aitia
aition
CAUSE, the idea of the; CAUSE and effect, Euthyph. 10; Phil. 26, 27; ‘the tie of the CAUSE,’ Meno 98 A; CAUSE and condition distinguished, Phaedo 99; the good denied by some to be a CAUSE, ibid.; a CAUSE necessary to creation, Tim. 28 A; the power of the CAUSE, Phil. 30:—God the best of CAUSEs, Tim. 29 A :—final CAUSEs, Phaedo 97,98 ; argument from, applied to justice, Rep. 1. 352 ; second CAUSEs, Tim. 46 (cp. 76 E); two kinds of CAUSEs, ib. 68 E; creative CAUSEs, Phil. 27; the CAUSEs of things, ought to be enquired into by men, Laws 7. 821 A; first CAUSEs, ib. 10. . 891 E :—CAUSEs of crimes, Rep. 8. 552 D ; 9. 575 A; Laws 8. 831 E, 832 D; 9. 863, 870.
aition (or aitia): culpability, responsibility, cause
1. Since metaphysics is defined as a study of ultimate causes, Aristotle begins his work on the subject by a detailed review of his predecessors’ search for causes (Meta. 983a—993a; recapitulated 988a—b). Plato has no formal treatment of causality as such, though there is a criticism of the pre-Socratic search for a moving cause in Phaedo 93d—ppd, Timaeus 460—476, and Laws 892c, where the earlier physicists are blamed for mistaking accessories (synaitia), which operate from necessity (ananke) and without intelligent design (techne), for the only genuine cause of motion, the psyche (compare Aristotle De an. 414a and symbebekos). But in Phil. 26d—27c he reduces reality to a formal (see peras), an efficient (see demiourgos), and a “material” (see apeiron ) element.
2. Aristotle’s own doctrine of four causes—formal (eidos), material (hyle; see also hypokeimenon), efficient (kinoun), and final (telo s)—is to be found in Phys. 11, 194b—195a and Meta. 1013a—1014a. One peculiar development of the doctrine is the identification of the material cause with the premisses of a syllogism that necessarily “cause” the conclusion (cf. Anal. post. 11, 94a, Phys. 11, 195a). There is another, more ethically oriented division of the types of causalities in Eth. Nich. 1112a. Later philosophers made some additions to the Aristotelian analysis: Philo’s logos is the instrumental cause of creation (De eher. 35, 126-127), and Seneca (Ep. 65, 8) has a list of five.
For unintended causes, see tyche. (TFG)