Philosophy: Explain the four cuases as outlined by ARISTOTLE in the PHYSICS

The four causes in The Physics ' by Aristotle 2005

In various discussions of Aristotle 's doctrine of the four causes there is a significant tendency . Reviewers take a sculptor at work on a statue : the marble block is the material cause , the action of sculpting the efficient cause , the formal cause is the shape of the statue , and the final cause is the purpose for which the statue is intended . The only problem with such an illustration is that it does not appear in any Aristotelian text in fact Aristotle varies his

illustrations of each of the four causes and uses the case of the sculptor to demonstrate only the relation between the efficient and material cause . Indeed , observing this disparity , R . K . Sprague , in a note published in 1968 , protested any illustration of the four causes by a single example (Sprague , 298 From the critical point of view , it is necessary to consider the four causes doctrine in terms of its reason and context in which it has been developed

If the four causes are assessed critically , one may derive the conclusion that this doctrine of Aristotle emerged as his criticism though very general of Plato 's Forms . From this perspective Aristotelian critique of Plato can be narrowed to a single statement namely that Plato 's Forms are inefficient causes . Aristotle 's own views on cause and explanations discussed in The Physics ' until recently have not been well understood . His examples of X 's standing as aitiai to F include : the bronze to the statue the ratio 2 :1 to the octave the planner to the deed the aim of health to walking (Physics , 118 . From the critical standpoint , these cannot all be causes because we cannot have the bronze producing the statue , and those who have spoken of them as such have generally been assuming a pliable and confused notion of causality

It is a great improvement to cease thinking of an aitiai as a cause and to treat it instead as an explanation , a because (Evans , 39 ) Just as Plato does in the Phaedo , Aristotle introduces his theory of aitiai as ways of answering the question why ? In saying that there are four kinds of aitiai , Aristotle is saying that the question , why something is the case , can be answered in four mutually irreducible ways , giving four different types of explanation . And since explanation is an epistemological notion , we can see why Aristotle thinks that to know a thing you must know its aitiai (Physics , 40

However , recognizing that aitiai are explanations does not mean that Aristotle has no concern with causality . The material , formal and final aitiai explain in non-causal fashion , but the efficient aitiai is the source of kinesis , movement or change . The use to which Aristotle puts it makes it clear that it is recognizably a cause in our sense : it is the kind of item cited in the explanation of why a particular change occurred . Simultaneously , Aristotle does not think that causes precede...