Quarfood, Marcel (Author)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 37
Pages: 735--747
Edition Details: Part of special issue: “Kantian Teleology and the Biological Sciences”
Language: English
According to Kant's Critique of the power of judgment, teleological considerations are unavoidable for conceptualizing organisms. Does this mean that teleology is more than merely heuristic? Kant stresses the regulative status of teleological attributions, but sometimes he seems to treat teleology as a constitutive condition for biology. To clarify this issue, the concept of natural purpose and its role for biology are examined. I suggest that the concept serves an identificatory function: it singles out objects as natural purposes, whereby the special science of biology is constituted. This relative constitutivity of teleology is explicated by means of a distinction of levels: on the object level of biological science, teleology is taken as constitutive, though it is merely regulative on the philosophical meta level. This distinction also concerns the place of Aristotelian teleology in Kant: on the object level, the Aristotelian view is accepted, whereas on the meta level, an agnostic stance is taken concerning teleology.
...MoreArticle 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).
Similar Citations
Article
Zammito, John H.;
(2012)
The Lenoir Thesis Revisited: Blumenbach and Kant
(/isis/citation/CBB001221595/)
Article
Berg, Hein van den;
(2013)
The Wolffian Roots of Kant's Teleology
(/isis/citation/CBB001320551/)
Article
Richards, Robert J.;
(2000)
Kant and Blumenbach on the Bildungstrieb: A Historical Misunderstanding
(/isis/citation/CBB000770643/)
Article
Steigerwald, Joan;
(2006)
Kant's Concept of Natural Purpose and the Reflecting Power of Judgment
(/isis/citation/CBB000770749/)
Article
Kreines, James;
(2005)
The Inexplicability of Kant's Naturzweck: Kant on Teleology, Explanation and Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB000670504/)
Book
Ina Goy;
(2014)
Kant's Theory of Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB256212882/)
Article
Aaron Wells;
(2020)
Kant, Linnaeus, and the economy of nature
(/isis/citation/CBB872058525/)
Chapter
Look, Brandon C.;
(2006)
Blumenbach and Kant on Mechanism and Teleology in Nature: The Case of the Formative Drive
(/isis/citation/CBB000771984/)
Article
Maund, Barry;
(2000)
Proper Functions and Aristotelian Functions in Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB000770650/)
Article
Walsh, D. M.;
(2006)
Organisms as Natural Purposes: The Contemporary Evolutionary Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB000770752/)
Chapter
Pellegrin, Pierre;
(2007)
Les études sur la biologie d'Aristote: un bilan provisoire
(/isis/citation/CBB001022497/)
Article
Zammito, John;
(2006)
Teleology Then and Now: The Question of Kant's Relevance for Contemporary Controversies over Function in Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB000770751/)
Article
Steigerwald, Joan;
(2006)
Introduction
(/isis/citation/CBB000770744/)
Thesis
Fisher, Mark;
(2008)
Organisms and Teleology in Kant's Natural Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB001561397/)
Article
Jerome Carroll;
(2018)
William James and 18th-Century Anthropology: Holism, Scepticism and the Doctrine of Experience
(/isis/citation/CBB974076719/)
Article
Huneman, Philippe;
(2006)
Naturalising Purpose: From Comparative Anatomy to the “Adventure of Reason”
(/isis/citation/CBB000770746/)
Article
Wim Beekman;
Henk Jochemsen;
(2022)
The Kantian account of mechanical explanation of natural ends in eighteenth and nineteenth century biology
(/isis/citation/CBB072647203/)
Article
Silvia De Bianchi;
(2022)
Kant’s Functional Cosmology: Teleology, Measurement, and Symbolic Representation in the Critique of Judgment
(/isis/citation/CBB510519330/)
Article
Gray, Sally Hatch;
(2012)
Kant's Race Theory, Forster's Counter, and the Metaphysics of Color
(/isis/citation/CBB001201887/)
Article
Gambarotto, Andrea;
(2014)
Vital Forces and Organization: Philosophy of Nature and Biology in Karl Friedrich Kielmeyer
(/isis/citation/CBB001421577/)
Be the first to comment!