Aristotle's Concept Of Teleology

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and moving, and has some aim, goal or purpose. To borrow from
Newtonian physics, we might say that everything has potential which may be
actualized. An acorn is potentially and oak tree for example. The process of
change and motion which the acorn undertakes is directed at realizing this
potential. Aristotle believed that things in nature occur because they serve a
purpose. He maintains that organisms develop as they do because they have a
natural goal or telos in Greek. “Nature”, writes Aristotle, is “a ‘principle
of motion and change' ”(Physics, 200b1), where “motion” or “movement” (or change
as we discussed in our classroom) describes the “fulfillment of what exists
potentially, in so far as it exists potentially”(201a) in a thing.
But is there any reason for saying nature has a goal? Why cannot the
rain rain and the sun shine, not because the sky is cloudy or clear but just by
chance? Empedocles argued for a theory of natural selection on the basis ...

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