teleology

thumb|upright=1.15|Plato (left) and [[Aristotle, depicted here in The School of Athens, both developed teleological arguments addressing the universe's apparent order (logos)]]

AI overview

Teleology is the idea that things in nature or history are moving toward a predetermined purpose or end goal, a concept developed by ancient philosophers like Aristotle to explain the apparent order we observe in the world. It matters because teleological thinking has shaped how people understand everything from evolution to progress, though it can lead us to wrongly assume that past events were inevitably heading toward present outcomes.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

~22 min read

Article

19 sections

Contents

History
Etymology
Platonic
Aristotelian
Modern philosophy
Kant, Hegel and Marx
Postmodern philosophy
Ethics
Consequentialism
Deontology
Economics
Science
Biology
Cybernetics
See also
References
Notes
Citations
Further reading

thumb|upright=1.15|Plato (left) and [[Aristotle, depicted here in The School of Athens, both developed teleological arguments addressing the universe's apparent order (logos)]]

Teleology (from , and ) or finality is a branch of causality giving the reason or an explanation for something as a function of its end, its purpose, or its goal, as opposed to as a function of its efficient cause.