teleology
3
9.9
- noun
- /ˌtɛliˈɑlədʒi/
- Formal
:
teleología
- In philosophy, teleology explains phenomena by their intended purposes rather than their causes.
- unthoughtful teleology
- natural teleology
- anthropocentric teleology
Right, Organic nature actually has purposiveness teleology.
- Right, Organic nature actually has purposiveness teleology.
- This is why, you know, scientists sometimes avoid questions about why things evolved, that this is what philosophers call this teleology.
- A place where the teleology of trash is to allay despair.
- And why don't we have a Silicon Valley for that kind of teleology?
- So one of the things that they threw out in the bathwater, basically with God, with God, was teleology, what's called teleology.
- But I think what is stood in the way of people looking at this more seriously is what we call in Hegel studies, Hegel's teleology.
Examples
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Human agency is a case of teleology, a final cause in Aristotle's sense.
Blog text (25) -
We cannot postpone our moral reflections to the alchemy or teleology of end results.
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And he looks at this question of teleology, about why people act in certain ways.
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I have raised the question of teleology as playing a role in the social sciences.
Academic text (2005) -
You can only pretend to see teleology in biology after the event.
Blog text (1) -
For present purposes, we must concentrate on three points of Aquinas's account of teleology.
Academic text (2016) -
Aristotelian teleology is the idea that every being has a Telus, and that's an end that like a purpose.
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Medieval science was a mixture of Aristotelian teleology and alchemy, which stressed sympathetic connections among things, both mental and physical.
Academic text (1995) -
In chapter 3, Mayr contrasts the goal-directed behaviors exhibited by living organisms with teleology.
Academic text (2006) -
Mayr also emphasizes how Darwin and his theories overturned such deeply held concepts as teleology.
Academic text (2006)
How Purposeful
Surface Forms
Morphology
teleology = teleo + logy
The word is built from classical combining forms meaning roughly 'end' and 'study', but its specialised philosophical meaning is not directly recoverable for most learners.
Etymology
Teleology comes from the Greek root telos, meaning 'end' or 'goal', and the ending -logy, meaning 'study', as in biology. So teleology is the idea of explaining things by their purpose or goal, not just by their cause.