Ruse, Michael (Author)
Teleology—what Aristotle called “final cause”—is trying to understand things in terms of the future, as when we ask about the plates on the back of the dinosaur, stegosaurus, and suggest that they might sometime be used to control the internal temperature of the brute. Recently the philosopher Thomas Nagel has argued for a wholesale embrace of teleological thinking in the sciences, particularly the life sciences. I argue that Nagel's thinking is shoddy and ill-informed, but that in some sense biologists do (with reason) seem drawn to teleological understanding, and so the correct response is not outright rejection of the very idea but a more informed and sympathetic approach to those aspects of nature that seem to call for final cause thinking.
...More
Book
Christian J. Emden;
(2014)
Nietzsche's Naturalism: Philosophy and the Life Sciences in the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB014242234/)
Article
Jessica Riskin;
(2020)
Biology’s mistress, a brief history
(/isis/citation/CBB880456753/)
Article
Glymour, Bruce;
(1999)
Population Level Causation and a Unified Theory of Natural Selection
(/isis/citation/CBB000111011/)
Article
Daniel W. McShea;
(2016)
Freedom and purpose in biology
(/isis/citation/CBB213780539/)
Article
Isabel Gabel;
(2018)
La biologie, la réflexivité et l’histoire: Réinscrire Canguilhem dans son milieu
(/isis/citation/CBB085805175/)
Article
Zammito, John H.;
(2012)
The Lenoir Thesis Revisited: Blumenbach and Kant
(/isis/citation/CBB001221595/)
Article
Brandon A. Conley;
(2019)
Mayr and Tinbergen: disentangling and integrating
(/isis/citation/CBB308076732/)
Book
Koons, Robert C.;
(2000)
Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of Causation, Teleology, and the Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB000410586/)
Book
Ertel, Hans;
Schröder, Wilfried;
(2000)
Kausalität, Teleologie und Willensfreiheit als Problemkomplex der Naturphilosophie. [Causality, Teleology and Freedom of Will as a Problem of Natural Philosophy] (1954)
(/isis/citation/CBB000110268/)
Article
Short, T. L.;
(2002)
Darwin's Concept of Final Cause: Neither New nor Trivial
(/isis/citation/CBB000202574/)
Book
Rosenthal, Sandra B;
(2000)
Time, Continuity, and Indeterminacy: A Pragmatic Engagement with Contemporary Perspectives
(/isis/citation/CBB000410588/)
Article
Moss, Lenny;
Nicholson, Daniel J.;
(2012)
On Nature and Normativity: Normativity, Teleology, and Mechanism in Biological Explanation
(/isis/citation/CBB001221591/)
Book
Dowe, Phil;
Noordhof, Paul;
(2004)
Cause and Chance: Causation in an Indeterministic World
(/isis/citation/CBB000410585/)
Article
Aaron Wells;
(2020)
Kant, Linnaeus, and the economy of nature
(/isis/citation/CBB872058525/)
Article
Andrade Martins, Roberto de;
(2014)
A doutrina das causas finais na Antiguidade. 3. A teleologia na natureza, de Teofrasto a Galeno
(/isis/citation/CBB001451429/)
Article
Ariew, André;
(2003)
Ernst Mayr's “Ultimate/Proximate” Distinction Reconsidered and Reconstructed
(/isis/citation/CBB000340589/)
Book
Psillos, Stathis;
(2002)
Causation and Explanation
(/isis/citation/CBB000410587/)
Article
de Andrade Martins, Roberto;
(2013)
A doutrina das causas finais na Antiguidade. 1. A teleologia na natureza, dos pré-socráticos a Platão
(/isis/citation/CBB001212573/)
Book
Sandbothe, Mike;
(2001)
The Temporalization of Time: Basic Tendencies in Modern Debate on Time in Philosophy of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000410589/)
Article
Angela N. H. Creager;
(2017)
A Chemical Reaction to the Historiography of Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB417096213/)
Be the first to comment!