Stagirites’ Aitiologia Cover Image

Stagiraninova aitiologija
Stagirites’ Aitiologia

Author(s): Željko Kaluđerović
Subject(s): Philosophy
Published by: Naučnoistraživački institut »Ibn Sina«
Keywords: Aristotle; causes; principles; aitiologia; material; formal; efficient; final; teleology

Summary/Abstract: The author considers Aristotle’s aitiologia in light of, firsts and foremost, the Staigirian’s capital works such as Metaphysics and Physics, but also the remainder of Aristotelis Opera. It has been confirmed that looing for the guiding line of all the previous thinking, Aristotle postulated his unique key to understanding of philosophical antecedents in his own learning about causes. In fact, the doctrine of material, formal, efficient and final cause is the model that Aristotle used to systematize the problems considered by his antecedents as presented in the first volume of Metaphysics, and to present himself at the same time, however reservedly, as the first historian of metaphysics and philosophy in general. The author then considers each of the four causes, with additional considerations regarding their mutual links and connections. The conclusion is that the material cause cannot be reduced to any other cause and needs to be treated relatively separately, whereas a considerable connectedness exists among the other three causes. Namely, although they can all be examined separately, which is the procedure applied in this paper, and although the efficient and the final cause can be analysed separate from the formal (and the material) one, as external vs. internal conditions for change, all the three causes are almost identical and Aristotle’s work evidently recognise the formal-final cause implicit in efficient causality.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 59
  • Page Range: 73-92
  • Page Count: 20
  • Language: Bosnian