Final Causes in the Early Modern Period

An Enquiry of the Transformation of Teleological Explanations

As it is well known, many theorists of the early modern period are suspicious about teleological explanations. To assume ends and purposes in order to explain natural phenomena, was mainly rejected for two reasons: First, within the new mechanistic theory of physics these entities revealed as completely superfluous for explaining the behaviour of physical objects that could be explained by means of (efficient) causes only. Second, the postulation of ends and purposes did not satisfy the criterion of empirical testability, for they cannot be observed or specified beyond factual changes which are fully explained by the principles of mechanistic physics already. Assuming ends and purposes, then, is pure and unnecessary speculation. Within the framework of the new, non-aristotelian metaphysics explanations referring to somewhat teleological elements seemed as a paradigm of scholastic sophistry that one was busy to abandon.

If teleological explanations are useless in one domain, however, it does not follow that they are useless at all. Thus objects of biology – at least organisms and organs – are functionally or teleologically characterized. Likewise, teleological explanations of actions do not seem suspicious at all. Of course, philosophers of the early modern period knew that, but this raised a problem for them: While the aristotelian metaphysics contained entities like “entelechies”, “forms” and “powers” and provided therefore an adequate grounding for teleological explanations, the so called new metaphysics contained none of those. So these philosophers did not have the appropriate ontological resources for articulating teleological explanations. Rather, they had to try to reduce teleological phenomena to mechanical ones and argue that there is no such thing as real teleology or they had to look for other metaphysical possibilities (e.g. God) that enabled them to explain things teleologically.

In my PhD project I will try to investigate why theorists of the early modern period – despite their commitment mechanistic metaphysics – felt forced to explain certain phenomena teleologically and what kind of strategies they developed to resolve their ontological difficulties in order to comply with that task. By analyzing the works and relevant passages of Aristotle, Suárez, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz I also hope to get a systematic insight in the relation of teleological explanations and their metaphysical preconditions.