Hello I'm Dr. Anadale and I teach philosophy at Mount Saint Mary's
University in Emmitsburg, Maryland. In this video I will summarize some basic
elements of Aristotle's natural philosophy dealing with the four causes.
For reference take a look at Aristotle's Physics, book two, chapters one through
eight. Now the Greek word *physis* means "nature." This is the main topic of
Aristotle's work Physics. Literally then his physics is his theory of nature, what
we would today call science. The key question for Aristotle looking at nature
is: why is a is a thing the way it is? What makes it be what it is? What is the
explanation for why it does what it does? Aristotle says we answer this why
question in four different ways. These answers are traditionally called
the four causes. We can call them the four explanations or the four ways of
answering the question 'why' about a thing. So to take them in order: the first one
is the material cause, that out of which a thing comes to be, for example the
marble or bronze of a statue or the wool or acrylic of a sweater.
If someone asks "Why is this statue heavy?" we answer "Because it's made of marble."
Our answer to this 'why' question appeals to the to the thing's material cause.
So that's one way of answering 'why.' Second, the formal cause: the definition of the
essence of a thing. So for example the definition of a circle is a set of
points in a plane equidistant from a given point. The definition of a human
being is a rational animal. If someone asks us "why is a circle round?" we would
answer "Because of its definition," that's just the shape that a set of points
equidistant from a given point has. If someone asks us "why do dogs chase cars?"
we would answer "Because dogs are predators and it's built into their
essence to chase moving things," that's just what dogs do because of their
nature as dogs, of their identity. So we answer these why questions by appealing
to a thing's formal cause. Third, the efficient cause of a thing, the primary
source of change or rest. This is the mover or the maker of a thing. So for
example the parent is the cause of the child, the one who brings it into
existence. The builder is the cause of the building. If someone asks us "why is
this building here?" we would say "Because the builders and the architect and the
planners put it there." Why did the last domino fall? Because someone pushed the
first domino. Note that the efficient cause is the
only one of the causes that is explicitly temporal, it exists in time,
it gives us the sequence of events that leads up to the thing or event that we
are trying to explain. It's also, the efficient cause, the one of the four
causes that modern science focuses on almost exclusively. So the fourth cause is
the final cause, that for the sake of which something is done. This is the
thing's purpose or its goal. So for example I walk to stay healthy, so health
is the cause of my walking. Learning or getting a degree is the cause of
studying. If someone asks you "Why are you studying your notes?" you might answer,
"In order to pass the test," or more accurately "In order to learn about the
material being tested and then be able to pass the test." Now of these four
causes Aristotle thinks that the most important is the second one, the formal
cause or essence. In fact he thinks that the third and fourth causes, the
efficient and final causes, really flow from the formal cause. The form or
essence of something determines everything that is true about it. So to
give you an illustration of this let me take the example of a farmer. Let us
think about this: Why does a farmer farm? We could answer this question in terms
of the efficient cause: we could say "Because he steers the plow and that's
what farming is." In other words the farmer is the source of the motion or
change that constitutes the activity of farming. Now this answer is correct
but it's not fully satisfying. We don't really feel like we understand the *why*
of the farmer's activity of farming simply by being told that he's the one
who steers the tractor, he's the one who physically moves the plow. We want
something more than that. It's as though somebody were to say, when
I say "Why have you come here?" and they would say "Well, because I placed my feet
in front of each other in sequence and the friction with the floor propelled me
forward." It's accurate but it's not a full story of what we want when we ask
why. We're asking for something more than that. So we could also answer the
question about the farmer in terms of the final cause: we could say "Because he
wants to harvest crops to sell at the market to get money to provide for his
needs and wants." This gives the purpose toward which the
farming activity is directed and that gives us something more of what we
want, but both of these explanations, Aristotle would say, of farming rest on
the more fundamental fact that the farmer *is a farmer* which means that by
his very essence or definition he engages in the activity of farming.
It's what he does, it flows somehow from his identity or his nature as a farmer.
From his identity as a farmer flows his purposeful action in steering the plow,
planning the harvest, buying and selling, etc. So in this video I've given you a
brief introduction to the four causes of Aristotle and I've talked a bit about
how Aristotle sees really the formal cause as the governing cause of the
thing from which would flow then it's efficient and final causes. There's much
more to say about the four causes. We'll talk about it some more later.
Thanks for watching today; goodbye.