytic inductive method in the study of natural philosophy and metaphysics.
Aristotelian physics is the form of natural philosophy described in the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC). In his work Physics, Aristotle intended to establish general principles of change that govern all natural bodies, both living and inanimate, celestial and terrestrial – including all motion (change with respect to place), quantitative change (change with respect to ...
This is an aspect of Aristotle's theory of four causes and specifically of formal cause (eidos, which Aristotle says is energeia [25]) and final cause (telos). In essence this means that Aristotle did not see things as matter in motion only, but also proposed that all things have their own aims or ends.
Aristotle argued by analogy with woodwork that a thing takes its form from four causes: in the case of a table, the wood used (material cause), its design (formal cause), the tools and techniques used (efficient cause), and its decorative or practical purpose (final cause).
[9] Aristotle recommended four causes as appropriate for the business of the natural philosopher, or physicist, "and if he refers his problems back to all of them, he will assign the 'why' in the way proper to his science—the matter, the form, the mover, [and] 'that for the sake of which '".