The distinction between teleology and teleonomy has puzzled biologists and philosophers since the mid-20th century when teleonomy was first described by Colin Pittendrigh in 1958 (Dresow & Love, 2023). Both terms contain the Greek root telos, which means end-goal or purpose. However, they differ in how literally they approach using goals to explain concepts in biology.
Teleology is a type of explanation that uses the ‘goal’ of an event as its cause (Guyer & Matthews, 2020). For instance, a teleological explanation for the existence of hearts would be that they exist to pump blood throughout the body. Notice how the subject of study is not how hearts evolved over time in organisms, but an assumption about what specific function or goal hearts exist to achieve. This method of explanation has been adopted by scientists within the field of basal or basic cognition. Cognition refers to a collection of mental processes related to learning and decision-making and is explored by many eager scientists in fields ranging from psychology to computer science. However, basal cognition uses tools from evolutionary biology to study teleological functions, such as memory and behavior, in tissue, cells, and proteins.
On the other hand, teleonomy refers to how some tissues, cells, and even proteins appear to be working towards microscopic goals, such as the ‘goal’ of each cardiac (heart) cell to contract at the same beat as its neighbor. Teleonomy, unlike teleology, does not assume that these collections of cells have goals or intentions (Galli & Meinardi, 2010). Thinking of the heart or any biological system as existing to perform a narrow purpose makes it much more difficult for biology students to describe its other roles in scientific detail, study its evolution, and understand the basic definitions of goals, intelligence, and cognition as they relate to human minds (Dresow & Love, 2023).
Although human goal-oriented behavior seems simple, it emerges from a complex series of interactions between various brain regions and a vast, unpredictable environment. Even more importantly, it requires that an animal (1) understand the consequences of its actions and (2) is able to choose between different actions to satisfy a desire (Mannella & Mirolli, 2016). Unlike humans, hearts and the cells that compose them don’t set goals or plan to achieve them.
Instead, the ease with which the heart pumps blood emerged at different rates over the course of millions of years and was triggered by a domino-effect of biological and chemical signals sent by the brain (Bergman, 2022). Neither we nor our hearts intend to circulate blood. This property is simply an emergent result, or happy accident, of generations of change in our ancestors. It helped us to meet our needs to deliver oxygen and nutrients to important organs and tissues, like our brains and lungs. But that isn’t all the heart does, and by limiting ourselves only to goals that we are interested in imagining, students can leave a whole hemisphere of biological thought unexplored. Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that humans have the tendency to lean back on relatable, goal-related explanations when they are unfamiliar with or unsatisfied with a previous explanation (Lombrozo et al., 2007).
This is precisely why the recent revival of teleological thinking within the field of basal cognition has been met with mixed reactions (Pigliucci, 2021). This field, introduced in March 2021, posits that cognition scales all the way down to cells and biomolecules, like the cardiac cells from the previous example. Scientists in this field identified that cognitive abilities in humans and other animals must have evolved slowly over time from distant, aneural (nerve-free) ancestors at the bottom of the evolutionary tree (Lyon et al., 2021). Therefore, they believe that by studying basal or basic forms of memory and ‘goal-directed’ behavior in simpler organisms, such as slime and bacteria, they can shed light on the evolution of human cognition and experience (Levin, 2022).
Although many cognitive scientists acknowledge that the question of exactly how human cognition is produced by the brain is a difficult, unsolved problem, they are skeptical of all forms of teleology due to how ingrained anti-teleological sentiment is in biology circles—and for good reason. Teleology can inspire hypotheses about the origin of specific traits and help students understand new topics as long as it remains metaphorical. However, since Ancient Greece, teleology has been associated with everything from the philosophical idea that the universe is a living organism to the idea that humans are designed to be moral creatures (Galli & Meinardi, 2010). If teleology is used without limitations, students and teachers will have a difficult time distinguishing useful teleonomic thoughts that act as metaphors from sketchy, teleological hypotheses that assume an equivalence between humans and other organisms (Dresow & Love, 2023).
In order to simplify biology education and emphasize the differences between biological processes and human cognition, teleological thinking must be reframed as an extensive metaphor and understood as teleonomy. By doing so, students can better understand and appreciate the complexity of living organisms without imposing human-like goals and characteristics onto them. This reframing will help foster a more reliable understanding of biological systems while respecting the unique complexities that shape human behavior and cognition.
References
Dresow, M., & Love, A. C. (2023, January 20). Teleonomy: Revisiting a Proposed Conceptual Replacement for Teleology. Biological Theory, 18(2), 101-113. 10.1007/s13752-022-00424-y
Galli, L. M., & Meinardi, E. N. (2010, October 19). The Role of Teleological Thinking in Learning the Darwinian Model of Evolution. Evolution: Education and Outreach, 4(1), 145-152. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12052-010-0272-7
Guyer, P., & Matthews, E. (1996, March 20). Teleological Notions in Biology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved July 26, 2023, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleology-biology/#FramDeba
Levin, M. (2022, March 24). Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: An Experimentally-Grounded Framework for Understanding Diverse Bodies and Minds. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2022.768201
Lombrozo, T., Kelemen, D., & Zaitchik, D. (2007). Inferring design: Evidence of a preference for teleological explanations from patients with Alzheimer’s Disease. Psychological Science, 18(11), 999-1006. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.02015.x
Lyon, P., Keijzer, F., & Arendt, D. (2021, Janurary 25). Reframing cognition: getting down to biological basics. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
Mannella, F., & Mirolli, M. (2016, October 18). Goal-Directed Behavior and Instrumental Devaluation: A Neural System-Level Computational Model. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00181
Pigliucci, M. (2021, August 2). Nope, It Isn't “Cognition All the Way Down”. Medium. https://medium.com/science-and-philosophy/nope-it-isnt-cognition-all-the-way-down-63f87ed1acbc#id_token=eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6ImEzYmRiZmRlZGUzYmFiYjI2NTFhZmNhMjY3OGRkZThjMGIzNWRmNzYiLCJ0eXAiOiJKV1QifQ.eyJpc3MiOiJodHRwczovL2FjY291bnRzLmdvb2dsZS5jb20iL
Varella, M. (2018, October 1). The Biology and Evolution of the Three Psychological Tendencies to Anthropomorphize Biology and Evolution. Frontiers Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01839