Teleology Across Natures
Teleology Across Natures

Summary/Abstract: Aristotelian natures – internal principles of motion and rest – provide a rich account of the goal-directed behaviour of natural entities. What such natures cannot account for, on their own, are cases of teleology across natures, where an entity, due to its nature, furthers the goals of another entity. Nevertheless, Aristotle admits such teleological configurationsamongnatures:mostnotablyPolitics I.8 1256b15-20 claims that plants are for the sake of animals and animals are for the sake of humans. Thepaperfirstscrutinizestworecentattempts– by Mohan Matthen and David Sedley – at an explanation of such teleology across natures. Thefundamentalmovetheseproposals make is that they claim that the universe has a nature of its own. Accordingly, teleology across natures could be explained as the operation of this single cosmic nature. But the introduction of a cosmic nature contravenes fundamental strictures of Aristotelian natural philosophy. Hence the third section of the paper formulates an alternative proposal, that the teleological interaction across differentnaturesisunderpinned by the self-benefittingactivityofindividualnaturalentities,whichareable to use the natural processes of their environment to their own advantage.

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