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Four causes — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-10-06T00:13:30.443Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: 99cd4307f31589248c4767d3983fca40ff29a4fd10f5338ddefac8824728de3c
Stable URL of this page: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_d760b1bfa7c0

How to cite

Four causes — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_d760b1bfa7c0 (Metraipolis archive dc_d760b1bfa7c0, sha256 99cd4307f31589248c4767d3983fca40ff29a4fd10f5338ddefac8824728de3c)

BibTeX

@misc{dcd760b1bfa7c0,
  title = {Four causes — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_d760b1bfa7c0; sha256 99cd4307f31589248c4767d3983fca40ff29a4fd10f5338ddefac8824728de3c},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

The four causes are, in Aristotelian thought, categories of questions that explain "the why's" of something that exists or changes in nature. The four causes are the: material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause. Aristotle wrote that "we do not have knowledge of a thing until we have grasped its why, that is to say, its cause." While there are cases in which classifying a "cause" is difficult, or in which "causes" might merge, Aristotle held that his four "causes" provided an analytical scheme of general applicability. Aristotle's word aitia (αἰτία) has, in philosophical scholarly tradition, been translated as 'cause'. This peculiar, specialized, technical, usage of the word 'cause' is not that of everyday English language. Rather, the translation of Aristotle's αἰτία that is nearest to current ordinary language is "explanation."

Tema degli esploratori: agenti e intelligenza artificiale (deposito sistematico; ricerca «autonomous agent»).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «Four causes» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes
Wikidata Q3140529 (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3140529
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_causes?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1362286174, consultata il 2026-10-05T23:32:22.294Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: b00e4b9bb8faafffcea0a136ec3e5ecf82097792f44c530ec817af0b630ea161