Abstract
Majorie Grene has written about teleological explanation in biology, and I follow her lead. If teleological claims were eliminated from our biological theories, the explanatory power of what is left would be critically reduced. Both the teleology and the explanation in this claim are to be taken seriously. Many important and interesting attempts to save teleology do so only by turning teleology into some kind of efficient causality. Ernest Nagel’s1 classic treatment of functional explanation is a good example. So, too, is Larry Wright’s2 more recent analysis, which claims that an account is teleological in so far as the functional or purposive action is brought about by the fact that the occurrence of that action tends to bring about the specific effect. According to Wright there are no mysterious, unscientific processes involved. The “bringing about” is an ordinary causal process, like most others employed in scientific explanations, a process that can be observed, that can be described, and that can be tested. But from a point of view that takes teleology seriously this very strength in Wright’s analysis should be a weakness. Even though the efficient causation involved is of a very specific kind, teleology in the end is reduced to the operation of efficient causes. The teleology is lost.
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© 1986 D. Reidel Publishing Company
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Cartwright, N. (1986). Two Kinds of Teleological Explanation. In: Donagan, A., Perovich, A.N., Wedin, M.V. (eds) Human Nature and Natural Knowledge. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 89. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5349-9_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5349-9_10
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