Abstract

Nature's Causes shows how the four kinds of cause first described by Aristotle are actually employed in the natural sciences. A work of this sort is useful today because many problems that historically were treated by philosophers are now raised from within the sciences themselves. Some or all of the causes are employed variously to account for natural things and their properties. An important part of the treatment consists in its showing how the insufficiency of one cause implies the existence of another. The final effect of seeing the relation among the causes is a more ordered view of Nature and its parts.