In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

328 Chapter 12 The Analytic of the Teleological Faculty of Judgment (§61, §§62–68): The Internal Purposiveness of Natural Organisms The second part of the Critique of Judgment is a critical investigation into the teleological faculty of judgment. The division of the second part follows the scheme of an Analytic, a Dialectic, and a Methodology of the teleological faculty of judgment. If compared to the critique of the aesthetic faculty of judgment, this second part attributes a different relevance to its three divisions respectively. The reason is provided by Kant’s claim in the introduction according to which the key to the Critique of Judgment is the aesthetic faculty of judgment—the teleological faculty being just a function of judgment in general. In the case of the aesthetic faculty of judgment, the Analytic played a fundamental role while only one section was dedicated to the Methodology. In the critique of the teleological faculty of judgment, on the contrary, the Analytic plays a comparatively less central role if compared with the Dialectic and with the long Methodology (and the note that follows it). The Analytic is not clearly structured according to the moments provided by the table of the categories, although a certain parallelism with the Analytic of the Beautiful can be observed. The division into an “exposition” and a “deduction” is also not respected. 1 In the Analytic, Kant provides a typology of the different forms of “objective purposiveness” that the faculty of judgment employs in its reflection upon the manifold empirical forms of nature.§61 works as an introductory section to the entire second part of the Critique of Judgment, referring back to the general considerations on the distinction between aesthetic and teleological faculty of judgment developed in §VIII of the introduction . In §§62–64 Kant presents the different forms of Zweckmäßigkeit and the different types of objects that can be judged according to a notion of purposiveness that is not aesthetic and subjective but logical and objective. In §§64– 68, he discusses our judgments concerning the purposive structure of organisms and addresses the crucial problem of the function of teleological judgments in natural science. 1. Aesthetic and Teleological Faculty of Judgment (§61) Kant’s distinction between the subjective purposiveness of nature as principle of the aesthetic faculty of judgment and the notion of an “objective” purposiveness employed by the teleological faculty of judgment is framed in terms of the gen1 . The reason for this has been discussed in chapter 9. The Analytic of the Teleological Faculty of Judgment (§61, §§62–68) 329 eral problem of comprehending the manifold empirical forms of nature as a lawful system of experience. Thereby, Kant goes back to the central epistemological reflections of the introduction. The principle of “subjective purposiveness of nature ” is the a priori principle of the faculty of judgment that is necessary if a connection of our particular experiences of nature’s forms into a coherent system is to be possible. On the ground of this subjective principle, we judge the particular forms of nature as if they were suited to our cognitive faculties. The subjectivity of the principle consists, in this case, in the harmony between the form of the object and the interplay of our cognitive powers. Accordingly, we judge those natural forms as beautiful. The reflective faculty of judgment is therein aesthetic. The critique of the aesthetic faculty of judgment becomes the fundamental part of a critique of this faculty because the original a priori principle of subjective purposiveness is necessary to the possibility of a systematic connection of our experience of nature (E §VIII, L, 193, 24–25). Kant attributes to the teleological faculty of judgment a different function. Such a faculty refers to an objective purposiveness of nature based upon concepts of objects. The idea of nature as “complex of the objects of the senses” (§61, 267–268, AA 359, 16–17) does not legitimately allow one to infer the constitution of natural things according to purposes (i.e., the notion of an objective purposiveness in nature). While the principle of the aesthetic faculty of judgment is grounded in our own cognitive faculties and displays their “internal purposive attunement ” (§61, 268, AA 359, 19), the claim of an objective purposiveness of things regards purposes that are not ours, cannot be attributed to nature as mechanism , and hence lie beyond our possible knowledge. In this case, no a priori ground can be provided for the fact that certain natural beings must exist as natural purposes...

Share