Abstract

Considering teleology you have to distinguish between an ‚internal’︁ objective („interne Finalität”︁), which determines single processes, and an ‚external’︁ objective („externe Finalität”︁), which governs the whole of nature, so that everything has a purpose. Furthermore a difference exists between (natural) expediency and (subjective) fixing of aims. In science (which is a course of spoken action) only the fixing of aims by man is possible, because science has no internal aim, towards which it can develop (and it is not to be understood from a definite state at a given time, for instance the present, as an aim).Aristotle unlike Christian Aristotelism still doesn't know an ‚external’︁ expediency of nature (externe Finalität), but he does know an ‚internal’︁ objective of single processes in nature. Only after Aristotelian physics were transformed into a form of Christian science, did the idea of an external expediency arise, which originated in the fixing of a general aim by God. In this way Philoponos came up with his theory of impetus concerning natural movements, a theory which had already been discussed for several centuries regarding ‚violent’︁ movements.The conception of an external objective suppressed the real Aristotelian conception of an internal objective of single processes, because it would contradict God's omnipotence, if the course of a single process was strictly determined. This suppression is exemplified in detail by the theory of horror vacui and by the development from the theory of impetus to the idea of ‚universal gravitation’︁. The subsequently prevailing conception of a (transcendental) external objective (that is to say the conception, that the aims of the creation were fixed through God's providence) on its part disappeared in the course of the eighteenth century, because by degrees natural (causal‐mechanical) explanations were found for single phenomena, which formerly could not be explained as having arisen naturally and therefore were attributed to God's wise decree. — What remains is nature (and natural science) whithout any aim, that is to say without any sense.