The Four Causes Of Change In The World

Humans live in this life with many questions to understand what they are surrounded by, and why the thing is what it is. For example, when you see a new thing such as a mirror, you will ask some questions like “What is mirror?” “What is the mirror use for?” “Why is it a mirror, but the window?” To know and understand about the existences of things, Aristotle claims that there are four causes needed to explain why the thing is what it is. A good and complete explanation about thing, about change in the world will use all the four causes. Firstly, to be exist in the world, things need to be made out of something else, which can be wood, atom, cotton, iron… Aristotle called it material cause. For example, the wood table is made of wood, the statue is made of bronze, human body is made out of cells, and computer is made out of electronic components. However, material can be the only reason make thing exist as what it is. We know that the wood table is made of wood, but not all the wood will become table. Wood can be used to burn, can be used to make wood chair or wood container, or else. Thus, the material cause is not enough to give a complete answer about …show more content…
Wood is the acquired material to make a table, but wood itself is not a wood table yet. What makes you be able to distinguish the wood products such as tables, chairs, cabinets, containers is its shape. Similarly, we can distinguish between a shirt and a pair of pants because they have different shapes, or form as the way Aristotle called. He pointed out the second cause, which is formal cause. Formal cause is about the form, function, or essence of thing, which is the characteristic that makes a thing one thing rather than many things. For example, the cell is material. A lot of cell can cause a human body and also a rabbit, so the difference between human body and rabbit is the form. Human has human’s form, and rabbit has rabbit’s