Noun
efficient cause (plural efficient causes)
(philosophy, natural science) The being or event which physically brings about the change or motion that produces another occurrence or thing.
In Aristotelian terminology, this use approximates to the case of the efficient cause. Source: Internet
For example, the generative actions of his parents can be regarded as the efficient cause, with Socrates being the effect, Socrates being regarded as an enduring object, in philosophical tradition called a 'substance', as distinct from an action. Source: Internet
"from effect"): The world is an effect, all effects have efficient cause, hence the world must have an efficient cause. Source: Internet
He presented this 'provisional hypothesis' in his 1868 work The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication and felt that it brought 'together a multitude of facts which are at present left disconnected by any efficient cause'. Source: Internet
Nyayasutra verses IV.1.22 to IV.1.24, for example, examine the hypothesis that "random chance" explains the world, after these Indian scholars had rejected God as the efficient cause. Source: Internet
Of Aristotle's four kinds or explanatory modes, only one, the 'efficient cause' is a cause as defined in the leading paragraph of this present article. Source: Internet