efficient cause

American  

noun

Aristotelianism.

1. cause8b

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efficient cause British  

noun

1. philosophy that which produces an effect by a causal process Compare final cause See also cause

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Example Sentences

The ability and artistic skill of the sculptor was termed the efficient cause.

From Textbooks • Jun. 15, 2022

An "efficient cause" is needed to explain "the actual existence here and now of a merely possible cosmos," something that preserves it in being and prevents it from being replaced by nothingness.

From Time Magazine Archive

As far as Aristotle was concerned, as we saw in Chapter 3, causal explanations had four components: the formal cause, the final cause, the material cause and the efficient cause.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

There is only an efficient cause: the balance of weights; and a structure or form that makes the balance possible: a sealed tube up-ended in a bath of mercury.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Only a spiritual person can be influenced, and he by object through the intelligence as medium, and only he can be an efficient cause.

From Know the Truth; A critique of the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation by Jones, Jesse H.