We all know—don’t we?—that modern physics
is inconsistent with teleology, at least with real teleology, as opposed to the substitute version that so many
of us have tried to fashion for use in “teleosemantics.” But what is it,
exactly, that modern physics bans? What form would a teleological theory take?
When pressed, most of us would be hard pressed to come up with an answer. (Do
pause and think about it, Dear Reader. I can almost guarantee that if you are
not familiar with the material I am about to discuss, you’ll get it wrong. I
certainly did, and I am supposed to be an expert! Ha!)
This is the target of a brilliant 2006 analysis, “What Would
Teleological Causation Be?” by John Hawthorne (Oxford) and Daniel Nolan (ANU). I’ll
summarize the paper here, and reflect some more on it in a follow-up post.
(The paper was published in Hawthorne’s 2009 Essays in Metaphysics. I only heard of it recently, when it was cited by Tom Nagel in his recent book and mentioned in Eric’s
insightful post on the Principle of Sufficient Reason.)
It is often said that teleology is
impossible because it involves backward causation—Aristotle says that the acorn
sprouts “for the sake of” the mature oak, but (so the criticism goes) this
cannot be a causal relation because the mature oak cannot make the acorn
sprout. (Spinoza: "That which is really a cause, it considers an effect.") H&N demur. Teleology and backwards causation are different things,
they show. (This, by itself, is one of the surprising and most valuable parts
of the analysis.)
Suppose we observe the following strange
occurrence, which I’ll call BAM. . .
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