Account/Cause

aitia

• culpability, criminal responsibility, cause
• Aristotle sets out four things responsible for changes: 

“On the question “why” with respect to any process of generation or change, four answers are possible; these are the four causes. 1) The material cause (the constituent out of which something comes to be). 2) The formal cause (the account of the essence). 3) The efficient cause (the source of change, what changes or makes something). 4) The final cause (the end, or that for the sake of which something is done)”

[Physics 194^b16]

• A better modern reading is “account” rather than cause. See Burge 1971, and also Frede 1987, chapter 8.