Metaphysics: Teleology

 In our account of being, we have discovered that being is fundamentally divided into act and potency, which accounts for how permanence and change, on the one hand, and unity and diversity, on the other, can coexist in being. We focused on the principle of causality (PoC), which states potential being can only be actualized by some being already actual. Further, the PoC grounds how an agent can bring about change or be changed by virtue of its causal powers and potencies respectively. It is one of four explanations that together form a complete metaphysical account of any substance. We will now move on to another of these explanations: teleology.

Teleology studies the ends (telos) of beings by virtue of their causal powers and potencies; in other words, it studies a thing’s effects. If the PoC answers, “what brought X about?”, teleology answers “what is X for”? For example, while rain and sunshine are the causes of an acorn becoming an oak tree, the end or goal of an acorn is to become an oak tree. This is rooted (no pun intended) in what an acorn is, what makes an acorn an acorn - it’s form and matter, the remaining two explanations we will discuss later.

To know something about how a thing is affected is also to know something about what a thing is for. We know that rain and sunshine actualize the potencies of an acorn to grow into an oak instead of an elephant partially because we know the telos of an acorn. This is based on the causal regularity we see between agents and their effects, which of course can be frustrated by interfering factors; in the case of the above example, a squirrel eating the acorn or it being damaged. Nevertheless, a causal regularity exists that explains why one effect is produced over another. Thus, we see causality is not intelligible without teleology. This establishes the principle of finality: every agent acts for an end. In other words, a potency always points beyond itself towards some specific actuality. Without such a principle, we cannot intelligibly explain why X agent causes Y effect instead of Z effect.

From the macro to the micro, our experience of being is full of teleology. The telos of a thing is some potential end waiting to be actualized; it points beyond the already actual being possessing that end. DNA points towards the development of some organism or part of an organism; the act of thinking points towards some thought; the eye points towards sight; the water cycle points towards hydrating the Earth, and so on. Being thus has a natural tendency towards certain ends by virtue of what form it takes. Therefore, substances reach their fullest actuality when they reach their natural ends.

Next in the series: Hylemorphism – Matter and Form