Ententionality
= concept attempting to explain a purposeful universe
Description
Brendan Graham Dempsey:
"For a thorough treatment of this point, see Terence Deacon’s magnificent tome Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, wherein the issue of teleology is reappraised from the ground up in light of complexity and emergence. Deacon’s “quest to naturalize teleology” (p. 45) leads him to coin a new term with less conceptual baggage: “entention,” defined as “a generic adjective…for describing all phenomena that are intrinsically incomplete in the sense of being in relationship to, constituted by, or organized to achieve something non-intrinsic” (p. 549). A system is thus ententional if it is directed towards some end or purpose. Deacon develops a theory of emergence rooted in ententionality, since emergence is inherently bound up with teleology, which complexity requires us to reconsider if not reconceive. But though the mechanics are coming more into view, the importance of teleology itself is unavoidable. Despite the need for a new coinage, Deacon is clear: “Ententional processes and relationships can best be classed as expressions of final causality in Aristotle’s terms [AKA, “telos”]. Their absential character is determined by the end toward which they tend, or the represented concept for the sake of which they were created” (p. 35)."