KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

The Organism 109
ceivable. It is, however, quite conceivable that the parts of matter could
be[come] structured [gegliedert] in their decomposition to infinity. (B*554)
There seems thus to be an important difference between the
division of an "organic" body and the division of a merely "composite"
body. This difference, Kant explains, lies in the fact that an
organic body is a "quantum discretum" and a merely composite
body is a "quantum continuum". The division to infinity is, according
to Kant, based exclusively on the fact that substance is extended
in space and like space constitutes a continuum. Only insofar as a
body is taken as a quantum continuum is it infinitely divisible. As
merely homogeneous extension, substance is arbitrarily divisible,
without the properties' that belong to the concept of substance being
affected. As soon as the object is conceptualized not as continuous
but as articulated, the justification for infinite divisibility no longer
holds. If something is conceived as structured (as a quantum discretum),
it has per definitionem a determinate (finite) number of
parts. An "organic" body must have a determinate amount of parts;
the parts themselves, in so far as they, too, are quanta discreta,
must also have determinate numbers of parts. This process cannot
however be continued to infinity, for a determinate amount is
according to Kant by definition finite. If the process of division itself
is nevertheless to go on in infinitum, then at some point in the division,
the parts of the quanta discreta must themselves be quanta
continua. The organic body is given as a whole in intuition only as
mere extended substance not as a structured system. At some stage
of division the organic body must consist of anorganic matter. 67
While it is in fact an empirical question how far one must go in the
dissection of an organic body before one encounters parts that are
anorganic, it must nonetheless in principle be possible to dissect the
body that far; that is, the lowest level of the organic must be the
object of a possible, finite experience. Even if we should happen to
fail to arrive at this level by means of some dissection procedure, we
must nonetheless assume it to be possible in principle to arrive at an
anorganic part: 68
67 Kant himself avoids the expression "organic matter" which could be misunderstood
as meaning that matter as such could be organic and not merely organized
into organic bodies. There is only one kind of matter, and it is inert.
68 Cf. also Heimsoeth, Transzendentale Dialektik, 328f. Löw, for instance,
misses the point of the passage, which he takes to be affirming the inevitability of
our failure to reach the anorganic by dissection. He thereupon interpolates a