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teleology

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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WOTD – 25 March 2026
Plato (left; painted to look like Leonardo da Vinci) and Aristotle in a detail from The School of Athens (1509–1511), a fresco by Raphael in the Stanza della Segnatura of the Apostolic Palace, Vatican City. Both of the philosophers developed arguments involving teleology (sense 1) to address the universe’s apparent order.

Etymology

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Partly borrowed from French téléologie and from German Teleologie + English -logy (suffix denoting a branch of learning or study of a particular subject). Téléologie and Teleologie are both derived from Late Latin teleologia, from Ancient Greek τέλεος (téleos) (the genitive singular of τέλος (télos, “final cause, purpose”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to turn end-over-end; to revolve around, hence, to dwell, sojourn”)) + Latin -logia (suffix denoting the logical discourse or study of a subject)[1] (from Ancient Greek -λογῐ́ᾱ (-logĭ́ā, suffix denoting a branch of learning or study of a particular subject), from λόγος (lógos, “that which is said or thought; subject matter”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to collect, gather”)) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns)). By surface analysis, teleo- (prefix meaning ‘end, goal, purpose’) +‎ -logy.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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teleology (countable and uncountable, plural teleologies)

  2. (uncountable, philosophy) The study of the design or final purpose of natural occurrences, that is, of such occurrences being the result of intention instead of prior causes.
    • 2008, Monte Ransom Johnson, “Historical Background to the Interpretation of Aristotle’s Teleology”, in Julia Annas, Lindsay Judson, editors, Aristotle on Teleology (Oxford Aristotle Studies), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →ISBN, part I (Teleology as a Critical Explanatory Framework), pages 23–24:
      The received intellectual tradition has it that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, revolutionary philosophers began to curtail and reject the teleology of the medieval and scholastic Aristotelians, abandoning final causes in favor of a purely mechanistic model of the Universe.
    1. (by extension, uncountable) Design, final purpose, or intention in a natural occurrence; (countable) an assertion or instance of this.
      Antonym: dysteleology
      Their proposed explanation at the time was riddled with teleology.
      • 2011 April 17, Paul A[nthony] Rahe, “Truths You Cannot Utter”, in Ricochet‎[1], archived from the original on 27 March 2022:
        In short, what every student of biology knows – that within nature there is a teleology having to do with the survival of the species which underpins the distinction between the two sexes and produces between them a natural affinity for one another – no surgeon who knows what is good for him may now say.
  3. (uncountable, religion) The belief or theory that a natural occurrence is the result of divine design or intention rather than the laws of nature or science; theoteleology; (countable) a particular belief or theory of this sort.

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “teleology, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2025; “teleology, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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