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The Four Causes

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As we know, Aristotle is one of the great Greek philosophers. He studied under Plato. He has written many books on many subjects. He is a father of many subjects like logic, political science, etc. Aristotle was convinced about his ideas and thoughts that is why he did not agree with some of the ideas of his guru and even with the other philosophers like Parmenides’ arguments. Plato believed in the world of ideas, for him the idea and the form were real. However, For Aristotle the individual things were real, he believed in the world of reality. Since he believed in the world of reality, he saw on this earth many beings so he called them as substances. Aristotle says, “The substance is a unity of form and matter. Substances undergo two types of changes: accidental and radical.” [2] Since he spoke about changes, there was a clash between Parmenides and Aristotle.

The Greek philosopher Parmenides said, “Reality is one and stable,” [3] that means there cannot be any change. In other words, “In reality there is no change at all; all change is mere appearance; because reality is one, which is unchanging.” [4] Because Parmenides believed that there are only two possibilities, they are ‘being’ and ‘non-being’. According to Parmenides if there is something then only something comes out and if there is nothing how can you expect something? The problem was that later he said that from being no being comes because He has no idea of potentiality in being. However, Aristotle says, every being has potentiality therefore there is change in everything. Since Aristotle said about the change, he had to bring out the proper arguments. Therefore, He began to explain by giving theory of four causes and the problem of change.

Aristotle begins his arguments by saying that “If something comes to be it must be rooted in something. It cannot be rooted in nothing. But also it cannot be

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