Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977. Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 . "Teleology". In The Catholic Encyclopedia 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved 3 May 2020. – via New Advent, transcribed by D. J. Potter is a philosophical approach to discussing causality that explains causes in terms of ends, purposes, or goals.
A purpose that is imposed by human use, such as the purpose of a fork to hold food, is called extrinsic. Natural teleology, common in classical philosophy, though controversial today, 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.Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1050a9–17 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.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." 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 (, from ) and (). German philosopher Christian Wolff would coin the term as (Latin) in his work (1728).
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:Phaedo, Plato, 98–99
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, 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.Phaedo, Plato, 99bTimaeus, Plato, 46c9–d4, 69e6. 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'.Timaeus, Plato, 27d8–29a.
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:
In Physics, using the hylomorphic theory, 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: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.
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:
Modern philosophy
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. According to Hobbes, writing in Leviathan:
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)
Descartes, on the other hand, argued that whether or not final causes existed, the purposes of God in creating things were inscrutable:
But while science was doing a great job at explaining natural phenomena, it stopped short of explaining how life develops. In the late 18th century, Immanuel Kant acknowledged this shortcoming in his Critique of Judgement:
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.)The Critique of the Power of Judgment (or: The Third Critique), "Part II, Critique of Teleological Judgment", Immanuel Kant, 1790
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), 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.Friedrich Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, English Translation Terry Pinkar, Cambridge University Press, 2018, Page 125.
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.The Communist Manifesto 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.Marx and Teleology Sean Sayers, Science & Society, Vol. 83, No. 1, January 2019, 37
Postmodern philosophy Teleological-based "grand narratives" are renounced by the postmodern tradition,Lyotard, Jean-François. 1979. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. where teleology may be viewed as reductive, exclusionary, and harmful to those whose stories are diminished or overlooked.Lochhead, Judy. 2000. Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought. . p. 6.
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.
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.Brooks, Leonard J., and Paul Dunn. 2009. Cengage Learning. . p. 149. 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.
Consequentialism
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 "."
Deontology
Consequentialism stands in contrast to the more classical notions of deontological ethics, an example of which is Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative.