Teleological Explanations Research Articles

Inorganic Compounds and Teleological Explanation in Aristotle’s Meteorology 4.12

Abstract Aristotle’s Meteorology 4.12 is puzzling, in part because the chapter appears to extend teleological explanation to include certain inorganic materials without natural biological functions, such as metals and stone. This paper examines two attempts to explain why such materials can have functions, and shows that they are problematic. As an alternative, I argue that raw inorganic materials—as well as separated parts of organisms—can have extrinsic functions. Extrinsic functions can explain why natural inorganic materials can be sorted into natural kinds, even if their functions are ultimately related to their uses in the productive arts.

Using Text Mining to Identify Teleological Explanations in Physics and Biology Textbooks: An Exploratory Study

AbstractCreating and critiquing explanations of phenomena is a significant goal of many scientific disciplines and therefore also a learning goal of science education. A significant source of explanations is science textbooks; however, the large corpus of text in textbooks means that manual review of explanations by individual researchers is extremely time consuming. In this paper, we introduce a text-mining approach for identifying legitimate and illegitimate forms of teleological explanations in school physics and biology textbooks. An ongoing debate exists about the legitimacy of teleological explanations, that is, explanations which account for a phenomenon by reference to a final end, purpose, or goal. Until recently, researchers tended to view teleology as an illegitimate form of scientific explanation. Recent theoretical cases in biology and physics have emphasized that legitimate teleological explanations exist in both domains. Eight science textbooks used in England and internationally were analyzed for instances of teleological explanations. The analysis reveals the efficiency of the text-mining approach for automating the analysis of textbooks and its potential as a research approach in science education. In considering text mining as a research approach, we report terms that are likely to be associated with legitimate teleological explanations. We found that legitimate teleological accounts are used by textbook authors, and we present novel categorizations of these forms of explanation. We argue that text mining can be a useful approach in science education research and our findings suggest guidance for both textbook writers and teachers related to their selection of legitimate explanatory forms.

Teleological reasoning bias is predicted by pupil dynamics: Evidence for the extensive integration account of bias in reasoning.

Teleological reasoning is the tendency for humans to see purpose and intentionality in natural phenomena when there is none. In this study, we assess three competing theories on how bias in reasoning arises by examining performance on a teleological reasoning task while measuring pupil size and response times. We replicate that humans (N = 45) are prone to accept false teleological explanations. Further, we show that errors on the teleological reasoning task are associated with slower response times, smaller baseline pupil size, and larger pupil dilations. The results are in line with the single-process extensive integration account and directly oppose predictions from dual-processing accounts. Lastly, by modeling responses with a drift-diffusion model, we find that larger baseline pupil size is associated with lower decision threshold and higher drift rate, whereas larger pupil dilations are associated with higher decision threshold and lower drift rate. The results highlight the role of neural gain and the Locus Coeruleus-Norepinephrine system in modulating evidence integration and bias in reasoning. Thus, teleological reasoning and susceptibility to bias likely arise due to extensive processing rather than through fast and effortless processing.

Зоолог Сергій Парамонов: Хемогенез — нова теорія еволюції (до 130-річчя від дня народження)

The paper present little-known aspects of the scientific activity of the famous expatriate scientist, world-renowned Ukrainian and Australian zoologist, theoretical biologist, and dipteriologist Sergiy Paramonov (1894–1967). The main purpose of this work is to give a detailed presentation to the scientific community on the important but little-known work of the scientist titled ‘Chemogenesis—A New Theory of Evolution’ (theory of chemogenesis). The role of the Kara Dag scientific station (Crimea, Ukraine) in the formation of the so-called points of scientific growth is shown. The scientist had visited the station several times to carry out dipteriologial research; in 1925, he met the famous Russian scientist S. L. Ivanov whose reconsidered research was used in creating the theory of chemogenesis. Paramonov’s theoretical works written in Ukraine in 1934–1943 and devoted to issues of systematics and its novel chemical methods and of species and speciation are briefly considered. Selected postulates of the theory of chemogenesis are described and analysed in short. The scientist drew special attention to the criticism of Darwin’s theory of natural selection and considered it a brilliant achievement of human thought of the 19th century. Noteworthy is that the theory of chemogenesis does not rely on the recognised scientific significance of related areas of knowledge such as geochemistry and biochemistry, but pulls away from them to prove its own correctness. Paramonov had been seeking the truth but did not claim it; he merely tried to show another way to understand the driving forces of evolution, to show that biologists are ‘barking up the wrong tree.’ A logical mistake keeps existing in biology, when the result (morphogenesis) is considered as the cause, and the cause (chemogenesis) as the results. Eliminating natural selection the scientist understood that he had opened a way to recognise various ‘mysterious’ forces. Although Paramonov did not present a respective philosophical basis for his theory, it is still worth mentioning that the solution for the existing antinomy between the mechanistic theory of natural selection and the theory of chemogenesis with certain elements of teleology lies in the combination of mechanistic and teleological explanation of nature. It is important to take the first steps into the unknown, to understand the incomprehensible, or even to admit ignorance than to engage in the simplification of the problem.

The principle of least action and teleological explanation in physics

The principle of least action (PLA) has often been cited as a counterexample to the dominant mode of causal explanation in physics. In particular, PLA seems to involve an appeal to final causes or some other teleological ideology. However, Ben-Menahem (Causation in science, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2018) argues that such implications no longer apply given that PLA can be recovered as limiting case from quantum theory. In this paper, I argue that the metaphysical implications of PLA-based explanations are not undermined by its status as derivative. However, I contend that PLA functions as a diachronic constraint that licenses explanations by constraint (Lange, Because without cause: non-casual explanations in science and mathematics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2016). PLA-based explanations, on this account, are non-causal but also differ from familiar cases of teleological explanations in several respects.

Teleonomy: Revisiting a Proposed Conceptual Replacement for Teleology

The concept of teleonomy has been attracting renewed attention recently. This is based on the idea that teleonomy provides a useful conceptual replacement for teleology, and even that it constitutes an indispensable resource for thinking biologically about purposes. However, both these claims are open to question. We review the history of teleological thinking from Greek antiquity to the modern period to illuminate the tensions and ambiguities that emerged when forms of teleological reasoning interacted with major developments in biological thought. This sets the stage for an examination of Pittendrigh’s (Adaptation, natural selection, and behavior. In: Roe A, Simpson GG (eds) Behavior and evolution. Yale University Press, New Haven, pp 390–416, 1958) introduction of “teleonomy” and its early uptake in the work of prominent biologists. We then explore why teleonomy subsequently foundered and consider whether the term may yet have significance for discussions of goal-directedness in evolutionary biology and philosophy of science. This involves clarifying the relationship between teleonomy and teleological explanation, as well as asking how the concept of teleonomy impinges on research at the frontiers of evolutionary theory.

The Logic of Consequence in Aristotle’s Biology

Two of Aristotle’s major legacies, namely, the theory of scientific syllogism and teleology seem to conflict on several planes. Indeed, an array of formal limitations prevents him from formalizing teleological explanations into scientific syllogisms, which are entirely absent from his works. To achieve this, Aristotle resorts to a different tool, the logic of ‘consequence’. This governs both the teleological relation between an end and a means that underlies necessity ‘from a hypothesis’—which is the necessity proper to living things—and a different form of syllogisms, namely, syllogisms ‘from a hypothesis’. His guidelines in the first chapter of his Parts of Animals on the proper form of demonstration to be adopted in biology should be read as laying out the rules of inference for translating teleological explanations into syllogisms ‘from a hypothesis’.

Harmony as a Model for the Human Soul?

Abstract Ancient philosophy has been a source of inspiration for contemporary philosophy in recent decades. An outstanding example is the renaissance of hylomorphism in the field of philosophy of biology. For the philosophy of mind, hylomorphism has been little discussed so far. Therefore, ancient models in the philosophy of mind are still of interest. This article argues that Plato’s Phaedo can act as a source for contemporary debates. As a starting point, Simmias’s objections to the immortality of the soul are analyzed. Plato does not simply reject these objections, but introduces conditions for a hylomorphistic understanding of the soul in Socrates’ reply. These conditions are the following: (A) the mind supervenes on the body; (B) this supervenience must allow the strong emergence of the mind; (C) the mind comprises causal powers; (D) teleological explanations are a necessary ingredient of a suitable model for the mind-body problem. With these conditions, Plato already introduces central components that are present in contemporary philosophical debates, but have not yet been unified into a hylomorphistic concept in the philosophy of mind. The present article proposes this unification.

Does Speeded Decision-Making Reveal Tacit Teleological Tendencies?

Previous research suggests that people implicitly believe that biological and nonbiological natural entities exist to fulfil certain functions (i.e., people hold implicit teleological beliefs). The standard experimental paradigm used to demonstrate this is to compare rates of teleological acceptance in an un-speeded condition to acceptance in a speeded condition. As speeded decision-making limits the opportunity to engage in reflective thought, increased rates of teleological acceptance relative to the un-speeded condition are said to provide evidence of implicit teleological beliefs. Across two large online studies, we show that due to the exclusion criteria typically used in this paradigm, the included and excluded participants vary systemically in important ways between conditions, and that increased rates of teleological acceptance during speeded responding does not provide evidence of implicit teleological beliefs. Rather, the difference between conditions can be explained by increased acceptance of explanations which are objectively false. Furthermore, we show that a key assumption underpinning the use of this paradigm – that accepting teleological explanations should be effortless and rejecting them should require effort – is not supported by the data. These results highlight not only a methodological issue, but also a theoretical issue in the current literature. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of existing theoretical and empirical literature on teleological reasoning and dual-process theory more generally.

A Justification of Legitimate Teleological Explanations in Physics Education

Scientific teleological explanations cite end states as causes to account for physical phenomena. Researchers in science education have noted that students can use teleological explanations in ways that are illegitimate, for example, by implying that inanimate objects are acting intentionally. Despite such cases, several examples of legitimate teleological explanation have been described, and the use of the explanatory form in several contexts in biological education has been encouraged. We argue that, in addition to those biological cases, teleological accounts that meet two criteria can be a legitimate and valuable tool in physics education. We propose that teleological accounts are legitimate when, first, the account reflects the cause-and-effect relationships that exist in reality and, second, when the end state has a degree of necessity. Our account is based on Lange’s model of constraint-based causality, in which he argues that phenomena can be explained by reference to constraints, necessary restrictions, for example, physical laws, that limit the behaviour of phenomena. We introduce seven examples of constraint-based teleology in the context of physics education and consider to what extent the two criteria are met in each case and hence their legitimacy. Five potential criticisms of the approach are introduced, discussed, and dismissed. Strategies for using legitimate teleological explanations in the physics classroom are proposed.

The impact of direct challenges to student endorsement of teleological reasoning on understanding and acceptance of natural selection: an exploratory study

BackgroundTeleological reasoning is a cognitive bias purported to disrupt student ability to understand natural selection. Few studies have described pedagogical efforts to decrease student endorsement of teleological reasoning and measure the effects of this attenuation on the understanding and acceptance of evolution. This exploratory study examined the influence of explicit instructional activities directly challenging student endorsement of teleological explanations for evolutionary adaptations on their learning of natural selection over a semester-long undergraduate course in evolutionary medicine. In a convergent mixed methods design this study combined pre- and post-semester survey data (N = 83) on understanding natural selection, student endorsement of teleological reasoning, and acceptance of evolution, with thematic analysis of student reflective writing on their understanding and acceptance of natural selection and teleological reasoning.ResultsStudent endorsement of teleological reasoning decreased and understanding and acceptance of natural selection increased during a course on human evolution with teleological intervention (p ≤ 0.0001), compared to a control course. Endorsement of teleological reasoning was predictive of understanding of natural selection prior to the semester. Thematic analysis revealed that prior to the course students were largely unaware of the concept of teleological reasoning and their own tendency to think about evolution in a purpose-directed way, but perceived attenuation of their own teleological reasoning by the end of the semester.ConclusionsThis exploratory study provides initial evidence that class activities to directly challenge student endorsement of unwarranted design teleological reasoning reduces the level and effects of teleological reasoning in an evolution course. Students were unaware of their high levels of endorsement of teleological reasoning upon entrance into the undergraduate human evolution course, which is consequential because teleological reasoning is a predicter of natural selection understanding. As a result of developed anti-teleological pedagogy, students had decreased unwarranted teleological reasoning and increased acceptance and understanding of natural selection over the course of the semester. The data presented show that students are receptive to explicit instructional challenges to their teleological reasoning and that attenuation of this bias is associated with gains in natural selection understanding and acceptance.

Teleology beyond explanation

People often think of objects teleologically. For instance, we might understand a hammer in terms of its purpose of driving in nails. But how should we understand teleological thinking in the first place? This paper separatesmere teleology(simply ascribing a telos) andteleological explanation(thinking something is explained by its telos) by examining cases where an object was designed for one purpose but is now widely used for a different purpose. Across four experiments, we show that teleology judgments and teleological explanation judgments are dissociable, and identify three factors that influenced teleology judgments (and one that did not).

Contextuality, Fine-Tuning and Teleological Explanation

I assess various proposals for the source of the intuition that there is something problematic about contextuality, ultimately concluding that contextuality is best thought of in terms of fine-tuning. I then argue that as with other fine-tuning problems in quantum mechanics, this behaviour can be understood as a manifestation of teleological features of physics. Finally I discuss several formal mathematical frameworks that have been used to analyse contextuality and consider how their results should be interpreted by scientific realists. In the course of this discussion I obtain several new mathematical results - I demonstrate that preparation contextuality is a form of fine-tuning, I show that measurement contextuality can be explained by appeal to a global constraint forbidding closed causal loops, and I demonstrate how negative probabilities can arise from a classical ontological model together with an epistemic restriction.

Consequentialist Reasons for Some Education Reforms

The reasons for education reforms – as a particular form of social reforms – are either consequentialist or non-consequentialist. However, the reasons for the education reforms that are briefly discussed from the perspective of the philosophy of education in the present paper are above all consequentialist. These are the reasons for proposed education reforms in EU countries whose strategic aim is equated with the enhancement of two values: creativity and innovation. It is supposed that these education reforms will have good effects and not that they are good in and of themselves. Therefore, although creativity and innovation might be seen as having intrinsic value, they are – in these education reforms – treated predominantly as instrumental values. It seems that the introduction of such education reforms can be understood as a decision founded not on causal explanation, but rather on the basis of a special type of teleological explanation, which has the logical form of a “practical syllogism”. In this case, the occurrence of an action is explained in terms of the goals and purposes of the agent; it shows that the agent did what s/he did because s/he tried to achieve a certain goal and believed that certain means were necessary or sufficient for achieving this goal.

Using dialogic interventions to decrease children’s use of inappropriate teleological explanations

ABSTRACT A belief in teleology is often suggested to be a barrier in children’s science education. Many studies have catalogued children’s use of teleological explanations, but fewer have developed approaches to tackle children’s use in scientific contexts. This paper reports two studies that utilised dialogic interventions alongside Concept Cartoons to do just that. Study 1 (5- to 7-year-olds, n = 54) addressed teleological explanations for natural phenomena (e.g. snow or rainbows) and Study 2, (9- to 10-year-olds, n = 24) explored organisms’ traits (e.g. giraffes’ necks or zebras’ stripes). Both studies found that after only short discussions about styles of explanation in science, children’s acceptance of teleological explanations was significantly reduced and they were more likely to endorse appropriate scientific explanations. These results suggest that teleology need not be a major barrier to teaching and learning about causality as it can quickly and effectively be addressed.

The design stance, intentional stance, and teleological beliefs about biological and nonbiological natural entities.

Teleology involves an appeal to function to explain why things are the way they are. Among scientists and philosophers, teleological explanations are widely accepted for human-made artifacts and biological traits, yet controversial for biological and nonbiological natural entities. Prior research shows a positive relationship between religiosity and acceptance of such controversial teleological explanations. Across three large online studies, we show that the relationship between religiosity and teleological acceptance cannot be explained by acceptance of objectively false explanations. Furthermore, we show that anthropomorphism and a belief in supernatural agents each independently predict teleological acceptance. In contrast, the tendency to inhibit intuitively appealing, yet incorrect responses to simple reasoning problems was associated with lower teleological acceptance. These results provide strong support for an intention-based account of teleology, and further contribute to the existing literature which situates teleological reasoning within a dual-process framework. Several avenues of future research are discussed, including the need to dissociate implicit and explicit measures of teleological belief, and the need for a greater focus on cross-cultural variation in teleological beliefs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

An externalist teleology

Teleology has a complicated history in the biological sciences. Some have argued that Darwin’s theory has allowed biology to purge itself of teleological explanations. Others have been content to retain teleology and to treat it as metaphorical, or have sought to replace it with less problematic notions like teleonomy. And still others have tried to naturalize it in a way that distances it from the vitalism of the nineteenth century, focusing on the role that function plays in teleological explanation. No consensus has seemed possible in this debate. This paper takes a different approach. It argues that teleology is a perfectly acceptable scientific notion, but that the debate took an unfortunate misstep some 2300 years ago, one that has confused things ever since. The misstep comes in the beginning of Aristotle’s Physics when a distinction is made between two types of teleological explanation. One type pertains to artifacts while the other pertains to entities in nature. For Aristotle, artifacts are guided by something external to themselves, human intentions, while natural entities are guided by an internal nature. We aim to show that there is, in fact, only one type of legitimate teleological explanation, what Aristotle would have considered a variant of an artifact model, where entities are guided by external fields. We begin with an analysis of the differences between the two types of explanation. We then examine some evidence in Aristotle’s biological works suggesting that in his account of the natural-artifactual distinction, he encountered difficulties in trying to provide teleological accounts of spontaneous generation. And we show that it is possible to resolve these difficulties with a more robust version of an artifact model of teleology, in other words, with an externalist teleology. This is McShea’s model, in which goal-directed entities are guided by a nested series a of upper-level fields. To explain teleological behavior, this account invokes only external physical forces rather than mysterious internal natures. We then consider how field theory differs from other efforts to naturalize teleology in biology. And finally, we show how the account enables us to grapple with certain difficult cases—genes and intentions—where, even in biology today, the temptation to posit internal natures remains strong.

Vicarious Actions and Social Teleology

AbstractActions receive teleological descriptions and reason explanations. In some circumstances, these descriptions and explanations might appeal not just to the agent’s own purposes and reasons, but also to the purposes and reasons of others in her social surroundings. Some actions have a social teleology. I illustrate this phenomenon and I propose a concept of vicarious action to account for it. An agent acts vicariously when she acts in response to the demand of another agent who knew that her demand was likely to succeed. I argue that vicariousness grounds the social teleology of the resulting actions.

Interpreting Dilthey: Critical Essays ed. by Eric S. Nelson

Reviewed by: Interpreting Dilthey: Critical Essays ed. by Eric S. Nelson Taylor Carman Eric S. Nelson, editor. Interpreting Dilthey: Critical Essays. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 287. Cloth, $99.99. Since his death in 1911, Wilhelm Dilthey has, for many, loomed large as an important yet perennially underappreciated figure in German philosophy. As Jean Grondin says in his contribution to this volume, Dilthey's reputation was at once enhanced and compromised by the attention Heidegger paid him in the 1920s—enhanced by his indebtedness to Dilthey's account of the historicality (Geschichtlichkeit) of human existence; compromised by the trenchant criticism he deducted from that debt, charging Dilthey with uncritical reliance on notions of subjectivity and expression of "inner experience" on one side, and of the validity and objectivity of scientific knowledge on the other. In a similar spirit, Gadamer criticized Dilthey for aestheticizing culture and relinquishing the truth claims inherent in language and historical existence. The essays in this book plead in a variety of ways, and with varying success, that Dilthey has not fully emerged from the shadow of his ambivalent reception to claim his rightful place in the history of European philosophy. Rudolf Makkreel rightly says that Dilthey is routinely misread as having insisted on a categorical distinction between understanding and explanation (as if causal explanation plays no part in the human sciences), and as being a Weltanschauung relativist, whereas in fact it was the conflict among worldviews that he sought to assuage by viewing them through the lens of a kind of objective idealism. Makkreel defends in particular Dilthey's quasi-Kantian account of the immanent purposiveness of sociohistorical life. In his essay, Jos de Mul adds that Dilthey posited a third category of functional, teleological explanation proper to biology, midway between the natural and the human sciences. Michael Forster's essay is easily the most provocative, bluntly delivering "the bad news" along with the good. The bad news is, he says, that "Dilthey's interpretation of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is … deeply unsatisfactory" (62). Moreover, "Dilthey's own hermeneutics, insofar as he has one" (67), inherits many of the shortcomings he (wrongly) ascribed to Schleiermacher's, stressing interiority and individuality over against sociohistorical context. The good news is that Dilthey improved upon Schleiermacher's [End Page 525] narrow focus on language by including in the purview of hermeneutics the entirety of what Hegel called "objective spirit." Dilthey's most important contributions, Forster says, were (1) his conviction, contra Schleiermacher, that interpretation can be a science, not just an art; (2) that the human sciences have their own distinctive methods; and (3) that those sciences are indeed genuine sciences, in the business of "discovering facts" (73). Of those, it seems to me, (1) and (3) are less plausible than (2), and perhaps not surprisingly, Forster's arguments in support of them are weak. For example, interpretation is "an extremely difficult task and needs to employ rigorous methods in order to achieve success—just like natural science!" (74). And just like carpentry, one might add. Further, interpretation relies on drawing comparisons and reasoning inductively, as does natural science (76). But again, so do architecture and journalism. As for the scientificity of the human sciences, "Dilthey's position is … that the umbrella of science is broad enough to cover a diversity of methods" (75). But what makes the umbrella the size that it is, or should be? Broad consensus that the empirical sciences deserve the name 'science' only goes back a few hundred years; Locke, adhering to ancient usage, reserved the term for domains of inquiry that could yield certain rather than merely probable results. (The English word 'scientist' was not coined until 1834, by William Whewell.) We can, of course, stretch the umbrella of 'science' as broadly as we like, just as we can the word 'fact.' The problem with this ecumenical path is that it opens onto a slippery slope: if literary criticism and jurisprudence are sciences, why not the writing of travel guides and memoirs? Frederick Beiser observes that Dilthey was aware of and responded to the antihistoricism of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, though he misunderstood them in crucial ways. His reply to their skepticism...

On Explanation and Understanding in Contemporary English-speaking Philosophy

Understanding and explanation are usually considered in the context of continental philosophy in Ukraine, based on Wilhelm Dilthey’s distinction between understanding and explanation as the opposite methods for humanities and natural science respectively as well as relying heavily on hermeneutical philosophy of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer when it comes to understanding. However, this is not an exclusive feature of continental philosophy, and this article aims to show that the terms are actively used in English-speaking philosophy. This is done by focusing on philosophy of history and philosophy of science which are the areas that actively use such terms. Considering the number of works within these areas helps to outline the general situation in the English-speaking philosophy and demonstrates that the opposition of explanation and understanding is quite artificial now. The first part of the article regards the two-sidedness of the English-speaking philosophy of history, which means that history seeks to be both science and art. The second part of the article analyses understanding and explanation as they are used in philosophy of science. Particularly, it has been shown that such a classic of analytical philosophy as Georg von Wright considered understanding of the humanities to be a continuation of a teleological explanation as well as explanation within natural science to be a different type of explanation: a causal one. It is also shown that a contemporary researcher Kareem Khalifa introduces an important term ‘explanatory understanding’ which appears in the case of a correct scientific explanation within natural science. Based on the materials involved, the author of the article demonstrates that both areas of contemporary English-language philosophy view explanation and understanding not as antipodes but as co-dependent notions.Manuscript received 10.08.2020