If Aristotle is not simply analyzing causality in the modern sense, what is he analyzing? Another way of phrasing this is, “If the 4 causes are the answer, what is the question?” He tells us up front “Knowledge is the object of our inquiry.” Aristotle wants to define knowledge and the 4 causes are the framework. He says you can’t truly know a thing until you know why it behaves a certain way, what causes it to behave that way. This general framework applies to knowledge about anything.
Since we are discussing motion / change, Aristotle wants to apply this framework here. “So clearly we must do this (understand the causes) as regards…every kind of physical change.”
The 4 causes, using you and I, human beings, as an example.
1. Material – what kind of matter we are made of, carbon based flesh and blood.
2. Formal – the form, shape, definition. Dimensions, proportions, abilities.
3. Efficient – This is causality in the modern sense. My parents gave birth to me so they were the direct cause for my existence.
4. Final – The purpose / reason for something. Interesting for Aristotle to include this. That means he believes there is a reason for everything. Perhaps this is only interesting from our point of view. Nihilism, Existentialism and Materialism are more embedded in modern thinking than in the ancient world. As for the purpose of human life? A question for another time.
The word ’cause’ as we commonly use it today tends to have a much more limited connotation than Aristotle’s subject in this section. I, at least, don’t normally think of a thing’s purpose as a cause of it, but perhaps we can understand the breadth of its meaning better if we think more in terms of the related English word ‘because’. Aristotle is seeking the answers that begin with ‘because’ for all the questions that begin with ‘why’. He uses the example of a bronze sculpture by Polyclitus to illustrate his thoughts. It might be helpful if we look at a sculpture more familiar to us.
If you pointed at Mt. Rushmore and asked, “Why is this here?”, a geologist might tell you, “Because magma cooled and was thrust upward in an event called the Trans-Hudsonian orogeny.” He would be describing what we call the material cause. After you left him to find a better tour guide, you might happen upon an art critic who would tell you, “Because Gutzon Borglum chose this spot as suitable for a colossal sculpture and came up with this design.” This would be the formal cause. If you asked an engineer, he would likely focus on the efficient cause and tell you all about the work carried out by the team of stone carvers led by Luigi Del Bianco and the problems they had to solve to bring Borglum’s vision to life. A historian might say—somewhat cynically, perhaps, but truthfully nonetheless—that the sculpture was created because the government of South Dakota wanted to attract more tourists. That would be at least one of the final causes, a purpose of the work.
Aristotle would argue that we must understand all of these causes in order to have a complete understanding of what Mt. Rushmore truly is, and that we should seek to understand them as precisely as possible if we want to improve our understanding. He does explain, though, that some things could be considered coincident causes. The sculptor might also happen to be an accomplished musician, and while it’s certainly not impossible his musicianship might have some effect on his sense of aesthetics, knowledge of his musical talents probably won’t have much relevance toward our understanding of his sculpture.
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