Teleology & Neo-thomism (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, October 12, 2015, 20:37 (3330 days ago) @ David Turell

A good philosophic discussion of the onboard teleology of living organisms and how ID and neo-Thomism are not that far apart:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/is-id-about-internal-or-external-teleology/-"Teleology is synonymous with function, end, purpose, or goal. Design means conceiving hierarchies of functions. Therefore design and teleology are but the two faces of the same coin. -"So why can one say with confidence that a living being has internal teleology and a machine has only external teleology? Because the living, manifested beings come from the ontological Being; they are its direct manifestations. Since the Being is the metaphysical Unity without parts, the manifested beings inherit an high essential degree of unity. All their parts cooperate harmoniously to form a true whole. Their principle is neither in one of their parts nor in the sum of all their parts. All their parts are a unity without composition. Given their direct origin and their integration one says that a living being has intrinsic or internal teleology. We could say also that living beings have a priori finality.-***-" The natural vs. artificial difference is fundamental because is ontological. By the way, one of its consequences is that in principle no robot will ever compare with a living being. No IDer to my knowledge claims that the living beings are machines. How could we, also considering that their origin is so different? -"Also the claim that Aquinas' and Paley's views of design are in complete disagreement is not correct. Paley says that if he finds a watch in a ground he infers design. Paley does not say that living beings are machines in essence (that is what Descartes thought). -"Analogously, when an IDer notes that some characteristics of organisms can be described by mechanics, informatics, thermodynamics, control theory, etc. he is not saying that organisms are machines. To describe some properties of an entity in mechanical (or more generally in scientific) terms and to say the entity is only a machine are two different things. By way of analogy, if I say that the side view of a 3D pyramid is a triangle, I do not mean that the pyramid is only a triangle.-"IDers don't confuse living beings and machines. ID must be neither redutionistic nor simplistic. To analyze patterns and relations, to consider parts and calculate the probabilities of their aggregations, is to make scientific models and descriptions. They are necessarily defective, but they may nevertheless help human understanding.-"IDers do concur with Thomists in affirming that organisms show an internal teleological organization. ID recognizes the supremacy of natural teleology and doesn't confuse it with the external teleology of machines. Aquinas' views, properly understood, and ID arguments from design are compatible. Aquinas' are “metaphysical demonstrations” (as Feser puts it) while ID deals with scientific inferences. Nevertheless both point to a designer of nature.-" Neither is ID a form of deism. The Designer need not be anthropomorphic, a watchmaker who constructs a watch with hands and tool, puts it on a shelf, and then goes home. The universe is not at all external to its Designer (it is an effect in principle contained inside its cause). So the relation between the Designer and the universe cannot be seen mechanistically, as the relation between a watchmaker and a watch (external teleology). On the contrary, the universe can be considered as an idea/project in the “mind” of God (internal teleology)."-Comment: this forms the basis of my viewpoints