KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Chapter 3
The Antinomy of Judgment
3.1 Introduction
In the Analytic of teleological judgment Kant attempted by
means of dichotomies and definitional division to derive analytically
from the concept of purposiveness a concept of natural purpose,
which he could then "project" (hineinspielen) onto nature in order
to explain certain particularly problematical phenomena, namely,
organisms. The subsequent justification or "derivation" of this
concept left many questions unanswered, including the question of
whether the concept itself was not self-contradictory. In any case, at
the end of the Analytic a number of reservations about the
legitimacy of such a concept had still not been removed. In the second
part of the "Critique of Teleological Judgment" Kant attempts
somewhat more successfully with dialectical means what he was
not quite able to do with analytical means. His instrument is the
figure of argument of the antinomy which we analyzed in the last
chapter. Formally, the Dialectic of teleological judgment consists
entirely of a single antinomy: it is presented, explicated, and
resolved. In terms of content, the Dialectic is a thorough critique,
but also a fundamental justification, of mechanistic, reductionistic
explanation in biology. A number of difficulties in principle regarding
this type of explanation are analyzed; but in the final analysis
Kant insists in spite of all reservations on the exclusive legitimacy of
this type of explanation in science; that is, he continues to subscribe
to the identity of scientific and reductionist explanation.