KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

140 Interpretations of the Antinomy
human reason only, were not in the same opposition in which the above
mentioned propositions found themselves.
It is, however, hardly credible that Kant could have overlooked the
opposition between the two maxims, and even less than credible that
he would have repeated such formula-like phrases if he had not
wanted to formulate an explicit contradiction. In conclusion, we can
see that this interpretation asserts that Kant resolves a different
antinomy than he announces, that the resolution offered is philosophically
trivial, but that nonetheless, as carried out by Kant, it is
inadequate.
(2) An alternative to this interpretation, which could to a certain
extent forestall Hegel's objection, can point out the peculiarity of
Kant's assertion that the maxim of judging everything mechanistically
is merely a regulative principle of reflective judgement and not
a constitutive principle of determinate judgment. A number of commentators
have correctly pointed out that the complete causal determination
of all objects of experience (including organisms) is not a
merely regulative principle, but is rather constitutive of experience.
For instance, H.W. Cassirer writes: 7
How can Kant treat the mechanical and teleological principles as reflective
principles? Such an assertion is obviously contrary to the fundamental
principles of his philosophy. According to him the mechanical principles
are derived from the universal law of causality. This law is a product of the
understanding. It is an objective principle. By means of it we know prior to
all actual experience that every event in nature must be determined by
mechanical causes. This has been made quite clear by Kant in the Critique
of Pure Reason, and it will be sufficient to refer to his discussion of the
second Analogy.
If the first maxim (R1) maintains: everything must be judged
to be causally completely determined; then it does in fact simply
assert what is self-evident after the Critique of Pure Reason: all
phenomena are causally determined. Such a maxim would simply
make it a rule to interpret things as they in fact are. Mechanism, so
interpreted, is thus constitutive and teleology merely regulative. The
antinomy could then arise either 1) when we falsely take mechanism
to be merely regulative (conflict of the two regulative principles)
or 2) when we falsely take teleology to be constitutive (conflict
of the two constitutive principles). Kuno Fischer, for instance, saw
that the two maxims are really inconsistent if both apply to reflective
7 H.W. Cassirer, p. 345.