Talk:Teleology

Needs Complete Rewrite

The author has learned to use some buzzwords correctly, but has no sense of what final cause and teleology are about. If, as Aristotle says on the subject, "what comes before is for the sake of what comes after," then perhaps this confusing article will be a stepping stone towards a more nuanced approach which would address, among other things (in no logical order): randomness; the problems of knowing the future; the distinctions (developmentally) between living and non-living things; the exclusive prominence of efficient causality in naturalism (especially in theory of biology, and as contradicted by:); the teleological or normative aspects of the idea of law (social or natural); the teleological nature of the theory of evolution (the end being the development of the unit of evolution); and therefore, the absolute inability to describe nature without using teleological language. janaka 14:46, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Markbassett (talk) 03:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

FIRST, FIX JUST THE TOP: I will suggest an approach of starting with (a) initially edit just the top basic description part, and including (b)getting closer to the concept, where I think the article has really missed that this is a fundamental approach to viewing things, one that is widely applied, in the sense of what's it good for or what use is it, and gotten fixated on theistic teleology and missed other forms of application.

SECOND, WORK THE WRITING: in particular I note parts such as statement re material naturalism or Aristotle are repeated, and think it better to have it just in the proper area.

THIRD, HANDLE YOUR TOPICS. I confess it's beyond my skil, I am limited to about the level of pointing out scientific teleology includes evolutionary consideration of what's it good for for an adaptation.

FOURTH, HOW ABOUT MORE THOUGHTS: If no one else tackles it, I will take a shot at a first paragraph more of the form seen in dictionary or encyclopedia. Thinking along the line of (Teleology is considering something in terms of its final ends or design. Originally stated by Aristotle in terms that everything material can only move or change for some intrinsic or extrinsic end, for example an acorn becomes an oak by intrinsic nature, while a stone becomes rounded due to external waterflow. The concept has been used very widely and loosely and had its meaning change considerably over the years. While it is in common practice of viewing something in terms of what it does or is good for, the term "Teleology" itself is best known by Teleological arguments for the existence of God. ) But if anyone has some desired content or ideas for this, please add them to the talk. Please RSVP any thoughts

Markbassett (talk) 03:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Confusing

Hey, I Hope I don't cause offence by putting up the "cleanup-confusing" tag in, but after reading this article, I still don't know what teleology actually is/means/is the study of (while the opener obviously defines it, it doesn't really give much context for understand what it ACTUALLY means). Indeed, I found more clear definitions/context from reading the talk page, e.g. "Rather, teleology is about meaning or purpose being behind a PROCESS. Thus, a philosopher like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who argues that consciousness and God drive evolution, is making a teleological argument." I have no education in philosophy so I don't feel confident to try and edit this myself, but there are too many examples of the application of teleology, things pointing out how teleology differs from other philosophical thought processes and sub-divisions of teleology. I still don't really get what it is! Bilz0r 09:05, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

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It is flawed to use the word sight to debate final cause in the example of eye and sight (chickens and eggs). It confuses the definition of final cause. Final cause is the '...ness' of something.

What is it that makes a table a table what is tableness - what makes a pen a pen - what is pen-ness? Many say "pens write - and that's pen-ness" - "just like eye-ness is sight, eyes see".

Pens do not write and eyes do not see, pens dribble ink in a controlled fashion when brought into contact with a surface that they were designed to or coincidently can dribble on - and thus in combinatioon with other forms they can do something called write - the pens final cause (pen-ness) is to work with other causes to write - which in turn has it's own formal cause - communication. We would't say pens communicate.

Eyes do not see - eyes detect light - better eyes detect light better and focus it better / faster / clearer etc. Eyes in combination with brains 'see'. Primitive eyes in combination with primitive brains sense and induce reaction without thought - is that sight? Eye-ness is not sight. Final Cause of a thing is not end-cause it is a composite of other other forms of causein a heirarchy of abstractions.

Apply the suffix 'ness' to things and you begin to understand final cause.

62.25.109.196 11:33, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

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I removed my contribution on "American philosophy" because of possible copyright issues. It's part of a larger piece on teleology in American philosophy, and I have become aware that it may be protected by copyright.Rats 03:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

These two sentences conflict:

Teleology, on the other hand, holds both that man sees because he has eyes and has eyes so that he can see.

As Aristotle wrote in support of teleology, "Nature adapts the organ to the function, and not the function to the organ" (so organ is the eyes; seeing is the function)

Well, at least I think they do. I don't understand the article at all anyway and I have an exam on epistemology in a few hours. Anyone up for a Simple English translation? 218.102.218.7

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I've added a section which those socialised in the analytic tradition in philosophy tend to overlook: that there is also a specifically 'middle european' angle to the teleology debate - namely Kant, Hegel and the 'dialectical' tradition. It's a big debate, mine is a short addition, but it does at least emphasise this one point: the notion of the 'present as history'. (Brianshapiro raised this point a while back - perhaps this is a start.) best, ifs-ffm

Dear Wiki - Thanks for moving closer to the center on this term. It is can be quiet alarming to see words being high jacked or whose meanings are diminished by the 'world view' filter of a few --- and then passed on to others as definitive…. Although (in my opinion) there are some tinges of post modernism I do applaued you in your efforts...

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Can someone help me with this... I wanted to include some very recent, interesting comments by one of the more note worthy philosophers of modern time… Antony Flew is the David Hume of our day….And he recently (December 2004) stated, "What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements together," he said. "The enormous complexity by which the results were achieved look to me like the work of intelligence."….. I mean this stuff is hot off the press, and Flew is note worthy….

Wiki-P has noted some philosophers who are not in the middle of the teleology debate today... I hope Wiki-P is "cool" as they want us to believe…. If you're going to have links to these other philosophers, include Flew and let the chips fall where they may, vice framing definition of teleology in a 'preferred' world view….

Don't filter knowledge through your singular world view - to the exclusion of the conclusion of the observations of some of the best minds known within the last 50 years… fear

HELP

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I'm removing this, because I find it particularly troublesome:

It was one of the merits of Darwin's theory of evolution that it eliminated teleology from the account - it was no longer necessary to suppose that giraffes grew long necks in order to reach high branches (or that God had designed them with that intention).

I think something like this would be a better formulation:

Darwin's theory allows us to make claims like "giraffes grew long necks in order to reach high branches" without a guilty conscience; we know that what this claim "really" means is something like "over the course of their evolution, the giraffes with shorter necks tended to die out, recursively increasing the percentage of giraffes with long necks. This is why giraffes have long necks." Thus the teleological talk is "just shorthand" for this more verbose claim.

I don't like this formulation either, because I think it does violence to human psychology. (I may explain this later.) But I think it may be an improvement.

--Ryguasu

teleological Casus Belli

If we applied pseudo giraffe teleological explanation to horses, shouldn't they already have developed 8' legs in order to jump over 10' fences? Could nuke bombs have been developed to curb overpopulation? Could preemptive war ben devised for similat noble purposes?

For the horses, not already; they've only had a few generations since we've been making them jump over fences...and besides, they don't tend not to reproduce if they're good jumpers. On the other hand, we've seen this with the strains of bacteria resistant to penicillin. I'm not exactly sure what you're saying in the second part, but it seems that you're also ignoring the Darwinian constraint of reproduction; however, if it seems that humans who go to war more often have populated the Earth now, that may be due to natural selection against overpopulation (though I doubt it). --Geoffrey 23:03, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think the Aristotle phrasing is kind of a wierd reverse in terms of the ends make the means, but would always be a view for something that is and not these hypotheticals. Markbassett (talk) 04:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

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The articles for teleology and teleological argument are confused as to what "teleology" means, or at least what it has meant in the philosophical sense. Stating that God creates life spontaneously is not "teleological". Rather, teleology is about meaning or purpose being behind a PROCESS. Thus, a philosopher like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who argues that consciousness and God drive evolution, is making a teleological argument. Other philosophers and thinkers who have made "teleological arguments" are Aristotle, who phrases it in terms of "final cause", Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who talks about reality driving towards perfection in the Absolute, and Karl Marx, who offers a historicist teleology which describes a final state of human history that we're being driven to. I believe certain religions like Zoroastrianism have teleologies that talk about a process in nature driven towards a meaningful goal. Use of the concept "teleology" in any other way, is either new to me, or misunformed. Please, someone correct these articles! Brianshapiro

I am so delighted to find Wonderful Wikipedia
Ray K

I appreciate your comments, although i'm not sure how they should be integrated into the article. feel free to edit as you will! i attempted to differentiate between the two uses for the word in the intro -- both your definition of a purpose behind the process (as less commonly used) and the position that there is such a purpose (as more commonly used). for an example of the latter, consider this link. please! stick around! you obviously know what you're talking about and i'd greatly appreciate your help!Ungtss 16:38, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Of the hundreds of Wikipedia articles (thousands?) that I've read, this aricle is the best single answer to the question "what are the shortcomings and limitations of Wikipedia?" Any authority this article might otherwise have is obliterated by its lack of organization and clarity. Teleology is an elementary subject in philosphy (it must be, because I was asked to define the term on my very first test for Intro to Philosophy), so despite the ramblings presented here, there's gotta be some simpler, more cohesive way to define the term. I'm testifying here in the hopes that the "experts" who read this will bear in mind the true purpose of Wikipedia-- mostly, this is a first source, a quick reference for amateurs who need to know something on the fly, or at most, a first step into deeper research. So please, if people consistently tell you that your writing is obtuse or unclear, leave Wikipedia authorship to someone else.

Hi! I don't know if anyone is still editing this page but one question I had was about the claim: "Teleological philosophy stresses essence before existence, form before being"--it is not clear to me that teleological theories necessarily assume essence before existence--Aristotle, maybe. Also, the second claim "form before being" is confused; for the Greeks form was pure being (as an immaterial unity) but it is also true that material objects had being, but it was a lesser or inferior way of being because of its determinate nature. The question was the degree of being a particular substance had.

Great to see the discussion!

Numberthreefourfive (talk) 06:13, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Metaphysical naturalism isn't the opposite of teleology

Metaphysical naturalism and teleology are mutually exclusive, but aren't opposites. For example, a person can reject teleology by believing that there's no design or purpose in nature, but can also reject metaphysical naturalism by believing in "supernatural" things, like mind/body dualism. For example, I believe that the mind is metaphysically distinct from the brain and can even survive death. However, I also believe that the mind emerges "naturally" from the brain, instead of being designed by God or having some purpose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.216.37.31 (talk) 02:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

One cannot believe in both meta physical naturalism and teleology. They may not be opposites but they are definitively not compatible. You cannot believe in both, or you will be inconsistent to your own world views. For instance in the example you have given of you your own beliefs, you have stated that you believe in "super natural" things, like the mind. You go on to say that you believe the mind emerges "naturally" from the brain. Something cannot be both natural and super natural at the same time. I do not doubt your believe, but I suggest that your world view is not consistent and is in fact contradictory, and therefore is not a great example to use. I like the idea of a eternal or everlasting brain existing without god to explain it, but, logically one cannot say that something supernatural emerges out of the natural. Wophi (talk) 13:39, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Physics

I've removed the following for now:

In recent decades a form of teleological reasoning has reappeared in certain quarters of physics and cosmology, under the heading of anthropic principle, a term Brandon Carter coined in 1973. One of the problems the anthropic principle tries to address is this: why has the universe, which began in a very simple state (Big Bang), since grown ever more complex to the extent that it is even more hospitable to human life than is necessary for mere survival but even allows advanced human civilization?

Far from being a revival of teleology, Brandon Carter's anthropic principle is a very elegant sidestep of the Copernican Principle. To quote from Carter himself, certain observational aspects of apparently exotic behavior could in principle have been predicted by conventional theory (without resort to exotic theories), "However, these predictions do require the use of what may be termed the anthropic principle to the effect that what we can expect to observe must be retricted by the conditions necessary for our presence as observers (Although our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent)." ("Large number coincidences and the anthropic principle in cosmology", Brandon Carter, presented 1973 at the IAU Symposium at Krakow).

No teleology there at all. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 22:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

"Carter has protested that such teleological readings "are quite different from, and even contradictory with, what I intended"." - the Anthropic principle page states. You were right to take it out. I lately restyled the page, but left the data more or less as found. You (or someone) have also taken issue with the teleology v naturalism contrast. Perhaps the citations need checking...Redheylin (talk) 23:07, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

"Teleology and science"

The Teleology and science section needs major work. As it is, you could probably replace the whole thing with "Some people think telology may have a place in science - here are some books to read about it in" without losing any information. Wardog (talk) 10:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Plagiarism and Inadequate disclaimers

My revisions of this article were prompted by reading a handful of student papers who all plagiarized this site - and all made the very same errors that the article makes. As a consequence, my students came away with an understanding of the topic that was at best impoverished and at worst completely wrong. As many of the discussions imply, this article is in desperate need of revision on the basis of a careful study of the history of teleology and its role in contemporary thought. I had attempted to put a disclaimer in at the start of the article, but it was quickly erased by some "monitor". I have subsequently revised the introduction to give the reader a sense of the different ways that teleology can be used (something effaced in the original article). The original article equated teleology with only one (Christian) version of the theory, and it gave no sense of the broader conceptual framework in which teleological theories are understood. Overall, this article highlights everything that is wrong with Wikipedia. A good scholarly discussion of a complex theoretical subject cannot be a single, monolithic article that attempts to "converge" on the truth. It effaces the complexity and instructive disagreements that are a healthy part of academia. Daphne-3 (talk) 19:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)Daphne-3

Useful edits summarily rejected

While writing the last post, my corrections to the teleology article were deleted; the article reverted back to its impoverished form. It seems the only way to provide a better version is to post it in here (which no one really reads). See below. The main issue that I attempted to correct, which was summarily rejected, was that not all forms of teleology involve "purpose" or "design" (in the sense that requires an Intelligent Designer) and that some teleological theories do not even claim that there final causes are not ontological but only heuristic devices. That was subsequently rejected as an edit despite the fact of the matter.

This is just one more example of the major problems with this mode of conveying scholarship. If someone does not like your version, regardless of the truth, it will be deleted in favour of his. (It's a good thing Darwin didn't try to publish his theory of evolution by natural selection on Wikipedia!)

"Teleology (as the Greek telos suggests) is the study of ends. Some teleological theories hold that ends are part of the causal structure of the world or some part of the world (e.g. living things), while others hold that final causes are useful "heuristic" devices. On the latter view, ends are not really operative in the world; rather, by thinking of things as if they were designed for an end we can better discover the true (efficient) causes of things. Not all teleology implies "purpose" or "design" (in the sense that requires an Intelligent Designer), for example Aristotle believed that ends are present in nature (that natural processes occur "for the sake of" an end) but famously denied that this requires an intelligent planner (see Physics 2.8, 199a20-35, 199b27-9). Moreover, not all teleology implies a global teleological view of the universe where every part is adjusted to some overall purpose. For example, Aristotle (in contrast to Plato) held that bile lacks a function: this is supposed to show that we should not look for ends in all things alike (Parts of Animals 677a12-18). This should be borne in mind in what follows. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daphne-3 (talk • contribs) 19:20, 16 November 2008 (UTC)