Kant's mature teleological philosophy in the Critique of the Power of Judgment is predicated on innovations that address a set of unprecedented challenges arising from within critical philosophy. The challenges are (1) a threat of 'transcendental chaos' between sensibility and understanding, emerging from the structure of critical epistemology; (2) a threat of 'critical chaos' between determination and reflection, generated by Kant's response to that first threat. The innovations include (a) a transcendental conception of purposiveness, (b) a principle of nature's purposiveness based on that conception, (c) a power of judgment governed by that principle, (d) and so governed in an unusual (self-given and self-governing) way, (e) a view on which nature does make leaps. This Element argues that Kant's mature teleological philosophy - and a fortiori Kant's aesthetics and philosophy of biology - cannot be understood without a fully systematic account of these challenges and innovations, and it presents such an account.

lgrsnf/kant-and-teleology.pdf

Thomas Teufel

Cambridge Library Collection

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Cover
Title page
Imprints
page
Kant and Teleology
Contents
1 Kant’s Critical Teleology
1.1 Introduction: The Logos of Telē
1.2 The Critique of the Power of Judgment
2 Philosophy of Biology or Critique of Judgment?
2.1 Introduction: The Black Box
2.2 Elements of Kant’s Critical Teleology
2.3 Empirical Teleology?
2.4 Essential Aesthetics?
3 Purposiveness as Transcendental Principle
3.1 Introduction: Outside the Box
3.2 False Start(s)
4 The Transcendental Deduction of the Principle of Nature’s Purposiveness
4.1 Introduction: Into the Box
4.2 A Problem of Chaos
4.3 Intuitive Manifolds
4.4 The Transcendental Principle of Nature’s Purposiveness
5 Nature’s Saltūs
5.1 Introduction: Inside the Box
5.2 Rules of Engagement
5.3 The Analytic: The Predicative Holism of Judgments
of Natural Purposes
5.4 The Dialectic: The Supersensible
5.5 Out of the Box: Avoiding Critical Chaos
References

2025-04-19