KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Subcontrary Oppositions 113
appear. And "No thing in itself acts spontaneously," is, while not
evidently false, at least without any justification whatsoever. However,
in contrast to the First and Second Antinomies, it is possible
here that both propositions, thesis and antithesis, can be salvaged if
each is restricted to one area. For instance:
Thesis. Some things in themselves act spontaneously
Antithesis. No phenomenal thing acts spontaneously.
The Third and Fourth Antinomies, called by Kant "dynamical"
differ from the first two "mathematical" antinomies in that
they need not presuppose that the condition and the conditioned are
homogeneous. For instance, although the parts (conditions) of a
phenomenal body must themselves be phenomenal, it is not necessary
— according to Kant — that all causes (conditions) of such a
thing be phenomenal. Kant admits that up to the last section of the
antinomies chapter "we have been overlooking an essential
distinction." When this new possibility is taken into consideration, it
"opens up to us an entirely new perspective in regard to the dispute
in which reason is involved" (B*557). Since we were compelled to
distinguish between appearances and things in themselves in order
to resolve the contradiction in the first two antinomies, we can now
use this distinction to solve the dynamical antinomies in a different
fashion. We can declare the thesis and antithesis in their undifferentiated
form to be false (so that the dynamical antinomies still
conform to the model presented in the digression on Zeno). On the
other hand, after the differentiation both of them can be true,
namely, if the thesis refers only to the noumenal world and the antithesis
only to the phenomenal. 73 In this case, "we are able to obtain
satisfaction for understanding on the one hand and for reason on
the other"; and "when thus given this corrected interpretation, both
may alike be true; which can never happen with the cosmological
ideas that concern only the mathematically unconditioned unity"
(B*559-60). The formulation "may be true" is to be taken literally: in
the First and Second Antinomies thesis and antithesis are false; in
73 In Reflection No. 5829 (Ak 18,365) Kant writes: "opposita under two different
conditions are not contradictorily opposed; the opposition is inadmissable and
both statements can be true. For instance, the will as appearance stands under
natural necessity and as intellectual it is free. Both conditions are to be conceived
in all beings, but only on the example of the will do we notice the latter."