The Four Causes Of Physics

In Physics Book II chapter 3, Aristotle asserts that the matter of change comes up with the four causes. These four causes are material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and the final one. I think writing a novel might be a good example. What is this book made of? This question refers to our first cause. The book is written by letters which constitute syllabus and of course there is a need for papers to write them down. The material cause is letters and papers then. What kind of book is that corresponding to specific novel? Is it criminal or philosophical book? Is it for children so that it includes pictures in it? These questions direct us the second cause: formal cause. It might be said that it also corresponds to essence of matter: the

However; he doesn’t talk about only four causes, but also about three separate studies. These three studies are namely unchangeable things, things which changed but cannot pass away, and things which can pass away. Of course, there is a relation between these four causes and three studies. They are not completely different things from each other, but they can be understood by examining a matter in these ways. Aristotle explains that the last three causes which are the form, the mover, and that for the sake of which “often coincide; for the what and that for the sake of which are one, while the primary source of motion is the same in species as these.” What is the primary source of motion? This is the efficient cause that is the same in species as the form of what is produced. Aristotle gives an example to make it explicit that “man is born from man.” In general, an efficient cause can impart to other things only those forms which it already in some sense contains. A shoemaker, for example, can impart to leather the form of a shoe only because he possesses the art of

In other words, he examines if it is hypothetical or absolute. The theme of the chapter is that, of the two factors involved in living things, matter and form, the former is necessary and the latter is not, and the necessity is conditional. What is the role of the necessity of material in things' natures? Example of "absolute" necessity: A wall would come about because of facts about its materials--the stones go to the bottom, the wood to the top because it's lighter. Refutation: No: a wall comes about to provide protection. Things that come to be for something have a necessary nature, but do not come about because of this (material) necessity. Hypothetical necessity in nature: A form is hypothesized, and so a matter is necessitated. If there is to be a saw, there must be iron. The necessity belongs mainly to the material cause (necessarily iron teeth will cut something softer like wood). But it is also in a way in the form: the form of sawing implies cutting, cutting implies teeth, and teeth imply something hard like