Teleology is the explanation by reference to ends, purposes, or function, as in, 'Why do you have such big teeth, Grandmama?' - 'All the better to eat you with, my dear!' Aristotle considered teleological explanations to be a particularly illuminating kind of causal explanation, and contrasted them with explanations citing efficient causes, the prior state of affairs that brings something about. In Aristotle the value of teleological explanations rests on his metaphysical doctrine of forms, the fundamental kinds into which all things fall, and which define their proper ends. Without some such metaphysical underpinning, the use of such explanations is hard to justify; in particular, the mechanistic world-view characteristic of much of modern science emphasises efficient causation and seems to leave little room for purposefulness. The great achievement of Darwin's theory of evolution was to show how some teleological explanations in biology could be rested on a mechanistic foundation. How far this kind of reconciliation is possible is a live issue in the philosophy of science. Perhaps the most famous teleological argument is that for the existence of God, which takes our observations of the regularity and coherence of the world around us and our experience of the conjunction of regularity and design, to conclude that there must be a designer. Research Teleology
In architecture underpinning refers to the material and construction used for the support of a building introduced beneath a wall which has already been constructed - the substitution of a new foundation for an old one. The term is also applied to the foundation, especially of a frame house. Research Underpinning
Abbreviations
Research Teleology
