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Teleology

'''Teleology''' (from the Greek language|Greek ''wikt:τέλος|τέλος - telos'', root: ''τελε''-, "end, purpose") is the philosophy|philosophical study of ''telos'' (gr. τέλοϛ), i.e., of purpose, aim, end and/or design. The word ''teleology'' was first used by the German philosopher Christian Wolff (philosopher)|Christian Wolff in ''Philosophia rationalis, sive logica'' (1728). As a school of thought, teleology is often contrasted with metaphysical naturalism, which views nature as having no design or purpose. Teleology was explored by Plato and Aristotle, and later by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgement. It was fundamental to the speculative philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel. In general it may be said that there are two types of Four causes|final cause or ''telos'', which may be called intrinsic finality and extrinsic finality.
- Extrinsic finality consists of a being realizing a purpose outside that being, for the utility and welfare of other beings. For instance, minerals are "designed" to be used by plants which are in turn "designed" to be used by animals - and similarly humanity serves some ultimate good beyond itself.
- Intrinsic finality consists of a being realizing a purpose directed toward the perfection of its own nature. In essence, it is what is "good for" a being. Just as physical masses obey universal gravitational tendencies, which did not evolve, but are simply a cosmic "given," so life is intended to behave in certain ways so as to preserve itself from death, disease, and pain. In bioethics, teleology is used to describe the utilitarianism|utilitarian view that an action's ethics is determined by its good or bad consequences.

Classical teleology

Platonic

In the ''Phaedo'', Plato 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 teleological causes (''Phaedo'' 98-9): Plato argues that 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 ''sufficient'' 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 allows him to be sitting and so a physical description of his tendons can be given as ''auxiliary causes'' or ''necessary conditions'' of his act of sitting (''Phaedo'' 99b; ''Timaeus'' 46c9-d4, 69e6). However, these are only necessary conditions, and one can know them without knowing where he is sitting, for they are necessary conditions on his sitting in an Athenian prison ''but are also'' necessary conditions on his sitting in a Boeotia|Boeotian prison. Thus to give a complete explanation of something one must additionally specify its ''actual cause'' - its purpose, ''telos'' or "reason for which." (Plato will argue in a separate document 27d8-29a that such a ''telos'' is the Good.)

Aristotelian

Similarly, 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: In the ''Physics'' Aristotle rejected Plato's assumption that the universe was created by an intelligent designer using eternal Platonic form|forms as his model. For Aristotle, natural ends are produced by "natures" (principles of change internal to living things), and natures, Aristotle argued, do not deliberate: Aristotelian teleology, then, offers us the idea of natural design without a designer. These Platonic and Aristotelian arguments ran counter to the earlier Philosophers Democritus and Lucretius, who were supporters of what is now often called metaphysical naturalism, or accidentalism:

Modern and postmodern philosophy

In the various neo-Hegelian schools - proposing a history of our species some consider to be at variance with Charles Darwin|Darwin, as well as with the dialectical materialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and with what is now called analytic philosophy — the point of departure is not so much formal logic and scientific fact but 'identity'. (In Hegelianism|Hegel's terminology: 'objective spirit'.) Individual human consciousness, in the process of reaching for autonomy and freedom, has no choice but to deal with an obvious reality: the collective identities (such as the multiplicity of world views, ethnic, cultural and national identities) which divide the human race and which set (and always have set) different groups in violent conflict with each other. Hegel conceived of the 'totality' of mutually antagonistic world-views and life-forms in history as being 'goal-driven', that is, oriented towards an end-point in history. The 'objective contradiction' of 'subject' and 'object' would eventually 'sublate' into a form of life which leaves violent conflict behind. This goal-oriented, 'teleological' notion of the 'historical process as a whole' is present in a variety of 20th Century authors, although its prominence declined drastically after the Second World War. In contrast teleology and "grand narratives" are eschewed in the postmodern attitudeJean-François Lyotard (1979). and teleology may be viewed as reductive, exclusionary and harmful to those whose stories are erased.Lochhead, Judy (2000). ''Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought'', p. 6. (ISBN 0-8153-3820-1) Against this, 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 orientated to internal goods, for example practices of philosophical and scientific enquiry are teleologically ordered to the elaboration of a true understanding of their objects. MacIntyre's book ''After Virtue'' 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.

Teleology and ethics

Teleology informs the study of ethics.

Business ethics

Businessmen 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 Stakeholder (corporate)|stakeholders in any business decision, including the management, the staff, the customers, the shareholders, the country, humanity and the environment.

Medical ethics

Teleology provides a moral basis for the professional ethics of medicine, as doctors are generally concerned with outcomes and must therefore know the ''telos'' of a given treatment paradigm.

Teleology and science

Physics

It has been claimed that within the framework of thermodynamics, the irreversibility of macroscopic processes is explained in a teleological way.J.S. Wicken, ''Causal Explanations in Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics'', Philosophy of Science, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Mar., 1981), pp. 65-77

Chemistry

Teleological arguments in the field of chemistry have once again often centred around the fitness of materials to form the complex molecular bonds of life. For example, Lawrence Joseph Henderson, an American bio-chemist, advanced such a view in the early 20th century.

Biology

Teleology is a recurring issue in evolutionary biology,Ruse, M., & Travis, J. (Eds.) (2009). ''Evolution: The First Four Billion Years''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press and some consider teleological writing to be an obstacle to clear thinking about evolutionary processes. A central clue to teleological sentences is statements along the lines of "in order to", whereby a species did X "in order to" to achieve Y (circumvent obstacles or predators etc). Some past biology courses incorporated exercises requiring students to rephrase such sentences so that they do not read teleologically (e.g. Y occurred as a result of X). Nevertheless, evolutionary writings are replete with teleological sentences. These issues have recently been discussed by John Reiss.Reiss, John O. (2009) ''Not by Design: Retiring Darwin's Watchmaker''. Berkeley, California: University of California Press He argues that evolutionary biology can be purged of such teleology by rejecting the use of natural selection in place of a divine creator in the watchmaker analogy; this use has been promoted by writers such as Richard Dawkins.Dawkins, Richard (1987) ''The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design''. New York: W W Norton & Company Other authors are more skeptical. James G. Lennox|James Lennox has argued that Darwin was a purposeful teleologist,James G. Lennox|Lennox, James G. (1993). "Darwin was a Teleologist" ''Biology and Philosophy'', 8, 409-21. and biologist cum Philosopher Francisco J. Ayala|Francisco Ayala has argued that teleology is necessary for modern biology.Francisco J. Ayala|Ayala, Francisco (1998). "Teleological explanations in evolutionary biology." ''Nature's purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology''. The MIT Press.

Cybernetics and teleonomy

Julian Bigelow, Arturo Rosenblueth, and Norbert Wiener have conceived of feedback mechanisms as lending a teleology to machinery. Wiener, a mathematician, coined the term 'cybernetics' to denote the study of "teleological mechanisms."Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and machine' (1948) Cybernetics is the study of the communication and control theory|control of regulatory feedback both in living beings and machines, and in combinations of the two. In recent years, end-driven teleology has become contrasted with "apparent" teleology, i.e teleonomy or process-driven systems.

Philosophy of science

For a very detailed discussion of the recent resurgence of teleology in natural science, see Barrow and Tipler (1986). Their work includes:
- A review of much of the intellectual history of teleology and design arguments;
- A chapter on the teleological implications of earth science and chemistry, with special reference to the work of Lawrence Joseph Henderson;
- A discussion of the implications of evolutionary biology for teleology, emphasizing the writings of Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ernst Mayr;
- Teleological speculations on the ultimate fate of the universe.

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