 There is a middle ground between strict theological teleology on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the naturalistic view that there is no final end that all processes are ultimately directed towards. According to this third alternative, a ‘soft’ version of the teleological position, process is progress. For, so goes this line of reasoning, one can draw a lesson from evolutionary theory about collective progress despite contingency and mortality at the scale of the individual organism. In the small – i.e., item by item – nature’s processes are self-canceling: what arises in the course of time perishes in the course of time. But nevertheless, so the argument goes, (i) the overall course of processual change tends to the development of ever richer, more complex and sophisticated conditions of occurrence. Moreover, Darwinian evolutionism suggests (ii) that