KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

46 Analytic of Teleological Judgment
in the Dialectic. Kant first presents a tentative characterization of
the concept of natural purpose and explicates it with an example. It
is important for an understanding of this section to note that this is
merely an illustration and not yet a definition. The discussion
begins with the words: "I would say, provisionally ..."; and after the
tentative characterization he proceeds: "Before we analyze this idea
of a natural purpose in full let me elucidate its meaning by an
example" (B286; CJ, *249). The concept of natural purpose itself is
supposed to be acquired purely through conceptual analysis
(objective, material, intrinsic, natural purposiveness); however, it is
illustrated from the start with what is supposed to be its empirical
instantiation — the organism. Natural purpose is not a concept
acquired from empirical experience of organism; this experience
only prompts us to take up the analytically acquired concept. The
tentative characterization of the concept to be illustrated reads:
A thing exists as a natural purpose if it is both cause and effect of itself
(although in two different senses). (B286; CJ, 249)
To explicate this characterization Kant adduces three properties
of an organism: propagation, growth, and the mutual dependency
of the parts on one another and on the whole. A thing, e.g. a
tree, can be conceived as both cause and effect of itself, insofar as it
1) produces itself with regard to its species (by generating another
individual of the same species), 2) produces itself as an individual by
growth, and 3) produces itself by guaranteeing the nourishment and
preservation of each part by the other parts. Thus Kant is referring
to three kind of reproduction of a system: (3) the identical reproduction
through nourishment and in special cases through regeneration,
(2) the expanded reproduction of growth, and (1) the production
of new systems.
For systematic reasons it is important, however, to emphasize
that the concept of natural purpose is not introduced as a synonym
for the organism. Organisms are objects of experience. Everything
that Kant later says about natural purposes applies to the organism
only insofar as it must be conceived as a natural purpose. The concept
of the organism itself has "objective reality" because there are
actually corresponding things in sense experience, i.e. animals and
plants. The concept of natural purpose has objective reality only if
there are objects of experience that are natural products and can
only be conceived as if they had been produced intentionally by some
understanding. If such things should exist (or if, as Kant tends to