Teleology (Greek: telos: end, purpose) is the philosophical study of design and purpose. A teleological school of thought is one that holds all things to be designed for or directed toward a final result, that there is an inherent purpose or final cause for all that exists.
As a school of thought it can be contrasted with metaphysical naturalism, which views nature as having no design or purpose. Teleology would say that a person has eyes because he has the need of sight, while naturalism would say that a person has sight because he has eyes.
In European philosophy, teleology may be identified with Aristotelianism and the scholastic tradition. Most theology presupposes a teleology:[1] Design in nature can be used as a teleological argument for the existence of God. Aristotle's analysis of four causes speaks of a material cause, efficient cause, and formal cause but all these serve a final cause.
Later teleology was explored in detail by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Judgement, and was fundamental to the speculative philosophy of Hegel.
In general it may be said that there are two types of final cause, 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 utilitarian view that an action's ethics is determined by its good or bad consequences.
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Times Online, UK
For biography, no matter how tactfully it is written, has the effect Sartre described years ago, of imposing a false teleology on its subject, of giving a shape and meaning to the life which it did not have for the one who was living it. ...
