Cause Of Hylomorphism

Hylomorphism and the Causes of Things

All western philosophers lend their intellectual origin to Aristotle. Being an intellectual maverick, Aristotle pioneered many fields ranging from logic to biology to politics. And in working with natural philosophy, Aristotle defined four separate type of causes: material, formal, efficient, and final cause. Interestingly, causation in this case refers to how things came to be (in other words, the causes explain how the objects exist.) Thus, in this context, causation is not limited to an event; it can also be applied to both physical and metaphysical objects in this context. This essay shall discuss the definition of these causes along with their relation to the concept of hylomorphism, the duality of

This is because the Aristotelian concept of hylomorphism is an evolution of the Platonist concept. The concept of Form is significantly more nuanced than the common English definition of form. Commonly, one would understand Platonist Form as the shape or appearance of an object. However, the idea behind the Theory of Forms is that everything we see is not the true form in of itself, but rather mimicry of the Form (this concept is conveniently explained in the Allegory of the Cave.) The Aristotelian Form, on the other hand, incorporates this idea with several adjustments. Form can be think of as a generalization or “genera” of an object. Formal cause then explain the existence of an object by which set it is to be in. For example, the formal cause of a clay pot is that it’s form is that of a pot (e.g. shaped like a pot, looks like a pot, and smell like a

These have little to do with the topic of matter and form dualism. The efficient cause has to do with the agency, which caused the object to came to be. For example, a living people might change into a dead person due to a bullet. The bullet would be the efficient cause as the bullet kills the person. In a sense, efficient cause is the most familiar form of cause that we, as English speakers, understand. Lastly, the final cause refers to the aim of the causation. It refers to purpose in which the change is to fulfill. The essay will not go into further detail on the definition of these two causes, as they are fairly irrelevant to the discussion of Matter and