I know “What is teleology” has been asked, but I really need an example so I can understand. Honestly, some of the answers on the other posts are still too complicated for me… so maybe explain like I’m a really dumb 5-year-old?
In: 11
Teleology (literally “the explanation of goals”) is essentially the philosophy of figuring out the “why” questions, and discovering the root cause of something.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle broke down all teleological questions into four categories:
* **Material causes:** This deals with the substance of something that exists in the physical world. *Why does that table exist? Because it’s made of wood.*
* **Formal causes:** This deals with the abstract concept or essence of something. *Why does that table exist? Because a designer planned how it would look.*
* **Efficient/Agent causes:** This deals with the chain of events that lead to something’s physical existence. *Why does that table exist? Because a carpenter built it.*
* **Final cause:** This deals with all the heavy stuff about purpose and meaning. *Why does that table exist? Because someone needed somewhere to eat their dinner.*
Over time, teleology became increasingly associated with theology. This is best exemplified in Thomas Aquinas’s five proofs for God’s existence, especially numbers 2 and 5:
* Proof #2, or the argument of the first cause, says that everything has a preceding cause. But everything is finite in existence. Therefore, there is either an infinite precession of finite causes (not possible), or there was a first cause of everything that was not bound by finitude.
* Proof #5, or the argument of the final cause, says that there are a lot of things in this universe, even things that don’t have any life or sapience, following clearly defined natural paths and cycles. Clearly, *something* must have set all these things to follow these paths.
Latest Answers