The Four Causes and Custom Chairs

One of the foundational concepts of The Shape of Knowledge is a mental model created by Aristotle called The Four Causes.

Aristotle said that every human artifact requires four inputs, or 'causes', to exist.

The first is the intent of the creator, the reason why the artifact is being created. Aristotle actually called this the 'final cause' because it represents the ultimate goal of the creative process, but it is the first cause from a time standpoint. Next, the artifact needs both a form, or shape, and materials. Finally, there is the act of actually forming the materials into the chosen shape. Aristotle called this the 'efficient cause' but I prefer to use the word process.

Intent, form, materials and process are the four elements necessary for the creation of any human artifact.

I give several examples in the book of the Four Causes in action -- building a house, knitting a sweater and writing a book -- before moving on to how they relate to the main topic of the book, knowledge artifacts.

Yesterday I ran into another excellent example of the Four Causes and how we interact with them daily in the course of our lives. I found this example in a Home Decorators catalog, on a page selling custom upholstered furniture. This page is designed to appeal to the customer whose intent is to buy a chair that perfectly fits her own particular tastes and decor.

This is how the catalog communicates the form, or shape, of the custom chairs. Each is shown in a neutral white fabric so the viewer can focus on the shape alone. The chairs are given names that often describe the form itself, names like 'Button Tufted-Back Dining Chair'.

The opposing page of the catalog shows the fabrics that can be used to make the chairs, the materials.

Some chairs can also be built with different colors of wood, another materials choice.

If the customer places an order specifying the form and materials, the manufacturer will execute the process of building that custom chair.

When stock furniture is designed, form and materials choices are made by a designer whose intent is to create a popular design that will appeal to many potential customers. The designer will study industry trends and will have a target customer in mind when he or she makes these choices, but the same form and materials choices must be made. Every act of creation requires the selection of a form and materials.

Aristotle's model is useful because it clarifies components of design that we tend to blur and conflate. The catalog creators used white fabric on the sample chairs because they know the viewer will be influenced and distracted by colorful or patterned fabrics. A customer may reject a chair shape because she doesn't like the fabric used on the sample, without ever realizing she is reacting to the materials and not the shape.

Realtors confront this problem all the time when showing houses to prospective buyers. They try to get the buyers to focus on 'the bones' of a house rather than the paint color and floor coverings that can be easily changed. This is easier said than done. People tend to react to the gestalt, the whole of something, and have difficulty thinking about shape and materials as two separate contributors to the final product. But designers must make this distinction, and when we are designing artifacts to embody our knowledge and transmit it to others we must think like designers as well. We must move beyond a focus on content and think about the best shape for conveying our knowledge.