kant on biological teleology

7/17/2019 Kant on Biological Teleology

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Studies in History

an d

Philosophy of

Biological

an d

Biomedical Sciences

Available onl ine at www sciencedirect com

.;

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e ire t

Stud. Hist. PhiI. BioI. Biomed. Sci. 37 (2006) 735-747

Kant on biological teleology: Towards a

two-level interpretation

Marcel Quarfood

Department

of

Media

rt

and Philosophy Sodertorn University College SE 141 89 Huddinge Sweden

Abstract

According to

Kant s

Critique

of

the power

of

judgment teleological considerations are unavoid

able for conceptualizing organisms. Does this mean that teleology is more than merely heuristic?

Kant stresses the regulative status of teleological attributions, bu t sometimes he seems to treat tele

ology as a constitutive condition for biology. To clarify this issue, the concept

of natural

purpose

an d

its role for biology are examined. I suggest

that

the concept serves an identificatory function: it sin

gles ou t objects as

natural

purposes, whereby the special science

of

biology is constituted. This rel

ative 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 philosoph

ical 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.

©

2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Immanuel Kant; Teleology; Natural purpose; Aristotelian teleology; Constitutive and regulative

Kant s account of teleology in biology, as presented in a complex discussion in the sec

ond

part

of the Critique

0.[

the power ofjudgment (Kant, 2000 [1790])

is in a way easy to

E mail address: m [email protected]

or this text I henceforth use the abbreviat ion Cl followed by a number referring to the pagination of

Volume V of the Akademie edition (Kant, 1908). Guyer and Matthews s translat ion (Kant, 2000) is used

bu t

sometimes modified, and I have also consulted Pluhar s version (Kant, 1987). In referring to the Critique

of

pure

reason

(Kant, 1997), pages of the first (A) and second (B) edition are given, in accordance with the

standard

convention.



summarize. Teleology is said to be indispensable for conceptualizing organized beings,yet it is merely a regulative principle, subjectively valid for reflecting on such beings butnot objectively valid for determining their properties. The difficulty lies in balancing theclaimed indispensability of teleology with its regulative status. Too heavy stress on

the necessity of teleological considerations for the understanding of organisms wouldseem to lead to the conclusion that teleology is a constitutive condition for the possibil-ity of biology, and thus not regulative.2 On the other hand, if one stresses the mereregulativity of the teleological principle, one might come to a rather trivial interpre-tation of the indispensability claim: it would be a heuristic principle at best, indispensableonly in the sense that without it we would find it more cumbersome to reach the non-tel-eological, mechanistic explanations of which biology as a science presumably shouldconsist.

In order to strike a balance between the two claims of the Kantian account, I will sug-gest an interpretation based on a distinction of levels. According to this interpretation(which is admittedly somewhat reconstructive), on the object level of biological science tel-eology is an enabling condition for the possibility of experiencing organisms, whereas itsstatus as regulative pertains to a meta level of philosophical reflection on which we mustremain agnostic as to the ultimate ground for the existence and mode of organization of organisms. A regulative principle involves an idea of reason that transcends the scope of the understanding, so that judgments based on the principle cannot determine objects con-stitutively, even though it may be appropriate ‘for the human point of view’ of the reflect-ing employment of the power of judgment (cf. CJ 403). Though Kant consistently reservesthe term ‘constitutive’ for principles provided a priori by the understanding which make

experience possible, one could also consider a regulative principle enabling a level of spe-cial experience to be constitutive for that experience, provided that this constitutivity isunderstood as relative to this level and to the ‘human point of view’, rather than as pre-scriptive for objects in general. What I propose is that in the case of biology, teleologyfunctions as a constitutive principle in this restricted sense.

The upshot can also be seen as a partial endorsement of Aristotelian teleology, to theextent that it is taken as valid on the object level, where it serves the function of identifyingspecifically biological objects and thereby constituting biological science. However, in con-tradistinction to the full-fledged Aristotelian account (which I take to be based on theunqualified acceptance of objective and unreduced natural teleology), there is for Kant

also a meta level, on which teleology is denied objective status, which amounts to its beinga merely regulative principle.

In the first section of the present paper, an account of the teleological concept of naturalpurpose (Naturzweck ) and its application to organisms will be given. Kant’s complexattempt to derive our use of teleology from the nature of discursivity is outlined, and pas-sages of CJ where Kant claims that teleology is indispensable for biology and that its sta-tus is regulative are cited. The second section elaborates on the distinction of object andmeta levels and on similarities and differences to the Aristotelian approach. I propose that

2

I will use the terms ‘organism’, ‘biology’ and ‘biological science’, even though these terms are not found in theCritique of the power of judgment. For ‘organism’ Kant has ‘organisiertes Wesen’. The modern sense of the word‘biology’ was not yet established in 1790, and Kant often reserves the term ‘science’ for mechanics, in whichexplanations can be derived from mathematical laws of nature. But in the Critique of the power of judgment § 68Kant speaks of ‘natural science’ (Naturwissenschaft) in a broad sense, including organisms among its objects.

736 M. Quarfood / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 37 (2006) 735–747



Kant’s use of teleology in biology should be seen primarily as serving the function of iden-tifying objects as biological. There is also a quasi-explanatory role for teleology, whichconcerns the indispensability of the teleological viewpoint as a principle of order, servingas a substitute for the ordinary scientific explanation in terms of mechanism that according

to Kant is not attainable in the case of the organism because of the mechanically unac-countable harmony of the organization of its parts. Though these roles for teleology areclosely entwined, I consider the identificatory one the more significant. It does not aimto replace explanation but rather to demarcate a special kind of objects, conceived of asfunctional units, and it is mainly this aspect of biological teleology that makes it plausibleto consider it as an enabling condition (or, in the sense explained above, as constitutive)for such units on the object level.

1.

Kant characterises organized beings as Naturzwecke, natural purposes. This is a highlytechnical concept, and it needs to be unpacked in order to see what is involved in characte-rising plants and animals as natural purposes.3 The concept of a natural purpose is,roughly, that of a naturally produced unit which is teleologically structured with respectto the relation between parts and whole. A thing corresponding to this concept must firstlybe a purpose, which means that ‘the causality that gave rise to it must be sought not in themechanism of nature, but in a cause whose capacity to act is determined by concepts’ ( CJ

369). This suggests that the thing is intentionally caused, as in the case of an artifact, wherethe final product is determined by a concept or plan prescribing what is to be produced.

Kant tends to refer to both the plan for the production of the object and the producedobject itself as ‘purpose’; this makes sense when we consider that the purpose is ‘whatthe thing is supposed to be’ (CJ 227). Secondly, and importantly, a natural purpose mustin contrast to an artifact be natural: it must produce itself, without the need for an externalagent. A thing considered as natural purpose is therefore in a sense both cause and effect of itself (CJ 370). That it has to produce itself implies that the ‘parts reciprocally produceeach other : : : and thus produce a whole out of their own causality’ ( CJ 373), so thatthe thing is ‘self-organizing’ (CJ 374). That the thing is ‘effect of itself’, on the other hand,refers to its being a purpose. This is explicated in terms of the parts being determined bythe whole. This whole should presumably be conceived of as both temporal and spatial.

The whole is the product with all its developmental stages through time, but it is also,synchronically and spatially, the totality of the contributions of the parts at a giveninstant.

The combination of these requirements leads to the concept of a natural purpose as aproduct of nature in which

each part is conceived as if it exists only through all the others, thus as if existing for

the sake of the others and on account of the whole, that is as an instrument (organ)

which is, however, not sufficient : : : ; rather it must be thought of as an organ that

produces the other parts (consequently each produces the others reciprocally), which

cannot be the case in any instrument of art : : :

(CJ 373–374)

3 Kreines (2005) stresses the difference between actual organisms as empirically given and the conceptNaturzweck ; cf. Stadler (1912), p. 115.

M. Quarfood / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 37 (2006) 735–747 737



This marks the difference between natural purposes and machines, since the parts of a ma-chine do not produce the other parts, and the machine does not produce a new one (atleast this was the case for the machines known in Kant’s times). Kant summarizes the tel-eological principle as applied to organized beings as follows: ‘An organized product of

nature is one in which everything is a purpose and reciprocally also a means’ ( CJ 376).In such a thing, nothing is ‘in vain’ (ibid.). The question now is why this should be takento be the appropriate concept for our judgments concerning any actually existing naturalobject.

In order to justify the application of the concept of natural purpose to empirically givenproducts of nature, Kant points to some special features of plants and animals which arevery different from what we otherwise observe in nature. These features are generation (i.e.reproduction), growth (including the capacity for nourishment), and the reciprocal depen-dency of the parts on each other (to which also phenomena of regeneration and the ‘self-help of nature’ are linked) (CJ 371–372).4 According to Kant, these capacities are to befound only in plants and animals. In view of the difficulty to account for such phenomenaotherwise than in terms of some kind of influence on the parts from the goal-state or fin-ished product, they suggest the need for some special principle of explanation. Now itmight seem as if Kant after all finds the concept of Naturzweck empirically, by observationof special properties of organisms. But though it is occasioned by experience, the source of the concept lies elsewhere. Experience cannot show the existence of purposes in nature, itcan only exhibit things which are so amazingly composed in terms of mutually supportivearrangements that we find nothing else than our rational concept of purpose as an analogywhen we attempt to account for them (cf. CJ 375).

Kant often refers to this multitude of mutually supportive arrangements in the organismin terms of contingency. ‘Contingency’ here denotes the understanding’s inability to explainthe structure and production of a thing out of ‘mere natural laws’ (CJ 370). FollowingGinsborg (2001), explanation according to mere natural law can be taken to mean explana-tion for which appeal to the powers of matter as such is sufficient, without the need to specifyinitial conditions. Taking the example of the structure of the wings of a bird and how theyand other parts of it are adjusted for flying, Kant notes that from the point of view of mechanical laws, ‘given the mere nexus effectivus in nature : : : this is all in the highest degreecontingent: : : : nature could have formed itself in a thousand different ways without hittingprecisely upon the unity in accordance with such a rule’ (CJ 360). The rule in question is the

purpose (flight in the example of the bird), which serves as a substitute for an ordinary law of nature in a case like this, where we find no other way to unify the regularities that cry out forexplanation. We might call this the quasi-explanatory aspect of Kant’s teleology.

In the notoriously complex discussion in §§ 76–77, Kant makes an effort to link ourrecourse to teleology to the discursive structure of our cognitive capacity (rather thanattributing purposiveness to the object as such). He now characterises discursivity as a‘peculiarity’ of our understanding (CJ 405–406). This peculiarity consists in our under-standing’s need to receive sensible intuitions in order to attain cognition of objects, in con-trast to a higher understanding which we can conceive of as having the capacity to intuit bythe mere act of thinking. Such an intuitive understanding ‘would have no objects except

4 Kant follows Blumenbach and Buffon in pointing to these features as characteristic of the organism, and inconceiving of them as aspects of one and the same general capacity (Ginsborg, 2004, pp. 50–51).




what is actual’ (CJ 402), since every possibility thought of conceptually would also be real-ized intuitively. What this would mean is that the very distinction between possibility andactuality would be cancelled for such an understanding, and with it the distinction betweenconcept and intuition as well as the need for space and time as forms for the reception of

intuitions. For us on the other hand, lacking such a unitary cognitive capacity, the richnessof the intuitively given particular has to be determined conceptually, in an ongoing process.Furthermore, in the cognitive process the category of causality is necessarily employed,constituting experience as an ordered temporal sequence, so that objects and events are cog-nized in a piecemeal fashion. The inability of a discursive understanding to grasp an intu-itively given particular otherwise than by means of a combination of conceptualdeterminations is thus also an inability to cognize causal processes in an object otherwisethan from part to whole (CJ 407). The relation of underdetermination of conceptual deter-minations with respect to the given whole as well as the mereological order of causal expla-nation from part to whole are therefore both conditioned by the structure of discursivity:the conceptual relation because of the inexhaustible richness of the given intuition; and themereological relation in that we have to cognize objects and processes (e.g. the developmentof an organism) by means of causal connections between conceptually determined parts,thus adopting a reductionistic procedure.5 Such a procedure comes in conflict with theholistic causal structure that the organism exhibits, so that its mode of existing seems inex-plicable. The concept of purpose, as a plan which in a temporal sequence governs the pro-duction of the object, is used to handle the holistic structure in a linear causal framework. Itis the best analogy our power of judgment can get hold of, even though it is inadequate for anatural object lacking a manufacturing agent; ‘strictly speaking, the organization of nature

is not analogous with any causality that we know’ (CJ 375). We thus get the concept of anatural purpose, in which we problematically try to cancel the conceptual connectionbetween purpose and agent. The derivation of this concept from the peculiarity of our dis-cursive understanding explains why it should only be used regulatively for reflection but notfor the determination of objects: what depends on a peculiarity in the subject cannot beascribed to the object. A non-discursive understanding for which there is no differencebetween concept and intuition and no need for temporal distinctions between developmen-tal stages would find no contingency in the arrangements of the organism and therefore itwould have no use for the concept of purpose.6

In this way the use of the concept of purpose on natural objects is traced back to its

sources in our cognitive capacity, as prescribed by the idea of transcendental philosophy.But still, the object must exhibit features that prompt us to use the analogy of purpose.Not any object is considered a natural purpose. Why is a heap of sand not seen as an

5 Thus I do not agree with Driesch (1924), p. 369, and Rang (1993), pp. 62–67, when they claim that Kantconfuses the logical relation of universal and particular with the mereological relation between physical part andwhole. I also disagree with McLaughlin (1990), pp. 164–173, who equates the discursivity discussed in § 77 withreductionism, but keeps it apart from the notion of discursivity as separation of spontaneity and receptivityotherwise employed by Kant, for example in § 76. See Quarfood (2004), pp. 177–191, for a more detailedinterpretation of §§ 76–77.6

A problem here is to explain a disanalogy between two cases in which Kant contrasts our understanding to ahigher, non-discursive one. That discursivity has the peculiarity of requiring the concept of purpose for graspingwholes is taken to show that this concept is merely regulative. In the first Critique, on the other hand, the contrastbetween our discursivity and a non-discursive intellectual intuition is taken to establish constitutive principles forthe possibility of experience (Kant, 1997, B145). I discuss this problem in Quarfood (2004), pp. 179 and 205–208.




organism? After all it is the same discursive understanding which cognizes it, with its insuf-ficiency for a complete conceptual determination of the given particular. If this is theground for the recourse to teleology, then it should apply to any empirical object. 7 Toget closer to an answer to this objection, we must consider how organisms form units,

in which even small alterations in the arrangement of the parts result in the loss of cohe-siveness. The maintenance of the organism by means of the harmonizing interaction of anendless number of interconnected processes seems to differentiate the organism from otherphysical structures. The richness of intuitional content of any empirically given object isconceptually underdetermined, that is, contingent for the understanding, but yet Kantonly speaks of the need for the power of judgment to take recourse to purposiveness inthe local case of the organism and in the global case of the unification of a system of empirical laws. We should expect to find something in common between these cases (cf.Steigerwald, 2006). The organism appears, like the world considered as an interconnectedsystem of laws, as a whole unto itself. The connections between the particular laws are inboth cases beyond the grasp of the understanding, and reflecting judgment takes recourseto the idea of purpose. The situation is different with regard to the heap of sand, an exam-ple of what Kant calls an aggregate. There is not much in it suggestive of a systematicwhole. Like in the case of the organism, if some conditions change the heap will fall apart,but even so the undamaged heap does not appear to have interconnected causes whichrequire to be grasped as a system. Even when circumstances cause damaged heaps toretake their shape we seem to be far from any ‘self-help of nature’ (CJ 372). But if the anal-ogy between an organism and a world, as two different systems of endlessly complex inter-acting processes, is what motivates Kant’s account of the individual organism as internally

purposive, still we find no corresponding self-help with regard to the world as a whole.Perhaps the analogy to the world is enough to explain why the organism must be consid-ered as a teleological unit in the weaker sense of constituting a systematic unit, but thestronger teleology ascribed to parts and processes in organisms is presumably promptedby the difficulty of making sense of their unique special features in terms of ordinarymechanical explanation. If so, it can still be claimed that the concept of natural purposeis not empirically derived, even though its application is prompted by empirical circum-stances. So even if Guyer is right that Kant appeals to a general argument pertaining tothe inability for a discursive understanding to unify objects without presupposing the ideaof a system, an argument that has nothing in particular to do with the case of organisms,

this does not make the local application of the argument to the organism redundant. Inanalogy to the idea of the world as a weakly purposive system, the organism is consideredso to speak as a microcosm, and this teleology is strengthened in the attempt to grasp itsunparalleled empirical features.

A complication is introduced in § 67 by the extension of the teleological point of view tothe whole of nature. Kant thereby reintroduces something similar to the external or rela-tive (rather Panglossian) teleology that he criticises in § 63, but this time the external tel-eology is attained from the starting point of the internal teleology of the organism. Thisglobal extension of internal teleology removes the difference just noted between the strongteleology pertaining to the organism and the weaker teleology inherent in the idea of the

7 This point is made in Guyer (2005), pp. 100–101 and 359, as well as in Rang (1993), p. 67. The example of aheap of sand is also discussed in Ginsborg (2004), pp. 51–52.




world as a system of laws. But Kant underlines that this all-encompassing teleology is onlyto be taken as a regulative principle for the reflecting power of judgment (CJ 379). Thoughthese are the same terms he has recourse to in characterising internal purposiveness, indeedthe only terms at his disposal, it is clear in § 68 that Kant draws a contrast between internal

teleology as a secure starting point and the all-encompassing teleology as a way of lookingat nature made possible thereby. This way of considering nature has little to do with sci-ence and rather serves as a point of view adopted for the sake of ethics, whilst internal tel-eology has an important identificatory role in biology, a theme we shall return to below.

After this rather abstract account of the necessity of judging organisms teleologically, Ishall now turn to more practical, methodologically oriented passages indicating the indis-pensability of the concept of Naturzweck . In § 66 Kant says that the anatomists

could just as little dispense with this teleological principle as they could do without

the universal physical principle, since, just as in the case of the abandonment of the

latter there would remain no experience at all, so in the case of the abandonment of the former principle there would remain no guideline for the observation [Beobach-

tung ] of a kind of natural thing that we have conceived of teleologically under the

concept of a natural purpose. (CJ 376)

These are quite strong words: just as abandoning ‘the universal physical principle’ (that is,the causal principle)8 would deprive us of all experience, so the abandonment of the tele-ological principle would deprive anatomists of the possibility of observing organisms.However, Kant’s formulation of the point is a bit roundabout. The teleological principle(which is specified as saying that in an organism ‘nothing is in vain’ (ibid.)) is indispensable

for the observation of things which we already ‘have conceived of teleologically under theconcept of natural purpose’. So, one might answer, let us refrain from conceiving of themthus in the first place, and we will not need to use the teleological principle to make furtherobservations. Though this may seem as an effective response, in fact it only reiteratesKant’s point. His claim is not that in order to have experience of natural objects we mustmake use of teleological judging (that would give teleology a transcendental status compa-rable to the principles for experience based on the categories); his claim is rather that someobjects exhibit holistic features which prompt us to make a reflective use of a concept of adifferent order, the idea of purpose, and that once we have begun to apply this concept, wehave no choice but to continue using the teleological viewpoint in order to be able to make

further observations on these objects. In the words of § 66, ‘this concept leads reason intoan order of things entirely different from that of a mere mechanism of nature’ (CJ 377).

In § 68, Kant tells us that concerning ‘empirical laws of natural purposes in organizedbeings it is not merely permissible but even unavoidable to use the teleological way of judg-

ing as the principle of the theory of nature with regard to a special class of its objects’ ( CJ

382). And earlier, he says that organized beings are ‘the only ones in nature which, even if considered in themselves and without a relation to other things, must nevertheless bethought of as possible only as its purposes, and which thus first provide objective realityfor the concept of a purpose that is not a practical purpose but a purpose of nature’ ( CJ

375–376, § 65; emphasis added.). Similarly, in the ‘First introduction’ to the Critique of the

8 Actually, the principle says that ‘nothing happens by chance [ungefa hr]’ (CJ 376). McFarland (1970), p. 109,refers to a passage in the first Critique (Kant, 1997, A228/B280–281) where this locution is used for the causalprinciple.




power of judgment it is claimed that there are ‘among the products of nature some specialand very widespread genera, in which the efficient causes are connected in such a way thatwe must ground this connection on the concept of a purpose, if we want so much as toexperience, that is, observe them in terms of a principle appropriate to their inner possi-

bility’ (Kant, 1942, p. 235).9Having cited these passages affirming the necessity of teleology for biology, I shall in

the next section attempt to spell out more precisely what its function is.

2.

What does it mean to say that the teleological principle makes biology possible? Wehave seen Kant point to its indispensability for the possibility of ‘observation’ (Beobach-

tung ) and ‘experience’ (Erfahrung ) of organisms. This could be taken merely as a method-

ological advice to use teleology heuristically. No doubt, an anatomist’s business of observation can profitably be helped by a teleological point of view, guiding researchon functional connections between the parts of an organism. However, there is also astronger interpretation of the role of teleology which I think fits Kant’s statements. Notonly is teleology a heuristic guide, it is also a condition for the availability of biologicalobjects. Teleology serves what might be called an identificatory function, enabling us toaccess a special class of objects to be studied.

It is important to distinguish this view of the role of teleology from what might be calleda vitalist account.10 According to the vitalist interpretation, Kant claims that teleology isan objective property of organisms, and that the use of teleology is genuinely explanatory,

even if the explanations provided differ in some respects from ordinary non-teleologicalexplanations. An interpretation of this kind faces the difficulty of explaining in what senseteleological explanations are merely regulative, without admitting that they just are notgenuinely explanatory. It is also difficult to see how the vitalist account can be distin-guished from the metaphysical theories of teleology that Kant labels ‘dogmatic’ in §§72–73. Specifically, it would seem to fall under the heading ‘hylozoism’. This is an accountof teleology based on the notion of living matter, and Kant takes it to be either nonsensicalor question-begging (CJ 394).

Despite these difficulties for a vitalist interpretation, which I consider decisive, it has anunderlying rationale for which the heuristic interpretation does not account. According tothis latter interpretation, the use of the notion of purpose is heuristically useful for work-ing biologists, but the objects they study are available in principle also without this notion,by means solely of mechanistic explanation, even though such explanation may be prac-tically unattainable. Kant speaks of the requirement for teleology in a way that appearsto be stronger than that. He seems to say that teleology in a more fundamental way opensa new domain, a domain in which not only teleology, but also mechanistic explanation,has a mere regulative status.11 It is this point that the identificatory account seeks to

9 Translation based on that of Pluhar (Kant, 1987, p. 424).10

I here disregard the great variation between views that have been called vitalist.11 Why the mechanistic research maxim is considered to be merely regulative ( CJ 387–388) is a vexed question.The short answer is that any principle employed by the reflecting power of judgment for the unification of the vastdiversity of particular empirical laws must be merely regulative, since these particular laws go beyond the generallaws prescribed a priori by the Grundsa tze (cf. CJ 386). For more discussion, cf. Quarfood (2004), pp. 196–205.




address. Teleology is accorded an essential role, without being explanatory (and thereforewithout invoking vitalism), in virtue of being a condition for the possibility of cognition of biological objects. This conception relies on a distinction between a general and a morespecific sense of ‘object’. On the one hand, empirical objects conform to the transcendental

conditions for the possibility of experience in general outlined by Kant in the first Critique.On the other hand, the class of biological objects consists of empirical objects which areconstrained by a further condition, that of being considered from a teleological point of view. The teleological identification of objects as functional units (natural purposes)demarcates a separate ‘order of things’,12 and it thereby makes biology possible as a spe-cial science pertaining to these objects. In this science, everything is viewed in a teleologicallight. While I cannot argue the point here, this seems to be the case also in contemporarybiology. Even the most sophisticated research in molecular biology is conducted from thepoint of view of the functions which the various substances under study serve for theorganism. There could be a purely chemical, non-teleological study of the same sub-stances, but it would lose its point if it were not embedded in a functional context. Orat least it would be of interest only from a strictly chemical point of view, having a relationto biology only in so far as the substances under investigation happen to be found inorganisms. But according to the identificatory account of teleology, the notion of organ-ism itself is dependent on teleology, so that a non-teleological consideration of suchobjects could only identify them as complexly built aggregates of matter. There is no rea-son to believe that such a study could not result in valuable knowledge, but it would not beeven remotely reminiscent of biological knowledge. This brings us back to the question of vitalism. Contrary to vitalism, the identificatory account of teleology does not claim that

there are processes taking place in the organism that cannot be understood in terms of ordinary chemistry.13 It only claims that without the adoption of a teleological perspec-tive, there would be no reason to study these processes in a science of its own, and thatthere would not even be any such unit as ‘the organism’ to consider. This is the sense inwhich teleology provides the objects of biological science.

One might also discern in Kant’s discussion a quasi-explanatory function for teleolog-ical attributions. By bringing a ‘lawlike’ order to the otherwise wholly contingent regular-ities displayed by the organism, teleology supplies a regulative substitute for constitutivelaws (cf. Ginsborg, 2001, p. 253). But Kant repeatedly points out that such explanationis merely regulative and that genuine explanation always proceeds in a mechanistic fash-

ion: without mechanism, ‘no insight into the nature of things can be attained’ (CJ 410).The ‘mechanism of natural causes’ (Mechanik der Naturursachen) is linked to the capaci-ties of matter (CJ 411), thus to the laws of physics, whose explanations for Kant alwaysconstitute the core of natural science and therefore serve as paradigms of scientific expla-nation, as well as to the chemical forces less amenable to systematization.

The identificatory account can be construed as the claim that teleology is, in a certainrespect, constitutive of biology. This seems to fly in the face of Kant’s numerous assertionsof the merely regulative status of teleology. But the conflict is only apparent. The claim isnot the one sometimes made in early discussions of Kant’s teleology, to the effect that

12 CJ § 66: ‘eine ganz andere Ordnung der Dinge’ (Kant, 1908, p. 377).13 Admittedly, here the identificatory account disregards a strand in Kant’s discussion that possibly points in a

vitalist direction: his view that the organism’s capacity of assimilating and transforming matter taken up fromoutside is inexplicable in mechanistic terms. (See Ginsborg, 2004, pp. 48–49.)




either the distinction between constitutive and regulative principles cannot be upheld, orKant ought to have recognized the objective necessity of the principle of purposivenessand accorded it the status of a category.14 That claim is tied to a vitalist interpretation,and it is often reinforced by the mistaken notion that the third Critique represents a change

in Kant’s view on the constitutive status of efficient causality for natural science. The claimof constitutivity made here is not meant as a criticism of Kant’s statements on the regul-ativity of teleological attributions. It might be found confusing that I deviate from Kant’susage when I apply the notion of constitutivity for describing the role played by the prin-ciple of purposiveness in making biology possible, and we could say less provocatively thatteleology is the enabling condition of biology. At any rate, the point of the claim is bestseen in connection to a distinction of levels.

Teleology is constitutive for biological science, and on this level, which we can call theobject level, organisms and the functions of their parts are considered in teleological terms.Also the regulative maxims according to which we ought to investigate organisms both tel-eologically and mechanistically have their place here: when we study the functions of apart of an organism, we have to investigate the mechanisms by means of which the partcan perform its activity. As seen in the practice of contemporary biology, a functional per-spective does not preclude the unlimited pursuit of mechanistic investigation. On a metalevel of philosophical reflection, on the other hand, teleology is merely regulative. The con-cept of purpose, as a concept of reason, can only be ascribed to nature problematically. In§ 74, Kant states that the concept of a thing as a natural purpose ‘is excessive for the deter-mining power of judgment if one considers the object by means of reason (although it maybe immanent for the reflecting power of judgment with regard to objects of experience)’

(CJ 396). The point of view of reason corresponds to what is here called the meta level,whereas the object level corresponds to the immanent perspective on objects of experiencepertaining to the reflecting power of judgment. In § 68, Kant draws a boundary betweenlegitimate uses of teleology in ‘physics’ (CJ 383) and theologically oriented teleologicalconsiderations extrinsic to science. He urges us to ‘modestly restrict ourselves to theexpression that says only exactly as much as we know: namely, natural purpose’ (CJ

382). He goes on to point out that ‘we find within nature and the course of its generationproducts generated in accordance with the known laws of experience within it, in terms of which natural science must judge its objects and thus seek within itself for their causality inaccordance with the rule of purposes’ (ibid.). We find here a justification of natural pur-

pose as a principle internal to empirical science (and even a recognition of biological laws),strongly demarcated from a theological appeal to teleology. In Kant’s terminology, wemust say that both these differing uses of teleology are regulative and belong to the reflec-tive employment of judgment, as none of them are derived from the principles for the pos-sibility of experience in general as delineated in the first Critique. By means of thedistinction of levels and the use of the distinction between constitutive and regulative asrelative to these levels, we are able to pinpoint how natural purpose functions as a consti-tutive condition for biology, while remaining regulative from the meta perspective. Simi-larly, in § 68, Kant says that ‘there are objects that are explicable only in accordance withnatural laws that we can think only under the idea of purposes as a principle, and which

are even internally cognizable, as far as their internal form is concerned, only in this way’

14 For a sophisticated discussion along these lines, see Driesch (1924), pp. 373–375.




(CJ 383). Here we find both the identificatory and the quasi-explanatory uses of teleology(which latter should perhaps rather be taken as making possible a local kind of explana-tion pertaining to the object level). Again, with the distinction of levels we can accommo-date this positive use of teleology in biological science with the meta level claim of its mere

regulativity.15On the philosophical level we cannot claim to know the objective existence of purposes

in nature. In this respect Kant shares the naturalistic outlook found in much (though notall) of modern philosophy, according to which purposiveness cannot be objectivelyascribed to natural beings. However, his naturalism is not of the kind that claims knowl-edge of the non-existence of purposiveness in nature (a claim Kant in § 72 calls ‘idealism of purposiveness’ and counts to the dogmatic systems attempting to explain purposiveness(CJ 391)), rather it considers an ultimate objective explanation of the apparent purposive-ness of nature to be beyond human understanding. Kant famously deems it absurd ‘tohope that there may yet arise a Newton who could make comprehensible even the gener-ation of a blade of grass according to natural laws’ (CJ 400), not because we have positiveknowledge of the impossibility of such generation, but rather because of our epistemic lim-itation in regard to such a huge task of explanation.16

The recognition of an object level of biological research, on which attributions of pur-posiveness are made without further ado, makes it possible to combine the non-objectivityof teleology on the meta level with an Aristotelian view on its appropriateness for thestudy of organisms on the object level of empirical research. It might be objected that thisdistinction of levels presupposes too sharp a demarcation between philosophy and biol-ogy. Certainly there arises questions also within theoretical biology about the justification

of teleological attributions; we could stipulate that whenever such a question is posed, wehave left the object level for the meta level.I shall not attempt to offer any serious exegesis of Aristotle’s views on teleology; it is

here taken to be the view that organisms have natural goods or goals, and that their partsfunction for the sake of these goals. For Aristotle this does in no way imply that these arethe goals of a conscious agent. The ‘for the sake of which’ is not to be explained in terms of anything else; it comes first in the order of explanation with regard to ‘things composednaturally’ (Aristotle, 1992, p. 4 [639b]). Essential for this view is that teleological attribu-tions are as objective as any other ascriptions of properties to biological entities. Now thisis exactly what Kant denies in stating that teleology is merely regulative. Teleological attri-

butions are made only for the reflective use of judgment and are not objective determina-tions of properties. On the present account, however, this claim belongs to the meta level

15 Another hint of such a distinction is found in § 58, near the end of the ‘Critique of the aesthetic power of judgment’, where Kant says that in the second part of the Critique of the power of judgment he will show that theformation of animals and plants must be judged of ‘in accordance with the principle of realism’ (CJ 349). In §§ 72– 73, however, both realism, affirming objective teleology in nature, and idealism, rejecting it, are discarded asdogmatic metaphysical position mistakenly assuming that teleology is a principle of determining judgment. Therealistic teleology spoken of in § 58 should be taken as belonging to the object level, whereas the critique of metaphysical accounts of teleology is conducted on the meta level.16

Today we have reason not to reject the possibility of such explanation out of hand. But it is a bit facile toassume, as is sometimes done, that Darwin was a Newton of the blade of grass in Kant’s sense. What Kant rulesout is a complete explanation for the origination and development of organisms out of ordinary matter inaccordance with laws of physics and chemistry, a project to which Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection is but a beginning.




perspective. Restricted to the object level, where organisms are studied without the directposing of philosophical questions, the Aristotelian account is adequate. For the Aristote-lian, on the other hand, the Kantian meta question does not arise. The Aristotelianaccount only comprises one level.17 It is the theory that natural beings have immanent

purposes.Apart from this fundamental difference between the Kantian two-levels and the Aristo-

telian one-level approach to teleology, there is also a difference in tone between them.Whereas the Aristotelian approach treats teleology as belonging to the organism’s owncapacities, Kant often has recourse to intentional locutions, suggesting an external con-trolling agency. For instance, in § 75 Kant says that it is ‘indispensable for us to subjectnature to the concept of an intention (Absicht) if we would even merely conduct researchamong its organized products by means of continued observation’ (CJ 398). However, if we recall some crucial features of the Kantian approach, this difference to Aristotelian tel-eology becomes less significant. For Kant, organized beings are self-organizing products of nature, not artifacts, so there is no external agent. The ascription of purposes to nature isonly possible by means of ‘a remote analogy’ (CJ 375). Furthermore, intentional locutionscan be cashed out in normative terms, something that goes well with Aristotelian teleol-ogy, which can be understood in terms of natural norms or standards. The following pas-sage from the ‘First introduction’ to the Critique of the power of judgment illustrates thenormativity of teleological ascriptions:

A teleological judgment compares the concept of a product of nature as it is with one

of what it ought to be. Here the judging of its possibility is grounded in a concept (of

the purpose) that precedes it a priori . There is no difficulty in representing the pos-

sibility of products of art in such a way. But to think of a product of nature thatthere is something that it ought to be and then to judge whether it really is so already

presupposes a principle that could not be drawn from experience (which teaches only

what things are) (Kant, 1942, p. 240).18

The last sentence marks the difference between Kant and Aristotle: from the meta per-spective, no normativity can be attributed to the objects of experience. But the rest of thepassage shows how Kantian teleology, even though it borrows the language of externalagency, is compatible with a restricted Aristotelian approach.19

17 Of course Aristotle also distinguishes between different fields of inquiry, but such distinctions do not have theconsequences that the distinction of levels has in the present account. For a further comparison of Kant’s andAristotle’s positions, see Ginsborg (2004), p. 60.18 Translation based on that of Guyer and Matthews (Kant, 2000, p. 40). Hannah Ginsborg has stressed the

importance of normativity in Kant’s teleology. See especially Ginsborg (2001).19 Santozki (2005) claims that Kant’s conception of the ‘technique of nature’ shows that the ‘Critique of the

teleological power of judgment’ should be seen as belonging to the Stoic tradition of cosmic teleology and notaligned to Aristotelian natural teleology. This may fit with the extension of teleology to the world as a whole in§ 67, but it is less clear with regard to Kant’s characterisation of the organism. Santozki argues that the term‘technique of nature’ would make no sense for Aristotle, as it is based on an analogy from intentional art tonature. But Kant’s definition of ‘technique of nature’ as nature’s ‘productive force in accordance with the rule of

purposes’ (CJ 391) seems to agree with the Aristotelian view that ‘nature is a cause, a cause that operates for apurpose’ (Aristotle, 1965, p. 136 [199b]). Santozki (2005), pp. 110–111, also connects Kant’s statements on the‘self-help of nature’ (e.g. CJ 372) to Hippocratic and Stoic sources, which may be correct in terms of historicalinfluence. But the idea is present in Aristotle too: ‘The best illustration is a doctor doctoring himself: nature is likethat’ (Aristotle, 1965, p. 136 [199b]).




Acknowledgements

I am grateful to audiences at the University of Guelph, the University of Toronto, OsloUniversity and Uppsala University where versions of this paper were presented. I am also

grateful to Joan Steigerwald and an anonymous referee for helpful comments, as well as tothe Swedish Research Council for funding my research.

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