Lecture 4
Causality
and the four causes.
I.
Causality for us:
We
think of causality as a link between causes and effects. The link between the
two allows us to bring about the cause, and thereby bring about the effect.
Causes, in this view, are triggers (naively): Striking the match in order to
light the match. The striking against the right surface is the cause for the
lighting of the match. Causal explanations explain effects. We explain an
effect if we are able to appeal to a law according to which whenever the cause
occurs the effect will follow or co-occur.
Presupposed
in such explanations, as well as in the possibility to use a causal nexus is
the fact that we hold stable the environment of the cause, and maintain
favorable conditions in it. We want to light a match. We not only need an
appropriate surface, but the right kind of strength in striking, under
conditions where there is not too much wind, the surface and the match are dry,
etc. The law we use says that the chemical substance at the head of the match
ignites when it reaches a certain temperature. Explanation and use
of the match to obtain fire coincide: whenever we have a scientific causal
explanation we can use it to bring about the effect, by bringing about the
cause, and to guarantee the necessary and appropriate initial conditions. Our
everyday understanding of causality is effectuating causality. It links
things, conditions and events with events in the bringing-about way. When
someone asks: ‘why did such-and-such occur?’ we first think of searching for a
cause in this sense.
II. Causality for Aristotle
‘Causality’
is our word. Using “cause” as a translation for Aristotle’s ‘aitia’ and
‘aition’ we need to treat our word as if we were free to give to the term the
meaning it may have had for Aristotle. Instead of “cause,” “type of explanatory
factor” (in Ackrill: Aristotle the Philosopher, p. 36) would be better,
because it is more open. He starts with a question that is different from our
modern question ‘why did such-and-such occur?’
Aristotle
asks: ‘On account of what?’ (194b20).
And he thinks that it is a question of knowledge or, in an other translation,
of science. (Not all questions are asked for knowledge). Everything that can
meaningfully figure as an explanatory factor qualifies for ‘aitia.’
‘On
account of what?’ is an incomplete version of Aristotle’s question for it does
not specify two things that belong to a question. The first thing: It does not
say where we should turn to answer the question. About what kind of item is the
question ‘on account of what?’ being asked? It is, as we by now expect,
primarily asked about individual substances. They are the items we are to
explore looking for an answer to Aristotle’s question. We will focus on things,
living beings like animals and plants, people and action. Our more complete
question is now: ‘On account of what is this item . . .?’
But
this is still incomplete. For we have not specified what it is we want
to know. Without this element a question is unanswerable. What exactly are we
asking about the item? The missing element specifies the direction of the
question. It determines what counts as the right answer. Our own question ‘why
did such-and-such occur?’ does this by asking for the ‘why’ of an ‘occurrence.’
Its implicit understanding is that we want to know what preceded the effect in
such a way that it was sufficient to bring about the effect in the specific
environment (initial conditions).
Now,
Aristotle thinks that accounts come in several kinds of respects. He asks: ‘On
account of what is this item . . .?’ – and then goes on, filling the blanks
with the item, the state of affairs or the condition that is responsible for
the item, more precisely: for the specific aspect of the item to be explained:
‘On
account of what is this item a such-and-such?’ (This will be the formal cause)
‘On
account of what is this item constituted by/as such-and-such . . .?’ In our
words: ‘what does it consist of?’ (This will be the material cause)
‘On
account of what has this item come about?’ or:
‘Who or what is the source out of which this such-and-such has come?’
(This will be the efficient cause)
On
account of what is this item useful for the end such-and-such?’ ‘What kind of
end has this item been meant to achieve?’ (This will be the final cause).
The general form of
Aristotelian causal analysis is:
B: something about the object
that is to be (causally) accounted for;
A: that which is the giving
of the account;
C: the item that is the
object of the account.
An account for B in C.
Applying the medication (A)
accounts for recovery from illness (B) in Cleisthenes (C)
Here, a patient (= C, the
object of the account) has been healed from an illness (B = the fact that is
being accounted for). A doctor had prescribed medication that has been used by
the patient. What accounts for the change from illness to health in that
patient? It is in part accounted for by the action of the doctor (= A; one of
the possibilities of efficient cause)
and the power of the medication (= A; another possibility of efficient cause).
The patient took the medication because he wanted to overcome the illness
(final cause). The patient contributes to this effect his/her capacity to be
healed, i.e. to be receptive to the intervention of the doctor and the impact of
the medication. He changes from the (accidental) form ‘sick’ to the accidental
form ‘healthy.’ (Sickness and health are certain ways of the body to be
organized and to function). The formal cause is before all what the doctor
wants to establish as the actual form, namely ‘illness’, and then what the
condition of the patient “would be,” the new form to be acquired in the change.
This is ‘health’ or, more specifically: the disappearance of the unhealthy
form.
III. The four main causes:
A synopsis (partly drawing on
Stanford Encyclopedia for formulations):
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The material cause: that from which something is generated or
‘out of which’ it is formed or made, that of which the thing is constituted
(the bronze of the statue, the flesh and bones of the human body, the
subatomic particles of an atom, the letters in a word). |
|
The formal cause: the structure which the matter realizes and
in terms of which the matter comes to be something determinate, e.g., the
Hermes shape in virtue of which this quantity of bronze is said to be a
statue of Hermes, the soul that animates a body; a certain ratio of
sound-wave frequency for pitch (194b28). |
|
The efficient cause: the agent responsible for matter coming
to be informed, that out of which comes the item we want to explain. (The
sculptor who shaped the quantity of bronze into its current Hermes shape, but
also his/her art. The form of the tree-to-become in the seed for the tree,
but also the tree that produces another tree by providing the seed. The
motion of the continental plates for earthquakes and volcanoes; the
organization of a musical piece for our pleasure listening to it). |
|
The final cause: the purpose or goal of the compound of form
and matter, e.g. the statue was created for the purpose of honoring Hermes.
The tree has the (inbuilt) purpose to grow into a mighty exemplar of its
species and to contribute to the survival of its species. |
The Material cause (194b23).
Let’s take the statue, an
artefact, due to human activity. It is made from bronze. It is also constituted
by bronze. It consists of bronze. Checking for what counts as
material, you select a form and you ask, how, in what, through what that form
is realized. For the statue: that which, relative to the form of that statue,
‘realizes’ that form; that which, relative to the form the item has by being
that statue, ‘fills’ that form. Suppose it is a statue of Aristotle that serves
as a monument at
But, in a different way
matter is also independent from form. The same generic form can ‘materialize’ in different ways: the generic
form ‘bed,’ when realized, can then be out of wood or metal, its support a
mattress or water. Similarly for the same individual form: this statue of
Aristotle has first been ‘out of’ plaster, then out of wax, then out of bronze.
What, then, does a material
account account for? How does it help us understand the statue? Q: How does
this answer the question: On account of what is this statue the statue it is?
We partly understand the thing when we know what its material and its
constituents are. Knowing that it is ‘of bronze’ lets us know how it has been
made or would be made, how we need to deal with possible decay or the desire
for destruction, what we need to do to make a thing like that. It also helps us
understand the statue aesthetically. Had the shape of Aristotle been made from
marble or wood, Aristotle would appear very differently because he would have
emerged through subtraction (compare 190b6). The shape of Aristotle would be
very different.
In addition, a material
account contributes to an explanation of change. Knowing the matter of a thing
due to nature allows us to investigate one of the internal principles of change
in that thing. (Recall, that this is the characteristic of things ‘due to
nature,’ and that all artefacts will ultimately also include things ‘due to
nature.’) The material cause is therefore a major lead as to how the item may
have come about through transformations of the matter, and how it might change
or stop to be that thing, equally by change in its material basis. It is also
an important lead when we ask, how the item holds together and inquire into
what holds it together. The matter that realizes a form is thus one of the
sources of change.
Important: What counts as
matter realizing a specific form may in turn be a complex kind of thing. Assume
that there is a brick in the wall of the house. It belongs to the matter of the
house. But the brick is another artefact, combining form and matter. This does
not prevent the brick from being matter relative to the house. Reason: to be
matter is to be in the function of matter relative to something that is form,
and to be united as matter and form in that reality. Matter and form are
relative notions. They call out for each other. You need to hold on to the form
of something when you try to determine its matter. You need to hold on to
something that counts as matter when you try to determine what the form is of
some item.
The formal cause
First: what counts as form?
We first think about form in visual ways: the shape of what we see, triangular,
roundish, square, irregular, spherical, conical, cubic, erratic. Structure
next: the form of a crystal or a snowflake, what is rendered by the map is a selective
pattern of a landscape or an order of a city. Structures are not just visual.
They concern all kinds of organizedness. It takes us to the form of artifacts
and living beings. The form of the house is open, but it is subject to the
function of offering permanent shelter to, let us say, human beings. Shelter
dictates that there be elements that protect those in it against weather,
temperature. But there must also be space for dwelling and the human activities
that belong to dwelling. The form of a house can be described by pointing to
those functions that are necessary for an artefact to be able to be a house:
what “would be a house!” The form of a specific house would be a description of
those concrete elements that fulfill the necessary functions: a brick wall in a
Midwestern city, wooden beams and drywall in CA, a wall from snow and ice for
an igloo. Structure is form as organizedness, and holds for houses,
institutions, states, living bodies. (It is sometimes hard to distinguish
organizedness from the matter in which the form is organized.) A final element
of form: Also belong to the form the forces that stabilize shape or structure,
especially in cases where what counts, as matter does not fall into the form
all by itself. The forces that bind the sub-atomic particles into the unit of
the atom would as much belong to the form of the atom, as the soul, because it
is the element that enlivens the body and makes the different parts of
the organism do their jobs. The soul is a dynamic principle that causes the
substance ‘living body’ to be. It is ‘form’ relative to the ‘matter’ that are
the organs because it forces them into the dynamic order of the ‘living body.’
Account for the form ‘face!’
Account for the constituents of the picture by invoking the form ‘face!’
This allows us to better see
how form can be a type of explanatory factor. One kind of explanation is linked
to the fact that the form tells us what would count as a thing of kind
such-and-such. What has the form of an apple, is or can be an apple. (It
is an apple if the form is realized in the right kind of way). This form is not
just the shape. It is also the structure, or organizedness of its matter. I
want to think that taste and smell also belong to the form of an ‘apple.’
Another explanatory element is that often we can point to not entirely trivial
features that explain what the form is, and why it is the form it is. (The
octave example; the Smiley example.) A third explanatory use is both
theoretical and practical: Knowing what the form is, we may be able to detect
in other things their ability to serve as matter for that form: the bricks,
through their stability and the possibility to stack them neatly are possible
matter for a wall, and thereby for a house. They can be used to bring about
that form. Or: Knowing what the form is we may bring it about in order to
achieve something through it. We may build houses to shelter the homeless.
The efficient cause
It is the “source of change
or the staying unchanged” of the item (194b30). In the most direct way, and for
things that are being made by a maker (houses, beds, statues). How about nests
and spiderwebs? How about leaves, flowers and seeds? The spiders and birds may
not be ‘makers’ in the sense that we are makers of the artifacts we make to
serve our purposes. But it is still the case that the nest and the web ‘come
out of them. It already begins to appear that a personal or rational maker is
not required for the source. But the seed also qualifies as the efficient cause
of the tree; and labor qualifies as efficient cause of strength (195a9). The
reason is that they all are that ‘from which the change proceeds.’ Finally, the
art that has contributed to the making of something (the art of the sculptor
for the statue; the art of the doctor for the healing) is also something “which
makes something of that which is changed” (195a6).
We are far from the modern
understanding of causality. Most importantly, the modern idea of regular
co-occurrence under stable background conditions is not what Aristotle has in
mind. Control of effects through control of causes is not the interest that
orients his reflection. His gaze is inspired by a will to comprehensive
knowledge of how things hang together. A completely different idea of the goal
of knowledge. I would like to add, however, that the Aristotelian idea seems to
preclude modern science.
The final cause
(194b34).
You give an account in final
terms by pointing out the end of the item, that for the sake of which it
is, or occurs. What the item “is for.” (194b34). Aristotle examples: a walk for
health; artifacts like drugs and surgical instruments for health. These are
items that are made by makers for their purposes.
When we turn to things that
are due to nature, human intervention does not make them what they are. Not all
natural things have final causes. Not all are ‘for something’ (196b18 & 19)
But many serve purposes. And all are, in one or the other way, teleologically
relevant, at least in possibility. Thus the problem: If a certain herb is
medicinal by having in it the power to heal a certain illness, is this power
its final cause? More generally: for everything that can be used to end F, is F
its final cause? We would have a tendency to say ‘no,’ if the final cause would
need to enter into the way the medicinal plant comes about. Because we do not
think that a teleological power, force or agency is at work to set up things in
such a way that they can be used by humans. The Christian maker-God, on the
other hand, makes a world teleologically oriented towards man. (Compare Genesis 1:28 & 29: “And God
said: . . . and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the
earth and over every living that moveth upon the earth . . . I have given you
every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every
tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be
meat”). And Aristotle seems to think the same, without positing an agent of the
Christian kind: “The ‘for something’ is present in things which are and come to
be due to nature.” (199a8) Aristotle’s nature is a final cause. (198b10 &
199a17). This is not the view of modern science.
But if one views teleological
aptitude as sufficient for accounts that use the final scheme, we could argue
like this: garlic has antibiotic, anti-inflammatory capacity. It therefore ‘is
for’ healing in cases of infection by bacteria. Isn’t this enough for a final
account? The active component in garlic that is responsible for this effect
could then be added into the equation when science finds it. We would add a
possible efficient cause to the final cause. There is no need to posit a
purposeful agent. Evolution allows for the genesis of teleological
possibilities by chance.
IV. Aristotle compared to
Us
Aristotle thinks nature and
explanation differently from us. His nature (in the comprehensive sense) is
everything that is prone to change. Only things that are not subject to change
are excluded. Things human, and things beyond the human domain and its culture
thus fall into the same nature. All of them are also subject to the same forms
of explanation.
His idea of explanation is
comprehensive. A full Aristotelian explanation requires accounts in terms of
all the causes. Aristotle does not yet adopt the narrow notion oriented by the
idea of bringing something about that underlies (sic!) our modern notion of
causal explanation. Structural accounts, accounts that show to what a form is
due (in a sense that is not causal in our sense), accounts of an implicit
function and possible purpose belong to a complete understanding of the world.
That world has an innate and
basic tendency to change. Stability needs to be explained as maintenance. More
importantly: change is continuous and connected: the underlying guarantees that
there always something unchanging that traverses the changes and connects the
opposites.
Aristotle’s concrete science
has been made obsolete by modern science. His idea of the cosmos and of
knowledge, however, marks a desideratum for our time. Dogmatic natural science
has sometimes got into its own way, because it has closed itself off towards
other paradigms. Evolutionary theory (19th century) and Ecology (20th
century) are examples.