TY - JOUR
T1 - Teleological reasoning about nature
T2 - Intentional design or relational perspectives?
AU - Ojalehto, bethany
AU - Waxman, Sandra R.
AU - Medin, Douglas L.
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Deborah Kelemen for helpful discussion of these ideas. The research and writing of this article was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Short-Term Fellowship to b.o. and by the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers SES0962185 and DRL1114530 to D.M.
PY - 2013/4
Y1 - 2013/4
N2 - According to the theory of 'promiscuous teleology', humans are naturally biased to (mistakenly) construe natural kinds as if they (like artifacts) were intentionally designed 'for a purpose'. However, this theory introduces two paradoxes. First, if infants readily distinguish natural kinds from artifacts, as evidence suggests, why do school-aged children erroneously conflate this distinction? Second, if Western scientific education is required to overcome promiscuous teleological reasoning, how can one account for the ecological expertise of non-Western educated, indigenous people? Here, we develop an alternative 'relational-deictic' interpretation, proposing that the teleological stance may not index a deep-rooted belief that nature was designed for a purpose, but instead may reflect an appreciation of the perspectival relations among living things and their environments.
AB - According to the theory of 'promiscuous teleology', humans are naturally biased to (mistakenly) construe natural kinds as if they (like artifacts) were intentionally designed 'for a purpose'. However, this theory introduces two paradoxes. First, if infants readily distinguish natural kinds from artifacts, as evidence suggests, why do school-aged children erroneously conflate this distinction? Second, if Western scientific education is required to overcome promiscuous teleological reasoning, how can one account for the ecological expertise of non-Western educated, indigenous people? Here, we develop an alternative 'relational-deictic' interpretation, proposing that the teleological stance may not index a deep-rooted belief that nature was designed for a purpose, but instead may reflect an appreciation of the perspectival relations among living things and their environments.
KW - Culture
KW - Natural kinds
KW - Perspective taking
KW - Relational and ecological reasoning
KW - Teleological reasoning
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U2 - 10.1016/j.tics.2013.02.006
DO - 10.1016/j.tics.2013.02.006
M3 - Review article
C2 - 23518159
AN - SCOPUS:84875811529
SN - 1364-6613
VL - 17
SP - 166
EP - 171
JO - Trends in Cognitive Sciences
JF - Trends in Cognitive Sciences
IS - 4
ER -