Teleological language or teleological thinking?

The endorsement of teleological statements about natural phenomena - such as "the Earth has an ozone layer in order to protect it from UV light" - is often interpreted as evidence for 'promiscuous teleology': an intuitive tendency to view nature as agentive or intentional. We argue instead that teleological statements are semantically ambiguous and propose a framework distinguishing three interpretive levels: attribution of a relation, attribution of purpose or function, and attribution of purposive-causal origins. Across two studies (N = 896), we tested whether linguistic formulation influences endorsement by shaping the availability of these interpretations. Participants who saw statements with 'in order to' connectives endorsed them more readily compared to participants who saw the same statements with connectives that invoked purpose or causal origins. Written justifications showed that most participants did not interpret teleological statements as claims about why a phenomenon came into existence, and those who did were much less likely to endorse the statement. Probe judgments revealed a consistent pattern: participants strongly endorsed relational claims, were more uncertain about function or purpose claims, and rejected claims about purposive-causal origins. Together, these findings indicate that the endorsement of teleological statements does not necessarily reflect promiscuous teleology. Instead, teleological language should be distinguished from teleological thinking: endorsement may often reflect semantic ambiguity, and, perhaps, a non-mentalistic tendency to view processes as directed towards outcomes, rather than deep-seated misconceptions about causation in nature.