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Three Fallacies of Teleology — LessWrong

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Aristotle distinguished between four senses of the Greek word aition, which in English is translated as "cause", though Wikipedia suggests that a better translation is "maker".  Aristotle's theory of the Four Causes, then, might be better translated as the Four Makers.  These were his four senses of aitia:  The material aition, the formal aition, the efficient aition, and the final aition. The material aition of a bronze statue is the substance it is made from, bronze.  The formal aition is the substance's form, its statue-shaped-ness.  The efficient aition best translates as the English word "cause"; we would think of the artisan carving the statue, though Aristotle referred to the art of bronze-casting the statue, and regarded the individual artisan as a mere instantiation. The final aition was the goal, or telos, or purpose of the statue, that for the sake of which the statue exists. Though Aristotle considered knowledge of all four aitia as necessary, he regarded knowledge of the t

x Three Fallacies of Teleology — LessWrong Fallacies Truth, Semantics, & Meaning Causality Evolution Mind projection fallacy Personal Blog 39 Three Fallacies of Teleology by Eliezer Yudkowsky 25th Aug 2008 10 min read 14 39 Followup to : Anthropomorphic Optimism Aristotle distinguished between four senses of the Greek word aition , which in English is translated as "cause", though Wikipedia suggests that a better translation is "maker". Aristotle's theory of the Four Causes, then, might be better translated as the Four Makers. These were his four senses of aitia : The material aition , the for

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