The translation from Aristotle's sources of becoming to what we understand today as causality is rather difficult because causality has become so identified with efficient causality of the if-then kind. For example, a tree is experienced as a tree because it is made of wood. material cause - Lastly, Aristotle talked about what has come to be known as ""material cause."" Here humans experience change as they do because one source of becoming is the material of which a thing is made.This link between the lightning strike and the subsequent fire is what developed into the if-then sequence of efficient causality. For example, a tree is now experienced as being on fire because in the preceding state it was hit by lightning. efficient cause - Next, Aristotle distinguished a source of becoming which has come to be known as ""efficient causality."" Here humans experience change in terms of what went before the present state.This is what is meant by the formal source of becoming. In the above examples, these are the infant and the young adult, or the acorn and the sapling. So, while the teleological is concerned with the final form, the formal source of change is the changes in form that lead up to it. In other words, this is the human experience of pattern, of the given sequence of changes in the form. formal cause - One of these sources is what has come to be known as ""formal cause."" This is the human experience of the form of the phenomenon as it moves toward its final form.Within this movement toward a final form or end, Aristotle distinguished other sources of becoming that are subordinate to the overarching teleological movement. All other sources of becoming, whether formal, efficient, or material cause in Aristotle's scheme of causality, are subordinate to the overarching teleological movement. Aristotle argued that there is a fundamental source of becoming in everything, that everything tends towards some end, or form. Teleology is then the one overarching source of change. There may be multiple causes, but there is one cause, the final cause, the fundamental source of becoming, which is teleology. (Stacey, 2000, pp 195).Īristotle first introduced this theory of causality as a way of understanding the human experience of physical nature. Humans can trust their experience indeed, this is the only way of making sense of reality. Reality is not some external given, but an experience one perceives. He reaffirmed ""becoming"", arguing that change is not an illusion but that humans actually experience nature as change. Aristotle introduced a theory of causality, for the first time in human thought, which brought together elements of various thinkers of his time.
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