The Inexplicability of Kant’s Naturzweck: Kant on Teleology, Explanation and Biology

Kant’s position on teleology and biology is neither inconsistent nor obsolete; his arguments have some surprising and enduring philosophical strengths. But Kant’s account will appear weak if we muddy the waters by reading him as aiming to defend teleology by appealing to considerations popular in contemporary philosophy. Kant argues for very different conclusions: we can neither know teleological judgments of living beings to be true, nor legitimately explain living beings in teleological terms; such teleological judgment is justified only as a “problematic” guideline in our search for mechanistic explanations. These conclusions are well supported by Kant’s defense of his demanding analysis, according to which teleological judgment literally applies to a complex whole only where teleology truly explains the presence of its parts.* 0 Kant’s discussion of teleology, explanation, and biology in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (KU) appears to present stunningly inconsistent answers to even the most straightforward questions. Can biological phenomena be explained in mechanistic terms? Kant seems to answer both “no” and “maybe” – sometimes within the space of a few lines. On the one hand, he claims that “organized beings” cannot 0 I refer to Kant’s writings from the Akademie edition, Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Ed. Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1900–. Cited by Volume and Page. All citations not otherwise identified are from Kritik der Urteilskraft, Bd. 5 from the Akademie edition. Translations from Critique of the Power of Judgment. Translated by Guyer and Mathews. Cambridge 2000. Translations occasionally modified. EE refers to the posthumously published first introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment, cited by the Akademie edition Volume and Page. Also translated by Guyer and Mathews. A/B indicates standard references to Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Ed. R. Schmidt. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1956. Translations from Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge 1998. Translations occasionally modified. * Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie 87. Bd., S. 270–311 © Walter de Gruyter 2005 ISSN 0003-9101 Brought to you by | The Claremont Colleges Authenticated | 134.173.130.244 Download Date | 2/13/14 6:53 PM The Inexplicability of Kant’s Naturzweck 271 be explained “in accordance with merely mechanical principles of nature”. He includes living beings insofar as he takes this to make impossible “a Newton who could make comprehensible even the generation of a blade of grass”. On the other hand, he immediately insists on leaving open the possibility of “mere mechanism” as the “ground” or “origination” of living beings (5: 400).1 Is teleology legitimately applicable to biological phenomena? Kant seems to answer both “yes” and “no”. On the one hand, organized beings are supposed to be not only mechanically inexplicable but also to require specifically teleological explanation. And Kant claims that our experience of living beings does always suggest the need for teleological judgment (e.g. 5: 366; 5: 386). On the other hand, Kant repeatedly denies that we can legitimately explain (erklären) living beings in teleological terms, and he refers instead to the “inexplicability” of the “natural end” or Naturzweck (5: 395).2 Kant’s interpreters generally try to resolve these tensions by attributing them to the interference of factors extraneous to Kant’s analysis of teleological judgment. Recent interpreters tend in particular to see Kant’s analysis as, at least in part, a defense of teleological explanation in biology. Some say that Kant only seems to deny such a role for teleology, because he is independently committed to an artificially narrow use of the term “explanation” (Erklärung).3 Some say that Kant only doubts the legitimacy of teleological explanation because he makes outdated assumptions about intelligent design; others more recently say that Kant means to defend teleology by questioning just such assumptions.4 And some argue that Kant’s independent ambitions to address problems concerning freedom and morality in the KU require 1 Citations in the text not otherwise identified are from KU; for references to Kant’s works, see my list of abbreviations below. In this passage, the “mere mechanism” is missing in the Cambridge translation. See also (5: 418). 2 For example: “teleological judging is rightly drawn into our research into nature [...] without presuming thereby to explain it (ohne sich anzumaßen sie darnach zu erklären)” (5: 360; Kant’s emphasis). “Positing ends of nature in its products [...] belongs only to the description of nature (Naturbeschreibung)” but “provides no information at all about the origination and the inner possibility of these forms, although it is that with which theoretical natural science is properly concerned” (5: 417; see also 5: 411). 3 See especially Zumbach 1984, e.g. 123. 4 For the former approach, see MacFarland 1970, 106 and 111; for the latter, see Zumbach 1984, 12; Allison 1991, 33–4; Warnke 1992, 45; Ginsborg 1997, 2001. Brought to you by | The Claremont Colleges Authenticated | 134.173.130.244 Download Date | 2/13/14 6:53 PM