Teleology

A topic of great interest to me is teleology. In case you don’t know exactly what it is, that ok…I’m not even sure I understand it exactly…(I guess that’s why it interests me). I will get around to telling my definition of it in a minute. But first, I will tell you about where I was first introduced to it. I was required to take a class in college called the “History and Philosophy of Geography.” You will probably see a lot of stuff on here in the future about that class. It was an interesting class and I really learned a lot (or at least I think I did…some of my professors may read this and think that I really missed a lot of the points). I don’t recall exactly what we were talking about when it came up but I’m pretty sure it was Darwin. Now Charles Darwin gets the name as being the father of the evolutionary theory (that is the whole thing about man coming from apes…). I won’t say that I agree with Darwin on all of his points but it would be ignorant to label him as a fanatic idiot and I think he was a fascinating person. So anyways, back to teleology. Basically, as I understand it, teleology means that everything has a purpose and that all things are not random and do not happen by chance. What fascinates me about this is that this philosophy can be applied to a multitude of situations. In contrast with teleology, is naturalism (or so says wikipedia). In fact, speaking of wikipedia, it has a lot of good information on there about teleology…but some of it is a little deep and too philosophical for me…so I will just stick to the parts that I think I have interpreted. Teleology was apparently a theory/philosophy supported and promoted by Aristotle. I like Aristotle, we agree on a lot of stuff and I particularly agree with his teachings on inductive reasoning (although it can be taken to an extreme as was the case with Alexander the Great…one of Aristotle’s pupils…probably more on this in another post).

I don’t want to spend too much time talking about what teleology means because I want to show where I think it applies today and why I believe it is extremely relevant. So if everything has a purpose and things aren’t random, how does that help explain how we live and what society is…well, the first case we can talk about is morals. Morals basically involve right and wrong…either something is right, or something is wrong (now I know that there is a grey area in there but I don’t want to go there yet). So as humans, we are born and taught with the ideas of things being right or things being wrong (do you agree???). At least this is what I think. So where does this sense of right and wrong come from. If everything is random, is there really a right and wrong. I know that some people disagree with what is right and wrong in certain situations, but most of these situations are based on beliefs that were taught or pressed upon them. But take for instance murder. I don’t think any culture in the world would support the idea of murder as being right. Now, different cultures might define murder differently, but just killing another human being for no apparent reason is never thought of as not being wrong. So what makes humans different??? Do animals kill at will???...I would argue that some do…do they have a conscience about it…probably not. So in this sense, I think that humans are different…this leads me into my next point. In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond talks another book he wrote called Why is Sex Fun? (I quote the book Collapse because I have not read Why is Sex Fun?) Diamond poses very interesting questions such as “why women (unlike females of most other animal species) undergo menopause and lack obvious signs of ovulation, why men have a relatively large penis (by animal standards), and why humans usually have sex in private (rather than in the open, as almost all other animal species do). As I was reading about these things, I couldn’t help but think about teleology and how it relates to humans being “different.” So with these things in mind and also comparing it to evolution by means of natural selection…why are humans so different. Maybe something inside of us just says that some social actions are just not right…and it also raises the question of physiology…why do women’s and men’s body’s form comparatively differently from other animal species (could this mean something to us?)???

As I read more about teleology, I have noticed that it is a philosophy adopted and sometimes even used interchangeable with the idea of “intelligent design.” (and see, I bet you know what that is!!!). I sometimes think that teleology is one of the best reasons to believe that there is an intelligent creator. If there were not, then why do we (now I am talking about Americans)…live under a constitution that guarantees our NATURAL born rights? In my opinion, if you don’t think teleology is a relevant and true philosophy, then you shouldn’t even try to support the Constitution of the United States.

I could go on and on about all of this, but I would rather get some comments and then take it from there…if I don’t stop now, I will just keep rambling on and on and on.

But I would like to illustrate one more thing. The other day, a friend asked me, “do you think two people are MEANT to be together.” I proceeded to go on my spiel about teleology with him…how I thought that nothing was random and that everything happens for a reason (or at least serves a purpose). So this is yet again another application.

If you don’t believe in intelligent design and still hold true to some of these beliefs about people being meant for each other, or say that humans are just another animal with no natural differences (other than physical appearance), then I would just have to say that I think you are wrong. After all, the constitution gives me freedom to disagree with you…