Research · January 1943

Behavior, Purpose and Teleology

Three authors proposed describing goal-directed behaviour through negative feedback, in the same terms for an animal and for a machine.

Why it matters

Purpose stopped being a property of living things and became a testable control scheme that could be built.

The paper separates behaviour that is teleological, meaning guided by feedback, from behaviour that is not. The authors do not claim a machine thinks; they claim that purpose in behaviour is described by a mechanism rather than by intent. This is the frame the Macy conferences and early cybernetics worked inside.

Event record

Event date

January 1943

Timeline date

Event date

Verification

Sources gathered automatically · September 17, 2026

Lines

Learning theory

ID

evt-0058

Publication date in Philosophy of Science, volume 10, issue 1.

Sources

primary Behavior, Purpose and Teleology
Philosophy of Science · Published January 1943
archive Behavior, Purpose and Teleology (full text)
California State University Long Beach · Published January 1943

Related events

Related McCulloch and Pitts neuron model
Both 1943 papers describe behaviour mechanically, one through the logic of a neuron, the other through feedback.

Records that link to this one

Builds on First Macy conference on feedback
The conferences continued the feedback discussion that the 1943 paper opened.
Summary of the Macy Conferences on Cybernetics
Builds on Cybernetics
The book develops the programme stated in the 1943 paper.
Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine
Enables Wiener's anti-aircraft predictor
The 1943 paper on behaviour and purpose is the generalisation; this is the problem it grew out of.
Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (Introduction)From communications engineering to communications science: cybernetics and information theory in the United States, France, and the Soviet Union The Ontology of the Enemy: An Interview with Peter Galison