teleology

teleology is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 1 sense. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.The doctrine of the final causes of things; specif. (Biol.), the doctrine of design, which assumes that the phenomena of organic life, particularly those of evolution, are explicable only by purposive causes, and that they in no way admit of a mechanical explanation or one based entirely on biological science; the doctrine of adaptation to purpose.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

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