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A Metaphysics of Design without Purpose

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Merritt Hadden Moore
Merritt Hadden Moore*
Affiliation:
Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois
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Extract

The problem of this paper may be stated simply. It is that, in dealing with the nature of reality, it is not only possible, but more fruitful and more accurate, to deal with the category of order or design, meaning by this, the structure or relationship of the parts of a whole, without associating this idea with that of purpose or teleology, than it is to conjoin these concepts. It is the purpose of the paper to show why this separation is advisable, and to indicate the background of the problem which tends to make difficult the separation of these two concepts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 1936 , pp. 1 - 8
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1936

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Footnotes

1

This article is as read before the meeting of the Eastern Division at the American Philosophical Association in New York, December 27, 1934, with the exception of some slight changes of terminology.

References

2 Journal of Philosophy. Feb. 15, 1934. In opposition to this view it has often been pointed out that the self is the most inconstant element in our experience, and is known only through the persistence of objects.

3 Prof. Morris Cohen suggests a similar notion in one of the papers in his recent volume Law and the Social Order, namely, “The Place of Logic in the Law,” especially pp. 174ff.

4 I wish to make clear at this point that I am not shutting my eyes to the fact of purpose in human affairs. Certainly a good deal of the behavior of human beings, to say nothing of other biological forms, is directed toward ends and is therefore—by definition—purposive. This is sufficiently taken into account, however, when one realizes that this purposiveness is itself a function of the total situation in which the organism and its ends are found. The fact that we purpose one thing rather than another reflects the social structure in which we find ourselves. The fact that we are able to propose ends, and to attain some of them depends upon the organic structure which we bring to the situation. Again we are dealing with a situation in which the various factors are functionally related and require no “extras” from without the system to enable us to account for the changing pattern of the structure.

The point for which I am contending is that purpose is not only unnecessary but also leads to unfruitful complications when used as a metaphysical category.