Kant and Teleology

Description

Kant’s mature teleological philosophy in the Critique of the Power of Judgment is predicated on innovations that address a set of unprecedented challenges arising from within critical philosophy. The challenges are (1) a threat of “transcendental chaos” between sensibility and understanding, emerging from the structure of critical epistemology; (2) a threat of “critical chaos” between determination and reflection, generated by Kant’s response to that first threat. The innovations include (a) a transcendental conception of purposiveness, (b) a principle of nature’s purposiveness based on that conception, (c) a power of judgment governed by that principle, (d) and so governed in an unusual (self-given and self-governing) way, (e) a view on which nature does make leaps. This Element argues that Kant’s mature teleological philosophy – and a fortiori Kant’s aesthetics and philosophy of biology – cannot be understood without a fully systematic account of these challenges and innovations, and it presents such an account. Cover Title page Imprints page Kant and Teleology Contents 1 Kant’s Critical Teleology 1.1 Introduction: The Logos of Telē 1.2 The Critique of the Power of Judgment 2 Philosophy of Biology or Critique of Judgment? 2.1 Introduction: The Black Box 2.2 Elements of Kant’s Critical Teleology 2.3 Empirical Teleology? 2.4 Essential Aesthetics? 3 Purposiveness as Transcendental Principle 3.1 Introduction: Outside the Box 3.2 False Start(s) 4 The Transcendental Deduction of the Principle of Nature’s Purposiveness 4.1 Introduction: Into the Box 4.2 A Problem of Chaos 4.3 Intuitive Manifolds 4.4 The Transcendental Principle of Nature’s Purposiveness 5 Nature’s Saltūs 5.1 Introduction: Inside the Box 5.2 Rules of Engagement 5.3 The Analytic: The Predicative Holism of Judgments of Natural Purposes 5.4 The Dialectic: The Supersensible 5.5 Out of the Box: Avoiding Critical Chaos References