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2. The four causes



Aristotle's was often thinking which were the four causes of... anything: the material, formal, efficient, and final cause. To my own risk, I'll try to apply these causes, to the very limited scope of software requirements.

Final cause:   to build a software that works well and is efficiently used by customers.

Efficient cause: it's us, we want build software for our customers.

Material cause:  the pieces of paper we write requirements on.

Formal cause: well. I still have to think about this one.

Aristotle used the word aition, "cause".
He meant an explanation that accounts for something: "x is the aition of y" means "x explains y".
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