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formal cause

[ fawr-muhl ]

noun

, Aristotelianism.
  1. cause8b


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Word History and Origins

Origin of formal cause1

Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400
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Example Sentences

Therefore the formal cause is the concept, or, as Plato would call it, the Idea of the thing.

Plato alone clearly saw the necessity for the formal cause, for formal causes are, as we have seen, the same as Plato's Ideas.

If we knew the forma or formal cause of each of those qualities, we could make gold, provided the causes were within our control.

That is, we must first find out the forma or formal cause of spontaneous rotation.

Scholasticism was content to talk about it under the name of 'substantial form' or 'formal cause'.

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