Article ID: CBB000770746

Naturalising Purpose: From Comparative Anatomy to the “Adventure of Reason” (2006)

unapi

Huneman, Philippe (Author)


Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 37
Pages: 649--674


Publication Date: 2006
Edition Details: Part of special issue: “Kantian Teleology and the Biological Sciences”
Language: English

Kant's analysis of the concept of natural purpose in the Critique of judgment captured several features of organisms that he argued warranted making them the objects of a special field of study, in need of a special regulative teleological principle. By showing that organisms have to be conceived as self-organizing wholes, epigenetically built according to the idea of a whole that we must presuppose, Kant accounted for three features of organisms conflated in the biological sciences of the period: adaptation, functionality and conservation of forms. Kant's unitary concept of natural purpose was subsequently split in two directions: first by Cuvier's comparative anatomy, that would draw on the idea of adaptative functions as a regulative principle for understanding in reconstituting and classifying organisms; and then by Goethe's and Geoffroy's morphology, a science of the general transformations of living forms. However, such general transformations in nature, objects of an alleged `archaeology of nature', were thought impossible by Kant in 80 of the Critique of judgment. Goethe made this `adventure of reason' possible by changing the sense of `explanation': scientific explanation was shifted from the investigation of the mechanical processes of generation of individual organisms to the unveiling of some ideal transformations of types instantiated by those organisms.

...More
Included in

Article Steigerwald, Joan (2006) Introduction. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 621). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000770746/

Similar Citations

Article Grene, Marjorie; (2001)
Darwin, Cuvier, and Geoffroy: Comments and Questions (/isis/citation/CBB000770070/)

Article Caponi, Gustavo; (2012)
Kant: entre Buffon y Cuvier (/isis/citation/CBB001212024/)

Article Anderson, Gemma; (2014)
Endangered: A Study of Morphological Drawing in Zoological Taxonomy (/isis/citation/CBB001201296/)

Thesis Goldstein, Amanda Jo; (2011)
“Sweet Science”: Romantic Materialism and the New Sciences of Life (/isis/citation/CBB001567306/)

Article Le Guyader, Hervé; (2000)
Le concept de plan d'organisation (/isis/citation/CBB000110041/)

Article Christine Lehleiter; (2021)
The genealogy of dwarfs: Reproduction and romantic mythology in Goethe’s New Melusine (/isis/citation/CBB371057632/)

Article Minelli, Alessandro; (2003)
L'omologia rivisitata (/isis/citation/CBB000340720/)

Book Amanda Jo Goldstein; (2017)
Sweet Science: Romantic Materialism and the New Logics of Life (/isis/citation/CBB350652099/)

Article Català-Gorgues, Jesús Ignasi; (2010)
López Piñero y los estudios sobre historia del evolucionismo (/isis/citation/CBB001021874/)

Book Cécilia Bognon-Küss; Charles T. Wolfe; (2019)
Philosophy of Biology Before Biology (/isis/citation/CBB297114734/)

Book Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von; Miller, Gordon L.; (2009)
The Metamorphosis of Plants (/isis/citation/CBB001020400/)

Article Gregory Rupik; (2021)
Ateleological propagation in Goethe’s Metamorphosis of plants (/isis/citation/CBB761659724/)

Article Jorge L. García; (2020)
The Aesthetic Dimension of Scientific Discovery: Finding the Inter-Maxillary Bone in Humans (/isis/citation/CBB167572957/)

Thesis Fisher, Mark; (2008)
Organisms and Teleology in Kant's Natural Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB001561397/)

Book Schmitt, Stéphane; (2004)
Histoire d'une question anatomique: la répétition des parties (/isis/citation/CBB000501951/)

Article Steigerwald, Joan; (2006)
Kant's Concept of Natural Purpose and the Reflecting Power of Judgment (/isis/citation/CBB000770749/)

Article Richards, Robert J.; (2000)
Kant and Blumenbach on the Bildungstrieb: A Historical Misunderstanding (/isis/citation/CBB000770643/)

Authors & Contributors
Goldstein, Amanda Jo
Schmitt, Stéphane
García, Jorge L.
Rupik, Gregory
Bognon-Küss, Cécilia
Wolfe, Charles T.
Concepts
Morphology
Biology
Anatomy
Teleology
Comparative anatomy
Botany
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
20th century
Enlightenment
Places
Germany
Spain
France
Great Britain
Institutions
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment