Other Causes

The Formaterial System accords primacy to two of Aristotle's four Causes. The other two, Efficient and Final, it treats as derivative. For Aristotle, the latter is the fundamental one, for, the purpose of anything determines its shape, what matter is most suitable, and how the shaping of that matter is brought about. For example, that it is to be used to hold items is the cause of the concavity of a bowl, of the choice of clay, and the use of a chisel to shape the clay. Here, purpose is one type of Formal Cause, because, first, it is not the actual ultimate use of the bowl that guides the shaping of the concavity, but the idea of it as the shaper proceeds--the 'end-in-view', as Dewey calls it, as opposed to the 'end'--that guides the imposition of form on the clay. On the other hand, there can be form without purpose, i. e. in the form of a work of art, or 'purposive' form, as Kant calls it. Thus, the Final Cause is just a special case of the Formal Cause. Likewise, the Efficient Cause is a special case of the Material Cause, given the definition of the latter proposed here. For, while the operation of a chisel can be taken as external to the clay, and, hence, extrinisic to the manifold of the latter, the chiseling-of-the-clay can be taken as an integrated process, in which the Matter is the various motions involved, and the Form is its structure. This is precisely what Newtonian Physics accomplishes, despite its apparent commitment to a univocal notion of Cause, i. e. Efficient. For the fundamental aim of modern Physics is to demonstrate the law-like regularity that obtains in any physical interaction. But law-like regularity is an expression of the unity of the interaction, a unity of the multiple motions entailed, in other words, an expression of the Form of which those motions are the Matter. Thus, any Efficient Cause is a type of Material Cause.