Teleology

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Plato (left) and Aristotle, depicted here in The School of Athens, both developed teleological arguments addressing the universe's apparent order (logos)

Teleology (from Template:Langx, and Template:Langx)<ref name=":0">Partridge, Eric. 1977. Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. London: Routledge, p. 4187.</ref> or finality<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":1">Dubray, Charles. 2020 [1912]. "Teleology". In The Catholic Encyclopedia 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 3 May 2020. – via New Advent, transcribed by D. J. Potter</ref> is a branch of causality giving the reason or an explanation for something as a function of its end, its purpose, or its goal, as opposed to as a function of its cause.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

A purpose that is imposed by human use, such as the purpose of a fork to hold food, is called extrinsic.<ref name=":1" /> Natural teleology, common in classical philosophy, though controversial today,<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> contends that natural entities also have intrinsic purposes, regardless of human use or opinion. For instance, Aristotle claimed that an acorn's intrinsic telos is to become a fully grown oak tree.<ref>Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1050a9–17</ref> Though ancient materialists rejected the notion of natural teleology, teleological accounts of non-personal or non-human nature were explored and often endorsed in ancient and medieval philosophies, but fell into disfavor during the modern era (1600–1900).

Much of the discussion on teleology revolves around religion and the belief in a Godly, purposeful existence for the world and for humans.<ref>James Wood, in his Nuttall Encyclopaedia, explained the meaning of teleology as "the doctrine of final causes, particularly the argument for the being and character of God from the being and character of His works; that the end reveals His purpose from the beginning, the end being regarded as the thought of God at the beginning, or the universe viewed as the realisation of Him and His eternal purpose."</ref> See Teleological argument for an in-depth discussion on teleology and religion.


History

In Western philosophy, the term and concept of teleology originated in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle's 'four causes' gives a special place to the telos or "final cause" of each thing. In this, he followed Plato in seeing purpose in both human and nonhuman nature.

Etymology

The word teleology combines Greek Template:Lang (Template:Langx, from Template:Langx)<ref name=":0" /> and Template:Lang (Template:Langx). German philosopher Christian Wolff would coin the term as Template:Langx (Latin) in his work Template:Lang (1728).<ref> Template:Cite book </ref>

Platonic

In Plato's dialogue Phaedo, Socrates argues that true explanations for any given physical phenomenon must be teleological. He bemoans those who fail to distinguish between a thing's necessary and sufficient causes, which he identifies respectively as material and final causes:<ref name=":2">Phaedo, Plato, 98–99</ref>

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Socrates here argues that while the materials that compose a body are necessary conditions for its moving or acting in a certain way, they nevertheless cannot be the sufficient condition for its moving or acting as it does. For example,<ref name=":2" /> if Socrates is sitting in an Athenian prison, the elasticity of his tendons is what allows him to be sitting, and so a physical description of his tendons can be listed as necessary conditions or auxiliary causes of his act of sitting.<ref>Phaedo, Plato, 99b</ref><ref>Timaeus, Plato, 46c9–d4, 69e6.</ref> However, these are only necessary conditions of Socrates' sitting. To give a physical description of Socrates' body is to say that Socrates is sitting, but it does not give any idea why it came to be that he was sitting in the first place. To say why he was sitting and not not sitting, it is necessary to explain what it is about his sitting that is good, for all things brought about (i.e., all products of actions) are brought about because the actor saw some good in them. Thus, to give an explanation of something is to determine what about it is good. Its goodness is its actual cause—its purpose, telos or 'reason for which'.<ref>Timaeus, Plato, 27d8–29a.</ref>

Aristotelian

Aristotle argued that Democritus was wrong to attempt to reduce all things to mere necessity, because doing so neglects the aim, order, and "final cause", which brings about these necessary conditions:

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In Physics, using the hylomorphic theory, (using eternal forms as his modelTemplate:Dubious), Aristotle rejects Plato's assumption that the universe was created by an intelligent designer. For Aristotle, natural ends are produced by "natures" (principles of change internal to living things), and natures, Aristotle argued, do not deliberate:<ref>Hardie, R. P., and R. K. Gaye, trans. 2007. "Aristotle – Physics". pp. 602–852 in Aristotle - Works, edited by W. D. Ross. Internet Archive (open source full text). pp. 640–644, 649.</ref>

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These Platonic and Aristotelian arguments ran counter to those presented earlier by Democritus and later by Lucretius, both of whom were supporters of what is now often called accidentalism:

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Modern philosophy

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In the 17th century, philosophers such as René Descartes, Francis Bacon, and Thomas Hobbes wrote in opposition to Aristotelian teleology. The suggestion that there’s more to objects than their materialism was rejected in favor of a mechanistic view of even complex creatures and organisms.<ref name=aeon2024>Template:Cite web</ref> According to Hobbes, writing in Leviathan:

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Bacon likewise sought to divorce the study of final causes from scientific inquiry, saying:

“The handling of final causes, mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice of further discovery." (The Advancement of Learning, Book 2)

But while science was doing a great job at explaining natural phenomena, it stopped short of explaining how life develops.<ref name=aeon2024/> In the late 18th century, Immanuel Kant acknowledged this shortcoming in his Critique of Judgement:

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Kant, Hegel and Marx

Immanuel Kant explained teleology as a subjective (false) perception, necessary for humans to understand the world, but in actuality, not a determining factor in biology or even in human personal and social behavior. Biological behavior, reacting to "self-preservation" criteria, is an outcome of Darwinist-like adaptation, with the organisms having "intrinsic and natural purposiveness". (Note: Darwin's theory on evolution was published only after Kant's death.) <ref>The Critique of the Power of Judgment (or: The Third Critique), Part II, Critique of Teleological Judgment, Emanuel Kant, 1790</ref>

Wilhelm Hegel opposed Kant's view and claimed it was legitimate for a materialistic view to accept "high" intrinsic teleology, where organisms, or at least the human self-conscious mind, and following it, whole societies are capable of determining and deciding their actions, for self-preservation and awareness, and the human pursuit of self-conscious freedom. This, according to Kant, differs from the "low" teleology where an entity decides to use external means for its own goal, which was the religious claim about god or some "high" entity with its own agenda for the world and humans.

In The Science of Logic, and more elaborately in Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Wilhelm Hegel wrote that life occurs when a body advances from "mechanism" and "chemism" to acquire the goals of self-preservation and "self-realization", and acts accordingly. History (meaning the sequences of human behavior), according to him, is the outcome of humanity becoming conscious of its own freedom through social antagonism and self-recognition and changing from an irrational and unaware state to a free, rational, self-conscious state of being.<ref>The Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, English Translation Terry Pinkar, Cambridge University Press 2018, Page 125.</ref>

Hegel's basic theory is that every idea being realized has a stage of thesis where its flaws are revealed, creating an antithesis, which resolves those flaws but has flaws of its own, and finally the two clash and a new, improved synthesis is created. This process continues with the ideas advancing and becoming better and refined. History, according to Hegel, is actually this realization of ideas through clashing and refinement.

Leaning on these notions, Karl Marx wrote with teleological terminology that society advances through cultural clashes between classes striving for material economic goals, struggling through revolution with the ruling classes inherent to capitalism, until finally society will establish a classless commune.<ref>The communist manifesto</ref> Since Marx is speaking about a scientific explanation to history and social behavior, many explain this as being consequentialist, with the culture clash caused by the existence of unequal classes and the lack of economic wealth by the lower classes, leading to an open, non-deterministic result caused by the situation and the collective behavior in response to it.<ref>Marx and Teleology Sean Sayers, Science & Society, Vol. 83, No. 1, January 2019, 37–(link is to article on his website)</ref>

Postmodern philosophy

Teleological-based "grand narratives" are renounced by the postmodern tradition,<ref>Lyotard, Jean-François. 1979. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.</ref> where teleology may be viewed as reductive, exclusionary, and harmful to those whose stories are diminished or overlooked.<ref>Lochhead, Judy. 2000. Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought. Template:ISBN. p. 6.</ref>

Against this postmodern position, Alasdair MacIntyre has argued that a narrative understanding of oneself, of one's capacity as an independent reasoner, one's dependence on others and on the social practices and traditions in which one participates, all tend towards an ultimate good of liberation. Social practices may themselves be understood as teleologically oriented to internal goods. For example, practices of philosophical and scientific inquiry are teleologically ordered to the elaboration of a true understanding of their objects. MacIntyre's After Virtue (1981) famously dismissed the naturalistic teleology of Aristotle's "metaphysical biology", but he has cautiously moved from that book's account of a sociological teleology toward an exploration of what remains valid in a more traditional teleological naturalism.<ref name="MACINTYRE 2022 p.">Template:Cite book</ref>

Ethics

Teleology significantly informs the study of ethics, such as in:

  • Business ethics: People in business commonly think in terms of purposeful action, as in, for example, management by objectives. Teleological analysis of business ethics leads to consideration of the full range of stakeholders in any business decision, including the management, the staff, the customers, the shareholders, the country, humanity, and the environment.<ref>Brooks, Leonard J., and Paul Dunn. 2009. Template:Cite book Cengage Learning. Template:ISBN. p. 149.</ref>
  • Medical ethics: Teleology provides a moral basis for the professional ethics of medicine, as physicians are generally concerned with outcomes and must therefore know the telos of a given treatment paradigm.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Consequentialism

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The broad spectrum of consequentialist ethics—of which utilitarianism is a well-known example—focuses on the result or consequences, with such principles as John Stuart Mill's 'principle of utility': "the greatest good for the greatest number". This principle is thus teleological, though in a broader sense than is elsewhere understood in philosophy.

In the classical notion, teleology is grounded in the inherent nature of things themselves, whereas in consequentialism, teleology is imposed on nature from outside by the human will. Consequentialist theories justify inherently what most people would call evil acts by their desirable outcomes, if the good of the outcome outweighs the bad of the act. So, for example, a consequentialist theory would say it was acceptable to kill one person in order to save two or more other people. These theories may be summarized by the maxim "Template:Wikt-lang."

Deontology

Template:Main Consequentialism stands in contrast to the more classical notions of deontological ethics, of which examples include Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative, and Aristotle's virtue ethics—although formulations of virtue ethics are also often consequentialist in derivation.

In deontological ethics, the goodness or badness of individual acts is primary and a larger, more desirable goal is insufficient to justify bad acts committed on the way to that goal, even if the bad acts are relatively minor and the goal is major (like telling a small lie to prevent a war and save millions of lives). In requiring all constituent acts to be good, deontological ethics is much more rigid than consequentialism, which varies by circumstance.

Practical ethics are usually a mix of the two. For example, Mill also relies on deontic maxims to guide practical behavior, but they must be justifiable by the principle of utility.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Economics

A teleology of human aims played a crucial role in the work of economist Ludwig von Mises, especially in the development of his science of praxeology. Mises believed that an individual's action is teleological because it is governed by the existence of their chosen ends.<ref name=":4">von Mises, Ludwig. The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science. Princeton, NJ: David Van Nostrand. – via Mises Institute. Available in other formats.</ref> In other words, individuals select what they believe to be the most appropriate means to achieve a sought after goal or end. Mises also stressed that, with respect to human action, teleology is not independent of causality: "No action can be devised and ventured upon without definite ideas about the relation of cause and effect, teleology presupposes causality."<ref name=":4" />

Assuming reason and action to be predominantly influenced by ideological credence, Mises derived his portrayal of human motivation from Epicurean teachings, insofar as he assumes "atomistic individualism, teleology, and libertarianism, and defines man as an egoist who seeks a maximum of happiness" (i.e. the ultimate pursuit of pleasure over pain).<ref name=" Gonce ">Gonce, R. A. Natural Law and Ludwig von Mises' Praxeology and Economic Science. Chattanooga, TN: Southern Economic Association.</ref> "Man strives for," Mises remarks, "but never attains the perfect state of happiness described by Epicurus."<ref name=" Gonce " /> Furthermore, expanding upon the Epicurean groundwork, Mises formalized his conception of pleasure and pain by assigning each specific meaning, allowing him to extrapolate his conception of attainable happiness to a critique of liberal versus socialist ideological societies. It is there, in his application of Epicurean belief to political theory, that Mises flouts Marxist theory, considering labor to be one of many of man's 'pains', a consideration which positioned labor as a violation of his original Epicurean assumption of man's manifest hedonistic pursuit. From here he further postulates a critical distinction between introversive labor and extroversive labor, further diverging from basic Marxist theory, in which Marx hails labor as man's "species-essence", or his "species-activity".<ref>Berki, R. N. On the Nature and Origins of Marx's Concept of Labor. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.</ref>

Science

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Modern science sees the 'reason' for an event as causality. In cases of teleonomy, wordings suggesting purpose are preferred to be avoided. For example, using teleological wording as an explanatory style within evolutionary biology is somewhat controversial.<ref name="Hanke2004">Template:Cite book</ref>

Since the Novum Organum of Francis Bacon, teleological explanations in physical science tend to be deliberately avoided in favor of focus on material and efficient explanations, although some recent accounts of quantum phenomena make use of teleology.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Final and formal causation came to be viewed as false or too subjective.<ref name="aristotle" group="lower-roman">"The received intellectual tradition has it that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, revolutionary philosophers began to curtail and reject the teleology of the medieval and scholastic Aristotelians, abandoning final causes in favor of a purely mechanistic model of the Universe."

Template:Citation. pp. 23–24.</ref> Nonetheless, some disciplines, in particular within evolutionary biology, continue to use language that appears teleological in describing natural tendencies towards certain end conditions. SomeTemplate:Who suggest, however, that these arguments ought to be, and practicably can be, rephrased in non-teleological forms; others hold that teleological language cannot always be easily expunged from descriptions in the life sciences, at least within the bounds of practical pedagogy.

Contemporary philosophers and scientists still debate whether teleological axioms are useful or accurate in proposing modern philosophies and scientific theories. An example of the reintroduction of teleology into modern language is the notion of an attractor.<ref>von Foerster, Heinz. 1992. "Cybernetics". p. 310 in Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence 1, edited by S. C. Shapiro. Template:ISBN.</ref> Another instance is when Thomas Nagel (2012), though not a biologist, proposed a non-Darwinian account of evolution that incorporates impersonal and natural teleological laws to explain the existence of life, consciousness, rationality, and objective value.<ref>Nagel, Thomas. 2012. Mind and Cosmos. Oxford University Press.</ref> Template:Anchor Regardless, the accuracy can also be considered independently from the usefulness: it is a common experience in pedagogy that a minimum of apparent teleology can be useful in thinking about and explaining Darwinian evolution even if there is no true teleology driving evolution. Thus, it is easier to say that evolution "gave" wolves sharp canine teeth because those teeth "serve the purpose of" predation regardless of whether there is an underlying non-teleologic reality in which evolution is not an actor with intentions. In other words, because human cognition and learning often rely on the narrative structure of stories – with actors, goals, and immediate (proximate) rather than ultimate (distal) causation (see also proximate and ultimate causation) – some minimal level of teleology might be recognized as useful or at least tolerable for practical purposes even by people who reject its cosmologic accuracy. Its accuracy is upheld by Barrow and Tipler (1986), whose citations of such teleologists as Max Planck and Norbert Wiener are significant for scientific endeavor.<ref>Barrow, John D., and Frank J. Tipler. 1986. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. New York: Oxford University Press. Template:ISBN.</ref>

Biology

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Apparent teleology is a recurring issue in evolutionary biology,<ref>Ruse, M., and J. Travis, eds. 2009. Evolution: The First Four Billion Years. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. p. 364.</ref> much to the consternation of some writers.<ref name="Hanke2004"/>

Statements implying that nature has goals, for example, where a species is said to do something "in order to" achieve survival, appear teleological, and therefore invalid. Usually, it is possible to rewrite such sentences to avoid the apparent teleology. Some biology courses have incorporated exercises requiring students to rephrase such sentences so that they do not read teleologically. Nevertheless, biologists still frequently write in a way which can be read as implying teleology even if that is not the intention. John Reiss argues that evolutionary biology can be purged of such teleology by rejecting the analogy of natural selection as a watchmaker.<ref>Reiss, John O. 2009. Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker. Berkeley: University of California Press. Template:Page needed</ref> Other arguments against this analogy have also been promoted by writers such as Richard Dawkins.<ref>Dawkins, Richard. 1987. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. New York: W W Norton & Company.</ref>

Some authors, like James Lennox, have argued that Darwin was a teleologist,<ref>Lennox, James G. (1993). "Darwin was a Teleologist". Biology & Philosophy 8:409–21.</ref> while others, such as Michael Ghiselin, describe this claim as a myth promoted by misinterpretations of his discussions and emphasized the distinction between using teleological metaphors and being teleological.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Biologist philosopher Francisco Ayala has argued that all statements about processes can be trivially translated into teleological statements, and vice versa, but that teleological statements are more explanatory and cannot be disposed of.<ref name="Ayala 1998">Ayala, Francisco (1998). "Teleological explanations in evolutionary biology". Nature's Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology. Cambridge: MIT Press.</ref> Karen Neander has argued that the modern concept of biological 'function' is dependent upon selection. So, for example, it is not possible to say that anything that simply winks into existence without going through a process of selection has functions. We decide whether an appendage has a function by analysing the process of selection that led to it. Therefore, any talk of functions must be posterior to natural selection and function cannot be defined in the manner advocated by Reiss and Dawkins.<ref>Neander, Karen. 1998. "Functions as Selected Effects: The Conceptual Analyst's Defense". pp. 313–333 in Nature's Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology, edited by C. Allen, M. Bekoff, and G. Lauder. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.</ref>

Ernst Mayr states that "adaptedness ... is an a posteriori result rather than an a priori goal-seeking".<ref>Mayr, Ernst W. 1992. "The idea of teleology". Journal of the History of Ideas 53:117–35.</ref> Various commentators view the teleological phrases used in modern evolutionary biology as a type of shorthand. For example, Simon Hugh Piper Maddrell writes that "the proper but cumbersome way of describing change by evolutionary adaptation [may be] substituted by shorter overtly teleological statements" for the sake of saving space, but that this "should not be taken to imply that evolution proceeds by anything other than from mutations arising by chance, with those that impart an advantage being retained by natural selection".<ref>Madrell, S. H. P. 1998. "Why are there no insects in the open sea?" The Journal of Experimental Biology 201:2461–64.</ref> Likewise, J. B. S. Haldane says, "Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public."<ref>Hull, D. 1973. Philosophy of Biological Science, Foundations of Philosophy Series. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.</ref><ref>Mayr, Ernst. 1974. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science XIV pp. 91–117.</ref>

Cybernetics

Template:Main Cybernetics is the study of the communication and control of regulatory feedback both in living beings and machines, and in combinations of the two.

Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow classified behaviors as purposeful when there seems to be a goal directing that behavior, but non-purposeful when the causality is clear. Hence, a rock falling is non-purposeful, but the action of a rocket (fired by humans) is perhaps purposeful. They then divided the classification into teleological — if the targeted behavior was receiving feedback of any sort, or non-teleological, if on its way to the goal, there was no processing of feedback. So even machinery can be teleological, if it has a feedback mechanism.<ref name=":5">Template:Cite journal</ref> Wiener coined the term cybernetics to denote the study of "teleological mechanisms".<ref>Wiener, Norbert. 1948. Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine.</ref> In the cybernetic classification presented by Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow, teleology is feedback controlled purpose. Thus, decision making and intelligent or purposeful behavior, by any object, including machines, computers, living beings, humans, and societies, is a process in time that begins through physical, well-understood stages, caused by physical phenomena, processed by physically materialistic biochemical and physiological constructs of machinery or computers. In the case of biological behavior, the physical input is processed by neurons, brain parts, glands and hormonal interactions, interacting with previously stored learned or inherited biological constructs that result in actions which lead to the self preservation of the organism, with an emerging causality-based teleology.<ref name=":5" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The classification system underlying cybernetics has been criticized by Frank Honywill George and Les Johnson, who cite the need for an external observability to the purposeful behavior in order to establish and validate the goal-seeking behavior. Just because it seems to have a mechanism for accepting feedback does not necessitate that a machine is now "behaving teleologically".<ref name=":6" /> The fact that some phenomena is being observed and changed by the feedback mechanism, is well understood objective control, but the part of the mechanism that is doing the observing and takes part in self preservation in living beings is not the same as a machine with feedback. The living being (or at least the human brain) has "subjective autonomy".<ref name=":6">Template:Cite book</ref>

See also

References

Notes

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Citations

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Further reading

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