The "Why"

Every project, every question is a journey. Aristotle used a simple chair as a metaphor explaining this. The four causes: the material, formal, efficient and the final. In the case of a chair, for example, the chair’s material cause would be its wood and cloth, its formal cause would be the structure or form given in its plan or blueprint, its efficient cause would be the worker who made it, and its final cause would be sitting.

The material cause, then, is that out of which a thing is made, what wood, what hardware. The formal cause is that into which a thing is made or our plan or blueprint. The efficient cause is that by which a thing is made, the craftsman and the tools used, and the final cause is that for which a thing is made.

Aristotle felt that of these four steps, the final cause was the most important. This “why” governs the others. It gives meaning and relevance to each step before. As a craftsman the “why” is our purpose, our role, our responsibility and our reward. Unfortunately so little time is spent understanding, the why.

My thought is that if we don’t take the time to truly understand why a thing is made, then we have no hope of our work being unique. Keep in mind, unique is not always a style, unique is actually our works relevance, has this “thing” achieved its purpose.

Understanding of our work is achieved at the end, for better or worse. I am sure Aristotle was using this example of a chair as a simple metaphor some 2500 years ago for some greater problem that faced civilization, but since I am a craftsman I like to think the work I do has always held importance for mankind.
So as you work on your design for the bookcase, don’t forget the why.

-- If knowledge is not shared, it is forgotten.