ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by giving Aristotle's theory of explanation as he presents it and then examine its scope in its operations. Its special character, and the problems it raises, lie in an emphasis on what later philosophers called "final causes". The chapter explores Aristotle's concept of nature and the natural, which does the heavy work of explanation in his science. what the teleological model does is to focus his inquiry on the exploration of functions and serviceable interlockings in the operation of organisms. The history of philosophy sometimes divides teleologies into transcendent and immanent. The concept of nature has been employed in scientific notions of laws of nature and in normative ideas of natural law and natural right, and both are somehow fused in notions of what is natural and unnatural, normal and abnormal. Greek philosophy had begun in a search for the nature of things, but the meaning of the concept and the quest is disputed in modern literature.
