I don’t know what the 4 Aristotelian causes mean. The formal cause is “the blueprint or plan” -does this mean that even formal causes have formal causes, namely the intention to find formal causes? The material cause is “the constituent cause” so does this mean that an aggregate of ideas is the cause of the aggregated idea (are the letters of a word too, the material cause of that word)?
I think a lot of my confusion is due to me taking the four causes too broadly. In fact the causes might only apply to substance -they are ways substances are caused. As such, my view of the material cause as “the constituent of something” is not accurate, rather the material causes is “the constituent of substance” -this is what prevents me from saying that the individuals of a species are the material cause of the whole species, or that both form and matter are material causes of the person -since they constitute him.
I’ll quote from Dr. Edward Fuser’s book, Aquinas, A Beginner’s Guide. The four causes, 1st and 2nd paragraph.
"Speaking of the explanation naturally leads us to that most famous of Aristotelian metaphysical doctrines, that of the four causes - material, formal, efficient, and final - a doctrine to which Aquinas is fully committed. Return yet again to the rubber ball of our example. The
material cause or underlying stuff the ball is made out is rubber; its
formal cause, or the form, pattern, or structure it exhibits, comprises such features as its sphericity, solidity, and bounciness. In other words, the material and formal causes of a thing are just matter and form, considered as two aspects of a complete explanation of it. Next we have the
efficient cause, that which actualizes a potency and thereby brings something into being. In this case that would be the actions of the workers and/or machines in the factory in which the ball was made, as they molded the rubber into the ball. Lastly we have the *final cause *or the end, goal, or purpose of a thing, which in the case of the ball might be to provide amusement to a child. In combination, these causes provide a complete explanation of a thing. That doesn’t mean that in the case of a ball, for example, you would not have many more questions about it, such as where the rubber came from or who made the factory. But the answers to such questions will be just further instances of material, formal, efficient, and final causes.
The four causes are completely general, applying throughout the natural world and not just to human artifacts. Biological organs provide the most obvious examples. For instance, to understand what a heart is, you need to know its material cause, namely that it is made out of muscle tissue of a certain sort. But there are many muscles in the body that aren’t hearts, so you also need to know its formal cause, and thus such things as that the muscle tissues is organized into ventricles, atria, and the like. Then there is the efficient cause, which in this case would be the biological processes that determined that certain embryonic cells would form into a heart rather than, say, a kidney or a brain. Finally there is the heart’s final cause, namely that it serves the function of pumping blood."
Where are you getting that idea?