Teleological Explanations

A modern classic in the philosophy of science, Larry Wright’s Teleological Explanations reframes purpose-talk in biology, psychology, and the social sciences as genuine, testable explanation rather than pre-Galilean superstition. Moving from the stock “charges against teleology” to a positive account of goal-directed behavior and function, Wright shows how explanations that cite what something is for can be understood etiologically—by the role consequences play in bringing about and sustaining the behaviors and structures that have them. The book’s through-line is crisp and cumulative: a critique of confusions about cause and effect and anthropomorphism, an analysis of directed behavior, a theory of functions that spans natural and conscious cases, and a final integration with action explanation.

Wright’s argument has become foundational for work on biological function, mechanism, and design without a designer. Clear examples, programmatic tests, and a careful separation of “merely causal” from consequence-oriented explanation make the book essential reading for philosophers of science and mind, theoretical biologists, cognitive scientists, and anyone who needs a rigorous vocabulary for talking about aims, purposes, and functions in a naturalistic key. It is both a sharp methodological guide and a durable point of entry into debates over normativity, levels of analysis, and the status of teleology across the sciences.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.