From the days of Plato to our own times, there have been but few objectors to the teleological or purposive view of nature.
Is he a teleologicaltheologian making fun of evolution?
As if conception could possibly occur except for a teleological purpose, except to show us the way from a state of things our senses cognize to another state of things our will desires!
I am not sure, for example, that all physiologists see that it commits them to regarding the mind as an essentially teleological mechanism.
The atomic and mechanical conception of the world is as ideal from the point of view of some of our faculties as the teleological one is from the point of view of others.
The Teleological Argument therefore needs to be supplemented by the Anthropological Argument, or the argument from the mental and moral constitution of man.
This argument is is part an application to man of the principles of both the Cosmological and the Teleological Arguments.
The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Order and Useful Collocation in Nature.
Dangerous as teleological arguments in general may be, we may at least safely say the world was not designed to make science easy.
In one sense, therefore, we should in practice begin with the Anthropological Argument, and then use the Cosmological and Teleological Arguments as warranting the application to nature of the conclusions which we have drawn from man.
We see no objection therefore to making Eutaxiology the first part of the Teleological Argument, as we do above.
This last, however, is treated as a part of the Anthropological Argument, which follows this, and the Teleological Argument covers only the proof of a designing intelligence drawn from nature.
Consideration of the Idea of the Good leads us naturally to enquire how far Plato's system is teleological in character.
And the teleological argument for the existence of God asserts that, as there is evidence of purpose in nature, this must be due to an intelligent cause.
In modern times the existence of design in the world has been made the foundation of an argument for the existence of God, which is known as the teleological argument.
Now since the ideal State is not yet reached in fact, but is the perfect State towards which all actual States tend, it is clear that we have here {202} a teleological principle.
The consideration which must influence most minds in their attitude toward this question, is the craving, almost universally felt, for some teleological solution to the problem of existence.
Formerly, this work was conceived in a teleological sense, and it was sought to find traces of the plan of the Creator in the actual purposive organisation of animals.
In these words Kant definitely adopts the dualistic and teleological point of view for biological science.
Hence they are also of great interest in philosophy; they show clearly that the monistic or mechanical view of the organism is the only correct one, and that the dualistic or teleological conception is wrong.
The facts of embryology have so great and obvious a significance in this connection that even in recent years dualist and teleological philosophers have tried to rid themselves of them by simply denying them.
We cannot penetrate to the nature of things either by the causal or by the teleological method.
And the second point is, that the teleological point of view must take its place beside the causal.
Driesch is criticised by Moszkowski, who rejects Driesch's teleological standpoint.
Thus religion confidently subjects the world to a teleological interpretation.
Darwin's thinking follows the course that all anti-teleological thought has followed since the earliest times.
But every one of its points yields support to teleological considerations, most obviously so the concrete instances of correlation.
The teleological now seems to him itself a factor playing a part in the chain of causes, and thus making it teleological.
If any one were to attempt to make a theory of evolution from a decidedly teleological standpoint, he would probably construct one very similar to the one we are now considering.
Finally, we have to say a word concerning the name which the anti-teleological view of the world gives to itself: the name "monism.
Schmidt, and others--that the teleological and the mechanical mode of viewing nature by no means exclude one another.
Such an assurance is offered us in the resurrection of Jesus; and therefore, all who have not abandoned a teleological view of the world, have reason for examining it with reference to the degree of its historical truth.
But farther, the validity of the teleological argument depends upon the accuracy of our interpretation of those 'signs of intelligence' of which it makes so much, and which it interprets analogically in the light of human nature.
The teleological argument professes to carry us above the chain of natural sequence.
It has been said by an acute defender of theteleological argument, that the number of designed phenomena (indefinitely vast) with which the universe is filled, is sufficient to suggest the infinity of the designing cause.
Thus the teleological argument must be pronounced fallacious.
But the teleological argument is said to bring us authentic tidings of the origin of the universe.
And hence it is so necessary to concede frankly the failure of the teleological argument from final causes, as well as the ontological argument from the necessary notions of the intellect.
Unknown, however, to many morphologists, especially embryologists, their writings are full of this teleological notion.
It is plain he accepts evolution, but it does not appear that he sees how fatal his theory is to any view of evolution except a teleological one--the purpose residing within the animal and not without it.
After this I went through the earlier part of my book, and cut out the expressions which I had used inadvertently, and which were inconsistent with a teleological view.
My death, like my birth, will have a teleological justification, to which my supra-temporal self will consent.
The distinctive feature in Jewish faith is its historical and teleological character.
Personality is a teleological fact; it is here in the making, elsewhere in fact and power.
Many, perhaps, will see an additional cause in teleological considerations, aiming at the avoidance of in-and-in breeding.
It is not clear how the qualitative or how the teleological aspect of reality is more internal to it than its relational aspect; but, at any rate, philosophy has its own interest, and that is distinct from those of art and religion.
Any other mode of interference by a directive teleological power in the processes of the universe than by the appointment of the forces producing them, is however, at least to the naturalist, inadmissible.
Nature is the only one possible--that he is not at all justified in abandoning this view so long as the interference of teleological forces in the course of the processes of organic development has not been demonstrated to him.
Were the mechanism of natural laws not teleological there would be no mechanically regulated laws, but a weak chaos of obstinate and capricious powers.
The final and main result of this essay will thus be found in the attempted demonstration that the mechanical conception of Nature very well admits of being united with a teleological conception of the Universe.
But does this include the admission of a teleological principle, or exclude a mechanical explanation?
It is certainly the absence of a theoretical definition of variability which always leaves open a door for smuggling in a teleological power.
His great defect was in not perceiving that this teleological argument, per se, is not in either case enough to convince, but only to arouse serious attention.
And, whether Theism and Christianity be true or false, it is certain that theteleological argument alone ought to result, not in conviction, but in agnosticism.
Pigment having been laid down in these places the better to secure this purpose (I use teleological terms for the sake of brevity), the nerve-ending begins to distinguish between light and darkness.
From which position there emerged the possibility of another argument in favour of Theism--or rather let us say, of a reappearance of the teleological argument in another form.
But, looking to the "present state of our knowledge," this is merely to change the teleological argument in its gross Paleyian form, into the argument from the ubiquitous operation of general laws.
All rational, purposive, or teleological idea is wanting.
The teleological principle, everywhere illuminating the structure of organisms and the constitution of life, must, from the first, have guided the development for this enthronement of right in the human personality.
One group of philosophers affirms, in accordance with its teleological conception, that the whole cosmos is an orderly system, in which every phenomenon has its aim and purpose; there is no such thing as chance.
It was a revival of the old teleological system under a new name, and we must devote a line of criticism to it.
Teleological and, subsequently, theological speculations had incapacitated the ageing scientist from appreciating this greatest reform of biology.
On the whole, it is a question of the old antithesis of a mechanical and a teleological system.
It defends pure cosmological dualism with admirable lucidity and consistency, and only goes to prove how utterly untenable the teleological system is that is connected therewith.
This teleological view of history has recently become more strongly contrasted with our monistic view in proportion as monism has proved to be the only possible interpretation of inorganic nature.
These curious teleological hypotheses, and the objections to Darwinism which generally accompany them, do not call for serious scientific refutation to-day.
The former is usually bound up withteleological and idealistic dogmas, the latter with mechanical and realistic theories.
On the Necessity for the Subordination of the Mechanical Principle to the Teleological in the Explanation of a Thing as a Natural End.
Broadly, a teleological system is one in which purposes are realised, i.
Now the fact--if it be a fact--that the universe is mechanical has no bearing whatever on the question whether it is teleological in the above sense.
Nature is a teleological order, an evolution from the unconscious to the conscious; in man, the highest stage and the climax of history, nature becomes self-conscious.
It is moral truth that both sets us free and demonstrates our freedom, and that makes harmony possible between the mechanical theory of science and the teleological conception of philosophy.
For the analysis of the teleological judgment and of the consequences flowing from it leads to the final statement of the nature of experience as conceived by Kant.
Ueber den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophie, "On the Employment of Teleological Principles in Philosophy.
The course of nature is for him an unmeaning expression unless it be referred to some author; and he therefore makes extensive use of theteleological method.
Natural selection without teleological factors is not adequate to account for biological evolution, and such teleological factors imply a psychical something endowed with feelings and will, i.
The teleological arguments of the older theologians have had to be left behind.
The finalist or teleological conception is not any more tenable, for Evolution is not simply the realization of a plan.
