Selected Issues of Teleological and Holistic Perspective of Morphogenetic and Behavioral Phenomena of Living Beings (original) (raw)
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Teleodynamics: A Neo-Naturalistic Conception of Organismic Teleology (2013)
Teleodynamics: A Neo-Naturalistic Conception of Organismic Teleology, 2013
Due to its long development since classical antiquity, biophilosophy is able to exhibit different naturalistic understandings of life in general and of the organism in particular which transcend the physicalistic metaphysics of most biologists. One central problem for the biosciences, namely, whether or not the concept of teleology has any legitimacy in biological explanation — a notion which has been discussed extensively since antiquity — exemplifies the central philosophical differences between the major representatives of the philosophy of biology and the more metaphysically open-minded considerations of the nature of life carried out by the biophilosophers. Yet, even inside current philosophy of biology, there are widely varying understandings of teleology. In this paper, I will show how a recently suggested model of pre-cellular organization introduces a new form of teleology that has important consequences for our understanding of biological naturalism.
Modern Biological Neo-Teleologism vs. Aristotle’s Genuine Telos (2016)
Published in: BIOCOSMOLOGY – NEO-ARISTOTELISM 6 (3&4) pp. 414-426, 2016
In the first half of the 20 th century the attempt was made to banish all teleological thinking from biology. In the last few decades, several biologists and philosophers of biology have claimed that organisms may be considered teleological entities, spurring on a movement that can be described as 'neo-teleologism.' However, while biologists and philosophers of biology talk about 'teleology', it is not always clear what they mean by this term. This paper introduces the central ideas of the most influential neo-teleological approaches and compares them with the metaphysical fundaments of Aristotle's teleology. The main aim of the paper is to make clear that neo-teleologism and Aristotelian teleology are based on entirely different metaphysical assumptions. The latter, in contrast to the former, exemplifies the idea that living beings have an intrinsic nature and value.
This is a short overview of the biological functions debate in philosophy. While it was fairly comprehensive when it was written, my short book A Critical Overview of Biological Functions has largely supplanted it as a definitive and up-to-date overview of the debate, both because the book takes into account new developments since then, and because the length of the book allowed me to go into substantially more detail about existing views.
Teleology and the life sciences: between limit concept and ontological necessity
2014
"Against the background of the current discussion about self-organization theories and complexity theories and their application within biology and ecology, the question of teleology gains a new significance. Some scholars insist on the total elimination of any reference to teleology from the realm of the natural sciences. However, it seems especially hard to eradicate teleological expressions from scientific language when the issue of understanding living beings is at stake. For this reason, other scholars opt for a middle path that allows for some teleological language. Yet, it is an open question whether teleological expressions are to be considered as playing a merely metaphorical or a necessary heuristic role in the sciences. Moreover, the ontological presuppositions, which underpin different positions in the debate, need to be depicted and analyzed. This paper aims at addressing the question of teleology within the life sciences by taking into account both Kant’s critical philosophy and Whitehead’s ontology. My analysis starts with Georg Toepfer’s distinction among different concepts of teleology and then focuses on the role of “internal purposiveness” (innere Zweckmäßigkeit) for biology today. I show how purposiveness (Zweckmäßigkeit; hereafter: ZM) corresponds to a very complex form of reciprocal causation (Wechselwirkung) rather than to any model of final causation. Drawing on Kant’s analysis of “natural purposes” in the Critique of Judgment as well as self-organization theory, I claim that reciprocal causation – however complex it might well be – is not sufficient to describe living beings adequately. However, since the natural sciences are still caught up in the presuppositions of modern scientistic and materialistic ontology, a step beyond mere efficient causation seems to be impossible within their methodological framework. And yet, as I will show, a genuine teleology of nature implies the idea of anticipation of totality. This kind of teleological consideration is presented at first in its role as a regulative concept in Kantian terms. Finally, I follow the path of Whitehead’s ‘philosophy of organism’ and claim for natural teleology the state of a necessary ontological presupposition. Whitehead’s ontology offers an ontological underpinning for teleological issues that, by avoiding any recourse to supernatural forces, invites life and natural sciences to a fruitful dialogue at the limit of their methodological boundaries, pressing them beyond their unreflected presuppositions."
Teleology and Biology: a defense of teleological thinking in biology
2020
A linguagem teleologica pode ser definida como um discurso prospectivo, e isto tem preocupado biologos em torno desse problema. Neste artigo, discutirei os mal-entendidos que filosofos da ciencia e biologos tiveram acerca da teleologia. Por exemplo, afirmam que a teleologia sofre de antropomorfismo (isto e, um agente de planejamento externo a referencia mundial) e se refere a uma forca imanente aos organismos (forcas vitais ou “vitalismo”) alem do alcance da investigacao empirica. Argumentarei que eles estao equivocados e que a teleologia mudou seu significado e foco de sua forma pre-evolutiva, e agora pode ser usada e mantida sem violar os principios da ciencia moderna. Usando como exemplo o debate sobre adaptacao e funcao, discutirei como a linguagem teleologica e a melhor interpretacao para essas questoes.
Teleology and Mechanism in Biology
In spite of a certain oversimplifi cation, one might discern two main opposite trends of thought on the status of teleological claims in biology . Traditional views asserting the intrinsic teleology of living beings proved meagre in scientifi c results, but it cannot be denied that most biological concepts are defi ned in functional and teleological terms and Darwin himself used explanations which he claimed revealed the fi nal cause of this or that structure or behaviour. 1 Th us, some authors have also in recent times maintained that reduction of biology to physics is impossible because organisms have a genuine teleological constitution. Th e teleology of organisms would be intrinsic and not merely projected onto them, in the sense that 'the overall systemic good of an organism is a property of it which has a central place in explaining the parts and processes that constitute an organism' . 2 However, the prevailing trend of thought in the philosophy of biology has consisted in trying to demonstrate that teleology of organisms is only apparent, in the sense that it can be fully explained by empirical forces which are not intrinsically teleological. An interpretation of teleology in naturalistic terms is to be found not only in logical empiricists, 3 but also in the most, if not all, versions of the etiological theory of proper functions. 4
The relationship between biological function and teleology: Implications for biology education
Evolution: Education and Outreach, 2020
This paper explicates the relationship between biological function and teleology by focusing not only on difference but also on conceptual overlap. By doing so, this paper is meant to increase awareness of the misleading potential of biological function and the educational necessity to explicate the meaning of biological function to biology students to prevent them from drawing inadequate teleological conclusions about biological phenomena. The conceptual overlap between teleology and biological function lies in the notion of telos (end, goal). Biologically inadequate teleology assumes that teloi (ends, goals) exist in nature and that natural mechanisms are directed towards teloi. Such inadequate teleological assumptions have been documented in students’ reasoning about biological phenomena. Biological function, however, does not involve the assumption that teloi exist in nature. Rather, biologists use the notion of telos as an epistemological tool whenever they consider a structure...
The Flowing Bridge: On the Processual Teleology and Agency of Living Beings (2023)
Published in: Spyridon A. Koutroufinis & Arthur Araujo (Eds.). 2023. Process-Philosophical Perspectives on Biology: Intuting Life. Newcastle upon Tyne (UK): Cambridge Scholars Publishing (pp. 203-250). , 2023
The chapter pursues two aims: First, to point out some crucial difficulties in understanding teleological end-state directedness and agency in contemporary biology and philosophy of biology. Second, to show how a process-metaphysical perspective of the organism, which is based on the philosophies of Alfred N. Whitehead and Henri Bergson and includes fundamental insights from Aristotle’s conception of teleology, can help to overcome these difficulties. For this purpose, a few words about Aristotle’s understanding of organismic teleology and its connection to the idea of the good are said first. The second section deals with the reintroduction of teleological terminology into cybernetics and the influence of this development on the neo-Darwinian concepts of ‘genetic program’ and ‘genetic information’ as well as the limits of both concepts from today’s perspective. In the third section, the focus is, first, on the currently prevailing view that systems-theoretical mechanisms can provide full explanations of biological end-state directedness, and, second, on the resulting reduction of teleological explanations to a heuristically fertile mode of speaking in contemporary biology and philosophy of biology. For this purpose, the concept of mechanism introduced by the so-called ‘New Mechanical Philosophy’ is presented in detail. The aim of the fourth section is to provide evidence that organismic teleology and agency elude mechanistic thinking. For this purpose, core characteristics of systems biological mechanisms are first analyzed and, in a second step, it is shown that there are significant differences between the dynamics of organisms and mechanisms. The unprecedented intensity of organismic self-transformation is emphasized by the ‘flowing bridge’ metaphor introduced in this section. The critique culminates in the conclusion that the end-state directedness of real organisms transcends the systems-theoretical mechanistic explanation for reasons of principle and that teleology therefore cannot be reduced to a useful mode of speaking alongside mechanisms. In the fifth and final section, organismic teleology and agency are placed in the light of a conception of causality, materiality, and mental activity rooted in a metaphysics radically different from that of contemporary scientific materialism. It is shown that Alfred N. Whitehead’s process metaphysics, supplemented by core ideas of Henri Bergson’s metaphysics, opens up completely new horizons for the understanding of both phenomena. The last section concludes with process-metaphysical reflections on the nature of organismic action, which benefit from Aristotle’s indissoluble connection between biological end-state directedness and the idea of the good.
On the debate about teleology in biology: the notion of "teleological obstacle
História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos, 2015
Among the epistemological obstacles described by Gaston Bachelard, we contend that unitary and pragmatic knowledge is correlated to the teleological categories of Ernst Mayr and is the basis for prevailing debate on the notion of "function" in biology. Given the proximity of the aspects highlighted by these authors, we propose to associate the role of teleological thinking in biology and the notion of unitary and pragmatic knowledge as an obstacle to scientific knowledge. Thus, teleological thinking persists acting as an epistemological obstacle in biology, according to Bachelardian terminology. Our investigation led us to formulate the "teleological obstacle," which we consider important for the future of biology and possibly other sciences.
CAUSES, MEANINGS, AND NORMS:.THE PURSUED UNITY OF LIFE
This paper is a review of the place of teleology in its relationships with biological sciences, taken not in isolation but associated with the ideas of communication and normativity, the former coming from the semiotic sciences and the latter from the human sciences. The first part puts forward a classification of the sciences into natural, semiotic, and human sciences, which allows the introduction in the second part of a context for a discussion about teleology, not only in the biological sciences, but also on the borders connecting these with the semiotic and human sciences. In the first place, an account is given of the attempts to naturalize teleology in biological thought. In the second, it shows how mathematical and physical ideas are used to model living systems and processes, as well as to unify living beings under the umbrella of the idea of communication. Finally, in the third place, it addresses the idea of normativity, associated with human actions in their possible relationships with biological sciences in the matters of niche construction, stigmergy, and the directed (teleological) character of organic processes and actions.