Aristotle's Physics

In the first three chapters of the Physics, Aristotle offers us an account of nature and causation. Aristotle’s account of causation follows his account of nature, but it might be better for us to start with an explanation of what he means by causation Aristotle distinguishes between four kinds of causes:

•  Material: “that out of which something comes into being, still being present in it.” Bronze is the material cause of the statue; paper and ink are the material causes of a book; chlorofluorocarbons are a material cause of the deteriorated atmosphere.
• Formal: “the form or pattern” whose presence makes a thing what it is; the “gathering in speech of what-it-is-for-it-to-be.” Aristotle gives the example of the octave and the 2:1 ratio, but this concept is still rather confusing to me.
• Efficient: “whatever makes the changing thing change,” or that thing outside of the thing so changed which sets it into motion. A mother is the efficient cause of her children; a builder is the efficient cause of a dam.
• Final: “the end” for which a thing is changed or set into motion. A controlled Mississippi is the final cause of establishing a system of locks; saving the harbor was the final cause of the efforts to stop Heimay’s flow.

It is important to note that a single event has all of these causes; causes are “as many things as come between the mover of something” and its “end,” or effect.

          Aristotle gives, historically, our earliest distinction between the living and the made. Nature is made distinct from the works of human beings, although Aristotle notes that every thing has its own “nature,” or composition. The nature of a desk, therefore, is wood, while the nature of a tree is somewhat more complex, including growth. Nature (in the overarching sense) “is twofold, and is both form and material,” and an individual thing’s nature is determined by both (52). Furthermore, nature does not set things in motion haphazardly. Aristotle writes: “Nature is a certain source and cause of being moved and of coming to rest in that which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not incidentally” (49). Paraphrased roughly, nature is the cause of motion and coming to rest in those things which are a part of it, in virtue of its own composition. To put nature in the terms of causes, Nature is the efficient, formal, and material cause of all things (save itself). This raises two curious questions: what is nature’s end, for which nature itself is set in motion?* And what is the cause of nature?

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*  It strikes me as an unanswerable question, even if the premise that nature has an end is true, but it might be worth asking anyway. Thomas Nagel (the philosopher mentioned in an earlier response to Ben’s post) proposes a teleological conception of the universe, in which mind and mental activity is an intentional development in the universe aimed towards some ultimate, complex end.