The Analysis of Aristotelian Teleology. defense of the commitments generated by the view.

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1 Chapter 4. The Analysis of Aristotelian Teleology The topics of the previous chapter included the scope of and the epistemological grounds for Aristotle's natural teleology. I argued that the scope of Aristotle's commitment to teleology is no broader than living beings 1 and that Aristotle's epistemological grounds for appealing to teleology in nature were moderate, appealing and powerful. Aristotle's commitment to teleology is grounded in his commitment to preserving the data of common sense and science in finished accounts of the structure of the world 2 within the context of a sustained critical defense of the commitments generated by the view. This chapter focuses on the question of the ontological status of the final cause. Are we to give an ontologically eliminitivist, reductivist, or nonreductivist account of Aristotle's commitment to teleology in nature? Each of these interpretations has been forwarded in the philosophical literature, although I hope to show in this chapter that focused attention on the question of ontic status (i.e., separating the ontic task out from elucidating epistemological grounds and scope issues) makes one answer compelling: Aristotle is committed to the final cause's being a sui generis irreducible form of real causal factor in the world. Accounts of the ontological status of the final cause are currently too intertwined with questions of scope and justification for this point to be perspicuous. Once ontic issues take the foreground as they do in this chapter, however, the philosophical and textual poverty of alternative interpretations becomes clear. If I am correct that Aristotle conceives of the final cause as a sui generis sort of causal factor, then serious problems for the thesis of this dissertation arise. My thesis is that an 1 In chapter seven I argue for two stronger claims: first, that life and teleology are coextensive in Aristotle, and second, that Aristotle defines life teleologically. 1

2 Aristotelian analysis of life in terms of teleology constitutes a viable contemporary account of the nature of life. While teleology is currently undergoing a rehabilitation in the modern literature on the philosophy of biology, 3 this resurgence of confidence in the scientific credentials of realist approaches to teleology leaves behind accounts of teleology that are not grounded in the reductionistic approaches currently in favor. 4 In the next chapter I critically survey contemporary reductive accounts of teleology as a first step toward evaluating Aristotle's commitments. Chapter six completes our foundational work on teleology by arguing for a physical ontology that is scientifically acceptable and in which Aristotelian teleology finds a natural home. Chapter seven returns to Aristotle's account of life, deepening our understanding of life's teleological nature and providing the provisional account with rich textual support Ontological issues in contemporary scholarship. Given the current state of the secondary literature on Aristotle's teleology it is imperative that we clearly distinguish ontological, epistemological and scope issues concerning Aristotle's teleology. Modern worries about teleology pervade the secondary literature on teleology, 5 and the desire to find a philosophically defensible conception of teleology in Aristotle appears to 2 See Joseph Owens (1968, 163) and David Balme (1992, 93, commentary on 641b10-642a1). See also chapter three of this dissertation. 3 See especially Allen, Bekoff and Lauder (1998), Buller (1999a), and Nissen (1997). 4 Part of the intent of Buller's recent anthology on biological teleology is to chart the "near-consensus... [concerning] certain fundamental commitments" which has emerged in the literature on biological teleology (Buller 1999b, 1). This consensus centers around agreement "that the biological concept of function is to be analyzed in terms of the theory of evolution by natural selection", and "represents as great a consensus as has been achieved in philosophy" ( and Allen and Bekoff1995; 1995, who label this view 'the standard line'; 20, cf.26; see also Godfrey-Smith 1993). The view that I attribute to Aristotle, unlike the interpretations favored by Furley (1996), Irwin (1988), Lewis (1988), Balme (1987), Matthen (1989) or Bradie and Miller (1984; see also Miller 1995), goes against this biological and philosophical consensus. All of the previously mentioned commentators on Aristotle gesture in the direction of modern accounts (different ones, mind you) for which they claim to find a precursor in Aristotle; none looks with a critical eye at any of the various competing accounts on offer, however. Gotthelf's (1988) gesture towards literature criticizing Woodfield's (1976) analysis is the near exception that proves this rule. 5 For general statements of modern concerns about teleology, see especially Woodfield (1976, 3) and Mayr (1988, 40). The invocation of these problems as posing unavoidable interpretive challenges to understanding Aristotle on teleology displays itself clearly in Gotthelf's formulation of the problem in 2

3 drive many commentators to find links between Aristotle's uses of teleology and modern reductive analyses. The issue of the interpretive and philosophical adequacy of these accounts of the ontic status of Aristotle's commitment to final causality, however, is obscured by the entanglement of such discussions of ontic status with elucidations of epistemic grounds for accepting teleology and questions concerning the scope of Aristotelian teleology. My goal in this chapter is to disentangle these threads, focus solely on the question of the ontic status of the final cause (is it eliminable, reducible, or a sui generis kind of causal factor in the world?), and to argue for the view that Aristotle is committed to sui generis teleology independently of any qualms we may feel towards such a position. The fact that epistemological, ontological and scope issues are insufficiently distinguished in the literature is readily apparent in Gotthelf's taxonomy (1997) of the relevant contemporary secondary literature. Gotthelf determines to distinguish between different accounts of Aristotle's teleology on the basis of interpreters' distinct answers to the question, "What fact or facts grounds or licenses Aristotle's use of teleological explanation?" (74). But this question is ambiguous between epistemological and ontological readings. On an epistemological reading, the question asks what reasons Aristotle offered for accepting a commitment to final causality. On an ontological reading, the question asks about the ontic status of the final cause: a reductive account will seek to ground Aristotle's apparent commitment to sui generis final causality in his (more acceptable) commitment to material, efficient, or formal causes. Eliminitivist views claim there is no ontic ground, but claim that teleology has an important pragmatic or heuristic role in our theories nonetheless. Nonreductive accounts ground Aristotle's final causality in the existence of a sui generis real causal factor in the world. Gotthelf uses both of these questions (without distinguishing them) to classify interpretations of Aristotle's teleology. Thus, Gotthelf distinguishes a group of ontologically terms of the problem of 'biological reducibility' (1976/ 1987, pp ). See also M. Bradie and F. Miller (1984, 133), Balme (1987), Wieland (1962, 141), Matthen (1989, 159), and Furley (1996, 59). 3

4 eliminitivist accounts from realist accounts, employing a clearly ontological criterion. But Gotthelf distinguishes another group according to the authors' shared rejection of the thesis that one of Aristotle's (epistemic) reasons for accepting natural teleology was the unavailability of complete material causal explanations for natural phenomena. David Charles' account of teleology satisfies this epistemological criterion, but his account is not included in the grouping; his account instead merits its own category on the basis of his unique answer to the question of ontic status. While John Cooper does not share Charles' view on the ontological question, his view receives a mention with Charles' on the basis of the fact that Cooper believes that some of the considerations Charles raises constitute Aristotle's epistemic grounds for accepting teleology. Mohan Matten's answer to the ontic question is identical to that of Balme, Bradie and Miller, but Matthen is placed in a different category because of his distinct answer to the question of Aristotle's reasons for postulating final causes. Gotthelf's taxonomy is far from apt, but my point in making these cross classifications explicit is not specifically to criticize Gotthelf's taxonomy. His taxonomy in fact accurately reflects the way in which ontological and epistemological questions concerning Aristotle's commitment to teleology have been approached in the literature. If we are to give a satisfactory account of the ontic status of the final cause in Aristotle, we need to separate out the epistemological and scope issues along with modern concerns about the acceptability of Aristotle's final answer and simply confront Aristotle's view. I argue in what follows that such focused attention yields a clear answer: Aristotle's notion of the final cause is the notion of an irreducibly distinct sui generis real causal factor in the structure of the world. Justifying the acceptance of teleology is another task, as is assessing the contemporary merits or demerits of Aristotle's answer to the question of its ontic status Eliminitivism, reductionism, or irreducibility? Answers to the question of ontic status may be either eliminitivist or realist. Among realists, one may be a realist of a reductive or nonreductive sort. Among reductive realists, it is 4

5 possible to hold that commitment to final causality in Aristotle reduces to commitment to the mental or to material, formal or efficient causality. 6 Reductions to each of these types of cause may take a number of forms; as it happens each of the main types of reductive interpretations has at least one contemporary proponent, and there exist two distinct types of accounts which reduce Aristotle's commitment to teleology to the material cause. In what follows I survey and critically assess the extant accounts of the ontic basis of Aristotle's commitment to final causality Eliminitivist accounts. Contemporary attention to the ontological question concerning Aristotle's final cause has been least entangled with extraneous issues as it has focused on the distinction between realist and eliminitivist interpretations of Aristotle's teleology. Not surprisingly, scholarship has also been most decisive and convincing in precisely this area. 7 A number of commentators 8 have proposed that Aristotle thought there to be no ontological ground for the final cause. According to such views there is nothing in nature corresponding to Aristotle's notion of a final cause; commentators incorrectly reify Aristotle's talk about final causes on the basis of shallow linguistic evidence. Such a view appears to run afoul of Aristotle's consistent use of final causality in explanatory contexts, but the position holds that Aristotle's use is justified on heuristic or pragmatic grounds compatible with the claim that there is nothing in nature corresponding to a final cause. As I mentioned at the outset, the distinction between realist and eliminitivist accounts of Aristotle's teleology has received the most focused attention in the scholarly literature, and I endorse what appears to be the consensus view that the eliminitivist view radically distorts 6 Or, I suppose, some combination of these. I know of no one who offers such a view. 7 With one possible exception; the case against a mentalistic reduction of teleology in Aristotle is so overwhelming that it is also widely accepted. See below. 5

6 Aristotle's position. 9 In brief, we may note that Aristotle consistently conceives of causes as real things or events in the world, and there is no principled reason to suppose that he abandons that view with regard to teleological causation. The view that Aristotle held causal factors of some (or all) sort(s) to be mere explanatory devises appears to be grounded in contemporary fears that more realistic interpretations of the final cause in Aristotle must run afoul of sensible constraints on adequate scientific explanations. Whether or not this was indeed the main motive for the view, commentators on Aristotle have of late and in my view rightly turned their attention to accounts of Aristotle's teleology that find some basis in reality for the final cause. I turn now to such accounts Realist accounts 1: reductive accounts. An intuitive conception of reduction is all that is necessary for understanding the sense in which the accounts to follow are reductive. 10 Our interest is in metaphysical or ontological claims concerning reduction rather than linguistic or explanatory reductions. The core claim of an ontological reduction is the claim that our apparent ontic commitment to entities of type F in certain modes of expression really commits us to no more than the ontology of other more ontically perspicuous modes of expression G. 11 Thus, a reductive physicalist claims that mentalistic expressions such as 'I believe in Santa' or 'I see an orange after-image' which might seem, prima facie, to commit one to a sui generis mentalistic ontology of beliefs and after-images in fact express no ontic commitment to anything beyond purely physical entities and properties (or predicates). Idealists believe that expressions such as 'There is a table here now' when properly 8 This view was argued by Wieland (1962), Nussbaum (1978), and Sorabji (1980). Nussbaum has since abandoned the view; see Nussbaum (1980). 9 For detailed arguments, see for instance Gotthelf (1980), Nussbaum (1980), and Balme (1987). 10 For a formal treatment of reduction, see the appendix to chapter six. 11 Thus, Paul Teller (1995) says that reduction is "the replacement of one expression by a second expression that differs from the first in prima facie reference" (679). For further preanalytic characterizations of ontological reductionism, see Kim (1999, 15) and Klee (1997, 83). 6

7 understood express no commitment to the existence of physical things such as tables, but in fact reveal commitment only to ideas. Let us define a generic notion of reducibility as follows. Supposing that expressions of type E1 commit one, prima facie, to entities of type F, where F things seem prima facie to be distinct in kind from entities of type G, then: Generic reduction (roughly): F properties, relations and entities are reduced to G properties, relations and entities iff, for each entity F there are properties or entities G 1...G n such that x's being F just is x's having G 1...G n in relation R; or, x's being F is nothing ontologically over and above x's having G 1...G n in relation R; or, being F need not figure as an independent existent in a complete ontological inventory of the world. This generic notion of reduction admits of a plurality of understandings depending on how one understands what it is for one thing to 'just be' or 'be nothing over and above' another. These distinct understandings form distinctive conceptions of reduction. We need not pursue these more specific forms of reduction in great depth here; 12 the intuitive notion explained above suffices to understand and evaluate the reductive credentials of the views which follow. Our questions are twofold: is there a viable Aristotelian reduction of final causality to some other (hopefully more philosophically acceptable) form of causality? And, did Aristotle himself actually conceive of final causality along any of the reductivist lines? Reductions to the mental. Although the view is currently and in my view correctly out of favor, some commentators 13 have taken Aristotle's notion of teleology to be mentalistic. On a mentalistic conception of teleology, all end-directedness depends for its existence on the mental properties specifically the beliefs and desires of some agent. It is my use (or the designer's intention) 14 that gives my coffee cup its function. In contrast, I have goals that derive not from 12 Again, for greater detail, see the appendix to chapter six. 13 See the citations on the demiurgic view of teleology in Kahn (1985). For a contemporary advocate of a mentalistic conception of teleology, see Nissen (1997). 14 The issue is more complicated than this. See chapter five for the details; they ought not obtrude here. 7

8 an external agent but primitively from my being an agent. On the mentalistic view, all nonagentive teleology (i.e., in particular biological teleology, the functions and purposes of plants or organs) is understood on the model of the account of the function of my coffee cup. All nonagentive teleology depends on or is derivative upon the ends, purposes, or designs of agents. Despite some potentially misleading linguistic cues in Aristotle's corpus, there is strong theoretical reason to reject a mentalistic reduction of Aristotle's final cause. 15 The reason is, quite simply, that in Aristotle's world there is no mind on which all the directedness can depend. Aristotle accepts that plants have goals but do not themselves have minds and Aristotle's god is too impersonal to provide the mind a mentalistic reductionist would need. There seems simply no way to reconcile Aristotle's views on final causation with his theoretical commitments in theology and biology Reductions to the formal cause. Cooper (1982; 1987) 16 argues that Aristotle's "belief in the goal-directedness of nature derives from" his belief that living things have both formal and material natures (198). According to Cooper, formal and material explanations are "both of them basic to the understanding of natural phenomena generally, and equally so they cannot be dispensed with in favour of anything more basic than they, nor can either be discarded in favour of the other" (199). Formal and material causes form the bedrock level of ontic structure in Aristotle's system. Cooper goes on to explain how the other two types of causes in Aristotle's system, the final and efficient cause, fit in. The form of a living thing is its mature form; but "its mature natural condition, is a good for it, [so] reference to the form here is reference also to the goal of the process of growth by relation to which, therefore, it is to be understood" (200). Invoking the 15 Such an account would be reductionistic in this sense: it would account for prima facie nonmentalistic teleology (i.e., biological teleology) in other, independent terms i.e., mentalistic terms. Contrary to appearance, then, nonmentalistic teleology would turn out to be something else mentalistic teleology. 16 My account will refer solely to Cooper (1982) since the later article recapitulates the earlier (see Cooper 1987, 243n*). 8

9 mature form in an explanation of a seedling's growth or structure is "at the same time to invoke a goal" (200). 17 The efficient cause, Cooper claims, sometimes plays a formal role in Aristotle's work and sometimes plays a material role. On this account we have two basic types of causes in the world: formal and material. As Cooper says, "There are then two distinct and independent levels of facts and correspondingly two levels of principles that Aristotle holds are responsible for what happens in the course of nature" (202). Corresponding to these types of causal factors, we have two types of explanation, formal and material, which explain by reflecting or exhibiting the causal structure of the world. Final causal explanations are formal explanations, 18 and sometimes efficient causal explanations play a formal role (indicate formal causal relations in the world) while at other times they play a material role (indicate material causal relations in the world). Is this 'derivation' of the final cause from commitment to the formal cause apt? Is it Aristotle's? In fact, the reduction is philosophically suspect. That an organism's form or mature state is a good does not entail that that creature's growth is teleologically directed towards the attainment of that good, for the goodness of the goal may be an accidental concomitant of a causal process that independently results in that form. 19 Insofar as we understand the process in terms of formal causality, moreover, the immature organism's potential for form, which explains its growth into a mature state, need not be teleologically directed towards that end but may only be definitionally posterior to that end the potential is the potential it is in virtue of being the potential (nonteleologically) for that form Cooper cites Aristotle's identification of the formal and final causes at Phys. ii.7 198a25-6; DA ii.4 415b10-12; GA i.1 715a4-6 and 8-9. See also Phys. ii.8 199a30-33 and GC ii.9 335b6. 18 See the citations above in n See the statement of Empedocles' view in Physics ii.8 and the account I offered of Aristotle's surrounding argument in chapter three. 20 See DA ii.4 415a16-21, NE ix a15-19, Met. ix b4-16. For more on this point, see my discussion of Gotthelf's reduction of the final cause to a sort of (higher level) material cause, below. 9

10 I of course grant that Aristotle does in fact understand the process of an organism's growth to maturity as teleologically directed; the point here is the narrow one that the processes' being teleologically directed is not nothing 'over and above' its being formally caused by the mature state. Cooper's invocation of a correlation between the teleological goal and the form does not support the claim that the final cause is understood in terms of commitment to a more basic form of causal tie (i.e., the formal); it indicates no more than their coextensiveness in normal cases. The formal causation of the growth of an organism is compatible with the absence of final causal influence; formal causation is therefore not sufficient for teleological causation. But if it is not sufficient for it, then teleological causation is something 'over and above' formal causation and cannot be accounted for in purely formal causal terms. That this account of the ontic basis for the final cause is inadequate becomes clear when Cooper comes to what he calls the "crucial point" for understanding the positing of formal (and final) explanations. According to Cooper, the living things in question are so structured that each one's organs and other parts work together to make it possible for it to achieve to a rather high degree its own specific good, the full and active life characteristic of its kind, including the leaving of offspring behind; the actual plant and animal life that is preserved is all of it good... [Further,] because the regular outcome of each such process is something good, one is also entitled to interpret the process itself as directed at that outcome as its goal. If it is a fundamental fact about the world, not derivable from other natural principles, that it maintains forever these good life-forms, then the processes by which it does so, being processes by which something good is achieved, are for the sake of the outcomes. (213, emphasis added) I have here underlined where Cooper's 'derivation' or reduction of the final cause to the formal derails. The problem is that in the crucial passage above (and in a number of other places, see pp. 200, 205, 207, and 208) Cooper reasons invalidly. The mere fact that a good is forever associated with a process is no indication that the process occurs for the sake of the good. We may illustrate the point by modifying one of Cooper's own examples (see 208n7). The two-coins case: Suppose one tosses a fair coin to determine whether all one's future coin tosses will employ a fair or biased coin. Tails lands up, and so as a result of a chance happening not teleologically directed towards an infinitely long winning streak, just such a streak occurs. 10

11 Just as we may not infer from the fact that a person regularly benefits from the untrue coin that the process occurs because it benefits that person, so we may not infer from the eternal existence of active lives characteristic of living kinds (which also happen to be good) that the parts which make that eternal fact possible happen because the result is good: perhaps it was the result of a cosmic lottery as the Empedoclean objector seems to suggest in Physics ii.8. There are in fact hints in Cooper's article which suggest that, perhaps, he takes the final cause to be a primitive ontological causal factor alongside and related to the formal cause. In discussing the goals, Cooper makes clear that goals are good things made possible by other things, "where this other thing exists or happens (at least in part) because of that good" (197). Perhaps we are to understand by this and similar claims a commitment to a sui generis sort of causal factor which acts qua good, and are to understand the talk of 'derivation' epistemically as part of Aristotle's reason for believing in the existence of final causes. Which interpretation of Cooper is the right one is unimportant to the task of this chapter; if Cooper intended an ontologically reductivist account then he has failed, for he has failed to show how the formal cause can account for a cause's being a cause qua good. If his account is meant merely to make clear Aristotle's reasons for accepting final causes, and he interprets Aristotle as committed to the existence of a sui generis sort of causal factor in the final cause, then I am happy to accept his account as allied with the thesis of this chapter. Either way, however, it is clear that Cooper's mixed discussion of the ontological status of and epistemic grounds for the final cause obscures the philosophical and interpretive significance of his position. Aristotle's final cause is not ontically grounded in the formal cause; whether or not Cooper thinks it to be is neither here nor there Reductions to the efficient cause. Furley (1996), Irwin (1988) and (perhaps) Matthen (1989) take Aristotle's commitment to final causality to be understood reductively in terms of his commitment to a special sort or 11

12 aspect of efficient causality. 21 As Furley says, "we can understand the material, formal, and final causes as being different aspects of the efficient cause, or perhaps different kinds of efficient cause" (62). 22 Efficient causality is ontologically basic; final, material and formal causes are aspects or kinds of efficient causality. The reductive account itself is expressed most completely when Furley completes Aristotle's unexpressed thoughts with the following: The words I am offering him [Aristotle] are something like the following. This kind of animal has such-and-such a manner of life: it is defined by having the capacity for living this kind of life... Now this kind of physical part is necessary, or good, or at least better than anything else, for leading this kind of life. Hence the possession of this part enables its possessor to survive and reproduce. Through the process of heredity... each of its (normal) offspring... is equipped with this part. The cause of this individual's possession of this part, then, is the fact that this part is good for this kind of animal and therefore was a part of the form inherited from the parent. (73) 23 The idea although Aristotle never brings himself to express it is supposed to be that an aspect of the efficient causality of a part or process grounds the final causal explanation for the presence of the thing or process (see pp. 71 and 77). The relevant aspect of the efficient causality is the benefit the organ's doing F has for the organism; it is the benefit provided by doing F which explains why the organ is present in organisms of later generations. The thing or 21 In favor of reading Matthen along these lines, he says, "Powers are efficient causes in Aristotle's scheme of things. Final causes are not additional influences over and above powers, but are built right into the specification of powers" (161). Against this view, see below at n. 33. I will largely ignore this reading of Matthen in this section, but my comments on Irwin and Furley will apply to Matthen should anyone wish to press the case. Gotthelf includes Sauvé Meyer in this group in his taxonomy; I do not because I do not believe she actually takes a stand on the ontological issue in her paper (see especially 1992, pp ). 22 This same thesis is expressed by Irwin: "To mention the formal, material, final and efficient causes of the statue is not really to maintain four distinct causes of the same thing. When the effect is specified more clearly, reference to the first three causes turns out to be attribution of formal, final, and material properties to the efficient cause" (1988, 96). Note, however, that Irwin too makes clear that "This is a restatement, rather than a statement, of Aristotle's doctrine" (96). Taking this to be even a restatement of Aristotle's doctrines rests, I believe, on highly questionable philosophical assumptions and has a very thin textual basis. It should not pass without comment that the reductivist theses proposed by these authors are extremely ambitious both philosophically and interpretively; we ought to expect them to meet high standards of proof if we are to accept any such 'restatement' of Aristotle's main theses given Aristotle's consistent use of the four causes as four separate causal factors (see on this point Balme 1987, 281, quoted below). 23 Those familiar with Wright's analysis of functions (1973; 1976) and the literature which has grown up around it (see especially the collection of papers in Buller 1999a) will find Furley's account here very familiar. Irwin (1988, pp. 107, 523-4n.22) endorses an almost identical view. 12

13 process is present in this instance because of the benefit it brings to things of that kind; it is the part's being good for leading a kind of life that enables its possessors to survive, reproduce, and pass the part (and benefit) along. This account of the ontic basis of Aristotle's final cause cannot succeed. First, Furley gives no reason to believe that Aristotle himself conceived of the final cause as an 'aspect' or 'kind' of efficient cause. We might suppose that the fact that two interpreters arrived at the same interpretation of Aristotle is itself evidence that there is some basis in Aristotle's text for the account. Unfortunately, however, it is clear where commentators get the idea for interpreting Aristotle along roughly these lines; there exists a popular modern reductive analysis of final causality which is strikingly similar. 24 Both accounts derive from a modern analysis of biological function, and this explains their similarity; neither interpreter suggests convincing reason to believe that Aristotle conceived of biological functions along the lines suggested by this analysis however. 25 Since Aristotle discusses biological functions, we may (of course) read this reductive contemporary account of final causality back into a great many of the things Aristotle says, but finding Aristotle himself explaining or even indicating this grounding for the final cause is another matter altogether. This problem has a second aspect: this account of teleology cannot account for all of the uses Aristotle makes of the final cause in his work. The modern account from which this interpretation derives is designed to account for biological functions, which belong primarily to 24 After giving a description of the efficient causal explanation of final causality that is very similar to Furley's, Irwin (1988, 523-4n22) cites Wright's analysis of biological function (presented in his 1973; and 1976). Furley himself only claims that 'evolutionary biologists' give this sort of reading of biological function; this is true of course, and the philosophical basis for the contemporary evolutionary account of functions derives from Wright's work (see Furley 1996, 67-8). For more on Wright's analysis of biological functions and the burgeoning field of reductive analyses of biological functions, see chapter five of this dissertation. 25 Irwin comes closest on this matter. He appears to suggest that Aristotle's commitment to this sort of account of final causality can be seen in Physics ii.8. I do not believe that his account of Physics ii.8 can be correct, however, for it rests on attributing to Aristotle's opposition the highly implausible thesis that in each generation of animals and plants it is a matter of random chance what parts they are born with. 13

14 organs. While Aristotle does believe that organs do have functions, he also believes that organisms have other ends and goals, and these ends and goals are not explicable in the terms of this reductive analysis. Thus, on Aristotle's view reproduction itself is one of the goals of the living thing (see Pol. i a28-30, DA ii.4 416b23-5, GA ii a25-b7, HA viii.1 588b25-6), but reproduction cannot be given an account along the lines indicated above. 26 On Aristotle's view, organisms have goals of individual flourishing (Phys. ii.2 194a28-33, ii.3 195a23-5, ii.7 198b8-9; Pol. i b34-5; EE i b9-11, ii a9-11; Met. i.3 983a31-2), but again, this goal cannot be accounted for along the lines of the analysis indicated. 27 The problem here is simply that the supposed reductive analysis of teleology is not broad enough to cover the range of cases of teleological directedness that Aristotle recognizes. Further, Aristotle does not draw distinctions between types of teleology such that Furley and Irwin could claim only to capture some restricted range of Aristotle's uses. Aristotle himself does not recognize such a restricted range; his use across cases is consistent and uniform. The reduction to efficient causality cannot, then, be Aristotle's view of final causality because it is too narrow. This last point focuses our attention on the fact that the account of teleology offered is really an account of biological functions (as its modern models are) and as such cannot provide an account of Aristotle's other uses of teleology. But once we see that the account is really an account of biological function, it becomes apparent that it fails to render an adequate account even of that notion. Recall that on the account, an aspect of an organ's efficient causal action its producing benefit to the organism is supposed to warrant the teleological explanation in Other problems are apparent; see chapter three for my account of Physics ii.8 and further criticisms of Irwin's view. 26 Such an account would go along these lines: reproduction exists because it was necessary or good or better than anything else for enabling things which possessed it to survive and reproduce. This is no explanation at all. 27 Aristotle recognizes still further types of goals or ends for organisms that cannot be accounted for along the lines of the analysis. Thus, he recognizes goals of self-maintenance (PN 479a28-9, DA ii.4 416b17-18) and growth into a mature state (GA ii.3 736b4-5; see further citations in chapter seven). Chapter seven of this dissertation surveys the range of uses to which Aristotle puts his teleological notions. 14

15 addition to the standard efficient causal explanation of the part's behavior and existence. Because the part benefits its possessor it gets passed on down the generations, and in later generations we come to recognize the function of the part to be the benefit it produces for organisms which possess it. We may formalize the account as follows. The function of a part, x, of an organism, O, is to F just in case (a) x does F; (b) doing F is good for Os; and (c) as a result, O passes x and its ability to do F on to its offspring. This is not an adequate notion of functions in Aristotle or in fact, for it fails to provide a necessary condition for being a function, and further, the account either fails to provide a reductive analysis or fails to generate a real causal role for the teleological aspect of the efficient causality of the events and processes. The analysis fails to provide a necessary condition for possessing functions because spontaneously generated things may have functions. 28 Indeed, Aristotle himself happens to accept all of the following propositions: there exist beings which are spontaneously generated; such organisms cannot reproduce after their kind (GA i.1 715a23-5, b4-15); and such organisms have parts with functions (see HA iv.7 532a5, a11; PA ii.8 653b38-654a2, iv.5 678b11-14, 679b35-6, iv.7 683b10-11). It cannot be a necessary condition for the existence of functions, then, either in Aristotle's view or in fact, 29 that the organisms which have parts with functions gain those functions through ancestral efficient causality. Further, the definition either fails to live up to its billing of showing the final cause to be an aspect or kind of efficient causality or else the definition fails to provide any role to the teleological aspect of its analysans. Condition (b) of the analysis that x's Fing be good for some O is meant to show how goodness enters into the efficient causation of the event, thus 28 This problem arises for the most popular contemporary reductive account of functions. See chapter five for details. 29 It cannot be correct in fact because spontaneous generation is possible even if it does not actually happen. Given that it is possible that there exist beings which do not derive the functions of their organs from the efficient causal story leading up to their appearance, the account does not provide a necessary condition. 15

16 explaining the role of teleology in explaining 30 the presence of the organs (i.e., xs are present because they do good). But just how does the goodness contribute to the causal story? Either the goodness provides a sui generis causal contribution to the event, or else the goodness appears to be an epiphenomenal rider which does no work. In the former case, the teleological aspect of the causation appears to play a sui generis role in the causation of the event, and it is difficult to see how this can be considered a mere 'aspect' or 'kind' of standard efficient causality. In the latter case the teleological aspect of the causation appears epiphenomenal, all the causing is efficient and done in clause (a) of the analysans. 31 This point may be made in another way by noting that the 'as a result' clause in (c) is ambiguous. Either the perpetuation happens as a result of x's doing F, in which case we have a standard efficient causal story but no causal role for the good (a good is correlated with the causation of the process, but not itself involved), 32 or the perpetuation happens as a result of doing F's being good for O, in which case its being good provides a sui generis sort of contribution to the course of events. Either way the account fails: it fails to provide a causal role for the good or it fails to make teleology an aspect or kind of efficient causality. Given these problems with the proposed reductive account, it is remarkable that neither of its proponents has provided a more thorough exegesis and defense of the position. The fact that so little is said in defense of these accounts is, I believe, a further symptom of the traditional 30 We must keep in mind that insofar as we are realists about teleology and not eliminitivists, these explanations must explain in virtue of capturing some specifically teleological feature of the causation of the event. Irwin and Furley are not offering accounts merely of teleological explanation, but of teleological causation. See further n. 31 below. 31 It is crucial to keep in mind that we are here dealing with realist rather than eliminitivist accounts of teleology. The realist must find a causal role in the world for teleology. Eliminitivists might be happy to accept the argument I make in the text and accept that there is no causal role for the good to play in the course of events. Of course there isn't, the eliminitivist would say, there is after all no ontic ground for teleological explanations. Nevertheless, she might continue, the analysis presented here provides a good explanation for why we find it useful and natural to explain things teleologically the good is, after all, tightly correlated with the causal processes generating the organs. This eliminitivist response is not open to those, like Furley and Irwin, who accept that Aristotle's account is broadly realistic. 32 See again the point made in n

17 intertwining of questions concerning distinct sorts of 'bases' epistemological and ontological for Aristotle's final causality. When the ontological thread of these accounts is focused upon, very little of substance remains; the proposed reduction to efficient causality is both textually and philosophically problematic Reductions to the material cause 1: the program view. A number of interpreters (Balme 1987; Bradie and Miller 1984; Matthen 1989; Miller 1995) find a reductive ground for selected portions of Aristotle's use of final causality in a very specific sort of material cause. The feature of these views which I wish to emphasize 33 involves the idea that at least some portion of Aristotle's use of teleology is grounded in his acceptance of the existence in biological organisms of a highly structured low level 34 material potentiality that, like a molecular 'program' or DNA molecule, controls organic growth and development. 35 Each account distinguishes this use of final causality from Aristotle's invocation for final causality as the end of the process of development as the mature form of the organisms (see, for example Bradie and Miller 1984, pp ) and none of the accounts tells us anything about the ontic basis for this latter type of final causality in Aristotle. This approach therefore attempts a partial defense of Aristotelian teleology. Some set of his uses of teleological explanation are well-founded and defensible; others are undefended at 33 Difficulties obtrude in making a definite classification of views concerning Aristotle's teleology. Matthen (1989, 161) explicitly takes Aristotle's teleological causes to be aspects of efficient causes, suggesting that he is mis-categorized here. However, he is inconsistent with this view; the analysis of teleology he offers at the end of his essay (178) abandons the point emphasized at p. 161 that all of Aristotle's material and efficient causes are teleological. I emphasize the analysis, therefore, over the textually unsupported claim that the extent of Aristotle's teleology is universal. Balme's (1987) cybernetic account of teleology is supposed to answer the question of how teleology and necessity are related in Aristotle, but he is quite hesitant and more than a bit unclear concerning his final position on this issue making it hard to know quite where to classify his view if it should be classified as a settled view at all. 34 This phrase is intended to indicate that the sort of material cause we have on these accounts is a microcause. These accounts tend to be 'reductionistic' in at least the sense that they ground the existence of macro-phenomena such as teleology in behavior and properties of things' micro-parts and processes. 35 Bradie and Miller (1984) explicitly link Aristotle's material basis for this type of teleology with a DNA molecule: "The type of movement required on Aristotle's account for a potential for form is the type of 17

18 best and are at worst indefensible. One clear problem with such an approach will be the fact that Aristotle does not himself distinguish between these two types of teleology just insofar as they involve teleology. In his treatment throughout the works the two types of teleological cause (if indeed they are two distinct types) are treated uniformly. As an interpretation of Aristotle's views, therefore, this reading succumbs to the obvious problem that while there may be a basis for reading into Aristotle's text such a distinction between types of teleological cause, 36 Aristotle himself gives no indication of wishing to approach the issue in this way. We may conclude on this basis that there is insufficient textual support for supposing that this is Aristotle's view of final causality; we may, of course, be interested in the much weaker thesis that this is a view of final causality for which we can find antecedents in Aristotle's works. 37 Further problems for such an account arise from the fact that such a view of teleology is currently widely considered to be unacceptable on philosophical grounds. The main problem for all such views is that for any sort of material structure that is claimed to ground teleology in biological systems, a materially identical counterpart to that structure can be found in systems which appear not to be teleological (see Bedau 1992a; 1992b; Nissen 1997, chapter one). 38 Given the fact all these theorists abandon vast swaths of Aristotle's use of final causality to movement exemplified by the DNA molecule. The genetic 'program' contained in the molecule's structure directs and limits the organism's growth in the manner set forth in Aristotle's biological writings" (143). 36 The clear motivation these authors have for distinguishing types of teleological commitment derives from the belief that the modern account they provide for one of Aristotle's uses of teleology vindicates (at least partially) Aristotle's usage. Aristotle himself gives no indication of feeling that one sort of use is differently grounded than the other. 37 Gotthelf (1997, 80) correctly criticizes the Bradie/Miller interpretation for advancing this interpretation as Aristotle's without any textual basis. Matthen (1989) is most forthcoming in recognizing the point in his own work. On his view Aristotle's overall teleology is "fatally flawed" but nevertheless "incorporates a remarkably subtle and prescient use of the four causes" (160). 38 Matthen (1989) is most explicit concerning the analysis of teleology that he claims to find in Aristotle, so the relevance of this point to these Aristotelian accounts is most obvious in his case. On his account, "a series of events is directed towards a certain end if a) it normally culminates in that end, b) it occurs within a substratum so fashioned that a particular action, performed by a particular sort of agent, will ensure that the series of events occurs in its entirety (unless some subsequent event interferes) and c) this series of motion is natural (not fortuitous or forced). The cause of the ordered sequence is form" (178). However, on this definition death would have a teleological explanation, as would a rock rolling down a hill towards the bottom. 18

19 concentrate on this apparently more adequate and modern notion the failure of the modern account to provide a proper reductive analysis of teleological causation further undermines the plausibility of our reading it back into Aristotle. 39 I have argued in this section that the program approach to reducing Aristotle's final cause to material causes fails in a number of ways. The interpretation rests on a distinction between types of teleology among cases where Aristotle himself gives no hint of seeing or desiring to draw such distinctions. Further, the account is unsatisfactory on philosophical grounds and therefore cannot rescue even a portion of Aristotle's use of final causality. Again, when we focus exclusively on the ontological claims made for purported reductive bases for Aristotle's final causality we see glaring inadequacies in the accounts offered. We have no reason to accept, and many to reject, the program view of final causality as an interpretation of Aristotle's ontic commitments vis-à-vis teleology Reductions to the material cause 2: irreducible potentials. Allan Gotthelf calls his influential interpretation of Aristotle's teleology the "'irreducible potential' interpretation" (Gotthelf 1976/ 1987). 40 On this view to be teleologically directed (in the basic sense) 41 is to be a potentiality (dunamis) irreducible to lower level material potentialities for a developed form. Officially, Gotthelf says: 39 Oddly, Balme (1987) appears both to see this point and to offer the interpretation nonetheless. He makes the rather surprising claim at the start of his essay that the 'cybernetic model' which he claims Aristotle was 'moving towards' offers no solution to the basic problem of teleology since the cybernetic model shows only that some "apparently teleological processes may in fact be necessary outcomes" (275), showing them thus to be merely (?) apparently teleological. 40 Gotthelf's view undergoes essentially no development from its original form in his repeated statements of the view, and so my account concentrates on the original formulation. See also Gotthelf (1988; 1989; 1997). 41 Gotthelf believes that 'being for the sake of' is to be analyzed in terms of a more basic form of teleology, 'coming to be for the sake of', and it is that notion that he is concerned to explicate (see Gotthelf 1997, pp.72-3). Gotthelf's account, unlike the accounts of Bradie, Miller, Matthen and Balme (discussed above) claims to cover all the cases of Aristotelian teleology. For criticism of Gotthelf's attempt to analyze all Aristotelian teleology in terms of this one basic notion, see Charles (1991). 19

20 Aristotle's concept of coming-to-be for the sake of may be defined 42 as follows: A stage in development, A, comes to be for the sake of the mature, functioning organism which results from the development, B, if and only if: (1) A is a necessary (or 'best possible') stage in a continuous change resulting in B, and (2) this change is (in part) the actualization of a potential for B which is not reducible to a sum of actualizations of element-potentials whose identification does not mention the form of B. (213) According to Gotthelf, what makes this an explanation of teleological directedness is the fact that "the identity of a nature or potential is given in part by its object or end (i.e. by what it is irreducibly for)", and reference to a potential for a form that is irreducible to lower level material potentials "puts into the explanans an irreducible reference to an outcome for which the explanandum is antecedently necessary" (232, emphasis in the original). The account is clearly reductive, for the analysans appeals to no teleological notions. The central notions in the analysans, being a potentiality and being irreducible, are both nonteleological notions and have broader application than to cases of teleology. 43 Further, despite Gotthelf's express wish to disavow teleological reduction to lowest level material causes, his analysis does count as a form of reduction to the material cause in Aristotle's scheme in virtue of the fact that the analysans is presented in terms of potentiality, and potentiality is clearly a material notion on Aristotle's view. 44 There can be lower and higher level material potentialities 42 It will be crucial for us to realize that there is ample and consistent evidence from Gotthelf's writings that he does indeed take this statement to be definitional rather than to be the weaker claim about correlation which is suggested at least once in his writings. Gotthelf writes elsewhere that "I have argued that final causality is operative in nature... only when there is being actualized a potential for a complex organic outcome which is not ontologically reducible to a sum of the actualizations of potentials of the organism's elemental constituents" (1988, 113). This quick formulation of his view might suggest that he takes his account to provide only a necessary condition for (the basic form of) teleology, or that he means to establish (more strongly) a necessary co-extensiveness between teleology and irreducible potentials for form. There is ample evidence throughout his various writings, however, that he is making the stronger definitional claim with his account. This fact plays an important role in the argument which follows. 43 Gotthelf acknowledges this point when he notes in the analysans that it is only irreducible potentials that are teleological. I argue for this claim concerning the scope of Aristotle's commitment to teleology in chapter three. 44 See Phys. i.9 192a25-33, ii.1 193b7-8; DA i.1 412a9, 412a21, ii.2 414a15; Met. ix a15-16, 1050b2, Met. xii a8-9, and xiv a