Aristotle’s theory of causality
or four causes occupies an important place in his discussion of metaphysics.
According to him there are four causes in the process of change. As we see
things around us, says Aristotle, we find
that they are constantly changing and a real fact of our experience is that
everything changes. For Aristotle change means widely.According to him change means
motion, growth, decay, generation, and corruption. Some of these changes are
natural and others are the products of human action and arts. Things as we see
always take a new form. A new life is born a new thing is made.
First, we can
ask , what is it ? Secondly, what is it made of? Thirdly, by what is it made?
and fourthly, for what purpose/end is it made?
The four answers of these four
questions represent Aristotle’s four causes. The four causes represent a broad
pattern for total explanation of anything and everything. Let us take an object
of art. The four causes might be (1) a
statue (2)of marble (3)by a sculptor (4)for the purpose of a decoration. So,
Aristotle says that everything has an explanation; seeds sprout, roots go down
and not up, plants grow and in this process of change move toward their end.
Aristotle’s four causes are
therefore (1)the formal cause, which determines what a thing is, (2)the material
cause, or what the thing is made of ,(3)the efficient cause ,by what a thing is
made, and (4)the final cause, that the ‘end’ for which it is made.
On the strength of four causes,
Aristotle thinks that nature is life. All things are in motion, in the process
of becoming and dying away. The process of reproduction is, according to him, a
clear example of the power which is in all living things that initiate change.
