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Home , Dysteleology, Teleology, Teleonomy, Telos

A teleology is an account of a given thing’s purpose. For 2.1 Platonic example, a teleological explanation of why forks have prongs is that this design helps humans eat certain foods; In the , through argues that true stabbing food to help humans eat is what forks are for. explanations for any given physical phenomenon must be teleological. He bemoans those who fail to distinguish A purpose that is imposed by a human use, such as that between a thing’s necessary and sufficient causes, which of a fork, is called extrinsic.[1] Natural teleology contends he identifies respectively as material and final causes that natural entities have intrinsic purposes, irrespective (Phaedo 98-9): of human use or opinion. For instance, claimed that an acorn’s intrinsic is to become a fully grown oak tree.[2] Imagine not able to distinguish cause, from that without which the cause Though ancient atomists rejected the of natural would not be able to act, as a cause. It is what teleology, teleological accounts of non-personal or non- the majority appear to do, like people groping human were explored and often endorsed in an- in the dark; they call it a cause, thus giving it cient and medieval , but fell into disfavor a name that does not belong to it. That is why during the modern era (1600-1900). one man surrounds the earth with a vortex to In the late 18th century, used the make the heavens keep it in place, another of telos as a regulative in his Critique of Judg- makes the air support it like a wide lid. As for ment. Teleology was also fundamental to the speculative their capacity of being in the best place they philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. could be at this very , this they do not look Contemporary philosophers and scientists are still ac- for, nor do they believe it to have any divine tively discussing whether teleological talk is useful or force, but they believe that they some time accurate in doing modern philosophy and . For discover a stronger and more immortal Atlas instance, in 2012, proposed a neo- to hold everything together more, and they do Darwinian account of that incorporates im- not believe that the truly good and 'binding' personal, natural teleological laws to explain the exis- binds and holds them together. tence of , , , and objective —Plato, Phaedo 99 .[3] Another example is chaos theory and its notion of attractor.[4] Plato here argues that, e.g., the materials that compose a body are necessary conditions for its moving or acting in a certain way, but that these materials cannot be the suf- 1 Etymology ficient condition for its moving or acting as it does. For example, (given in Phaedo 98), if Socrates is sitting in an Athenian prison, the elasticity of his tendons is what The word teleology builds on the Greek τέλος, telos (root: allows him to be sitting, and so a physical description of τελε-, “end, purpose”)[5] and -λογία, logia, “a branch of his tendons can be listed as necessary conditions or aux- ”. The German philosopher Christian von Wolff iliary causes of his act of sitting (Phaedo 99b; coined the term (in the Latin form "teleologia") in 1728 46c9-d4, 69e6). However, these are only necessary con- in his work Philosophia rationalis, sive logica.[6] ditions of Socrates’ sitting. To give a physical description of Socrates’ body is to say that Socrates is sitting, but it does not give us any why it came to be that he was sitting in the first place. To say why he was sitting and 2 Historical overview not not sitting, we have to explain what it is about his sitting that is good, for all things brought about (i.e., all In , the term and concept of teleology products of actions) are brought about because the actor originated in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Aristo- saw some good in them. Thus, to give an explanation of tle’s give special place to each thing’s telos or something is to determine what about it is good. Its good- “final cause.” In this, he followed Plato in seeing purpose ness is its actual cause - its purpose, telos or “ for in both human and sub-. which” (Timaeus 27d8-29a).

1 2 4 MODERN AND POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY

2.2 Aristotelian when they describe natural tendencies towards certain end conditions. While some argue that these arguments Similarly, Aristotle argued that was wrong can be rephrased in non-teleological forms, others hold to attempt to reduce all things to mere necessity, because that teleological language cannot be expunged from de- doing so neglects the aim, order, and “final cause,” which scriptions in the life . brings about these necessary conditions:

Democritus, however, neglecting the final 4 Modern and postmodern philos- cause, reduces to necessity all the operations of nature. Now they are necessary, it is true, ophy but yet they are for a final cause and for the sake of what is best in each case. Thus nothing Historically, teleology may be identified with the philo- prevents the teeth from being formed and sophical tradition of . The rationale of being shed in this way; but it is not on account teleology was explored by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of these causes but on account of the end.... of Judgement and, again, made central to speculative phi- —Aristotle, Generation of Animals V.8, losophy by Hegel and in the various neo-Hegelian schools 789a8-b15 — proposing a history of our species some consider to be at variance with Darwin, as well as with the dialectical of and , and with In the Aristotle rejected Plato’s assumption that what is now called — the point of de- the universe was created by an intelligent designer using parture is not so much formal logic and scientific fact but eternal forms as his model. For Aristotle, natural ends ''. (In Hegel’s terminology: 'objective spirit'.) are produced by “natures” ( of change internal Individual human consciousness, in the process of reach- to living things), and natures, Aristotle argued, do not de- ing for and freedom, has no but to deal liberate: with an obvious : the identities (such as the multiplicity of world views, ethnic, cultural and na- “It is absurd to suppose that ends are not tional identities) that divide the human race and (and present [in nature] because we do not see an always have set) different groups in violent conflict with agent deliberating.” each other. Hegel conceived of the 'totality' of mutually —Aristotle, Physics 2.8, 199b27-9;[7] see also antagonistic world-views and life-forms in history as be- Physics 2.5-6 where “natures” are contrasted ing 'goal-driven', that is, oriented towards an end-point with [8] in history. The 'objective contradiction' of '' and '' would eventually 'sublate' into a form of life that leaves violent conflict behind. This goal-oriented, 'tele- ological' notion of the 'historical process as a whole' is These Platonic and Aristotelian arguments ran counter present in a variety of 20th century authors, although its to those presented earlier by Democritus and later by prominence declined drastically after the Second World , both of whom were supporters of what is now War. often called accidentalism: In contrast, teleological based "grand narratives" are es- [10] Nothing in the body is made in order that chewed by the postmodern attitude and teleology may be viewed as reductive, exclusionary and harmful to those we may use it. What happens to exist is the [11] cause of its use. whose stories are diminished or overlooked. —Lucretius, (On the Nature Against this postmodern position, Alasdair MacIntyre of Things), IV, 833; cf. 822-56. has argued that a narrative understanding of oneself, of one’s capacity as an independent reasoner, one’s depen- dence on others and on the social practices and traditions in which one participates, all tend towards an ultimate 3 Disfavor good of liberation. Social practices may themselves be understood as teleologically oriented to internal goods, for example practices of philosophical and scientific in- Since the of , teleological quiry are teleologically ordered to the elaboration of a explanations in science tend to be deliberately avoided in true understanding of their objects. MacIntyre’s book favor of focus on material and efficient explanations. Fi- famously dismissed the naturalistic teleology nal and formal causation came to be viewed as false or [9] of Aristotle’s 'metaphysical biology', but he has cautiously too subjective. moved from that book’s account of a sociological teleol- Some disciplines, in particular within evolutionary biol- ogy toward an exploration of what remains valid in a more ogy, continue to use language that appears teleological traditional teleological . 3

5 Teleology and committed on the way to that goal, even if the bad acts are relatively minor and the goal is major (like telling a small Teleology informs the study of ethics. lie to prevent a war and save millions of ). In requir- ing all constituent acts to be good, is much more rigid than , which varies by 5.1 circumstances. Practical ethics are usually a mix of the two. For exam- Main article: Business ethics ple, Mill also relies on deontic maxims to guide practical behavior, but they must be justifiable by the principle of Business people commonly think in terms of purpose- utility.[14] ful action as in, for example, management by objectives. Teleological analysis of business ethics leads to consid- eration of the full range of stakeholders in any business 6 Teleology and science decision, including the management, the staff, the cus- tomers, the shareholders, the country, humanity and the See also: Four causes § The four causes in modern environment.[12] science

5.2 Medical ethics In modern science, explanations that rely on teleology are often, but not always, avoided, either because they are Main article: Medical ethics unnecessary or because whether they are true or false is to be beyond the ability of human and understanding to judge.[9] But using teleology as an ex- Teleology provides a moral basis for the professional planatory style, in particular within , ethics of medicine, as physicians are generally concerned is still controversial.[15] with outcomes and must therefore know the telos of a given treatment .[13] 6.1 Biology 5.3 Consequentialism Apparent teleology is a recurring issue in evolutionary bi- [16] [15] Main article: Consequentialism ology, much to the consternation of some writers. Statements which imply that nature has goals, for ex- The broad spectrum of consequentialist ethics, of which ample where a species is said to do something “in or- is a well-known example, focuses on the der to” achieve survival, appear teleological, and there- end result or consequences, with such principles as fore invalid. Usually, it is possible to rewrite such sen- utilitarian philosopher 's “the greatest tences to avoid the apparent teleology. Some biology courses have incorporated exercises requiring students to good for the greatest number”, or the Principle of Utility. Hence this principle is teleological, but in a broader sense rephrase such sentences so that they do not read teleo- logically. Nevertheless, biologists still frequently write in than is elsewhere understood in philosophy. In the clas- sical notion, teleology is grounded in the inherent natures a way which can be read as implying teleology even if that is not the . These issues have recently been of things themselves, whereas in consequentialism, tele- [17] ology is imposed on nature from outside by the human discussed by John Reiss. He argues that evolutionary biology can be purged of such teleology by rejecting the will. Consequentialist theories justify inherently what most people would call evil acts by their desirable out- analogy of as a watchmaker; other ar- guments against this analogy have also been promoted by comes, if the good of the outcome outweighs the bad of [18] the act. So for example, a consequentialist theory would writers such as . say it was acceptable to actively kill one person in order Some authors, like James Lennox, have argued that Dar- to save two or more other people. These theories may win was a teleologist,[19] while others like Michael Ghis- be summarized by the maxim “the ends can justify the elin described this claim as a myth promoted by misin- means.” terpretations of his discussions and emphasized the dis- tinction between using teleological metaphors and being Consequentialism stands in contrast to the more classical [20] notions of deontological ethics, such as Immanuel Kant's teleological. , and Aristotle's (al- Biologist philosopher Francisco Ayala has argued that all though formulations of virtue ethics are also often con- statements about processes can be trivially translated into sequentialist in derivation). In deontological ethics, the teleological statements, and vice versa, but that teleolog- goodness or badness of individual acts is primary and ical statements are more explanatory and cannot be dis- a desirable larger goal is insufficient to justify bad acts posed of.[21] Karen Neander has argued that the mod- 4 8 REFERENCES

ern concept of biological '' is dependent upon • The chicken or the egg selection. So, for example, it is not possible to say that anything that simply winks into without going • through a process of selection has functions. We decide • whether an appendage has a function by analysing the pro- cess of selection that led to it. Therefore, any talk of func- • tions must be posterior to natural selection and function cannot be defined in the manner advocated by Reiss and • Elohim Dawkins.[22] states that “adaptedness... is a [23] posteriori result rather than an a priori goal-seeking.” • Ed Ricketts Various commentators view the teleological phrases used in modern evolutionary biology as a type of shorthand. • Efficient cause, final cause For example, S. H. P. Madrell writes that “the proper but cumbersome way of describing change by evolutionary • [may be] substituted by shorter overtly teleo- • logical statements” for the sake of saving space, but that Four causes 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 nat- • Naturalism (philosophy) ural selection.”[24] J. B. S. Haldane said, “Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but • he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.”.[25][26] An- drew Askland, from the Sandra Day O'Connor College • of Law claims that transhumanism is “wholly teleologi- cal” but evolution is ateleological.[27] • Telesis

• 6.2 Cybernetics • Teleological behaviorism Julian Bigelow, , and • Telos (philosophy) have conceived of mechanisms as lending a tele- ology to machinery. Wiener, a mathematician, coined the term 'cybernetics' to denote the study of “teleolog- ical mechanisms.”[28] Cybernetics is the study of the 8 References and control of regulatory feedback both in living and machines, and in combinations of the [1] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14474a.htm and http: two. In the cybernetic classification presented in “Behav- //www.texttribe.com/routledge/T/Teleology.html ior, Purpose and Teleology”, teleology is feedback con- trolled purpose.[29][30] This classification system was crit- [2] Aristotle, 1050a9–17 icized and the need for an external observability to the purposeful behavior was established to validate the be- [3] Thomas Nagel, and , Oxford University Press: 2012. havior and goal-attainment. The purpose of observing and observed systems is respectively distinguished by the [4] , (1992), Cybernetics. In S. C. Shapiro, [31] system’s subjective autonomy and objective control. Encyclopedia of artificial intelligence, v. 1, p. 226

[5] Eric Partridge, Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary 6.3 of Modern English, Routledge, 1977, p. 4187.

In recent years, end-driven teleology has become con- [6] Wolff, Christian (1728). Philosophia Rationalis Sive Log- ica: Methodo Scientifica Pertractata Et Ad Usum Scien- trasted with “apparent” teleology, i.e. teleonomy or tiarum Atque Vitae Aptata. Frankfurt and Leipzig (pub- process-driven systems. lished 1732). Retrieved 2014-11-20.

[7] Aristotle. The and Other Works. Opensource 7 See also collection. Translated under the editorship of W.D. Ross. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org). p. 649 in text. n647 in page field. Retrieved 2009-10-22. • [8] Aristotle. The Organon and Other Works. pp. 640–644 • in text. n639–643 in page field. Retrieved 2009-10-22. 5

[9] “The received intellectual tradition has it that, in the six- [25] Hull, D., Philosophy of Biological Science, Foundations teenth and seventeenth centuries, revolutionary philoso- of Philosophy Series, Prentice–Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N. phers began to curtail and reject the teleology of the J., 1973. medieval and scholastic Aristotelians, abandoning final causes in favor of a purely mechanistic model of the Uni- [26] Mayr, Ernst (1974) Boston Studies in the Philosophy of verse.” Ransom Johnson, Monte (2008), Aristotle on Tele- Science, Volume XIV, pages 91–117. ology, Oxford University Press pages 23-24. [27] Andrew Askland The Misnomer of Transhumanism as Di- [10] Jean-François Lyotard (1979). rected Evolution, International Journal of Emerging Tech- nologies and Society, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2011, pp: 71 – 78 [11] Lochhead, Judy (2000). Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought, p. 6. (ISBN 0-8153-3820-1) [28] Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and machine' (1948) [12] Leonard J. Brooks, Paul Dunn (2009-03-31). “Business & Professional Ethics for Directors, Executives & Accoun- [29] Rosenblueth, Arturo; Wiener, Norbert; Bigelow, Julian tants”. Cengage Learning. p. 149. ISBN 978-0-324- (Jan 1943). “Behavior, Purpose and Teleology”. Philoso- 59455-3. phy of Science 10 (1): 21. doi:10.1086/286788. JSTOR 184878. [13] Jeremy Sugarman, Daniel P. Sulmasy (2001). Methods in medical ethics. Georgetown University Press. p. 78. [30] Conway, Patrick (1974). Development of volitional com- ISBN 978-0-87840-873-3. petence. MSS Corp. p. 60. ISBN 0-8422- 0424-5. [14] John Gray, Ed. (1998). John Stuart Mill On And Other Essays. Oxford University Press. p. ix. ISBN 0-19- [31] George, Frank Honywill; Johnson, Les (1985). Purposive 283384-7. behavior and teleological explanations. Gordon and Breach. pp. xII. [15] Hanke, David (2004). “Teleology: The explanation that bedevils biology”. In John Cornwell. Explanations: Styles of explanation in science. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 143–155. ISBN 0-19-860778-4. 9 Further reading Retrieved 18 July 2010. • Aristotle, Metaphysics Book Theta (translated [16] Ruse, M., & Travis, J. (Eds.) (2009). Evolution: The with an introduction and commentary by Stephen First Four Billion Years. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Makin), Oxford University Press, 2006. (ISBN Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, page 364 0-19-875108-7 / 978-0-19-875108-3) [17] Reiss, John O. (2009) Not by Design: Retiring Darwin’s • Watchmaker. Berkeley, California: University of Califor- Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian nia Press Bigelow, 1943, “Behavior, Purpose and Teleology,” Philosophy of Science 10: 18-24. [18] Dawkins, Richard (1987) The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without De- • , “Aristotle’s Conception of Final sign. New York: W W Norton & Company Causality”, in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle’s Biol- ogy (edited by A. Gotthelf and J. G. Lennox), Cam- [19] Lennox, James G. (1993). “Darwin was a Teleologist” bridge University Press, 1987 (ISBN 0-52-131091- Biology and Philosophy, 8, 409-21. 1 / 978-0-52-131091-8) [20] Ghiselin, Michael T. (1994). “Darwin’s language • may seem teleological, but his thinking is another Monte Ransome Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology, ”. Biology and Philosophy 9 (4): 489–492. Oxford University Press, 2005. (ISBN 0-19- doi:10.1007/BF00850377. 928530-6 / 978-0-19-928530-3)

[21] Ayala, Francisco (1998). “Teleological explanations in • Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and evolutionary biology.” Nature’s purposes: Analyses of from Aristotle to MacIntyre, Polity Press, Function and Design in Biology. The MIT Press. 2007. (ISBN 978-0-7456-1977-4 / 0-745-61977-0)

[22] Neander, Karen (1998). “Functions as Selected Ef- • Georg Lukács. History and Class Consciousness. fects: The Conceptual Analyst’s Defense,” in C. Allen, M. (ISBN 0-262-62020-0) Bekoff & G. Lauder (Eds.), Nature’s Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology (pp. 313-333). Cam- • Horkheimer and Adorno. Dialectic of Enlighten- bridge, MA; London, UK: The MIT Press. ment.(ISBN 0-8047-3632-4)

[23] Mayr, Ernst W. (1992). “The idea of teleology” Journal • Alasdair MacIntyre, 'First Principles, Final Ends, of the History of , 53, 117–135. and Contemporary Philosophical Issues’, in idem., [24] Madrell SHP (1998) Why are there no insects in the open The Tasks of Philosophy: Selected Essays, Volume 1, sea? The Journal of Experimental Biology 201:2461– Cambridge University Press, 2006. (ISBN 978-0- 2464. 521-67061-6 / 0-521-67061-6) 6 9 FURTHER READING

• . Hegel’s and the Theory of Historicity.(ISBN 0-262-13221-4) • Lowell Nissen, Teleological Language in the Life Sci- ences, Rowman & Littlefield, 1997 (ISBN 0-8476- 8694-9) 7

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