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On Purpose by Ruse, Michael is a health book available to read on EtoBox.

What is On Purpose about?

**A brief, accessible history of the idea of purpose in Western thought, from ancient Greece to the present** Can we live without the idea of purpose? Should we even try to? Kant thought we were stuck with purpose, and even Darwin’s theory of natural selection, which profoundly shook the idea, was unable to kill it. Indeed, teleological explanation—what Aristotle called understanding in terms of “final causes”—seems to be making a comeback today, as both religious proponents of intelligent design and some prominent secular philosophers argue that any explanation of life without the idea of purpose is missing something essential. In __On Purpose__, Michael Ruse explores the history of the idea of purpose in philosophical, religious, scientific, and historical thought, from ancient Greece to the present. Accessibly written and filled with literary and other examples, the book examines “purpose” thinking in the natural and human world. It shows how three ideas about purpose have been at the heart of Western thought for more than two thousand years. In the Platonic view, purpose results from the planning of a human or divine being; in the Aristotelian, purpose stems from a tendency or

Who reads On Purpose?

Author

Ruse, Michael

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published

2019

Language

EN

ISBN

9780691172460

Category

health

Subjects

Philosophy, Science, History

Rating

3.52 / 5 (47 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14