teleology
Sign in to savethumb|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.
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Article
19 sectionsContents
- 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.