Abstract

The main claim is that there is a fundamental and ineliminable relationship between teleology and essence in those things which have life-histories, whether organic or personal. The dissertation is divided into two Parts. In the first Part necessary and sufficient conditions for something's being an organism are formulated. In the second Part this is done for persons. ;What it is to be an organism is explained in terms of the entity being so constituted as to undergo a multi-stage, internally-regulated career directed toward a state of completed development. While the changes an organism undergoes may be explained by physio-chemical laws, what it is to be an organism must be understood in terms of the entity having a kind-specific teleological constitution, involving an intrinsic natural end, or condition of good. ;In contrast, persons change and develop according to self-imposed thought and action guiding conceptions. The natural end or good for persons is the achievement of self-enjoyment; a condition brought about through directing the exercise of one's capacities so as to realize ends one desires for their own sake and judges to be worthwhile. Furthermore, while an organic life-history is traced out according to laws, a person's life-history is unified through construction of a personal narrative, an account of one's life-history that one supplies to oneself. Thus, the teleology of persons involves self-directedness in a way organic teleology does not. Persons have the intrinsic end of self-enjoyment, but what activities it consists in must be specified by the individual. The relation between deliberation, end-setting and self-enjoyment is explained, with a focus on the role of historical self-understanding in directing one's life. ;The chief result is that there is a way of articulating our intuitions about what it is for a thing to have a life-history, which explains this in metaphysical terms, and enables us to express certain distinctive and essential facts about the nature of persons in a distinctively humanistic manner.