danryan.us

Q419. What does Hayek mean by "teleological shorthand"?

The use of “purposive" in this sense as a sort of ‘teleological shorthand’, as it has been called by biologists, is unobjectionable so long as we do not imply an awareness of purpose on the part of the elements, but mean merely that the elements have acquired regularities of conduct conducive to the maintenance of the order — presumably because those who did act in certain ways had within the resulting order a better chance of survival than those who did not." (143.9)