Kant and Biology

Abstract Immanuel Kant, the most important German philosopher of the era of Enlightenment, participated actively in the discussions within and about the natural sciences of his time. He became a defender of a Newtonian conception of science against Aristotelean Scholasticism that relied upon final causes and essentialist explanation for phenomena in nature. While gaining fame for developing his ‘critical philosophy’, he continued to address contemporary questions of philosophy of biology, such as critically analysing the argument from design, addressing the question of the natural origin of mankind, and searching for a middle ground between preformationism and epigenesis. Kant claims it is necessary for us to conceptualise organisms as ‘ends in nature’ with a purposive (teleonomic) structure that differs from any other Newtonian form of organisation in nature. Kant claims that due to the limits of our human reasoning we may never be able to find a mere Newtonian mechanical explanation of the origin of life and its order. Key Concepts Preformationism: The view according to which organic growth and adaptability is resulting from a mechanical unfolding of ‘pre‐formed’ germs. Epigenesis (opposed to preformationism) the view that organic forces beyond Newtonian principles are needed to explain the flexible adaptiveness and the growth of organisms. Ends in Nature: Kant's term for the teleonomic (purposive) structure of organism that separate them from all other products of nature. Critical Philosophy: The attempt to deliver an epistemological foundation for philosophy by critically investigating the reach and limits of human reason. Bildungstrieb: The concept of a ‘formative force’ proposed by Blumenbach to explain the special causality responsible for the formation, growth and inner organisation of living organism that could not be explained by Newtonian forces alone. Aristotelean Teleology: The view that some forces in nature have to be understood as ‘final causes’ such that the ‘idea of the whole’ is the cause for the production of something in nature or by human or divine activity.