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Aristotle also stands out as a famous writer on causation. His work on causation is also in response to Plato’s views. Plato had a teleological view of causation perpetuated by his idea of forms. Similarly, Aristotle writes on the teleological account of causation in Physics II 3 and Metaphysics V 2.[[CiteRef::Biography.com Editors (2017)]] Aristotle’s account of causation is made pertinent by forming the basis of all of his sciences. Each Aristotelian science consists of an investigation of causes within reality – in which an appropriate science would have knowledge of relevant causes. Aristotle’s teleological account of causation was the preferred account until Rene Descartes’ corpuscular mechanicism.[[CiteRef::Shields (2016)]]

Aristotle’s writings on the scientific method encompass the entire Organon, however, the works forming the basis of most empirical science are Analytica Priora and Analytica Posteriora.

Generally, Aristotle’s method takes heavily from intuition and experience. It implements the requirement to grasp the nature of a thing, a requirement which is abstract in nature. As such, his method acts as an illustration of the capacity of methods to implement different abstract means of assessment. His method can be phrased as “a proposition is acceptable if it grasps the nature of a thing through intuition schooled by experience, or if it is deduced from general intuitive propositions.”

In his work Analytica Priora, Aristotle essentially forms the foundation of syllogisms. Before he begins, he defines a few important terms: major premise, minor premise, and conclusion. The major and minor premises act as the antecedents of an argument and should logically follow to form a consequent, the conclusion. If the conclusion follows from the premises, in that it is a logical valid consequence, the logical structure is known as a syllogism (see the first figure for a common example).

As a consequence of syllogisms Aristotle recognizes an infinite regress of premises cannot provide a foundation of knowledge for science. Additionally, in this work, Aristotle identifies himself against apriori foundationalists, stating apriori knowledge can never form the foundation of knowledge. Instead, Aristotle opts the scientist to look towards observation and memory to form the foundation of their knowledge.

In contrast to Prior Analytics which defined syllogisms with respect to their forms, Aristotle deals with syllogisms’ content in Posterior Analytics. The reason to take a look at the distinction is much akin to why checking the validity of an argument is not enough to ascertain it as a good argument. The form of a syllogism lies in the connection between the premises and conclusion. However, even when there is no problem with the form, the matter of the premises or the conclusion may be problematic. To clarify what type of content is problematic, Aristotle explains what good content looks like.

Primarily, all knowledge must be formed on existing matter. Anything formed outside the scope of what is already known is not useful information . Knowledge is not opinion and one cannot hold knowledge about something while holding an opinion on it simultaneously . Furthermore, the existing matter or principles on which information is founded must be demonstrable, and if not demonstrable then they must be self-evident.

To explain proper demonstration, Aristotle provides some principles and guidance as to how demonstration should be conducted.

*The foundation on which knowledge is demonstrated should always be more certain than the conclusion.

Aristotle also makes the value distinction of explanatory theories and descriptive theories. Explanatory theories explain why something happens the way it does, while descriptive theories explain that it happens. Per Aristotle, explanatory theories should be valued more than descriptive theories.

Aristotle concludes Posterior Analytics with a comment on foundationalism. While dissatisfied with apriori foundationalism, at his core, Aristotle is an aposteriori foundationalist. Knowledge claims cannot infinitely regress, and they must not be formed from apriori principles.

For Aristotle, scientific knowledge comes from an understanding of a thing in terms of what causes it . Generally, Aristotle divides causes into four categories :