From philosophers-toolkit
Aristotle's Four Causes — analyze any subject through material, formal, efficient, and final causes. Use when user wants to deeply understand what something is and why it exists, not when they want implementation. 四因説・本質分析。四原因説・本質の分析。
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/philosophers-toolkit:aristotle-four-causesThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Everything that exists or changes can be understood through four
Everything that exists or changes can be understood through four questions: What is it made of? What makes it what it is? What brought it about? What is it for? By examining all four, you reach a complete understanding — not just description, but explanation.
Unlike Socratic questioning which guides through dialogue, this method provides an analysis framework. The agent actively structures the investigation through four lenses.
Do NOT use when:
User Input: User invokes skill (with or without a specific subject) Your Action: Establish what subject to analyze.
Constraint: Acknowledge topic, never pre-judge the analysis.
Analyze the subject through each cause in order. For each cause, ask the user 1-2 questions, then summarize what they said through the lens of the current cause. Do not add analysis the user did not provide — connect their words to the framework, don't generate new content. Build on previous causes as you progress.
What are the raw materials, components, or inputs?
Questions to ask:
Examples by domain:
What is its structure, pattern, or defining form?
Questions to ask:
Examples by domain:
What agent, process, or force created or changes it?
Questions to ask:
Examples by domain:
What is its purpose, goal, or reason for existing?
Questions to ask:
Examples by domain:
After all four causes, synthesize:
For each cause:
For synthesis:
Stop after each phase. Never advance without user input.
User: "Analyze IKEA through the four causes."
Agent: "Material Cause: what is IKEA made of as a business? What raw
materials and resources does it work with?"
User: "Wood, particle board, hardware, flat packaging materials.
Also a massive global supply chain."
Agent: "Affordable raw materials plus logistics scale. Formal Cause:
what structure makes IKEA recognizably IKEA, not just another furniture
store?"
User: "The flat-pack, self-assembly model. You walk through a showroom,
pick items from a warehouse, take them home and build them yourself."
Agent: "The form is self-service — showroom → warehouse → self-assembly.
Efficient Cause: what brought IKEA into existence and drives its evolution?"
User: "Ingvar Kamprad's vision of democratic design. And the discovery
that flat-packing drastically cuts shipping costs."
Agent: "A founder's vision plus a logistics insight. Final Cause:
what is IKEA ultimately for?"
User: "To make good design affordable for everyone, not just the wealthy."
Agent: "Synthesis: IKEA uses affordable materials and global supply chains
(material) structured as a self-service flat-pack model (form), driven by
Kamprad's democratic design vision and a flat-pack logistics insight
(efficient), to make good home design accessible to everyone (final).
Notice how the final cause — affordability for all — directly shaped the
formal cause: self-assembly exists because it removes labor cost. And the
material cause — particle board over solid wood — serves the same purpose.
Every cause aligns toward the same telos. That alignment is what makes
IKEA coherent as a business."
User: "Help me understand Tesla through the four causes."
Agent: "Material Cause first: what is Tesla made of?"
User: "Batteries, electric motors, software, aluminum body.
Also charging infrastructure — Supercharger network."
Agent: "Hardware plus software plus infrastructure. Formal Cause:
what structure makes Tesla a Tesla, not just an electric car?"
User: "It's a software-defined vehicle. OTA updates change the car
after purchase. And it's vertically integrated — they make their own
batteries, software, and sell direct."
Agent: "The form is software-defined + vertically integrated.
Efficient Cause: what force brought Tesla into being?"
User: "Elon Musk's conviction that EVs could be desirable, not just
eco-friendly. Plus breakthroughs in lithium-ion battery density."
Agent: "Visionary leadership meeting a technology inflection point.
Final Cause: what is Tesla ultimately for?"
User: "To accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy."
Agent: "Synthesis: Tesla combines batteries, software, and charging
infrastructure (material) into a software-defined, vertically integrated
vehicle platform (form), driven by Musk's vision meeting battery
technology maturity (efficient), to accelerate sustainable energy
adoption (final).
Key tension: the material cause (battery supply, rare minerals) is the
bottleneck constraining the final cause (mass adoption). Tesla's Gigafactory
strategy is essentially an attempt to resolve the conflict between material
limitations and purpose ambitions."
User: "Analyze Slack as a product."
Agent: "Material Cause: what is Slack made of? What are its components?"
User: "Message database, WebSocket for real-time, Electron for desktop,
APIs for integrations. Also the content — all the messages and files
people share."
Agent: "Infrastructure plus user-generated content. Formal Cause:
what structure makes Slack recognizably Slack?"
User: "Channels organized by topic, threaded conversations, reactions,
and the integration ecosystem — bots, apps, workflows."
Agent: "The form is channel-based communication with an extensible
integration layer. Efficient Cause: what brought Slack into existence?"
User: "Stewart Butterfield's team built it as an internal tool while
their game company was failing. They realized the chat tool was more
valuable than the game."
Agent: "A pivot — the efficient cause was accidental discovery through
failure. Final Cause: what is Slack ultimately for?"
User: "To replace email as the primary way teams communicate at work."
Agent: "Synthesis: Slack combines real-time messaging infrastructure
with user-generated content (material) structured as topic-based channels
with integrations (form), born from an accidental pivot during a failed
game project (efficient), to free work communication from email (final).
Interesting connection: the efficient cause — accidental discovery by
a team that was actually communicating intensely — validated the final
cause before the product even launched. They were their own proof that
channel-based chat beats email for team coordination."
For additional business cases, see references/business-cases.md.
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npx claudepluginhub kouko/monkey-skills --plugin philosophers-toolkit