Teleology

TELEOLOGIA. - From τέλος, end, and λόγος, discourse, it denotes the science of ends. The term goes back to Ch. Wolff (Philosophia rationalis sive logica, § 85), and is referred by Kant to a science that proposes the consideration and interpretation of nature according to relations of finality (Kritik d. Urteilkraft, part 2, § 61 ff.).

In its concrete meaning, t. is, in present-day usage, synonymous with finality, and teleological is a fact, an event, that presents itself as ordered to attain or to realize a purpose; teleological is also, consequently, every conception that considers the world as ordered finalistically, with relations of means to ends.

The problem of the teleological meaning of reality and of the becoming of nature is resolved in dependence on the different metaphysical conceptions of reality itself. In the atomism of Democritus (v.) every finality is excluded by the chance meaning of the universe and of its phenomena. Where, on the other hand, a rational Principle is placed at the foundation of being and of nature (already Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Christianity and all the philosophies of transcendence), there is also posited the ground of a teleological ordering of reality and of history (v. FINALITY). It must be noted, however, that t. is not in itself opposed to the determinism and mechanism of nature: physical laws and biological laws can on the contrary be understood as the instrument of the immanent realization of finality in corporeal nature. It is precisely from the determination to act in a certain way in order constantly to realize a good (a determination manifest in the macrocosm and today, after the discoveries of modern science, with conspicuous phenomenology in the physical-biological microcosm) that St. Thomas infers finality in nature, and therefore the existence of an intelligent Orderer: «videmus quod aliqua quae cognitione carent, scilicet corpora naturalia, operantur propter finem. Quod apparet ex hoc quod semper aut frequentibus eodem modo operantur ut consequuntur id quod est optimum. Es autem quae non habent cognitionem, non tendunt ad finem nisi directa ab aliquo cognoscente et intelligente... Est ergo aliquod intelligens, a quo omnes res naturales ordinantur ad finem, et hoc dicimus Deum» (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ, q. 2, a. 3). But it must be recognized 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 ub. die Philos. d. Gesch., Introd., I, n. 4, 12, Italian trans., Florence 1941, p. 9, 16, see also p. 60 ff.).

Every t. is excluded in Spinozistic pantheism: «ostendam naturam nullum sibi finem praefixum habere, et omnes causas finales nihil nisi humana esse figmenta» (Ethica, I, prop. 36, ed. G. Gentile, Bari 1933, p. 42). For Kant the reality of final causes in nature cannot be proved from experience; «tuttavia il giudizio teleologico è applicato a ragione, almeno problematicamente, all'investigazione della natura; ma soltanto per sottoporla a principi di osservazione ed investigazione mediante l'analogia con la causalità dei fini, e senza lusinga di poterla spiegare» (op. cit., § 61, ed. cit., p. 218). The teleological judgment, founded on a purely «regulative» and not «constitutive» principle of the causal derivation of the phenomena of nature, does not therefore, according to Kant, hold for a theological deduction: «Perciò nella t., in quanto si riferisce alla fisica, si parla giustamente della saggezza, dell'economia, della preveggenza, della beneficenza della natura, senza però farne un essere ragionevole (il che sarebbe assurdo), ma anche senza ardire di mettere al disopra di essa un altro essere intelligente, come artefice, perché ciò sarebbe temerario» (ibid., § 68, p. 244).

With another meaning, cited by Lalande (op. cit. in bibl., p. 1086), t. can also denote the science of the ends (individual, social) of human action.

NELLA BIOLOGIA

Biological phenomena offer the most numerous and concrete examples of teleology, and many teleological theories are based on the examples furnished by biology.

It is indeed very difficult to conceive of vital phenomena as guided by chance and probability, since life in itself requires such a complexity of material conditions — to refer only to these — that they can be considered the least probable conditions that could manifest themselves in nature and that, if they should by chance manifest themselves once, would certainly have no way of being maintained, if guided by these laws. Life, on the other hand, preserves itself, and biological phenomena prove to be directed toward this end: the preservation of life, of this highly improbable event. The preservation of life is brought about through the preservation of the animal and plant species that represent it, with an incessant succession of generations. Thus in every individual, at every generation, embryonic, organological, 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 rather are directed by an internal force that guides them toward a determinate end, by an entelechy: a biological act would not be a consequence of determining, causal conditions, but would be brought about 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 complicated ones, which do not yet function but are constructed for a future function; the very structure of differentiated organs, which is perfectly suited to the specific function; the very numerous phenomena of preordained adaptation or preadaptation; the phenomena of convergence; the adaptations between different organisms and above all between animals and plants for a life in common; the coapting structures (hinges, articulations); the structure of the organs of sexual coaptation; the structure of the organs of anchorage (seeds of plants, parasites, etc.). Finally, finality manifests itself in psycho-physiological processes. Very many biologists, on the basis of these facts, have accepted the principle of teleology, 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 inert matter, conditions that respect the principle of cause. Especially 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, the mechanics of development. Thus in other biological phenomena, as in the inheritance of characters 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 inert world is visible. These incontrovertible factual data of causal and statistical phenomena in living organisms have led even biologists of great worth, under the influence of materialist and mechanistic ideas, to suppose that even the phenomena that most evidently reveal a finality are a pure illusion due to an anthropomorphic interpretation of nature, but that they must be interpreted with the same laws of physics and chemistry as the inanimate world. Rabaud, G. Dumas, J. Needham, E. Gognehim, J. Loeb, F. Christmann, K. Sopper, to cite only a few, are representatives of this current. But this way of seeing things leads to the consequence that all biological phenomena and the very life of man are the result of chance and therefore without a purpose.

Many other facts seem to limit the teleological principle in organisms: thus certain tropisms that lead to destruction, as the flame that, attracting insects, kills them; thus the many acts held to be useless in life (visits of insects to flowers that self-pollinate, mimicries that do not protect from specific enemies, the terrifying appearances that certain animals assume for defense, but which arouse no terror in their enemies); thus the hyperregenerations that, instead of re-establishing an equilibrium, aggravate much further the imbalance provoked by the amputation, the heteromorphoses, that is the repair of an amputation with an abnormal organ, the dystelies with the cases of hypertely, that is of exaggerated development of organs, such as the defenses of extinct elephants, the canines of the Quaternary tiger of California (Smilodon), the gigantisms, with the cases of ately or of the production of useless organs; thus the monstrosities, etc. Nevertheless, in the judgment of these examples, which are taken by the mechanists against the principle of teleology, one must not forget that that same anthropomorphic evaluation, if it is valid for a critique in a teleological judgment, is equally valid in the anti-finalist judgment.

The study of biology therefore leads to this conclusion: that the finality of many biological phenomena and of life itself manifests itself also through a causal procedure. This is not a contradiction (if it is in the nature of things!) and it is necessary to reconcile the two aspects. This should not cause wonder if one takes into account that the substrate on which life pulsates is matter and that therefore 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 the whole enormous difference between this matter and that of the inanimate world lies; so that, if 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 found overturned (Fantappié, 1942; Schroedinger, 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 one finds phenomena directed by the principle of causality, such as the deterministic and indeterministic ones (statistical; the latter, for Bernoulli, are also directed by this principle), and phenomena in which teleology is manifest, safeguarding an optimistic conception of the world, against the concept of its uselessness, and in defense of the highest expression of vital phenomena, which is free will or the freedom of the will.

Alberto Stefanelli