Final answer:
Aristotle established the doctrine of the four causes to understand the nature of things and laid foundations in biology, physics, and other sciences, though some of his conclusions were later proved to be inaccurate.
Step-by-step explanation:
When Aristotle looked out at the natural world, he made several observations and developed theories that would lay the foundation for many scientific disciplines. He is best known for his doctrine of the four causes, which posed four critical questions about the nature of things: the material cause (what's it made of?), the formal cause (what shape does it have?), the efficient cause (what agent gave it this form?), and the final cause (what is its end goal?). Aristotle's scientific endeavor extended to founding disciplines such as biology and establishing groundwork in physics, among others. Though not all his scientific conclusions were accurate, his holistic and systematic approach to studying the natural world had a long-lasting impact on various fields of knowledge.