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Purpose, Feedback, and Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Arthur E. Falk
Arthur E. Falk*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy Western Michigan University
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Abstract

This essay develops a theory of natural signs in order to show how evolutionary theory breathes new life into teleology. An argument to the contrary presented by Richard Taylor is refuted. The essay defends the view that the concept of negative feedback explicates purposiveness and that symbiotic evolution explains the occurrence of naturally adapted feedback systems. But evolution itself is not a teleological process, nor is it a negative feedback system. There is an exploration of the nature of the dissatisfaction we feel with an evolutionary account of purposiveness from which the fortuitous cannot be eliminated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1981 , pp. 198 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

My thanks to E. Thomas Lawson and our students for the good discussions we had of these matters. I also profited from the thought-provoking negative feedback of my colleagues and of the referee.

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