Aristotle's Four Causes

By Boris Hennig

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1433159295
• ISBN13: 9781433159299
• Release Date: December 2018
• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publi
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"