Ruse Michael
Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University, FL, 32306, USA.
Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci. 2016 Aug;58:100-6. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.12.001. Epub 2015 Dec 28.
Teleology-what Aristotle called "final cause"-is trying to understand things in terms of the future, as when we ask about the plates on the back of the dinosaur, stegosaurus, and suggest that they might sometime be used to control the internal temperature of the brute. Recently the philosopher Thomas Nagel has argued for a wholesale embrace of teleological thinking in the sciences, particularly the life sciences. I argue that Nagel's thinking is shoddy and ill-informed, but that in some sense biologists do (with reason) seem drawn to teleological understanding, and so the correct response is not outright rejection of the very idea but a more informed and sympathetic approach to those aspects of nature that seem to call for final cause thinking.
目的论——亚里士多德称之为“终极因”——试图依据未来去理解事物，比如当我们探讨恐龙剑龙背上的骨板时，会推测它们或许在某个时候被用于调节这种巨兽的体内温度。最近，哲学家托马斯·内格尔主张在科学领域，尤其是生命科学领域全面接纳目的论思维。我认为内格尔的观点粗陋且缺乏依据，但在某种意义上，生物学家（有理由地）似乎确实倾向于目的论式的理解，所以正确的回应并非彻底摒弃这一理念，而是以更明智且包容的态度去看待那些似乎需要终极因思维的自然现象。
