The Knowledge

Knowledge is defined as expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject, what is known in a particular field or in total; facts and information or awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation. Philosophical debates in general start with Plato's formulation of knowledge as "justified true belief". There is however no single agreed definition of knowledge presently, or any prospect of one, and there remain numerous competing theories.
Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use it for a specific purpose if appropriate.
There are four causes of knowledge according to Aristotle:
1. Material Cause – pertains to the cause of something in terms of the physical made-up. The Material Cause comes into existence due to its parts, constituents, substratum or materials. The explanation of causes is reduced to its parts such as factors, elements, constituents, ingredients, forming the whole.
2. Formal Cause – this cause pertains to the essence or "pattern" of something. The Formal Cause simply points out to us what a thing is, that any thing is identified by the “definition, form, pattern, essence, whole, synthesis, or archetype”.
3. Efficient Cause – explains something in terms of its starting point of change or stability. Aristotle pointed out that “Efficient cause is “the primary source of change”. The Efficient Cause is that from which the change or the culmination of the change was introduced. It implies all agents of change whether nonliving or living. For instance, in the above example the efficient cause of the statue was the sculptor. It was he who made the change in the bronze and silver, making it into a statue.
4. Final Cause – explains the cause of something in terms of its conceived end, or the purpose why it is made. According to Aristotle, final cause is “the end (telos), that for the sake of which a thing is done”. The Final Cause is that for the sake of which a thing exists or is done, its purpose and instrumental actions and activities. The final cause or telos is the end to which something must serve. For example, the final cause of a statue could be to portray a goddess or for decorative purposes.