ON PURPOSE

Although these books both have purpose in the title, they could scarcely be more different. The first is a history of purpose in Western culture by a historian and philosopher of science who has written widely on Darwin and evolution, while the second reflects its subtitle referring to a global movement of transformation and meaning. Both acknowledge in their own way that there is a contemporary crisis of purpose and meaning, but their takes come from different angles - Ruse is at home with the overall modern evolutionary view while at the same time finding a way of integrating purpose into the story. My own involvement in purpose is educational – are Inspiring Purpose programme for young people seeks to help them formulate their own sense of purpose by means of a three-page reflective template (www.inspiring-purpose.org.uk).

Modern science, especially biology, has tried to emancipate itself from the kind of purpose represented by Aristotle's final causality (why), focusing instead exclusively on efficient causes (how), and repudiating the argument from design and replacing it with natural selection. The Greek word giving rise to the notion of purpose is telos, meaning end or goal and expressed in the word teleology – even Jacques Monod found he could not dispense with this notion altogether, inventing instead the cognate teleonomy. For Ruse, mind makes things deeply, irreducibly teleological: 'mind is the apotheosis of final cause, drenched in purpose. It's all about values.' (p. 182) The interest of this book lies in its historical analysis going back to Athens and Jerusalem. Athens is represented by Plato and Aristotle, while treatment of Christian purpose begins with Augustine.

In his discussion of efficient and final causality, Ruse identifies the former with looking backwards and the latter looking forwards, represented by pushing from past and pulling from the future. One can readily understand how efficient causality turns into determinism and a denial of free will, also associated with a focus on so-called primary qualities involving quantity rather than so-called secondary qualities relating to quality and subjective experience. Overall, the author identifies three main historical approaches: the Platonic where God puts purpose into the world - which he calls external teleology, also structured into the Christian narrative; the Aristotelian principle of ordering where purpose is part of the fabric of the world (internal teleology) and the mind-given purpose of Kant where we project purpose onto the world. I found this a useful classification, also as a background to his extensive treatment of Darwin. Ruse finds elements of Plato and Aristotle reappearing in a modern guise, the former in intelligent design theory, guided evolution, the anthropic principle and the Gaia hypothesis; then Aristotle reappears self-organisation (also prefigured in Schelling and Goethe), vital forces (his discussion here includes Brian Goodwin) and in Whitehead. He is sceptical about the Gaia hypothesis, citing the struggle for existence as sinking any thoughts of overall integration, but he seems to miss the point that the initial insight was related to the composition of the atmosphere and its interaction with life. Interestingly, he sees the influence of Steiner on both Rachel Carson and James Lovelock, the latter through his friendship with Sir William Golding – himself steeped in Steiner.

Ruse's last three chapters address mind, religion and ends. He sees mind as another adaptation, running together the organic with the mental, also in terms of evolution. As soon as one separates the mind out, it becomes conceptually problematic to put things back together, and he is not tempted by recent moves towards panpsychism. He just takes the mind and sentience as given. He moves on from there to discuss the important distinction between reasons and causes, using his daughter's decision to become a lawyer as an example. This brings one back to final and efficient causes, where reason represents our capacity to think in terms of final causes – and for us, these are inseparable; a pure causally efficient description is simply incomplete and has to take account of reason and intention. He ends on a personal note, saying that the three things that have given purpose to his own life are family, friendship and the life of the mind - unexpectedly in this context, he cites Sartre's essay on existentialism as a humanism where we are responsible for creating our own meaning.

If Ruse is sceptical about progress except in limited areas, the tone of the second book is much more optimistic and discerns an overall purpose in evolution as well as ways in which we can contribute towards this unfolding process. Ervin Laszlo sees the manifestation of coherence and intelligence in evolution, with the overall direction moving 'towards creating systems that attain, maintain and optimise intrinsic and extrinsic coherence' (p. 36) and leading towards what he calls supercoherence - in that sense actions that support this are evolutionary: cooperation, symbiosis, compassion. Broadly, the contributions in this volume build on the vision of Teilhard de Chardin represented in the ideas of convergence, complexity and the power of love.

The three parts look at theory, the journey and the practice. Ken Wilber and Dustin DiPerna ask if we can move towards a deliberately developmental civilisation in terms of waking up, growing up and cleaning up – the latter a reference to working with the shadow, an important theme in the book as a whole. Other contributions bring in the power of feminine purpose, the implications of seeing the universe as living rather than dead, and the role of purpose in the Western mystery tradition. Some chapters present complete models such as the circle of purpose, discovering your divine dharma and wayfinding. Nick Jankel presents his view of spiritual atheism where 'purpose is enlightenment becoming impact. It is love in action.' These are terms usually associated with transcendence, but Jankel insists on a spirituality without this metaphysical commitment – it is clearly articulated even if I disagree with his premise.

For me, the most powerful chapter is by Barbara Marx Hubbard, now in her late 80s and whose quest goes back to Paris in 1948 where she met her future husband, Earl Hubbard. Her fundamental question was: what do you think is the meaning of all our new scientific, technological and industrial power that is good? She recalls the key stages of her own journey including the influences of Abraham Maslow, Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo, Buckminster Fuller, Jonas Salk and John Whiteside. In the first encounter, Salk told her that she was a mutant and effectively a herald of a new stage of evolution involving both high-tech and high love. She has been working intensively and co-creatively on this agenda since the 1970s, encouraging others to do the same and to help birth humanity as a universal species - a planetary awakening from fear to love as conscious evolutionaries. This is an admittedly optimistic agenda, especially given what look like recent retrograde steps, although these too can be a spur to a more general awakening. We desperately need an informed vision of hope, meaning and purpose that is nevertheless fully aware of reactionary powers and forces. There is a growing sense of outer necessity pressurising us to change, and the key thing is awakening our corresponding inner capacity on a sufficient scale. This book provides plenty of inspiration in this respect.