Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The study of design or purpose in natural phenomena.
- n. The use of ultimate purpose or design as a means of explaining phenomena.
- n. Belief in or the perception of purposeful development toward an end, as in nature or history.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The doctrine of final causes; the theory of tendency to an end.
Wiktionary
- n. The study of the purpose or design of natural occurrences.
- n. An instance of such a design or purpose, usually in natural phenomena.
- n. The use of a non-natural purpose or design to explain an occurrence.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The doctrine of the final causes of things. the doctrine of design, which assumes that the phenomena of organic life, particularly those of evolution, are explicable only by purposive causes, and that they in no way admit of a mechanical explanation or one based entirely on biological science; the doctrine of adaptation to purpose.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (philosophy) a doctrine explaining phenomena by their ends or purposes
Etymologies
- Greek teleios, teleos, perfect, complete (from telos, end, result; see kwel-1 in Indo-European roots) + -logy.
Examples
“Intelligence, this is a question altogether foreign to any argument from teleology, seeing that teleology, in so far as it is _teleology_, can only rest upon the observed facts of the cosmos; and if these facts admit of being explained by the action of a single causative principle inherent in the cosmos itself, teleology is not free to assume the action of any causative principle of a more ultimate character.”
“By the way, teleology is a word I seldom hear, and this is the first time it's come up in an interview.”
“Perhaps dropping the term teleology helps avoid the confusion witnessed here and it would make it easier to avoid the conflation of terminology used by the ID movement but understanding the history of these arguments is what is important to understand the arguments.”
Francisco Jose Ayala: Darwin's Gift: To Science and Religion - The Panda's Thumb
“If you want to spin that as "we don't know whether teleology is the explanation", I can't really argue with that, but don't pretend that makes teleology "just as likely" as a non-teleological explanation.”
“The moment teleology is discussed, out goes the science – or at least, in comes the contamination with philosophy.”
“What the standard histories of philosophy write about Aristotle's teleology is unfortunately largely wrong, and must be ignored.”
“In other words, how can you explain teleology by dysteleology?”
“To be as clear as possible: teleology is a post hoc inference, not a propter hoc assumption.”
“This means that the inference to teleology is an inference by exclusion.”
“Allen MacNeill: This means that the inference to teleology is an inference by exclusion.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘teleology’.
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-ism's -logies
acosmism, absurdism, absolutism, ableism, aestheticism, alarmism, allotheism, anachronism, animalculism, analogism, animatism, animism and 464 more...
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vocabulous
autarkic, ineluctable, productivist, teleology, imperious, Balkanization, phytosanitary, inedia, algesia, protean, tenebrous, libretto and 10 more...
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Talking About Words
The favorite words of Talking Tyrants
dolorous, parsimonious, apotemnophilia, odalisque, tuberoinfundibular, morass, ostentatious, sybaritic, vermilion, onomatopoeia, eschatology, teleology and 49 more...
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Literary critical terms
cathexis, catachresis, polyvocal, alterity, liminality, liminal, limn, erasure, metonymic, intertextual, intrapoetic, contradistinction and 66 more...
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Words for deinonychus
If you find a word that you want to share with me, this is a good place for it. I will try to look after it.
psychotronics, dolichocephalic, efficacious, scabrous, sympatidig, Ischnoceran, Amblyceran, Rhynchophthiran, Anopluran, Fahrenholz' Rule, Zlotorzycka's Rule, Eichler's Rule and 70 more...
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Worldview Ideology
Summers Ideology Sheet.
teleology, soteriology, sociology, theology, epistemology, axiology, cosmology, anthropology
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random
interesting words I find
andystardust ... to think about the teleology of homosexuality, to answer the question "What are homosexuals for?" in a nonpolitical but vital way.
- Andrew Sullivan, Love Undetectable Jan 3, 2009