The Four Causes of Aristotle Essay Example for Free

The Four Causes of Aristotle Essay Aristotle, being the first historian of philosophy, categorized his predecessors according to how they’ve answered the central questions of the human mind – the question of the first principle of all things. It is otherwise known as the Four Causes. He defined science as knowledge through causes. This doctrine of causes is scattered in different Aristotelian treatises but have its highlight in his book Metaphysics. This principle of causality is an essential part of Aristotelian thought. In his mind, Aristotle argued that events happen for a cause which will explain its origin, end and the way it came to be. For him, â€Å"everything that comes to be is due to causes.† He criticized his predecessors for their not having clearly explained the why of this, that, and so on. Chance, mythology or fortuitous events are not sufficient enough to solve the problem of cosmology. These causes are divided into four distinct types. He developed this principle from the standpoint of being. For this reason, the basic Aristotelian division is between actual and potential causes, contrary to the traditional division made by the scholastics between intrinsic and extrinsic. As for the actual cause, there is the formal, efficient and final causes and for the potency only the material cause; in the traditional scholastic division, material and formal causes made up the intrinsic cause while the remaining two makes the extrinsic cause. Each of these causes can be shortly defined as follows: 1.Material Cause is the constitutive element from which something is made from. 2.Formal Cause means the form of something, â€Å"it is what determines its essence to be what it is† 3.Efficient Cause is the being who made that something. 4.Final Cause is that for what sake something exists, â€Å"it is what constitutes the perfection of the being† . In other words, it is the purpose of that being. The final cause is the summation of all other causes; it is where every other cause can be founded. â€Å"‘Cause means (1) that from which, as immanent material, a thing comes into being, e.g., the bronze is the cause of the statue and the silver of the saucer, and so are the genera to which these things belong. (2) The form or pattern, i.e., the definition of the essence, and the genera which include this (e.g., the ratio 2:1 and number in general are causes of the octave), and the parts included in the definition. (3) That from which the change or the resting from change first begins; e.g., the adviser is a cause of action, and the father a cause of the child, and in general the maker of a cause of the thing made and the change-producing of the changing. (4) The end, i.e., that for the sake of which a thing is; e.g., health is the cause of walking† As mentioned earlier, Aristotle classified earlier philosophers by what kind of cause is their philosophy. We can classify Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras and Empedocles in the material cause. These philosophers, though differing in opinion of the primary principle of all things, emphasized the constitutive element of everything. Thus, they are rightly to be numbered in the material cause. The water of Thales, the air of Anaximenes, fire of Heraclitus, the atoms of Leucippus and Democritus, the Homeomeries of Anaxagoras, the four elements of Empedocles and the apeiron of Anaximander (â€Å"†¦ he [Anaximander] said that the principleand the constitutive element of the things that exist is the apeiron. He was the one who first designated the material principle of all things by this name† ) are all primary element of everything for these philosophers, may it be by some other cause or not. For the formal cause, we can only classify only three pre-Socratic thinkers, Pythagoras, Parmenides and Anaxagoras. By formal cause, we mean that it pertains to the form of everything. Let us try to briefly examine each of these philosophers: The Pythagoreans have thought that the first principle is Numbers; their idea of Numbers is different from ours. For them, numbers have resemblances from everything. â€Å"Musical harmony for example, could be reduced to a set of numerical relations. Natural phenomena followed an order e\which could also be measured numerically – the duration of the year, the seasons, the length of the day, etc.† Parmenides, on the other hand, thought of the â€Å"being† as the principle of everything. â€Å"One statement alone expresses the road to follow: being is† . His being is univocal; it can only be apprehended by the intellect. He denied the existence of change, therefore, making his being as something permanent, unchangeable, immovable. It cannot cause something for it will mean to cause a change, thus, we cannot classify being as an efficient cause. Rather we classify it to the formal cause for his being underlies everything, it is actually in everything. Lastly, Anaxagoras, though numbered earlier among the material philosophers, can also be classified in the formal cause. Because of the multiplicity of substances, he concluded that the first principle (in his case his Homeomeries) must, in a way, embody all things in itself. We can also enumerate Anaxagoras and Empedocles in the efficient cause. Let us examine how this had happened. Alongside his Homeomeries, Anaxagoras added another principle, the Nous (Intelligence). It is important to bear in mind, that the Nous is separated from matter. It merely starts the cosmic movement from where everything starts to differentiate from one another. Its movement determines the diverse proportion of Homeomeries in each thing. Thus making reason â€Å"deus ex machina† â€Å"’The Intelligence ordains everything that is brought into being – those things that existed in the past and exist in the present and exist no longer, those that exist in the present and those that will exist in the future.† Empedocles is another philosopher with an efficient cause. Because of the influence of Eleatic philosophy, he is forced to search for another cause besides the material principle in order to salvage the world of phenomena. He put Love and Hate as the efficient cause that unites and separates the four elements. While love brings forth together, hate separates. There is a perpetual alteration of dominance between those two; this cycle dictates corruption and generation. â€Å"Things never cease to change, sometimes uniting with one another through Love; and at other times, separating themselves from one another through the divisiveness of Discord† The final cause: the most important of all the causes. In this category we can classify the sophists and Socrates. They have put man as the measure and end of all things. The final cause is for man. Sophism ushered a new era in philosophy as a whole, this age turned to man for the first time. Everything belonged to man. Though sophism had been degenerated into â€Å"apparent wisdom† , with it still came the time where man has been the focus of philosophy. His end and his goodness is the final cause of everything. Protagoras, most famous of the sophists argued that man is the one who determines everything, even truth. This relativism of Protagoras is because he based his knowledge exclusively on senses which are constantly subjected to change. This can be summarized on his words in the introduction of On Truth: â€Å"Man is the measure of all things – things which exist insofar as they exist, things which do not exist insofar as they do not exist.† Socrates, the one who â€Å"called philosophy from heaven†; is the foremost philosopher of the final cause. For him the most important thing is for the benefit of the human soul, ergo, knowing the good. For him the soul is the center of moral life. He identified virtue as knowledge, the mainspring of all other virtues. For him, only in ignorance does one commit sins. In Socratic thought, human dignity has been raised that all things are for the good of his soul. These four causes of Aristotle gave a very clear view of the improvement of ancient Greek Philosophy, from its coldest principle for all things to the warmest humanistic approach. I am in a position with Aristotle concerning these causes. As for me, the causes clearly demonstrate the history of Greek Philosophy from the pre-Socratics up to Socrates.

The Euro :: essays papers

The Euro In 1991 it was decided that the Euro would be introduced. It officially became the currency of eleven European nations: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, shortly thereafter. Although the actually hard currency will not be introduced until January 1, 2002, it is possible to trade and complete transactions using this currency. This introduction allowed for a single money supply throughout most of Europe, caused increased transparency of prices and stocks throughout the nations adopting it and encouraged long-term investments between firms in different countries by eliminating exchange rate risk. Despite these benefits, the launch of the Euro has not gone as successfully as planned. Since it’s introduction the Euro has lost almost one third of it’s value compared to the dollar. This devaluation has the potential to create a large negative effect on European markets. To take control of the situation government intervention was deemed necessary. In early September, the European Central Bank lowered interest rates for the sixth time in less than a year, in hopes of initiating a rise in the value of the Euro. Despite these efforts the value of the Euro continued to falter. Then in late September central banks from many powerful economic nations collaborated in a major invention effort. The banks spent billions buying Euros to increase their demand while simultaneously selling dollars and yen. This effort seemed to have work as the Euro finally stabilized. This invention was an important step because a weak Euro would cause investors to lose confidence in the new currency. In addition it created a risk of increased inflation because of the increased expense of imports. However, the Euro is still not out of danger because many analysts feel that the reason that it is performing so poorly is because of the decreased amounts of investments in Europe as other markets, the United States in particular, continued to flourish. This is a long-term problem that the central banks will be unable to fix. Then in November as there were signs of slowing economic growth in the US the value of the Euro started to increase. By late November many businesses were acquiring a preference for the Euro because of the benefits it provided. According to one article, â€Å"The Euro has revolutionized corporate strategy and transformed approaches to doing business in Europe.

Essay on My Son the Fanatic Essay

After several terrorist attacks, society have focused and learned a lot about Islamic extremist, Jihad and countries of the Middle East in general. Almost every day the news contains stories about how orthodox Muslims and al-Qaeda recruits young promising students to fight the suppression of Muslims all over the world. This is also the issue which is talked about in this short story: â€Å"My son the fanatic† by Hanif Kureishi. Ali is one of those promising students. He got straight A’s and was remarkable at cricket, swimming and football, had lots of friends and a lovely girlfriend. He was completely integrated in the English society. Then suddenly he becomes an orthodox Muslim and gives all of his belongings away, possibly because he is the â€Å"type† of Muslim who believes that only by neglecting the material world you are a true Muslim, or it’s because all of those things is a symbol for the western world which he is trying to escape from. Ali also changes his attitude. He disperses with his friends and his girlfriend and begins to talk harsh and disrespectfully towards his father Parvez. He and his father used to be like brothers, â€Å"We were not father and son – we were brothers! (P. 194 l. 14-15) They used to talk about everything but after Ali’s â€Å"transformation†, it’s really awkward when they are together. Parvez takes Ali to a restaurant and tries to break the silence but Ali was extremely reluctant to talk and started lecturing Parvez on all his wrongs in life according to the Koran. He no longer talks to Parvez as his father but like he is somebody that he must convince to become a Muslim. Parvez is the father of Ali. He is born in Pakistan but is now a taxi driver in England. He loves living in England is completely integrated in the western culture. He does everything he can to create a normal life for his family. He works a lot to give Ali a first-class education. However, Ali drops out of school and Parvez is bothering his head about it. He talks to his friends about and they concludes that he must be taking drugs, however, after a few days with that theory, he finds out that Ali has become an orthodox Muslim, it consequently breaks Parves’ heart. Parvez isn’t Muslim but believes that you should live your life the way you want to, but still respect others. He believes that if you would like some pork or a drink you should be allowed to have it. This and his friendship with the brass Bettina clash with Ali’s orthodox belief. Parvez has the amazing ability to see something good in everyone. Even when Ali disgraces him at the restaurant he still believes in the good in him. Bettina is one of Parvez’ regular customers due to being a brass and therefore working late, when Parvez like to work. She is an extremely good friend of Parvez and he can talk to her about things he wouldn’t even discuss with his wife: â€Å"he could talk to her about things he’d never be able to discuss with his own wife. (P. 195l. 1-2) Nevertheless Bettina is, for Ali, a symbol of everything that is wrong about the western society. Ali might also think that Bettina has something with his father that his father doesn’t have with his mother. Bettina also helps Parvez trough the tough times when he don’t know what is going on with Ali. I think the reason that the writer has chosen a prostitute to be the wise one is to show how Parvez can see something good in everyone, even those who you see as the bottom of the society. The ending drastically shows how frustrated and powerless Parvez is feeling. He has no idea of what to do. Everything he has worked for is just tossed out the window. To sum up the themes of this short story it’s all about clash of cultures. We have the western culture which we see in Bettina and Parvez meeting the Islamic culture which is represented by Ali. It also takes up the theme about the relationship between father and son, and furthermore how a father’s expectations can make a son go the opposite direction.

Marketing Is An Essential Element - 2936 Words

Marketing Answer 1 Marketing is termed as an essential element with the help of which any product or service can generate potential outcomes in a best possible manner. The main task of marketing is to stimulate consumer demand for the product, but not limited to this. It also helps the company achieve its goals in the process, the impact of the level of demand, the demand of time and the composition of demand. Marketing is considered a management discipline to define the state of the market. It is a process that allows you to have a vision and a very clear idea of how to approach your market. Therefore, the task of marketing management is to stimulate the creation, adaptation and influence consumer demand. Marketing is the creation,†¦show more content†¦Marketing also helps us in learning on how to focuses on developing and managing continuing relationships with customers, competitors, partners, suppliers and all stakeholders. The marketing field also has opportunities for careers that are les s affected by cyclical economic fluctuations and offering better opportunities than many other careers for growth and promotion that have the personal merit based. Salaries in marketing positions are among the highest of all professional fields and offer excellent prospects for future growth (Pascual, 2003). In the past decade, the world economy has changed dramatically under the pressure of globalization, the development of technology by storm and the opening of new markets. We need to understand and learn the factors that contribute to globalization, the development of technology, especially information technology, have erased all barriers of space and geography. Customers now have more rights than before. Thanks to technology they can access information about the product better, since they have many more choices. Thus, the marketing will begin with an analysis that will contain a preliminary study of the needs and expectations of the target consumer to please him and respond to at least one of its needs (Schindler, 1992, p. 22). Once acquired marketing basics, some students embark on the adventure and decide to either create their own society is to launch products in order to get a share of the commercial world. The study