Kant: Teleology in Science

This article proposes an empirical approach to understanding the life of an organism that overcomes reductionist and dualist approaches. The approach is based on Immanuel Kant’s analysis of the cognitive conditions required for the recognition of an organism: the concept of teleology and the assumption of a formative power of self-generation. It is analyzed how these two criteria are applied in the cognition of a developing organism. Using the example of a developmental series of a plant leaf, an active and (...) relational process between observer and developing organism is shown, within which the teleology and self-generating power of the organism can be empirically observed through the mental faculties of understanding and will. Furthermore, it is emphasized that, according to Kant, even physical objects are not readily given, but are actively constituted through the unification of sense perceptions with concepts. This Kantian mode of objectification facilitates cognition of the physical properties of an organism. It can be supplemented with a participatory and co-constitutive mode of realization, in which the life of the organism (its teleologically organizing and self-generating power) can become an object of empirical research. Furthermore, it is argued that the participatory mode also facilitates an expanded conception of nature that allows for the existence of living beings within it. Finally, an analogy to Goethe’s approach to the living organism is highlighted. In summary, it is stated that to understand life, one must consciously participate in it. (shrink)

The aim of this collection is to create a curated set of key German source texts from the eighteenth-century life sciences devoted to theories of generation, heredity, and race. The criteria for inclusion stem from our sense that there is an argument to be made for connecting three domains of inquiry that have heretofore remained mostly distinct in both their presentation and scholarly analysis: i) life science debates regarding generation and embryogenesis, ii) emerging philosophical and anthropological theories regarding the nature (...) of racial typology, and iii) the role of empire in supplying the ethnographic materials in use as evidence for the various investigations and theories being proposed. The Key Texts volume thus has three sections. The first section is devoted to selections from theorists working to create an account of the processes guiding generation and embryogenetic development. Given that at the time there were few ways to definitively prove that babies received contributions from both parents in their creation, mixed-race children became increasingly valuable sources of evidence for those insisting on joint inheritance. Although this sets up the second section of the volume—since one can trace a clear facet of racial biometric science out of this original set of enquiries—the bulk of section two is devoted to the many different accounts created at the time to understand and delineate racial differences. The third section is focused on ‘race and empire’ in order to situate the scientific texts of the previous sections in their socio-historical context. By including these pieces, it is our aim to remind readers that scientific curiosity over the nature and origin of racial diversity did not develop in a vacuum but indeed existed in full knowledge of the exploitation and dispossession of human beings. The ‘materials’ for this research program were in many cases either directly taken from black and brown human beings caught up in Europe’s colonial projects or were provided by the data gathered during large-scale voyages of exploration. The material basis of this type of research was rarely reflected upon by any of the theorists in sections one and two of the volume, a fact that has led many historians of science to focus on these theories without attention to the socio-historical context; we are deliberately trying to avoid this and indeed to deepen our own readers’ appreciation of the fact. (shrink)

Eighteenth-century German writers with broad interests in natural history, and in particular, in the kind of ethnographic reports typically included in travel and expedition narratives, had to be able to access and read the original reports or they had to work with translations. The translators of these reports were, moreover, typically forced more than usual into the role of interpreter. This was especially the case when it came to accounts wherein vocabulary did not exist or was at least not settled, (...) and more importantly where scientific understanding was uncertain or altogether lacking, a situation that could only make the creation of semantic categories all the more significant. With this state of affairs in mind, this essay concentrates on Immanuel Kant’s work to develop a specialised racial vocabulary, and does so in a manner that reveals the importance of Buffon’s account of variation as a resource for Kant, even as Kant sought to position the new vocabulary as an improved template for transforming taxonomy or Naturbeschreibung into a genuine historical science or Naturgeschichte. (shrink)

In this article I offer an opinionated overview of the central elements of Kant’s philosophical methodology during the critical period. I begin with a brief characterization of how Kant conceives of the aims of human inquiry – focusing on the idea that inquiry ideally aims at not just cognition (Erkenntnis), but also the more demanding cognitive achievements that Kant labels insight (Einsehen) and comprehension (Begreifen). Then I explore the implications of this picture for philosophy — emphasizing Kant’s distinction between critical (...) and doctrinal phases of philosophical inquiry, with the first of these playing both a negative and a positive role with respect to the second. Then, I will argue that this positive role is possible, according to Kant, only insofar as philosophy follows what I call a “capacities-first” methodology – that is, one that treats basic cognitive capacities (such as reason) and their self-conscious activities as fundamental (in both a cognitive sense and in an explanatory sense) for the sort of philosophy human beings are capable of. It is this methodology, I will argue, that allows Kant to introduce the first principles that philosophy in its doctrinal phase requires in a manner that is neither arbitrary nor (at least obviously) incompatible with Kant’s own critical restrictions on cognition. I conclude by discussing some of the implications of this methodological picture – including the methodological significance of self-consciousness and regressive or “transcendental” arguments, Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic methods in philosophy, and Kant’s conception of reason as autonomous. (shrink)

This paper investigates conceptions of explanation, teleology, and analogy in the works of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Richards (2000, 2002) and Zammito (2006, 2012, 2018) have argued that Kant’s philosophy provided an obstacle for the project of establishing biology as a proper science around 1800. By contrast, Russell (1916), Outram (1986), and Huneman (2006, 2008) have argued, similar to suggestions from Lenoir (1989), that Kant’s philosophy influenced the influential naturalist Georges Cuvier. In this article, I wish to (...) expand on and further the work of Russell, Outram, and Huneman by adopting a novel perspective on Cuvier and considering (a) the similar conceptions of proper science and explanation of Kant and Cuvier, and (b) the similar conceptions of the role of teleology and analogy in the works of Kant and Cuvier. The similarities between Kant and Cuvier show, contrary to the interpretation of Richards and Zammito, that some of Kant’s philosophical ideas, whether they derived from him or not, were fruitfully applied by some life scientists who wished to transform life sciences into proper sciences around 1800. However, I also show that Cuvier, in contrast to Kant, had a workable strategy for transforming the life sciences into proper sciences, and that he departed from Kant’s philosophy of science in crucial respects. (shrink)

Over the past few decades, philosophers of biology have debated the need for a revised evolutionary synthesis that could integrate the causal dynamics of singular organisms into mainstream biological theory. In this chapter I examine two synthesizing arguments (extension and accretion) by turning to a historical source that has recently caught the attention of philosophers on both sides of the debate: Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment. I argue that accretionists and extenders both pick out one of two (...) key components in Kant’s account of teleological judgment, which, according to Kant, must be held together. By emphasizing one part of Kant’s account of teleological judgment at the expense of the other, both sides overlook the practical nature of his critique. Kant does not simply identify the conditions that render it necessary to judge some products of nature teleologically, I suggest, but also demonstrates the need for second-order analysis to define various domains of inquiry that arise in response to the explanatory demands of nature. The shared turn to Kant indicates that synthesizing arguments can be evaluated against their capacity to accommodate ongoing negotiation between the plurality of research aims in practice. I conclude that a deflationary version of the extension argument is best suited to the task. (shrink)

This paper examines Kant’s treatment of the design argument for the existence of God, or physicotheology. It criticizes the interpretation that, for Kant, the assumption of intelligent design satisfies an internal demand of inquiry. It argues that Kant’s positive appraisal of physicotheology is instead better understood on account of its polemical utility for rebutting objections to practical belief in God upon which Kant’s ethicotheological argument rests, and thus as an instrument in the transition from theoretical to practical philosophy. Kantian physicotheology (...) plays this role a) by criticizing alternative speculative accounts of the ground of nature, and b) by analogizing from the structure of finite rational agency in order to represent more clearly the action of an ideal agent. (shrink)

The topic of this dissertation is the concept of nature and how Kant and Hegel each conceive of it. Both agree that <nature> cannot be an empirical concept but is rather presupposed in all experience and object-related thinking. Yet, Kant holds that we can only conceive of nature as a unified whole when we conceive of it as a mechanical system. Whereas, according to Hegel, the unity of all the different kinds of natural phenomena can only be accounted for by (...) means of his dialectical method. A crucial and novel point in my reading of Kant is that the concept of nature as a mechanical system is merely a regulative ideal, i.e., an imaginary end-point of science that we only approach asymptotically. It is this point that allows me to resolve long-standing puzzles in the scholarship regarding organisms and free will. For this point allows for a coherent reading of Kant, a reading that involves that 1) we do in fact have experience of organisms as purposive and that 2) Kant’s distinctive kind of determinism is compatible with an open future. My reading of Kant furthermore provides a uniquely suited entry-point into Hegel’s dialectical account of nature, according to which not only human beings and organisms, but even solar systems do not fit the mould of a flat-footed mechanical determinism. This allows me to show that Hegel is—in several respects—both an inheritor and radicalizer of Kant. (shrink)

In Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant claims organisms are to be judged as ‘natural ends’, which are products of nature but inexplicable by mechanical laws of nature. The conception of natural ends necessarily leads to the idea of nature in its whole as a system of ends. This paper proposes an interpretation of Kant’s biological teleology that can be compatible with modern science. Mechanical laws in the third Critique are understood as empirical causal laws that determine all phenomena. (...) A living organism is mechanically inexplicable, not because it falls outside of mechanical laws, but because the reciprocal productions of its parts are unifiable under its whole, as if designed by an intelligent agency according to the concept of the whole. Once we judge teleologically the mechanical laws determining the organic productions, we must judge teleologically all productions determined by these laws and therefore conceive nature in its whole as a system of ends, to which natural mechanism is subordinated. (shrink)

In the 1780s Kant’s critique of rational cosmology clearly identified the limits of theoretical cosmology in agreement with the doctrine of transcendental idealism of space and time. However, what seems to be less explored, and remains still a desideratum for the literature, is a thorough investigation of the implications of transcendental philosophy for Kant’s view of cosmology in the 1790s. This contribution fills this gap by investigating Kant’s view of teleology and measurement in the Critique of Judgment, exploring their implications (...) for Kant’s late view of cosmology. Considering the historical and scientific context in which Kant developed his reflections motivates my proposal to read Kant’s late view of the universe in terms of “functional cosmology.” -/- . (shrink)

The rise of the mechanistic worldview in the seventeenth century had a major impact on views of biological generation. Many seventeenth century naturalists rejected the old animist thesis. However, the alternative view of gradual mechanistic formation in embryology didn’t convince either. How to articulate the peculiarity of life? Researchers in the seventeenth century proposed both “animist” and mechanistic theories of life. In the eighteenth century again a controversy in biology arose regarding the explanation of generation. Some adhered to the view (...) that life is a physical property of matter (e.g. Buffon), others saw living entities as the result of the development of pre-existing germs (e.g. Bonnet). Naturalists, lacked a convincing account that could guide their research. In interaction with leading naturalists of his time Immanuel Kant articulated an approach to explaining generation. Kant’s account, delineated in his Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of the power of judgment) (1790), is a combination of Newtonian non-reductionist mechanism in explanation, and a concept of natural end comparable to Stahl’s formal conception of organic bodies. It consists of two claims: a) in biology only mechanical explanation is explanatory, and b) living entities contain some original organisation, which is mechanically unexplainable. In the nineteenth century this approach influenced naturalists as Müller, Virchow, and Von Baer, in their physiological research. Dissatisfied with a sheer mechanistic or, on the other hand, a sheer teleological approach, they appreciated the Kantian account of mechanical explanation of natural ends. In Germany, in the second halve of the nineteenth century, Ernst Haeckel reopened the debate about abiogenesis, which still continuous. (shrink)

In the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant formulates teleological principles, or rather ideas, and explicates them referring to concrete examples of natural science such as chemistry, astronomy, biology, empirical psychology, and physical geography. Despite the increasing interest in the systematic relevance of the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic and its importance for Kant’s conception of natural science, the numerous historical sources for the regulative use of reason have not yet been investigated. One that is very central is Maupertuis’ principle (...) of least action. In 1781, Kant transformed teleology into heuristics and methodology, but in doing so, he partially develops a teleology which was disqualified by Maupertuis because its starting point lies in the construction of animals or plants, the structure of the earth, and the immensity of the celestial bodies. Based on Maupertuis’ principle of action, it can be shown that the Appendix forms a systematic interface between Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens and Critique of Judgement which allows the reconstruction of Kant’s regulative use of reason and its specific status in the context of natural science and his critical appraisal of Maupertuis. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is, famously, not only the major philosopher of European enlightenment, but also one of the first philosophers to develop a philosophical theory of “human races”. How do these two sides of Kant relate to each other? What is the significance of race in Kant’s philosophy? In this article, we aim to discuss these questions by taking a close look into the conceptual and philosophical presuppositions underlying Kant’s understanding of race; relating them to the concept of teleology as developed (...) by Kant in the Critique of Judgement and to the idea of natural history that can be derived from there. In the last two chapters, we intertwine both perspectives in such a way that, on the one hand, we can determine the philosophical significance of race for Kant, and, on the other hand, show how a race-sensible perspective gives new and critical insight into Kant’s concept of reason. (shrink)

Blumenbach’s epigenetic theory, particularly his concept of the formative drive, was appropriated by both Kant and Schelling. Kant’s third Critique endorsement of Blumenbach’s formative drive shows him to be close to Schelling’s conception of nature, since it is evidence of his distance from an artifactual conception of teleology. Schelling also draws on this concept of the formative drive, making the structures operative in the formative drive the explanatory ground of all natural forces and processes, thereby supplying the unity between the (...) organic and inorganic which, according to Kant’s Critical philosophy, is unattainable for our discursive understanding. In this paper, I will argue for two related conclusions. First, Kant is closer to Schelling in his outlook than he has been interpreted to be, particularly in his conception of reflecting teleological judgment, according to which we must judge organisms as if they internally directed at ends, while using design as a heuristic device. Second, Schelling’s philosophy of nature expands upon Kant’s view of the teleological principle, and in doing so develops a systematically unified view of nature. For Schelling, the organizing principle manifested in the formative drive also unifies all of nature into a single system. (shrink)

In this essay I examine Kant's analogy with life from §65 of the Critique of the power of Judgment. I argue that this analogy is central for understanding his notion of a natural end, for his account of the formative power of organisms in the third Critique, and for situating Kant's account of this power in relation to the Lebenskräfte of the vitalists.

In this essay I examine Kant's analogy with life from §65 of the Critique of the power of Judgment. I argue that this analogy is central for understanding his notion of a natural end, for his account of the formative power of organisms in the third Critique, and for situating Kant's account of this power in relation to the Lebenskräfte of the vitalists.

It was commonly accepted in Goethe’s time that plants were equipped both to propagate themselves and to play a certain role in the natural economy as a result of God’s beneficent and providential design. Goethe’s identification of sexual propagation as the “summit of nature” in The Metamorphosis of Plants (1790) might suggest that he, too, drew strongly from this theological-metaphysical tradition that had given rise to Christian Wolff’s science of teleology. Goethe, however, portrayed nature as inherently active and propagative, itself (...) improvising into the future by multiple means, with no extrinsically pre-ordained goal or fixed end-point. Rooted in the nature philosophy of his friend and mentor Herder, Goethe’s plants exhibit their own historically and environmentally conditioned drives and directionality in The Metamorphosis of Plants. In this paper I argue that conceiving of nature as active productivity—not merely a passive product—freed Goethe of the need to tie plants’ forms and functions to a divine system of ends, and allowed him to consider possibilities for plants, and for nature, beyond the walls of teleology. (shrink)

Kant’s notorious remark about the impossibility of there ever being a Newton of a blade of grass has often been interpreted as a misguided pre-emptive strike against Darwin and evolutionary theories in general: 'It would be absurd for humans even to make such an attempt or to hope that there may yet arise a Newton who could make comprehensible even the generation of a blade of grass according to natural laws that no intention has ordered; rather, we must absolutely deny (...) this insight to human beings. (CPJ 5:400) My aim in this chapter is to re-evaluate this claim in the context of Kant’s account of organic generation and argue that, contrary to what is usually thought, it does leave room for the possibility of evolution. After spelling out the constraints Kant identifies for any scientific study of the history of living beings, I examine his theory of generation and draw its implications for biological heredity, species diversity, and the role played by environmental factors in organic development. On this basis, I conclude that first, evolution is a possible albeit far-fetched hypothesis for Kant; second, Darwin’s theory of natural selection would have turned a far-fetched possibility into a plausible candidate; and third, it would not have disposed of the need for teleology. This is why, I argue, Darwin could never have been a Newton of a blade of grass. (shrink)

This volume explores the intuitive yet puzzling concept of teleology as it has been treated by philosophers from the time of Plato and Aristotle to the present day. Philosophical discussions are enlivened and contextualized by reflections on the implications of teleology in medicine, art, poetry, and music.

Kant speaks repeatedly about the relations between ends or aims and scientific research, but the topic has mostly been ignored. What is the role of ends, especially (though not exclusively) practical ones, in his views on science? I will show that while Kant leaves ample space for recognizing a function of ends both in the definition and the pursuit of inquiry, and in the further practical application of scientific cognition, he does not claim that science is simply an instrument for (...) achieving practical ends. I explain his complex conception, pointing out that Kant argues (1) that the sciences require ends for their very definition, (2) that ends come in fundamentally different kinds, (3) that the relation between science and ends requires the rational determination and hierarchization of all our ends, with “wisdom” as the highest, and (4) that this determination and hierarchization – which ought to be done by metaphysics – has itself to be carried out in a “scientific way”. I show further that (5) Kant gives sui generis weight to the epistemic aims and standards of science and to the autonomy of science from our practical lives. This places his position between separatism and anti-separatism with regard to the relation between science and our ends or values. (shrink)

Ecology arguably has roots in eighteenth-century natural histories, such as Linnaeus's economy of nature, which pressed a case for holistic and final-causal explanations of organisms in terms of what we'd now call their environment. After sketching Kant's arguments for the indispensability of final-causal explanation merely in the case of individual organisms, and considering the Linnaean alternative, this paper examines Kant's critical response to Linnaean ideas. I argue that Kant does not explicitly reject Linnaeus's holism. But he maintains that the indispensability (...) of final-causal explanation depends on robust modal connections between types of organism and their functional parts; relationships in Linnaeus's economy of nature, by contrast, are relatively contingent. Kant's framework avoids strong metaphysical assumptions, is responsive to empirical evidence, and can be fruitfully compared with some contemporary approaches to biological organization. (shrink)

Passt der Mensch als moralischer Akteur in die Welt? Während in früheren Ansätzen Kants nur der aus den Bedürfnissen der Praxis gespeiste Glaube blieb, hofft er in der "Kritik der Urteilskraft" zeigen zu können, dass sich die Überzeugung von einer moralkompatiblen Welt unabhängig rechtfertigen lässt – aus Ästhetik und Biologie. Der Autor liefert zunächst eine systematische Analyse von Kants Problemstellung: Was motiviert die Suche nach einem solchen Übergang zwischen Theorie und Praxis und was kommt als Lösung infrage? Dann schlägt er (...) eine innovative Lesart der Rolle der Biologie im Übergangsargument vor: Sie ist nicht als positiver Beitrag, sondern als naheliegender Einwand gegen das angestrebte Argument zu verstehen. Das wirft neues Licht insbesondere auf die Antinomie der teleologischen Urteilskraft. -/- Does man fit into the world as a moral actor? In Kant's earlier approaches, only faith catering to the needs of human practice remained to supply an answer to this question. In the "Critique of Judgment", though, Kant attempts to show that the conviction concerning the existence of a morally compatible world can indeed be independently justified – namely from aesthetics and biology. The author first provides a systematic analysis of Kant's problem: What motivates the search for such a transition between theory and practice and what can be considered a satisfactory solution? He then proposes an innovative reading of the role of biology in the transition argument: It is not to be understood as a positive contribution, but as an obvious objection to the argument pursued in the first place. This sheds new light in particular on the antinomy of teleological judgement. (shrink)

In the second half of the third Critique, Kant develops a new form of judgment peculiar to organisms: teleological judgment. In the Appendix to this text, Kant argues that we must regard the final, unconditioned end of creation as human freedom, due to reason's demand that we regard nature as a system of ends. In this paper, I offer a novel interpretation of this argument, according to which judgments of freedom within nature are possible as instances of teleological judgment. Just (...) as individual organisms are to be regarded as governed by supersensible teleological laws, so too is nature as a whole to be regarded as given laws from a supersensible ground. This supersensible ground in the case of nature as a whole is freedom. Freedom and teleological judgments are to be regarded as unifiable with mechanism in the supersensible, and we are to subordinate mechanical explanations to teleological judgments as well as to freedom. This interpretation makes sense both of Kant's claim that he overcomes the “incalculable gulf” between nature and freedom in the third Critique, and also of the location of this argument, as following after and relying on the results of the Dialectic of Teleological Judgment. (shrink)

The antinomy of teleological judgment has increasingly been understood as a conflict between regulative principles. But it is not clear why regulative principles can be in conflict at all, since Kant otherwise takes the realization that two conflicting principles are regulative to be sufficient to resolve an antinomy. I argue that in Kant’s view regulative principles do not conflict with one another only if they are reducible to reason’s interest in systematicity. Given that the principles of this antinomy do conflict, (...) they must not be reducible to reason’s interest in systematicity. I argue that teleology is thus not reducible to reason’s interest because it is fundamentally unlawful. I then use this irreducibility to account for Kant’s appeal to the supersensible in this context. (shrink)

This essay examines Wolff’s science of teleology, which has historically been dismissed as a crude physico-theology resting on a simple confusion between uses and purposes. Focusing especially on his two German volumes (German Teleology, 1723, and German Physiology, 1725), I argue that, first, Wolff never intended teleology to be a self-standing theology; and second, that teleology, as a part of physics, is primarily an applied or practical discipline. In its theological function, teleology presupposes the ontological and cosmological arguments for the (...) being and attributes of God rendered in rational theology. As a part of physics, meanwhile, teleology presupposes the inert-mechanical view of nature which had emerged in the seventeenth century, and builds upon mechanistic physics by providing a perspective on nature as consisting of relations of benefit and advantage. The physiological part of teleology, or the study of plant and animal bodies, occupies a special place, for which Wolff deploys notions of health and sickness consistent with the mechanistic physics he accepts. With this in view, I argue that Wolff’s teleology could not be the proper target of Kant’s critique of physico-theology. Yet, there remain deeper differences between Wolff and Kant on the topic, which have to do with the sources and limits of teleological reasoning in general. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore Kant’s account of normativity through the prism of the distinction between the natural and the human sciences. Although the pragmatic orientation of the human sciences is often defined in contrast with the theoretical orientation of the natural sciences, I show that they are in fact regulated by one and the same norm, namely reason’s demand for autonomy.

This paper explores an analogy between two approaches to teleology in nature and two theories of authorship. I argue that Spinoza’s attempt (as Kant criticizes it in the Third Critique) to explain all natural unity, and explain away apparent teleological unity, in terms of inhering in the same subject (God) or proceeding causally from God’s essence mirrors the view Proust lays out in the essay “Gustave Moreau” that the features of a work of art are unified in virtue of occurring (...) together in, and proceeding from the laws of, the artist’s inner soul. Meanwhile, the strategy Kant favors for understanding interdependent natural systems like organisms—provisionally considering them as purposively designed—resembles the one Alexander Nehamas recommends in “The Postulated Author” (1981) for interpreting a work of art: imagining the agent who could have intended all its features. I propose that this analogy sheds light on the unity of the two parts of the Third Critique by pointing to the similarity between interpreting beautiful objects and interpreting nature. (shrink)

Kant’s Antinomy of Teleological Judgment is unique in offering two pairs of oppositions, one of regulative maxims, and the other of constitutive principles. Here I defend a traditional interpretation of the antinomy— as proposed, for example, by Stadler (1874), Adickes (1925), and Cassirer (1921)—that the antinomy consists in an opposition between constitutive principles, and is resolved by pointing out their legitimate status as merely regulative maxims. I argue against recent interpretations—for example, in McLaughlin (1990), Allison (1991), and Watkins (2009)—which treat (...) the regulative pair as itself antinomial. I then address several textual worries having to do with reconciling the traditional interpretation within the overall structure of the Dialectic of Teleological Judgment that have led these scholars to espouse the new view. Throughout the paper, I emphasize hitherto neglected parallels with Kant’s treatment of the antinomy of taste, which sheds light on understanding the antinomy of teleology. (shrink)

The first part of the final section of Hegel's Science of Logic, the section on "The Idea", is titled "Life". Logic being the science of thought for Hegel, this section presents Hegel's account of the form of thought peculiar to thinking about living beings as living. Hegel's full account of this form of thought holds that a living being is (1) a functionally organized totality of members (2) that maintains itself in and through its environment (3) in the manner of (...) some particular species. I develop Hegel's account in critical conversation with Kant's more limited principle, in the Critique of the Power of Judgement, for judging about internally purposive "natural ends" as beings in which every part is both means and end to every other. I argue that Hegel's view rationally develops from attempting to think through Kant's principle, retaining what is valuable in Kant's insights without treating the life sciences with skepticism. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the on-going research into the ways in which the humanities transformed the natural sciences in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries. By investigating the relationship between hermeneutics -- as developed by Herder -- and natural history, it shows how the methods used for the study of literary and artistic works played a crucial role in the emergence of key natural-scientific fields, including geography and ecology.

This article presents a new argument concerning the relation between Kant’s theory of race and aspects of the critical philosophy. It argues that Kant’s treatment of the problem of the systematic unity of nature and knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of the Power of Judgment can be traced back a methodological problem in the natural history of the period – that of the possibility of a natural system of nature. Kant’s transformation of the methodological problem (...) from natural history into a set of philosophical problems proceeds by way of the working out of his own problem in natural history – the problem of the natural history of the human races – and specifically the problem of the unity in diversity of the human species, in response to which he develops a theory of race. This theory of race is, further, the first developed model of the use of teleological judgment in Kant’s work. The article thus argues that Kant’s philosophical position on the sy... (shrink)

Kant argues in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment that the first stage in resolving the problem of teleology is conceiving it correctly. He explains that the conflict between mechanism and teleology, properly conceived, is an antinomy of the power of judgment in its reflective use regarding regulative maxims, and not an antinomy of the power of judgment in its determining use regarding constitutive principles. The matter in hand does not concern objective propositions regarding the possibility of objects (...) or actual features of certain objects, namely, organisms. It is rather a methodological issue as to the appropriate way to explain the generation, development, and function of organisms. Taken in this manner as subjective maxims guiding the explanation and inquiry of organisms, the principles of mechanism and teleology need not necessarily be seen as contradictorily opposed but instead can be combined in the study of organisms. This, however, is not enough to complete the analysis of the antinomy of the teleological power of judgment. In order to show that there is an antinomy in this case, Kant has to establish that both seemingly conflicting maxims are necessary and natural to the human mind. He does it by grounding them in the ‘special character’ or peculiarity (Eigentümlichkeit) of the human understanding. However, it is not entirely clear just what exactly this peculiarity of the human understanding is. Paul Guyer argues that Kant suggests two different accounts of the peculiarity of the human intellect. According to one account, this peculiarity consists in the fact that our understanding forms general concepts and according to another, in its propensity to proceed from the parts to the whole. I will argue in this paper that Kant puts forward a single account, in which the combination of these two features demonstrate the peculiarity of the human understanding manifested in the encounter with organisms. This account explains the necessity of the regulative maxims of mechanism and teleology, and thus completes Kant’s analysis of the antinomy of the teleological power of judgment. (shrink)

Kant’s theory of biology in the Critique of the Power of Judgment may be rejected as obsolete and attacked from two opposite perspectives. In light of recent advances in biology one can claim contra Kant, on the one hand, that biological phenomena, which Kant held could only be explicated with the help of teleological principles, can in fact be explained in an entirely mechanical manner, or on the other, that despite the irreducibility of biology to physico-mechanical explanations, it is nonetheless (...) proper science. I argue in response that Kant’s analysis of organisms is by no means obsolete. It reveals biology’s uniqueness in much the same way as several current theorists do. It brings to the fore the unique purposive characteristics of living phenomena, which are encapsulated in Kant’s concept of “natural end” and which must be explicated in natural terms in order for biology to become a science. I maintain that Kant’s reluctance to consider biology proper science is not a consequence of his critical philosophy but rather of his inability to complete this task. Kant lacked an appropriate theoretical framework, such as provided later by modern biology, which would enable the integration of the unique features of biology in an empirical system. Nevertheless, as I show in this paper, the conceptual problems with which Kant struggled attest more to the relevance and depth of his insights than to the shortcomings of his view. His contribution to the biological thought consists in insisting on an empirical approach to biology and in providing the essential philosophical underpinning of the autonomous status of biology. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 2 Seiten: 314-342.

In this paper, I argue that Kant adopted, throughout his career, a position that is much more akin to classical accounts of epigenesis, although he does reject the more radical forms of epigenesis proposed in his own time, and does make use of preformationist sounding terms. I argue that this is because Kant thinks of what is pre-formed as a species, not an individual or a part of an individual; has no qualm with the idea of a specific, teleological principle (...) or force underlying generation, and conceives of germs and predispositions as specific constraints on such a principle or force. Neither of these conceptions of what is “preformed”, I argue, is in strict opposition to classical epigenesis. I further suggest that Kant’s lingering use of preformationist terminology is due to his belief that this is required to account for the specificity of the specific generative force; his resistance towards the unrestricted plasticity of the generative force in radical epigenesis, which violates species-fixism; and his insistence on the internal, organic basis of developmental plasticity and variation within species. I conclude by suggesting that this terminological and interpretative peculiarity is partly due to a larger shift in the natural philosophical concerns surrounding the debate on epigenesis and preformation. Specifically, it is a sign that the original reasons for resisting epigenesis, namely its use of specific, teleological principles and its commitment to the natural production of biological structure, became less of a concern, whereas unrestricted plasticity and its undermining of fixism became a real issue, thereby also becoming the focal point of the debate. (shrink)

A Crítica da faculdade de julgar foi recebida com entusiasmo pelos filósofos do idealismo alemão. No caso de Friedrich Schelling, as duas partes da obra foram influentes, de modo que não só a estética kantiana, mas também a teleologia foi marcante em sua trajetória filosófica. Observaremos como o filósofo de Leonberg acolhe, na Introdução às Ideias para uma filosofia da natureza, a noção kantiana de organismo como dotado de autocausalidade, mas pensa-a nos quadros de uma filosofia pós-kantiana, buscando prescindir das (...) noções de juízo reflexionante e também da ideia de “natureza como arte” para se pensar o organismo. Como Schelling vincula essa noção com a proposta de se pensar a unidade entre natureza e espírito a partir do próprio sujeito, e não de algo exterior a ele? Como Kant reagiria a tal proposta? The Critique of Judgment was enthusiastically received by the German Idealists. In the case of Friedrich Schelling, both divisions of the work were influent, thus resulting that not only Kantian aesthetics, but also the teleology was a landmark in his philosophical itinerary. We attempt to observe how the philosopher of Leonberg receives, in the Introduction to the Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, the Kantian conception of organism as endowed with self-causality, but at the same time thinks it within the frame of a post-Kantian philosophy, leaving aside the reflective judgment and also the idea of nature as a product of art in order to think the organism. How does Schelling connect this notion with the proposal to think the unity between nature and spirit based on the own subject, and not on something external to it? How would Kant react to such a proposal? (shrink)

The paper focuses on the reception of Kant’s philosophy of biology in the context of the so-called ‘Göttingen School’. Timothy Lenoir has tried to rehabilitate the framework elaborated at Göttingen by stressing its difference from Naturphilosophie. Focusing on the work of Karl Friedrich Kielmeyer this paper argues that Lenoir’s position is based on a historiographical bias. I take into account Kielmeyer’s stance on physiology, embryology and natural history. This analysis reveals the existence of a clear shift from a regulative to (...) a constitutive understanding of teleology. I agree with Zammito that the ‘Lenoir thesis’ should be overcome in favor of a more accurate narrative of the emergence of biology in Germany at the turn of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

The antinomy of teleological judgment is one of the most controversial passages of Kant’s "Critique of the Power of Judgment". Having developed the idea of an explanation of organized beings by mechanical and teleological natural laws in §§ 61-68, in §§ 69-78 Kant raises the question of whether higher order mechanical and teleological natural laws, which unify the particular empirical laws of organized beings, might pose an antinomy of conflicting principles within the power of judgment. I will argue against alternative (...) views that this antinomy is neither a conflict between objective constitutive principles of the determining power of judgment nor a conflict between an objective constitutive principle of the determining power of judgment and a subjective regulative maxim of the reflecting power of judgment nor does it consist in a confusion of a pair of subjective regulative maxims of the reflecting power of judgment with a pair of objective constitutive principles of the determining power of judgment, but does consist in an apparent conflict between mechanical and teleological natural laws as subjective regulative maxims of the reflecting power of judgment. I will further argue that Kant’s resolution of the antinomy consists in the regulative idea of a supersensible that represents the unity of both kinds of natural laws and justifies the unification of both kinds of natural laws in the human power of judgment. Kant uses three notions when he talks about the supersensible – the regulative idea of a divine artisan, the regulative idea of a divine intuitive understanding, and the regulative idea of an underdetermined, supernatural ground of nature. I will show how each of these notions accounts for the unity of both kinds of natural laws and will discuss possible correlations between them. I will then explain how the unity of both kinds of natural laws in the regulative idea of a supersensible accounts for the unification of both kinds of natural laws in the human power of judgment. While the divine intuitive understanding is perfect and uncreated and, thus, capable of a representation of the unity of both kinds of natural laws, the human discursive understanding is imperfect and created; it is capable only of the representation of the unification of both kinds of natural laws in form of a hierarchy of laws. (shrink)

Although scholarly attention has been mostly paid to the many connections existing between Kant and the exact sciences, the landscape of Kant studies has begun to noticeably change during the last decade, with many new pieces devoted to a consideration of Kant’s relation to the life sciences of his day. It is in this vein, for example, that investigators have begun to discuss the importance of Kant’s essays on race for the development of Anthropology as an emerging field. The bulk (...) of the contributions to this recent trend, however, have focused on Kant’s remarks on organic life in the Critique of Judgment, such that Kant’s “theory of biology” is now seen to be firmly located in that text. Amidst such consolidation, there are a few pieces that have begun to address Kant’s appeal to organic vocabulary within the context of his theory of cognition, though these too remain dominated by the interpretive template set by the third Critique. My own strategy in this essay will be different. Kant did indeed borrow from the life sciences for his model of the mind, but in a manner that would reject a naturalized account. His preference for epigenesis as a theory of organic generation needs to be carefully distinguished, therefore, from the use he would make of it when discussing a metaphysical portrait of reason. (shrink)

This edited collection began as an international symposium on Kant and biology held at the University of Tübingen in 2010 and the now-published volume offers us new ways of thinking about Kant’s theory of biology with respect to not only his own work but to contemporary discussions regarding biological function and form. With a consistently high level of scholarship and a set of internationally renowned contributors, Kant’s Theory of Biology thus offers us an important contribution to the field’s rapidly growing (...) interest in the history of the life sciences, and the book’s discussions devoted to the Critique of Judgement, in particular, will no doubt shape the course of subsequent investigations in the years to come. The anthology contains fifteen essays divided into three parts, with a focus on the development of the philosophy of biology in Kant’s early writings, the theory of organisms in Kant’s Critique of Judgement, and current perspectives on the teleology of nature. The quality of the editing on this book is excellent, far superior to that of a typical anthology, and what is to be especially appreciated is the helpful cross-referencing being done by the majority of the papers in so far as this lends the collection an organic, as opposed to a merely aggregative, feel. (shrink)

Much of the philosophical attention directed to Kant’s intervention into biology has been directed toward Kant’s idea of a transcendental limit upon what can be understood constitutively. Kant’s own wider philosophical practice, however, was principally oriented toward solving problems and the scientific benefits of his methodology of teleology have been largely underappreciated, at least in the English language literature. This paper suggests that all basic biology has had, and continues to have, a need for some form of heuristic “bracketing” and (...) that a renewal of some form of, albeit flexible, teleological methodological bracketing can better complement the productive assimilation into developmental biology of continuing advances in our understanding of the mesoscale physics and chemistry of soft, excitable condensed matter, than what has been the prevailing and de facto use of a form of bracketing shaped by the neoDarwinian Modern Synthesis. Further we offer a concept of biogeneric processes and a framework of physico-genetic “dynamical patterning modules”, that can begin to account for the appearance of new Kantian “stocks of Keime und Anlagen”, capable of potentiating some range of possible organismal forms, and provide grounds for moving up the teleological “goalposts”, i.e., expanding the range of what can be accounted for on a constitutive basis. (shrink)

In this paper, I trace a ‘leading thread’ from Kant’s Critique of Judgment to Goethe that involves a shift from a conceptual framework, in which a priori concepts furnish necessity and thereby science, to a framework in which sensible experience plays a far more significant and determining role in the formation of knowledge. Although this shift was not enacted by Kant himself, his elaboration of organic unity or organisms paved the way for this transformation. By considering both the methodological difficulties (...) that Kant encounters in his attempt to articulate the structure of organisms and Goethe’s response to these difficulties, my goal is to locate a specific trajectory in the history of nineteenth century philosophy, in which empirical experience and sensibility play a far more significant role than otherwise acknowledged. (shrink)

According to recent commentators like Paul Guyer, Kant agrees with Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion that physico-theology can never provide knowledge of God and that the concept of God, nevertheless, provides a useful heuristic principle for scientific enquiry. This paper argues that Kant, far from agreeing with Hume, criticizes Hume's Dialogues for failing to prove that physico-theology can never yield knowledge of God and that Kant correctly views Hume's Dialogues as a threat to, rather than an anticipation of, his own (...) view that the concept of God provides a useful heuristic principle for science. The paper concludes that Kant's critique of physico-theology reflects Kant's deep dissatisfaction with Hume's manner of argumentation and suggests that Kant's attempt to provide a more successful critique of physico-theology merits continued philosophical attention. (shrink)