A chair is for sitting, obviously. But then, what’s sitting for? Why sit at all? In fact, why me?
Sometimes, understanding ourselves – what we do and why we do it in the way that we do it – isn’t easy. The world is full of self-help books that promise to help a person discover their “why” or “purpose”. But this is where an older writer may be of use.
Aristotle’s four causes* may be a neat way to investigate any ‘why’ type of question. It may not be perfect, but it also may not need to be. For any ‘thing’ that exists (like a chair), Aristotle implores ask to us a few questions.
- What is it? Aristotle describes this as his ‘formal’ cause. In our case, well, we’ve already described it. A chair.
- What is it made of? Aristotle calls this his ‘material’ cause. If the chair I’m thinking about is a wooden chair, then it’s material cause is a tree..
- How did it go from wood to a chair? This is Aristotle’s ‘formal cause’. Or, ‘how did this chair form’. In the chair’s case, it required skills and labour of a furniture maker to transform a pile of wood into this chair..
- What is its good? Or, it’s ‘final cause’. In other words, why does this chair exist? Which brings us back to the original answer – for sitting, right? But then, what’s sitting for?.
The idea of following this thread of understanding the world better is that it’s a guide for helping us make more intentional and thoughtful decisions. In my case, I did just buy a new chair, and it was expensive, so shouldn’t I know what sitting is for?
Sitting, for me, is necessary to remain comfortable, to rest, and prevent injury. And why is this important? So that I can spend as much time making books and writing stories that inform or entertain people? Why? Because I believe that stories are the perfect vehicle to move hearts and minds towards things that I think are important in a community – kindness, compassion, generosity and patience. And, as I write those words, I may have stumbled across something that sounds like a purpose. An answer to the question, “why me?”
*It’s worth noting that the definition of ‘cause’ in Aristotle’s time is a little different to how we think about it today. Cause in Aristotle’s time was less about ‘causation’ and more about an ‘explanation’… a ‘why’.