TELEOLOGY. — From *télos*, end, and *lógos*, discourse, it denotes the science of ends. The term goes back to Ch. Wolff (*Philosophia rationalis sive logica*, § 85), and was referred by Kant to a science that proposes the consideration and interpretation of nature according to relations of finality (*Kritik der Urteilskraft*, part 2, § 61 ff.).
In concrete usage today, *t.* is synonymous with finality, and *teleological* is a fact or event that appears ordered toward achieving or realizing a purpose; *teleological* is also, consequently, any conception that considers the world as ordered teleologically, with relations of means to ends.
The problem of the teleological meaning of the reality of the becoming of nature is resolved in dependence on the various metaphysical conceptions of reality itself. In Democritus’ atomism (v.), every finality is excluded from the causal meaning of the universe and its phenomena. Where, instead, a rational Principle is posited as the foundation of being and nature (already Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Christianity, and all philosophies of transcendence), the reason for a teleological ordering of reality and history is also posited (v. FINALITY). It must be noted, however, that *t.* does not in itself oppose the determinism and mechanism of nature: physical laws and biological laws can, on the contrary, be understood as instruments for the immanent realization of finality in corporeal nature. It is precisely from the determination to act in a certain way so as to constantly realize a good (a determination manifest in the macrocosm and, today, with striking phenomenology in the physical-biological microcosm) that St. Thomas inferred finality in nature, and thus the existence of an intelligent Ordainer: *«videmus quod aliqua quae cognitione carent, scilicet corpora naturalia, operantur propter finem. Quod apparet ex hoc quod semper aut frequentius eodem modo operantur ut consequuntur id quod est optimum. Ea autem quae non habent cognitionem, non tendunt ad finem nisi directa ab aliquo cognoscente et intelligente... Est ergo aliquid intelligens, a quo omnes res naturales ordinantur ad finem, et hoc dicimus Deum»* (Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 2, a. 3). Yet it must be acknowledged that a *t.* of nature is not necessarily connected with the theistic conception, and it is possible to understand finality in another way, even in an immanentistic sense (idealism; cf. Hegel, *Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte*, Introduction, I, n. 4, 12, Italian trans., Florence 1941, pp. 9, 16, V. also pp. 60 ff.).
Every *t.* is excluded in Spinoza’s pantheism: *«ostendam naturam nullum sibi finem praefixum habere, et omnes causas finales nihil nisi humana esse fingmenta»* (Ethica, I, prop. 36, ed. G. Gentile, Bari 1933, p. 42). For Kant, the reality of final causes in nature cannot be proven by experience; *«nevertheless, teleological judgment is applied to nature, at least problematically, for the investigation of nature; but only to subject it to principles of observation and investigation through analogy with the causality of ends, without the presumption of being able to explain it»* (op. cit., § 61, ed. cit., p. 218). Teleological judgment, founded on a purely “regulative” and not “constitutive” principle of the causal derivation of natural phenomena, does not, according to Kant, therefore, hold for a theological deduction: *«Thus in *t.*, insofar as it relates to physics, one rightly speaks of the wisdom, economy, foresight, and beneficence of nature, without, however, making of it a rational being (which would be absurd), but also without daring to place above it another intelligent being as an artificer, for that would be presumptuous»* (ibid., § 68, p. 244).
With another meaning, referred by Lalande (op. cit., in bibliography, p. 1086), *t.* can also indicate the science of the ends (individual, social) of human action.
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IN BIOLOGY. — Biological phenomena offer the most numerous and concrete examples of *t.*, and many teleological theories are based on examples provided by biology.
It is indeed difficult to conceive of vital phenomena as guided by chance and probability, since life itself requires such a complexity of material conditions—referring only to these—that they may be considered the least probable conditions that can manifest in nature, and which, if they happened to manifest once, would certainly not have the means to be maintained if governed by these laws. Life, instead, is preserved, and biological phenomena prove to be directed toward this end: the preservation of life, this highly improbable event. The preservation of life is realized through the preservation of animal and plant species, which represent it, with an incessant succession of generations. Thus, in every individual, at every generation, embryonic, organological, and sexual development, etc., are directed toward an end: reproduction, for the preservation of the species.
But on the other hand, considering biological phenomena with an absolute finalistic criterion, one would arrive at the conclusion that the various acts of biological activity are not only not dominated by chance, but are, rather, directed by an internal force that guides them toward a determined end, by an *entelechy*: a biological act would not be the consequence of determining, causal conditions, but would be realized by developing a preordained principle directed toward a precise end. The examples of biological phenomena that become comprehensible only by accepting a principle of finality are innumerable, and it suffices here to recall the development of embryonic organs, even very complex ones, which do not yet function but are constructed for a future function; the very structure of differentiated organs, which is perfectly suited to their specific function; the countless phenomena of preordained adaptation or preadaptation; phenomena of convergence; adaptations between different organisms, and especially between animals and plants for a life in common; coaptative structures (hinges, articulations); the structure of organs of sexual coaptation; the structure of organs of anchorage (plant seeds, parasites, etc.). Finally, finality is manifested in psycho-physiological processes. Many biologists, based on these facts, have accepted the principle of *t.*, which is the basis of every vitalistic conception (Hertwig, Celesia, Driesch, Cuenot, Russel, Durken, Rignano, Bertalanffy, etc.).
Many facts, however, have demonstrated how in biological phenomena there can occur, just as in inanimate matter, conditions that respect the principle of cause. Above all in the study of embryonic development, in the study of adaptations, etc.; the validity of causality appears evident. It was the merit of Roux (1885) to demonstrate the value of cause in many aspects of development, initiating a new branch of embryology, developmental mechanics. Thus in other biological phenomena, such as the inheritance of traits based on a distribution, according to the laws of chance (probabilistic laws), of the factors contained in the gametes of the parents, a behavior according to the laws of the inanimate world is visible. These incontestable facts of causal and statistical phenomena in living organisms have led even highly esteemed biologists, under the influence of materialist and mechanistic ideas, to suppose that even phenomena that most clearly reveal a finality are a mere illusion due to an anthropomorphic interpretation of nature, but that they must be interpreted with the same laws of physics and chemistry of the inanimate world. Rabaud, G. Dumas, J. Needham, E. Gognehim, J. Loeb, F. Christmann, K. Sopper, to name only a few, are representatives of this school. But this way of seeing things leads to the consequence that all biological phenomena and human life itself are the result of chance and therefore without purpose.
Many other facts seem to limit the principle of finality in organisms: thus some tropisms that lead to destruction, such as the flame that, attracting insects, kills them; thus the many acts deemed useless in life (visits of insects to self-pollinating flowers, mimetisms that do not protect from specific enemies, terrifying aspects that certain animals assume for defense, but which do not arouse any terror in their enemies); thus hyperregenerations that, instead of restoring equilibrium, greatly aggravate the imbalance caused by amputation, heteromorphoses, or the repair of an amputation with an abnormal organ, distelies with cases of hypertelia, or exaggerated development of organs, such as the tusks of extinct elephants, the canines of the quaternary tiger of California (Smilodon), gigantisms, with cases of atelia or production of useless organs; thus monstruosities, etc. However, in judging these examples that are taken by mechanists against the principle of finality, one must not forget that the same anthropomorphic evaluation, if valid for a critique in a judgment of finality, is equally valid in an anti-finalist judgment.
The study of biology thus leads to this conclusion: that the finality of many biological phenomena and of life itself is also manifested through a causal process. This is not a contradiction (if it is in the nature of things) and it is necessary to reconcile these two aspects. This should not be surprising if one considers that the substratum on which life throbs is matter and that, as such, it is also subject to the laws of physics and chemistry. But living matter is a very peculiar matter, and it is in that adjective that lies the enormous difference between this matter and that of the inanimate world; so that, while on the one hand it obeys the laws of this inanimate world, on the other it opposes them, so that the less probable dominates the more probable and the principle of entropy is overturned (Fantappiè, 1942; Schrödinger, 1943).
Even today biologists and philosophers are divided into two camps: the materialist and the vitalist; but reality always lies in the concordance of antitheses. Thus in biology there are phenomena directed by the principle of causality, such as those that are deterministic and indeterministic (statistical; the latter, according to Bernoulli, are also directed by this principle), and phenomena in which finality is evident to safeguard an optimistic conception of the world, against the concept of its futility, and in defense of the highest expression of vital phenomena, which is free will or the freedom of the will.
TELEPATHY (τῆμα = distant and τάφος = suffering; that which is suffered by someone). — A particular form of indirect clairvoyance (v.) in which the cognitive relationship takes place between two or more intelligent beings (τέλε = mind and πάθος = transmission of thought).
From studies currently conducted with scientific method, in particular at Duke University in Durham, telepathy appears as a real phenomenon, linked to a particular sensitivity present in all human beings, to a greater or lesser latent and educable degree (ESP effect = extra sensory perception).
Cases of telepathic reading of thought exhibited in variety shows are often, more than true telepathy, related to trickery or to particular skills of the diviner in exploiting small involuntary indicative signs of the person guiding him (imperceptible muscular contractions of the hand, modifications of breathing, etc.).
For moral judgment, V. TELESTESIA.
Giuseppe de Ninno