Adults and children 'promiscuously' endorse teleological answers to 'why' questions-a tendency linked to arguments that humans are intuitively theistic and naturally unscientific. But how do people arrive at an endorsement of a teleological answer? Here, we show that the endorsement of teleological answers need not imply unscientific reasoning (n=880). A series of experiments shows that (a) 'why' questions can be understood as a query for one of two distinct kinds of information, and (b) these 'implicit questions' can explain adults' answer preferences without appeal to unscientific worldviews. As a strong test of this view, we show that people endorse teleological answers that can answer relevant (implicit) questions about something's purpose, even when those answers are explicitly non-causal. Thus, we argue that endorsement of teleological answers does not necessarily equate to endorsement of teleological 'explanations': Instead, explanation preferences may simply be an indication of people's pragmatic expectations about the questions that others ask. This view reframes how we should think about explanation preferences in general, while also offering practical insight into the pragmatics of question-asking.

What do we mean when we say something is for a given purpose? Teleology (i.e., something’s purpose) is often associated with teleological explanation (i.e., an explanation referring to that purpose). For instance, a knife may be for cutting things precisely because its existence can be explained by that purpose. But do people ascribe a telos to an object only if they think that object has a teleological explanation? Experiment 1 examined cases where an object was designed for one purpose but is now widely used for a different purpose, and found that teleology judgments and teleological explanation judgments are dissociable: Only an artifact’s original purpose could serve as an explanation, but its new purpose could also be its telos. Experiments 2-3 identified three factors that influence teleology judgments other than intentional design: present use (i.e., how a community is currently using the artifact), collective recognition (i.e., how a community together characterizes the artifact) and success at a function (i.e., how well the artifact can perform its purpose). Finally, Experiment 4 identified one factor that (perhaps unexpectedly) did not affect teleology judgments. In contrast to its role in teleological explanation, structure- function fit did not impact teleology judgments. Implications for work on object teleology and interpretations of teleological reasoning more generally are discussed.

People often think of objects teleologically. For instance, we might understand a hammer in terms of its purpose of driving in nails. But how should we understand teleological thinking in the first place? This paper separates mere teleology (simply ascribing a telos) and teleological explanation (thinking something is explained by its telos) by examining cases where an object was designed for one purpose but is now widely used for a different purpose. Across four experiments, we show that teleology judgments and teleological explanation judgments are dissociable, and identify three factors that influenced teleology judgments (and one that did not).

‘Why’ questions are semantically ambiguous. A question like “Why is the sky blue?” can be rephrased as either a ‘how’ (“How did the sky get its blue color?”) or a ‘purpose’ question (“What is the purpose of the sky being blue?”). This semantic ambiguity allows us to seek many kinds of information with the same ‘why’ question. As a result, ‘why’ questions have often been used to investigate people’s explanation preferences. From such work, we know that people will often prefer teleological over mechanistic explanations—a tendency that has been linked to many broader theories of human cognition. But are ‘why’ questions pragmatically ambiguous? You may, for instance, have a specific expectation about what “Why is the sky blue?” was really meaning to ask. Here, we show that (a) people have clear, domain-specific expectations about what specific questions are implied by ambiguous ‘why’ questions; (b) people have clear preferences for certain kinds of questions over others; and (c) there is a direct link between implicit questions and explanation preferences. Thus not only is “why” pragmatically unambiguous, but these specific expectations may shape known explanation preferences. To test this view, we finally show that people endorse teleological answers even when they are explicitly non-explanatory. In other words, people may sometimes prefer teleological answers because they interpret ‘why’ questions as ‘purpose’ questions (rather than as ‘how’ questions) and teleological explanations may simply better address these questions. We discuss how understanding ‘why’ may reshape our understanding of people’s explanation preferences and their consequences.

People may conceptualize certain categories as held together by a category-specific ‘essence’—some un- observable, critical feature that causes the external features of a category to emerge. Yet there remains an open question about what comprises this essence. Recently, Rose and Nichols have argued that this essence is comprised of tele, or purposes, (and, in turn, that teleology is the internal force that gives rise to external features). However, Neufeld has challenged this work on theoretical grounds, arguing that these effects arise only because people infer an underlying internal change when reasoning about a change in telos. On Neufeld’s view, it is the underlying internal cause, and not the telos itself, that serves as an essence (consistent with classic views of scientific essentialism). Here, we ask: Is teleology the primary force behind psychological essentialism? We begin by successfully replicating Rose and Nichols’ key findings in support of teleological essentialism. In two further experiments, however, we demonstrate that teleology may not the central way that people understand the essences of living things: Internal changes matter at least as much as changes to teleology. These findings suggest that while teleology may be one important cue to category membership and the essences of living things, it may be premature to say that we are ‘teleologically essentialist.’