What is another word for teleological?

Pronunciation: [tˌɛlɪəlˈɒd͡ʒɪkə͡l] (IPA)

Teleological is a term often used in the world of philosophy, theology, and biology to describe a process or belief that follows a purpose or end goal. Some synonyms for teleological include goal-oriented, purposeful, results-driven, directed, and intentional. Other words that could be used to describe a teleological approach include deterministic, preordained, fated, or destined. This type of thinking emphasizes the destination rather than the journey and is often associated with the concept of design, creation, and an overarching plan. Whether used in scientific or religious contexts, teleological thinking has been both praised and criticized for its focus on final outcomes rather than the process of natural selection and evolution.

What are the paraphrases for Teleological?

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What are the hypernyms for Teleological?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

Usage examples for Teleological

I saw also that his denial of design was only, so to speak, skin deep, and that his system was in reality teleological, inasmuch as, to use Isidore Geoffroy's words, it makes the organism design itself.
"Luck or Cunning?"
Samuel Butler
The fact is that stimulus and response are not distinctions of existence, but teleological distinctions, that is, distinctions of function, or part played, with reference to reaching or maintaining an end.
"John Dewey's logical theory"
Delton Thomas Howard
But this external teleological distinction between sensation and response is not so important as the distinction now to be made.
"John Dewey's logical theory"
Delton Thomas Howard

Famous quotes with Teleological

  • But teleological considerations can lead no further than to a belief and a hope. They do not give certainty.
    Christian Lous Lange
  • Pleasure becomes a value, a teleological end in itself. It's probably more Western than U.S. per se.
    David Foster Wallace
  • Aristotle remarks in his Poetics that poetry is superior to history, because history presents only what has occurred, poetry what could and ought to have occurred, poetry has possibility at its disposal. Possibility, poetic and intellectual, is superior to actuality; the esthetic and the intellectual are disinterested. But there is only one interest, the interest in existing; disinterestedness is the expression for indifference to actuality. The indifference is forgotten in the Cartesian Cogito-ergo sum, which disturbs the disinterestedness of the intellectual and offends speculative thought, as if something else should follow from it. I think, ergo I think; whether I am or it is (in the sense of actuality, where I means a single existing human being and it means a single definite something) is infinitely unimportant. That what I am thinking is in the sense of thinking does not, of course, need any demonstration, nor does it need to be demonstrated by any conclusion, since it is indeed demonstrated. But as soon as I begin to want to make my thinking teleological in relation to something else, interest enters the game. As soon as it is there, the ethical is present and exempts me from further trouble with demonstrating my existence, and since it obliges me to exist, it prevents me from making an ethically deceptive and metaphysically unclear flourish of a conclusion.
    René Descartes
  • The attachment to a rationalistic, teleological notion of progress indicates the absence of true progress; he whose life does not unfold satisfyingly under its own momentum is driven to moralize it, to set up goals and rationalize their achievement as progress.
    John Carroll
  • Our culture is teleological-it presumes purposive development and a conclusion.
    William Pfaff

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