the.com/teleology

means The study or explanation of things in terms of the purpose or goal they seem to be aimed at, rather than just the mechanical causes that produced them.

from From Greek telos, meaning 'end' or 'goal' or 'completion,' fused with logos, 'reason' or 'account.' The telos root also survives in words like 'telephone' (far + sound) — but here it's about the far end of a purpose, not distance. The term itself is an 18th-century philosophical coinage, built to ask a very old question in a new technical way: does this exist because something pushed it into being, or because something is pulling it toward a point?