title: Neo-Darwinists and Neo-Aristotelians: how to talk about natural purpose.
abstract: This paper examines the points of disagreement between Neo-Darwinian and recent Neo-Aristotelian discussions of the status of purposive language in biology. I discuss recent Neo-Darwinian "evolutionary" treatments and distinguish three ways to deal with the philosophical status of teleological language of purpose: teleological error theory, methodological teleology, and Darwinian teleological realism. I then show how "non-evolutionary" Neo-Aristotelian approaches in the work of Michael Thompson and Philippa Foot differ from these by offering a view of purposiveness grounded in life-cycle patterns, rather than in long-term evolutionary processes or natural selection. Finally, I argue that the crucial difference between Neo-Darwinian and Neo-Aristotelian approaches regards the question of whether or not reproduction deserves the status of an "ultimate" aim of organisms. I offer reasons to reject the concept of an "ultimate" aim in evolutionary biology and to reject the notion that reproduction serves a purpose. I argue that evolutionary biology is not in the position to determine what the "ultimate" explanation of natural purpose is.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing St., Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB2 3EA, UK. pjw89@cam.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6827-644X
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Woodford
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D001695:Biology / Q000379:methods*; D010684:Philosophy; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D009626:Terminology as Topic
keywords: Neo-Aristotelianism; Neo-Darwinism; Purpose of reproduction; Teleology; Ultimate causation