KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Three Approaches 141
judgment: "If we posit that both these maxims apply to the same
kind of judgment, then their antinomy is insoluble." From this he
concluded: "The thesis holds for determinate judgment, the antithesis
for reflective judgment." 8 This interpretation has the advantage
that it can at least take the first pair of propositions (the
"maxims") to be the antinomy, so that it at least to this extent conforms
to Kant's characterization. The resolution of the antinomy is
also rather simple: it is pointed out that the two apparently contradictory
propositions are taken in different regards — one as constitutive
and one as regulative —, and thus there is no true contradiction.
This interpretation does however have the disadvantage that
the dialectical illusion involved in the antinomy is entirely artificial.
According to this interpretation we have no reason to take the first
maxim (R1) as a merely regulative principle for reflective judgment,
because it is in reality constitutive; or rather, the only reason we
have to do this is that Kant has explicitly instructed us to do just this
in §§ 69 and 70, that is, to take both maxims as regulative. Our mistake
and thus the entire antinomy would thus be nothing more than
a confusion deliberately instigated by Kant; the dialectic would thus
be "one which some sophist has artificially invented to confuse
thinking people" (B354).
This interpretation also raises a second problem. It assumes
as evident that concepts like "mechanism" and "merely mechanical
laws" have the same meaning as "causality." Such an equivalence
is not formulated by Kant. On the contrary, some of his remarks
exclude the possibility of such an identification. In his discussion of
the two constitutive principles (C1 and C2) Kant asserts that neither
of them can be proved by reason. That is, even the proposition (C1):
"All production of material things is possible according to merely
mechanical laws," can, according to Kant, not be proved. However,
the complete causal determination of all material things was supposedly
proved in the Critique of Pure Reason: what is not causally
completely determined does not appear. The mere existence of something
as a phenomenon is already sufficient proof that it possible
according to merely causal laws. A.C. Ewing draws the appropriate
conclusion: "This passage by itself seems to constitute quite a sufficient
proof that Kant does not at this stage mean to identify mecha-
8 Kuno Fischer, p. 492; cf. Bauch, pp. 442 and 445.