Matter has no telos, or more precisely our understanding of matter is obfuscated if we think it as teleological. But matter as such cannot be rationally explained without reference to a non-material telos in the name of which it appears. We cannot make sense of the antinomies of matter without situating them within a wider realm of values - collective social ends. These ends seem to be causally posterior to a material world from which they emerged - but our understanding of this material world, which continues to evolve, depends absolutely on these values. In other words, our understanding of values as having emerged from matter is provisional. It could change, and the values themselves would remain.