Aristotle'S Four Causes

This book examines Aristotle's four causes (material, formal, efficient, and final), offering a systematic discussion of the relation between form and matter, causation, taxonomy, and teleology. The overall aim is to show that the four causes form a system, so that the form of a natural thing relates to its matter as the final cause of a natural process relates to its efficient cause. Aristotle's Four Causes reaches two novel and distinctive conclusions. The first is that the formal cause or essence of a natural thing is not a property of this thing but a generic natural thing. The second is that the final cause of a process is not its purpose but the course that processes of its kind typically take.

• | Author: Boris Hennig
• | Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
• | Publication Date: Dec 05, 2018
• | Number of Pages: 280 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover/Philosophy
• | ISBN-10: 1433159295
• | ISBN-13: 9781433159299