by Harry Binswanger

This is an original, comprehensive treatise in the philosophy of science. Employing Ayn Rand's derivation of the concept "value" as its foundation, it presents a theory to explain the meaning of goal-directed action—i.e., of teleology. As Dr. Binswanger puts it; "I will argue that . . . this new definition (of goal-directed action) justifies the classification of all levels of living action—whether purposeful or automatic—as goal-directed . . . In short, I will show that men, animals and plants act for the sake of obtaining certain ends, but rocks, rivers and machines do not."

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction

I. Types of Processes
- The origin of teleological concepts
- Living action vs. inanimate processes
- Vegetative vs. conscious action
- Goal-directed action vs. purposeful action

II. Alternative Positions on Vegetative Action
- The mechanists
- The teleologists
- Other schools
- Methodology

III. The Analysis of Purposeful Action
- Anticipated vs. accidental consequences of action
- The role of desire
- The order of cause and effect

IV. Self-Generation
- Cellular respiration
- Plant tropisms
- The Heartbeat
- Self-generated action
- Summary

V. Value-Significance
- The apparent purposefulness of vegetative action
- "Plasticity" - Needs, benefits, and value-significance
- "To whom?" and "for what"
- The alternative of life vs. death
- Psychological and biological value-significance
- Goals and inanimate processes

VI. Goal-Causation
- The teleological vs. the accidental
- Future ends as based on similar past ends
A. In purposeful action
B. In vegetative action

VII. Goal-Causation and Natural Selection
- Cellular respiration
- Phototropism
- The heartbeat
- The nature of natural selection
- Genetic selection and ontogenetic selection
- Summary: selection as the basis of goal-directed action

VIII. Objections I
- Causation by similar past goals: is it true goal-causation?
- Psychological and biological value-significance
- Alleged counter-examples
- Rainfall and the water cycle
- The pendulum and similar mechanisms
- Pseudo-needs: avoiding destruction vs. gaining values
- Fire
- "External" teleology

IX. Objections II
- Is reproductive fitness, not survival, selection's goal?
- Individual vs. group survival
- Biological reproduction vs. man's reproduction of artifacts
- Maladaptive purposeful actions

X. Epistemological Issues
- Philosophic vs. scientific issues
- Definitions as capturing fundamentals
- Reduction vs. elimination
- Deciding between alternative conceptual hierarchies
- Attempts to base epistemology on evolution

XI. Wider Implications
- Implications for vegetative action
A. The economy of the teleological approach
B. The theoretic power of the teleological approach
- Implications for man's purposeful action

Appendix
- Larry Wright
- Andrew Woodfield

Notes
Index of Authors

(Softcover; 255 pages)