'end, purpose, goal')[2] is a term used by philosopher Aristotle to refer to the final cause of a natural organ or entity, or of human art.
He explained that the telos of the blacksmith is the production of a sword, while that of the swordsman's, which uses the weapon as a tool, is to kill or incapacitate an enemy.
[10] Aristotle, for his part, simply designated sophia (also referred to as the arete or excellence of philosophical reflection) as the consummation or the final cause (telos) of techne.
[11] Heidegger attempted to explain the Aristotelian conceptualization outlined in the Nicomachean Ethics, where the eidos – the soul of the maker – was treated as the arche of the thing made (ergon).
[14] According to the Marxist perspective, historical change is dictated by socio-economic structures (or "laws"), which are simultaneously preconditions and limitations of the realization of the telos of the class struggle.