Abstract

This chapter revisits Ernest Nagel’s view of teleology in biology. In some of his writings from the 1950s to the 1970s, Nagel contended for the legitimacy of teleology in biology but argued against its uniqueness. In addition, Nagel also offered a goal-contribution account in the biological function debate which emerged in the 1960s and the 1970s. While questions of legitimacy and uniqueness of teleology draw little attention today, the biological function debate remains in focus in philosophy of biology. Although the ongoing debate does mention Nagel’s name occasionally, his view, often merely understood as the goal-contribution account, is treated as outdated. However, this treatment is limited, because it fails to consider Nagel’s another important thesis, that is, eliminativism. In this chapter, I attempt to do three things. First, I articulate Nagel’s view, by showing that the eliminativist Nagel considered it acceptable to eliminate teleological terms in biological discourse, and that he also treated them as anthropomorphic vestiges. Second, I defend Nagel’s view and use it to clarify the current biological function debate, by distinguishing a descriptive dimension of this debate from its prescriptive dimension. Third, I hope to deepen Nagel’s view, by pushing it to a further and perhaps its logical conclusion, that is, Kant’s view of biological teleology.