Aristotle's Four Causes

Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and empiricist, he believed in sense experience, as well as student to Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. Aristotle understood that the world around us is transient, impermanent. He believed that everything can be explained with his four causes and in order for humanity to understand the world we needed to use them. The four causes are Aristotle’s way of explaining the existence of an object, with the ‘final cause’ being the most important aspect of his theory as it gave the best explanation of an object. The final cause is the theory that all objects have an ultimate purpose for their existence, an important part of what it is.

The route to the final cause is as follows, the first cause
This means that the final cause is the ultimate cause, the cause of causes. As he was a student of Plato his concepts tend to link well to Plato’s, and in this case the idea that the purpose of an object is to reach perfection ties in with Plato’s theory of Forms and the Form of the good, with both philosophers acknowledging that everything has potentiality. Plato’s theory of Forms stated that there were two worlds, the world of appearances in which we live, and the world of Forms, and it is in this world of Forms where the all perfect Forms and Form of the good resides. Plato believed the Form of good is the perfect Form, it is eternal and all Forms in the world of appearances aim to achieve perfection and the Form of good. Aristotle acknowledged that all things in our universe are always trying to achieve perfection but he disagreed in the sense that these forms, that Plato said resided in another world, were what we see around us and substance and matter are what forms are made of. This links to the meaning of the final Cause as both Aristotle and Plato believe and agree that everything in the physical world is striving to achieve perfection and this is it’s purpose, an example of this is of how technology is constantly advancing, each product progressing to achieve it’s purpose in new
With the final cause he tried to figure out for what purpose was the movement was caused, and what was the actual cause of movement, when does potential become actual. Because if everything has a purpose and function, then this purpose and function had to be thought out and caused by something else, and this is what led Aristotle to the theory of the Prime Mover, with it’s purpose being the creator of the universe. Therefore the final cause also means the existence of God, it was another concept Aristotle used to not only explain the key factors of an object, but the object’s cause. If everything has a purpose then it must have a cause, and with Aristotle creating the idea of a Prime Mover, disregarding the theory of infinite regression, the only logical explanation for the cause of the universe is a God. Aristotle claimed the Prime Mover is eternal, actual and perfect, and only God could fit these characteristics. The final cause also ‘proves’ the existence of God as within the Bible it states that God has given humanity a purpose, and through the final cause we realise this purpose it true and therefore there must be a God or Prime Mover who caused this