KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Natural Purpose 45
can scarcely imagine it otherwise than as a purpose, i.e. a realized
concept ("vestigium hominis video"). Here we assume an actual
causality according to a concept and look for the agent (whom Kant
consistently reduces to an understanding) who realized in sand the
concept of hexagon. In this example we are clearly dealing with the
idea of the product, not with the idea of the effects of the product that
motivate its production. The motives and intentions of the artist —
perhaps his anticipation of the surprise of the philosopher on
discovering the hexagon — play no role in this analysis.
It will be worthwhile, especially with regard to the structure
of biological explanation to examine closely the difference between
the intellectual anticipation of the artifact itself (causa formalis) and
the intellectual anticipation of the effects or consequences of that
artifact (causa finalis). Both can be subsumed under the concept of
"teleology", although only the causa finalis is commonly designated
as "purpose." In Kant just the reverse seems to be the case. At any
rate it is essential in the analysis of Kant's text to ask what kind of
teleology and what kind of purposes he means. We have already
seen that the causa formalis was an essential component of the deistic
systems of the world, but that these systems denied the causa
finalis any role in physical explanation. In these systems teleology
consisted in a clockmaker God, assumed to be real, so that the entire
world system was considered to be a divine artifact. If Kant is in fact
restricting himself to the causa formalis, then he is not introducing
any kind of teleology that was not already part of deistic science.
After introducing the example above to illustrate purpose,
i.e., the causality of a concept, Kant poses the question whether
there can also be things, which, like artifacts, can only be conceived
as purposes but which are not artifacts but rather pure products of
nature. Such things, which, like artifacts, are supposed to have an
intrinsic purposiveness, Kant calls natural purposes ("Naturzwecke")
and attempts to explicate this concept and to determine the
difference to an artifact:
On the other hand, in order to judge something, which we cognize as a
natural product, to be a purpose, and hence a natural purpose, then —
unless perhaps a contradiction lies in the very thought — we need more
than this. (B*286; CJ, 249)
I shall go into some detail on Kant's analysis of this concept
since it is the pivotal concept of his entire discussion of mechanistic
explanation in biology and is the source of the "antinomy" resolved