But Kilwardby thinks it is useful to take the four-cause theory of Aristotle’s natural philosophy and apply it to syllogistic arguments. The efficient cause of a syllogism is the person who forms it, while its final cause or purpose is, of course, to produce knowledge. Kilwardby also thinks of syllogisms as having material and formal causes.5 Basically, the matter of a syllogism is the terms that appear in the premises, while the form is the way that the terms are arranged.
