Questions on Aristotelian Realism

1. Aristotle claims that scientific knowledge (episteme) is a structure of demonstrations: deductions leading upwards from more general truth to more particular truths, giving the causes of things. Do the 'causes' that Aristotle talks about give us real understanding of the things they explain? Do different causes give us different 'kinds' of knowledge, rather than just one kind?

2. Are there other kinds of cause than those Aristotle has listed? Or do you think that all explanations can be seen as one or other of the listed kinds? (How would you even begin to answer this question?)

3. Is the method of 'dialectic' (think of the Socratic Method) sufficient to discover the causes of things? If not, then do you think  it could be modified to be so? If not, then what is missing? (Be precise, and remember we are talking about a method in very general terms.)