[lojban-beginners] Re: Lightbulb

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 10/4/06, Matt Arnold <matt.mattarn@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd have to read more about Aristotle's causalities to know for sure,
> but at first glance it appears they can be loosely mapped onto the
> Lojban cause words.
>
> Material Cause: {ri'a}, "because of cause and effect"
> Formal Cause: {ni'i}, "logically entailed by"
> Efficient Cause: {ki'u}, "because of reason"
> Final Cause: {mu'i}, "because of motive"

I think the only Aristotelian cause that we would classify as a cause
is the efficient cause, which would be {ri'a}.

{mu'i} may be one example of final cause, but Aristotle's final causes
are more general, they are the "what for" of something. For example, when
Little Red Ridinghood is told by the wolf that his teeth are so big the better
to eat her with, the wolf is giving a final cause of why his teeth are so big,
but this is not {mu'i}. Perhaps {te pi'o}.

The material cause of something is what it is made of, and the formal
cause of something is what its form is. These might be {se ma'e} and
{te ma'e}, but we probably wouldn't call them causes.

I don't know if Aristotle would have included logical entailment as a cause,
and if so under what category. Maybe the premises are the material cause
of the conclusion, and the inference rules are the efficient cause?

{ki'u}, as an explanation of something, would probably cover all of the
Aristotelian causes.

mu'o mi'e xorxes