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Kant on Teleology

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Kant on Proper Science

Part of the book series: Studies in German Idealism ((SIGI,volume 15))

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Abstract

Kant’s views on teleology can be profitably interpreted on the basis of the teleological views of the rationalist philosophers Baumgarten and Wolff. Like his rationalist predecessors, Kant modelled the concept of purpose on intentional agency. This explains why he denied that teleology can explain anything in nature.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On this last point, see Steigerwald 2006, 713–716.

  2. 2.

    Zammito 2006, 2012; Richards 2000, 2002. It is important to emphasize that both Richards and Zammito criticize the interpretation of Kant’s influence on the development of biology developed by Lenoir, the historian of science. See Lenoir 1989. There are thus two main points of criticism. First, Zammito and Richards challenge the coherence of Kant’s philosophy. Second, in contrast to Lenoir, they deny that Kant had a substantial influence on the development of biology. I return to Lenoir’s interpretation in the next chapter.

  3. 3.

    Zumbach 1984, 92.

  4. 4.

    Ginsborg 2001; Quarfood 2004, 2006.

  5. 5.

    In this respect, I am thus in full agreement with Zammito 2006.

  6. 6.

    Toepfer 2004, 46–75.

  7. 7.

    AA 5: 370. See also AA 5: 397–398.

  8. 8.

    AA 5: 361.

  9. 9.

    See, for example, Nagel 1977, 288–290; Guyer 2001, 264–266; Beiser 2006, 12–13; Zuckert 2007, 141–142; Breitenbach 2009, 66–70.

  10. 10.

    See Toepfer 2004, 49–50, who thinks that Kant’s introduction of intentionality in his account of (biological) purposiveness is an unfortunate illustration.

  11. 11.

    Richards 2000, 19–20; Richards 2002; Zammito 2003.

  12. 12.

    On Wolff’s teleology, see my van den Berg (in press).

  13. 13.

    For this reading, see for example Guyer 2001; McLaughlin 1990, 2001; Steigerwald 2006.

  14. 14.

    McLaughlin 2001, 178–179.

  15. 15.

    McLaughlin 2001, 18–19.

  16. 16.

    Zumbach 1984.

  17. 17.

    Ginsborg 2001, 248–254.

  18. 18.

    Quarfood 2006, 736; Breitenbach 2009, 119–123.

  19. 19.

    Flach 1994; Toepfer 2004.

  20. 20.

    AA 5:220.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    On this argument, see Guyer 2001, 264–267; Beiser 2002, 519–520; Steigerwald 2006, 716–727. Breitenbach 2009 contains a very detailed account of Kant’s views on analogy.

  23. 23.

    Kant lectured on the basis of the fourth edition of Baumgarten’s Metaphysica (1757), printed in AA 15: 5–54 and AA 17: 5–226. I have consulted both the German translation by Meier of 1783 and the Latin fourth edition of the Metaphysica. In the references, when possible, I refer to both works.

  24. 24.

    AA 17: 82.

  25. 25.

    Baumgarten 1783, 99. AA 17: 100.

  26. 26.

    I here follow Meier’s German translation of principium as Quelle. In his notes to Baumgarten’s Metaphysica, Kant also employs this translation. AA 17: 94. This translation may strike one as odd. However, it is probably meant to reflect the idea that in ontology the notion of a principle must be applied to substances.

  27. 27.

    Baumgarten 1783, 6. AA 17: 27–28.

  28. 28.

    Baumgarten 1783, 88. AA 17: 94.

  29. 29.

    AA 17: 94–95.

  30. 30.

    Wolff [1751] 2003, 15–16.

  31. 31.

    Baumgarten 1783, 90. AA 17: 95.

  32. 32.

    Baumgarten 1783, 6. AA 17:27. Wolff [1751] 2003, 332.

  33. 33.

    Baumgarten 1783, 3–4. AA 17: 24. Wolff [1751] 2003, 9.

  34. 34.

    For Wolff, every actual object is possible but not every possible object is actual. Wolff [1751] 2003, 7–9.

  35. 35.

    Baumgarten 1783, 92. AA 17: 96–97.

  36. 36.

    Baumgarten 1783, 58. AA 17: 70.

  37. 37.

    Baumgarten 1783, 55. AA 17: 68.

  38. 38.

    Baumgarten 1783, 92. AA 17: 99.

  39. 39.

    Wolff [1751] 2003, 62–63.

  40. 40.

    I have slightly simplified matters in my presentation of Baumgarten. Baumgarten adopts two concepts of action or act: (i) influx or influence (actio transiens), i.e., the action of one substance on another; (ii) all other types of action called actio immanens. The notion of action figuring in Wolff’s example of the sun melting wax is actio transiens. Baumgarten places heavy emphasis on the notion actio immanens. He defines the notion of ‘act’ as a change of state of a substance by means of its own force. Here we can think of a substance that, by its own force, makes one of its own possible accidents actual, i.e., activates one of its dispositions. In this context, Wolff provides the example of someone who is seated and who exerts a force in order to stand up. Wolff [1751] 2003, 61–62.

  41. 41.

    Baumgarten 1783, 97–98. AA 17: 99–100.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Baumgarten 1783, 98–99. AA 17: 100.

  44. 44.

    Baumgarten 1783, 99. AA 17: 100.

  45. 45.

    This definition of intention is somewhat different from the definition given by Christian Wolff. Wolff takes an intention to be something that we try to obtain by our will. Wolff [1751] 2003, 563. In the first paragraph of the Vernüfftige Gedancken von den Absichten der natürlichen Dinge, he defines an intention as that which a rational and free being tries to obtain by means of its will or desire. As such, he is able to interpret natural objects as divine intentions. Wolff [1726] 1980, 1–2.

  46. 46.

    Baumgarten 1783, 100. AA 17: 101.

  47. 47.

    Baumgarten 1783, 99. AA 17: 100.

  48. 48.

    Wolff [1736] 2001, 652–653.

  49. 49.

    Wolff [1736] 2001, 678–679.

  50. 50.

    Wolff [1736] 2001, 679.

  51. 51.

    Wolff [1751] 2003, 633–634.

  52. 52.

    AA 5: 372–373.

  53. 53.

    AA 28: 522–524.

  54. 54.

    AA 28: 524.

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    AA 28: 573–575.

  57. 57.

    AA 28: 574.

  58. 58.

    Ibid.

  59. 59.

    Ibid.

  60. 60.

    Ibid.

  61. 61.

    Note that the example of the healing of a wound is an example of organic regeneration. The lectures on metaphysics suggest that we must explain this organic process mechanically.

  62. 62.

    It is reprinted in the Akadamie-Ausgabe, AA 8: 157–84.

  63. 63.

    Forster 1786a, b. On the historical context of this debate, see Zammito 1992, 199–213.

  64. 64.

    AA 8: 178.

  65. 65.

    AA 8: 159.

  66. 66.

    Ibid.

  67. 67.

    For a thorough discussion of Kant’s critique of hylozoism (with Johann Herder as its main proponent), see once again Zammito 1992, 178–213; Zammito 2003, 80–98.

  68. 68.

    AA 8: 179.

  69. 69.

    AA 8: 181.

  70. 70.

    Ibid.

  71. 71.

    See in particular AA 8: 179, where Kant speaks of “selbst erdachten Kräften der Materie” and AA 8: 181, where the concept of a force of beings to organize themselves without any determining purpose or intention is described as “völlig erdichtet und leer”. Cf. Zammito 1992, 210–213.

  72. 72.

    AA 5: 220.

  73. 73.

    AA 8: 182.

  74. 74.

    This is stressed by Beiser 2006, 12–13.

  75. 75.

    AA 5: 372–373.

  76. 76.

    See, for example, Rosenberg and McShea 2008, 12–16.

  77. 77.

    AA 5: 372–373. This is also stressed by Zuckert 2007, 141–142. See also McFarland 1970, 102–106.

  78. 78.

    AA 5: 360. See also AA 5: 366.

  79. 79.

    AA 20: 200–201.

  80. 80.

    Ginsborg 2001. For a partial endorsement of Ginsborg’s position, see Quarfood 2006.

  81. 81.

    Cf. AA 20: 232.

  82. 82.

    Ginsborg 2001, 248–54.

  83. 83.

    AA 20: 241.

  84. 84.

    For a similar account of the ontological status of functions, see Searle 1995, 13–23.

  85. 85.

    Wolff [1725] 1980.

  86. 86.

    AA 5: 373.

  87. 87.

    AA 5: 360.

  88. 88.

    Zumbach 1984; Quarfood 2006; Zuckert 2007, 108–119.

  89. 89.

    AA 5: 360.

  90. 90.

    Wolff [1726] 1980. On Wolff’s teleology, see Euler 2008; McLaughlin 2001, 22. On the hierarchy of sciences, see: Blackwell 1961 and Hettche 2008. See also van den Berg (in press).

  91. 91.

    Wolff [1725] 1980. For details on Wolff’s physiology, see van den Berg (in press).

  92. 92.

    See, for example, Wolff [1725] 1980, 1–2.

  93. 93.

    AA 5: 381.

  94. 94.

    AA 5: 383. Cf. AA 20: 234–236; AA 5: 360–361.

  95. 95.

    Wolff [1751] 2003, 633–634.

  96. 96.

    For an excellent discussion of Kant’s distinction between internal and external purposiveness, which I briefly touch upon in the following, see Breitenbach 2009, 134–140.

  97. 97.

    On these sections, see also Ginsborg 2001.

  98. 98.

    AA 2: 96.

  99. 99.

    AA 2:97–98.

  100. 100.

    AA 2: 98.

  101. 101.

    If one does argue in this fashion, Kant argues that one commits the mistake of attributing something “to an artificially devised order of nature before one has properly established that nature is capable of producing that phenomenon in accordance with her universal laws.” AA 2: 135.

  102. 102.

    On this point, see also McLaughlin 1990, 42–44; Kreines 2005, 275–277.

  103. 103.

    “Only if one assumes that human beings have to live on earth would there also have to be at least no lack of the means without which they could not subsist as animals […].” AA 5: 368.

  104. 104.

    The inference from the premise that y necessarily exists to the conclusion that the means for y exist is valid if these means are taken to be necessary for the existence of y. Kant does not always make this point explicit.

  105. 105.

    AA 20: 234.

  106. 106.

    See, for example, Cassirer 1981, 338.

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  1. Faculteit der Wijsbegeerte, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Hein van den Berg

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van den Berg, H. (2014). Kant on Teleology. In: Kant on Proper Science. Studies in German Idealism, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7140-6_4

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