Purpose in Nature

Stanley N. Salthe

Resumen


My purpose here is to naturalize human purpose. This I do by constructing it as an evolved refinement of “purposes” found more generally in Nature, all of which subsume it. As a project in Natural Philosophy, this involves first generalizing human purpose, and then reconstructing it as a more highly specified example of a fundamental natural tendency.

 

Key words: Nature, purpose, teleomaty, causation, human agency, function, hierarchy, thermodynamical equilibrium, efficiency, efficacy, sustainability.

 


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Referencias


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O’Grady, R.T. and D.R. Brooks (1988), “Teleology and biology,” in B.H. Weber, D.J. Depew and J.D. Smith (eds.), Entropy, Information, and Evolution. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Rosen, R. (2000), Essays on Life Itself. New York: Columbia University Press.

Salthe, S. N. (1993), Development and Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

— (2002), “Summary of the principles of hierarchy theory,” General Systems Bulletin 31: 13-17.

— (2006a), “On Aristotle’s conception of causality,” General Systems Bulletin 35: 11.

Schneider, E.D. and Kay J.J., (1994), “Life as a manifestation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics,” Mathematical and Computer Modelling 19: 25-48.

Swenson, R. (1997), “Autocatakinetics, evolution, and the law of maximum entropy production,” Advances in Human Ecology 6: 1-47.

Ulanowicz, R. (1997), Ecology, The Ascendent Perspective. New York: Columbia University Press.


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