EN
The article presents an outline of comparison between two medieval conceptions of teleological directedness of nature, the authors of which are Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham. The author claims that Ockham’s philosophy can – at least to some degree – be seen as a step towards those of modern theories which reject any influence of final causality upon non-rational entities. In this respect it differs substantially from Aquinas’s conception, which can legitimately be called a “cosmic teleology”, covering the Universe as a whole and all its parts.