What’s the difference, please. I am reading a book about teleology and it is starting to reek of intelligent design, but he doesn’t call it that…
Thanks
The concept of teleology is more general and existed long before ID theory came along.
Teleology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the purpose of things. As such intelligent design is a teleological argument but is only one among many.
What’s the book?
I started reading one called “Species in Denial” I really didn’t like the way the guy wrote. His tone was prophetic and patronizing and the book was extremely repetitive. He kept saying things like, “readers who don’t like my writing style are in denial of their human condition and their soul is corrupted.” I made it through 150 pages of 500. I don’t want to read any more of that. He has a teleological argument for this principal called integrative meaning, which from what I can tell, is a lot like intelligent design. He quotes a lot of great thinkers on far-from equilibrium-thermodynamics like Shroedinger, but I am not sure how accurately he represents their work. I have read several of the texts to which he refers, including the Shroedinger one, and I am not convinced of his interpretation.
I just bought a book called “The Moral Animal,” and it is written more to my liking. I hope it gives me more meat to think about.
I am investigating the interfaces between science, technology, and reason and culture including religion, art, and human behavior.
Ah, this thread makes me happy. I’ve finally found something that identifies with my loosely held beliefs without making an ID nut.
At its simplest, teleology is the opposite of etiology. (In English, we still sometimes write aetiology.)
They are both to do with cause and effect.
Aetiology works in the obvious direction: one event causes a second, which causes a third, and so on. In snooker, the cue hits the white ball, the white ball hits the red ball which hits the other red ball, which goes into the pocket. Events happen in a sequence starting from the first event.
Teleology (tele as in “far” as in "telescope, television, etc.) is also to do with cause and effect, but “in reverse”. Events happen in a sequence which leads towards the final outcome. The player wants to get the red ball into the pocket so he hits the white ball in a certain way.
Cause and effect are more complicated than you might think. In fact, the more you think about it, the less obvious they are. However, at the simplest, we’re still able to use the image of “snooker balls”.
In one sense, cause and effect is simply a way of connecting events in time.
It is to do with prediction. If event X happens, I can predict it will be followed by event Y. If we fully understand the mechanism, and define our terms sufficiently accurately, we can argue backwards (event Y has happened, so I predict that we will find an event X slightly earlier in the time line.) In this sense, aetiology and teleology are simply two ways of looking at the same thing.
The cyclist is riding fast because the dog is chasing him. The dog is chasing the cyclist because he is riding fast. Which is cause, which is effect?
Scientists, the police and archaeologists often work backwards with cause and effect and predictions. I have found this piece of wall here, so I predict that if I dig just there, I will find the gatehouse. I have found this faint footprint here, so I predict I will find a more obvious one nearer to the soft soil. And so on.
The difficult thing about teleology, is that the idea of a “final cause” (rather than an “initial cause” very quickly mutates into a “purpose”.
A cause is emotionally neutral. “X causes Y” is a simple scientific statement which can be verified or falsified.
A purpose is more contentious. “X causes Y for the following purpose…” now that starts to drift into religious or metaphysical territory.
I suppose you could say, “Intelligent design is aetiology” in the sense that things are like they are because of the “cause” that God made them like that: She had a plan.
I suppose you could say, “Intelligent design is teleology” in the sense that God made things like they are for a reason: She had a purpose.
Every plan has a purpose. Not every purpose has a plan.
Think about red shift/blue shift. Which way does the colour of a star change with speed? It depends whether you are looking at it from in front or behind. Aetiology and teleology are linked in a similar way.
“If you don’t believe me, then you are not only wrong, but also a corrupt idiot.” “Oooh, I don’t want to be a corriupt idiot, so I’d better believe him.”
Read “Straight and Crooked Thinking” by Robert H Thouless for more such gems of dishonest argument. It truly is an excellent book.
Mikefule, you should be a philosophy professor.