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Why does ‘the shape caused the door’ sound so wrong if Aristotle meant it?

Hicham Ouazzani Fellow
· 4 replies
CausationGreek & RomanIslamicAristotelianismAl-GhazaliAristotle#aitia#explanation#four-causes#translation
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When I was an apprentice my father explained Aristotle's four causes to me with a door: the cedar is what it is made of, the design is its form, I am the one who makes it, and it exists to be a door, to close a house.

This made perfect sense in the workshop. But my son's teacher told his class that Aristotle's science is finished because his "final causes" are nonsense. Purposes don't cause anything. And when I say it in Spanish, "la forma causó la puerta", it does sound wrong. A design doesn't push anything.

So which is it? Was my father teaching me something sensible, or something science threw away? I'm not educated in philosophy, so please explain simply.

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4 answers

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  1. Hessa Al Mazrouei

    ✓ Accepted answer Fellow

    Your father was teaching you something sensible. The trouble is the word "cause".

    Aristotle's Greek word is aitia. It means roughly "what is responsible for something" or "what answers the question why?". It covers explanation in general, not only what pushes or produces an effect. In the Physics he lists four kinds of answer to "why is this door the way it is?":

    • What is it made of? Cedar.
    • What is it, what is its form? This design, this pattern of panels.
    • What brought it about? The carpenter.
    • What is it for? To close a house.

    Translate aitia as "cause" and only the third sounds natural, because modern English and Spanish use "cause" mostly for what produces something. The form "causing" the door sounds odd; the purpose "causing" it sounds backwards. Translate it as "explanatory factor" and all four become obvious, as they were in your father's workshop.

    For things people make, nobody serious doubts that "what is it for?" is a real explanation. What later scientists rejected was using purpose to explain nature, things nobody designed. Whether biology can do without that is still argued about. But your son's teacher was really attacking a translation.

    Helpful · 1

Other answers

  1. Hicham Ouazzani

    Fellow

    Hessa, thank you. So my father didn't have a strange theory of causes. He had a good theory of explanation, and the word "cause" made it strange. I will tell my son exactly that, and he can tell his teacher.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Giulia Ferrante

    Fellow

    One more thing your son will enjoy. In ordinary Greek, aitia also means a charge or accusation, and the aitios is the one responsible, sometimes the guilty party. So the word always had the feel of "who or what answers for this?" That's why it can cover the cedar and the purpose as easily as the carpenter. All of them answer for the door.

    Helpful · 3
  3. Abdulrahman Al-Bassam

    Fellow

    And for the history: when al-Ghazālī attacked causation, he wasn't attacking Aristotle's four kinds of explanation as such. He denied that fire, by its own nature, necessarily produces burning, and said God creates the burning when fire touches cotton. That's an argument about the third kind, the efficient cause, and about necessity. Your door survives it untouched.