ABSTRACT
The very interesting article by Mayr [1] seems to call for some comment, Mayr distinguishes between an unacceptable and an acceptable form of finalistie explanation ; the former is teleological or vitalistic, the latter ‘teleonomic’, or, in the phrase I have used, ‘quasi-finalistic’. But having made this distinction between types of hypothesis, Mayr proceeds to assert that there is a corresponding cleavage between types of phenomena. ‘The development or behaviour of an individual’, he writes, ‘is purposive’ (that is, in the acceptable sense), ‘natural selection is definitely not’; and by ‘is not’ he seems to mean ‘cannot be’, since in another place he writes, ‘Historical processes, however, can not act purposefully.’ I have for some years been urging that quasi-finalistic types of explanation are called for in the theory of evolution as well as m that of development [2].
