Context:

The teaching-learning process of biology frequently demands to interact with teleological approaches and explanations, which requires a case-by-case and contextualized analysis.

Objective:

This paper aims at assessing the epistemological potential of materialist dialectics and the biological theory of knowledge to interact with teleology during the teaching-learning process of biology.

Methods:

The authors rely on the historical-logical, analytical-synthetic and inductive-deductive methods to assess empirical data from documentary analysis and the authors' experiences in leading the teaching-learning process of biology in university education, including postgraduate studies and tutoring of doctoral dissertations. To collect criteria from professionals belonging to other Cuban and foreign universities, specialized in biophilosophy topics, the unstructured interview was used.

Result:

The paper argues the potentials of teleological approaches in the teaching-learning process of biology. By epistemological postulates of the materialist dialectic and the biological theory of knowledge, the eristic value of the hemiteleological explanation is recognized, despite the epistemological antipathy that it has traditionally generated. The purpose is identified with learning that results in expectations, which only human beings are able to achieve when acting as observers, due to their mental capacities.

Conclusion:

The materialist dialectic and the biological theory of knowledge provide theoretical positions congruent with each other, which provide teachers and students with epistemological tools to propose and interpret hemiteleological explanations from the perspective of an observer.