Teleology

Functional explanation

by Arno Wouters

To appear in Werner Dubitzky, Olaf Wolkenhauer, Kwang-Hyun Cho, Hiroki Yokota (Eds.) Encyclopedia of Systems Biology (Springer). (http://refworks.springer.com/mrw/index.php?id=3051)

Caso e fortuna in Aristotele, Ph. II, 4-6

by Simone Guidi

A short paper about teleology and chance in Aristotle's Physics.

ABSTRACT: Nei capitoli 4-6 di Physica II Aristotele si sofferma sulla possibilità di affiancare il caso alle quattro... more ABSTRACT: Nei capitoli 4-6 di Physica II Aristotele si sofferma sulla possibilità di affiancare il caso alle quattro cause rilevate in Ph. II, 3. Lo Stagirita fornisce dunque una definizione allargata di “processo finalistico”, capace di dar conto dei processi casuali sia in quanto processi apparentemente finalizzati al raggiungimento di un scopo, sia in quanto processi di natura accidentale. Gli eventi casuali sono così affiancati a quelli eminentemente teleologici come fenomeni che sarebbero potuti essere frutto di un processo finalizzato al loro raggiungimento se fossero stati innescati dalla natura o dal pensiero.

τὸ μέσον τὸ καιρὸν πρὸς ἡμᾶς. Acerca del justo medio en la Ética a Nicómaco

by Patrick Salazar Caso

From Free Will to Hegel and Kant on Teleology and Life

by James Kreines

DRAFT

Critique of an Argument for the Reality of Purpose

by Danny Frederick

Forthcoming, Prolegomena: Journal of Philosophy

Schueler has argued, against the eliminativist, that human purposive action cannot be an illusion because the concept... more Schueler has argued, against the eliminativist, that human purposive action cannot be an illusion because the concept of purpose is not theoretical. He argues that the concept is known directly to be instantiated, through self-awareness; and that to maintain that the concept is theoretical involves an infinite regress. I show that Schueler’s argument fails because all our concepts are theoretical in the sense that we may be mistaken in applying them to our experience. As a consequence, it is conceivable that direct introspection of an event as a purposive action may be mistaken. I indicate ways in which the eliminativist may be able to explain why our perception and introspection is afflicted with systematic error.

Do Ships Shape the Shore? An Analysis of the Credibility of Ship Archaeological Evidence for Landing Site Morphology in the Baltic Sea

by Kristin Ilves

published in "The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology" 2012, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 94-105

In the context of the development of different kinds of watercraft during prehistory an interdependent line of... more In the context of the development of different kinds of watercraft during prehistory an interdependent line of development for landing sites and harbours is often suggested, and used to argue that it is almost impossible archaeologically to locate small and early landing sites. Although the constructional properties of prehistoric watercraft suggest that landing-structures were not absolutely necessary, there is nevertheless archaeological evidence of landing-facilities from the Stone Age, as well as landing facilities for smaller boats to consider. This article will discuss to what extent ship archaeological evidence could be seen in a corresponding development to landing sites in its respective periods.

Life in time: The missing temporal dimension in autopoiesis (Abstract)

by Ezequiel Di Paolo

Di Paolo, E. (2008). Life in time: the missing temporal dimension in autopoiesis (abstract). In S. Bullock, J. Noble, R. Watson, and M. A. Bedau (eds.) Artificial Life XI: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems, p. 761. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

Wholes that Cause their Parts: Organic Self-Reproduction and the Reality of Biological Teleology

by Thomas Teufel

Published in: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, vol. 42.2 (2011): 252-260.

A well-rehearsed move among teleological realists in the philosophy of biology is to base the idea of genuinely... more A well-rehearsed move among teleological realists in the philosophy of biology is to base the idea of genuinely teleological forms of organic self-reproduction on a type of causality derived from Kant. Teleological realists have long argued for the causal possibility of this form of causality—in which a whole is considered the cause of its parts—as well as formulated a set of teleological criteria of adequacy for it. What is missing, to date, is an account of the mereological principles that govern the envisioned whole-to-part causality. When the latter principles are taken into account, we find that there is no version of whole-to-part causality that is mereologically, causally and teleologically possible all at once, as teleological realism requires.

Teleology and the life sciences: between limit concept and ontological necessity.

by Barbara Muraca

paper should appear 2011
in: Koutroufinis, S. (ed.). Process and Life – Towards a Whiteheadian View of Living Beings, Frankfurt: Lancaster, Ontos

Homoerotik und Jenseitssymbolik - das selbstfressende Selbst als megalomanes Verfallsaxiom mehrfach kategorisierter Spezialhermeneutik

by Martin Jacob Schaunpeter

1990

Atypical reasoning about living things in children with autism or Asperger syndrom

by Nathalie Bedoin

This research investigates atypical conceptual knowledge
and explanatory systems of high-functioningmore This research investigates atypical conceptual knowledge
and explanatory systems of high-functioning
autistic and Asperger children. Despite the absence of mental retardation, they suffer
from a deficit in Theory-of-Mind (ToM). We assume that many aspects of their intuitive
theories are unclear, not only regarding the understanding of false believes as assessed
by standard procedures. We propose a new test, which has been previously used to
address intuitive knowledge of normal adults about within- and between-species living
things interactions (Bedoin & Vulliez, 2008). Subjects were required to decide if they
accepted or refused various teleological assertions to account for the physical appearance
or functional characteristics of animals or plants. We tested 8 high functioning
autistic and Asperger children (mean age = 12 years), 8-to-9-year-old healthy children
(N = 20), and 11-year-old healthy children (N = 20). The analysis revealed that every
group agreed to account for animals’ characteristics (but not plants’ characteristics) by
evoking the benefit provided to young subjects of their species (but not outside their species).
However, 11-year-old controls, like normal adults, but not patients, were inclined
towards explanations that evoked an advantage for other species to motivate the existence
of attributes in plants, but not in animals. This teleological bias led to reason
about plants as if they were artefacts. It compensated perhaps for a lack of knowledge
about vegetal kinds. The patients were not biased by this inter-categorical teleological reasoning, which is known to be associated with the notion of intention, that they almost
ignore due to their deficit in ToM. Additionally, the prominence of their biological theory
about the natural world might have precluded this bias. Therefore, the ToM deficit and
the prominence of folkbiology in the autism spectrum disorder lead to atypical believes
about interactions among living things and the natural world balance.

Intuitive theories and teleological explanations about animals and plants

by Nathalie Bedoin

The cognitive status of plants as a biological category remains unclear in the conceptual organisation.
A series... more The cognitive status of plants as a biological category remains unclear in the conceptual organisation.
A series of five experiments investigated whether adults agree with different kinds of teleological assertions
to account for attributes of animals or plants. One major finding is that adults are inclined towards explanations that evoke an advantage for other species to motivate the existence of attributes in plants,
but not in animals. This supports our assumption about social-serving teleological reasoning for plants, as
for artefacts, and may contribute to increase the ambiguous status of plants within the unified concept of
living thing. Therefore, plants may not only differ from animals by the low relevance of an intuitive psychology
to account for their properties, but also by their tendency to trigger intuitive explanations devoted to
artefacts.

Commitment to Telos―a sustained critical rhetoric

by John Sloop

Envisioning Ubiquitous Computing

by Stuart Reeves

In Proceedings of SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). ACM Press, May 2012.

Visions of the future are a common feature of discourse within ubiquitous computing and, more broadly, HCI.... more Visions of the future are a common feature of discourse within ubiquitous computing and, more broadly, HCI. ‘Envisioning’, a characteristic future-oriented technique for design thinking, often features as significant part of our research processes in the field. This paper compares, contrasts and critiques the varied ways in which envisionings have been used within ubiquitous computing and traces their relationships to other, different envisionings, such as those of virtual reality. In unpacking envisioning, it argues primarily that envisioning should be foregrounded as a significant concern and interest within HCI. Foregrounding envisioning’s frequent mix of fiction, forecasting and extrapolation, the paper recommends changes in the way we read, interpret and use envisionings through taking into account issues such as context and intended audience.

Biological extension of the action principle: Endpoint determination beyond the quantum level and the ultimate physical roots of consciousness

by Attila Grandpierre

the flood in rabbinic literature

by Christophe Leblanc

a post in my blog

The principle of analogy and teleology in the story of the Flood The principle of analogy and teleology in the story of the Flood

Life Responsibility Versus Mechanical Reductionism

by Giorgio Baruchello

Co-authored with Dr R.T. Allen, published (& copyright by) UNESCO's Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS): http://www.eolss.net

All modern Western world-views incorporate the idea of the natural world, distinct from both the artificial world of... more All modern Western world-views incorporate the idea of the natural world, distinct from both the artificial world of human creation and the trans-natural creative activity of God. That view of the natural world comprises the presuppositions of modern natural science, distinct from ‘magical’, polytheistic and world-denying cosmologies. It is the idea of a contingent yet rationally ordered universe, which the human mind can understand by way of observation and experiment, and which is good for the human mind to know and understand. Its origins are twofold, both of which are breaks with the old inclusive and polytheistic cosmologies: the Biblical idea of creation, and Greek natural philosophy and science. They were brought together in the new Christian civilization of Europe. The scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries replaced the specifically Greek elements in the mediaeval picture of the world with a mechanistic picture of the world, largely adequate for physics and later chemistry, but lacking provision for living beings and biology. It gave rise to ‘reductionism’, the belief that the methods of physics and chemistry should be applied to all knowledge or that higher levels of existence are ‘nothing but’ lower ones. The world in this perspective was held to lack meaning and purpose, whilst its life-support systems were being either underplayed, silently presupposed, or obliterated from view. This modern mechanistic picture made it possible for novel forms of world- and life-negation to emerge. Its emphasis on the abstract, synchronic and immutable representation by means of physical-mathematical expressions led to ‘otherness’ from the represented living world, which is embodied, diachronic and mutable.  Revealingly, the idea of mastery over the natural world, to be aided by new technologies, replaced that of stewardship, a mastery often unconstrained by any law. Reductionism also provoked reactions such as Romanticism, pantheism, and rejections of science and technology. Today significant changes in natural science itself offer prospects for more adequate pictures of the natural world, while the rise of ‘environmental ethics’ manifests a new sense of human responsibility and a lessening of the idea of unconstrained mastery over nature, as the environmental damages caused by humankind’s life-blindness can no longer be ignored.

Not By Design: Retiring Darwin’s Watchmaker [Book Review].

by Anne-Marie Hodge

Natural selection, teleology, and the logos: From Darwin to the Oxford neo-darwinists, 1859-1909

by Richard England

The arguments on void in the seventeenth century: the case of Francis Bacon

by Silvia Manzo