The Inexplicability of Kant's
Naturzweck:
Kant on Teleology,
Explanation and Biology
The Inexplicability
of Kant's Naturzweck: Kant on Teleology, Explanation and Biology.
Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie 87:3 (2005): 270-311
by James Kreines
[For my newer discussions of this material, see: 1.
Kant and Hegel on Teleology and Life
from the Perspective of Debates about Free Will, HTML or
PDF, DRAFT, comments still
welcome, Forthcoming 2012. And 2. The Logic of Life: Hegel’s Philosophical Defense of Teleological
Explanation in Biology.
The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy,
edited by F. Beiser. 2008. Free final draft.]
Please cite the published version. What follows is a final draft:
Abstract: Kant’s position on teleology and biology is neither
inconsistent nor obsolete; his arguments have some surprising and enduring
philosophical strengths. But Kant’s account will appear weak if we
muddy the waters by reading him as aiming to defend teleology by appealing to
considerations popular in contemporary philosophy. Kant argues for very
different conclusions: we can neither know teleological judgments of living
beings to be true, nor legitimately explain living beings in teleological
terms; such teleological judgment is justified only as a “problematic”
guideline in our search for mechanistic explanations. These conclusions are
well supported by Kant’s defense of his demanding analysis, according to which
teleological judgment literally applies to a complex whole only where
teleology truly explains the presence of its parts.
Kant’s discussion of teleology, explanation, and biology in the Critique of
the Power of Judgment (KU) appears to present stunningly inconsistent
answers to even the most straightforward questions. Can biological
phenomena be explained in mechanistic terms? Kant seems to answer both
“no” and “maybe”—sometimes within the space of a few lines. On the one hand,
he claims that “organized beings” cannot be explained “in accordance with
merely mechanical principles of nature”. He includes living beings insofar as
he takes this to make impossible “a Newton who could make comprehensible even
the generation of a blade of grass”. On the other hand, he immediately insists
on leaving open the possibility of “mere mechanism” as the “ground” or
“origination” of living beings
(5:400).1
Is teleology legitimately applicable to biological phenomena? Kant
seems to answer both “yes” and “no”. On the one hand, organized beings are
supposed to be not only mechanically inexplicable but also to require
specifically teleological explanation. And Kant claims that our experience of
living beings does always suggest the need for teleological judgment (e.g.
5:366; 5:386). On the other hand, Kant repeatedly denies that we can
legitimately explain (erklären) living beings
in teleological terms, and he refers instead to the “inexplicability” of the
“natural end” or Naturzweck
(5:395).2
Kant's interpreters generally try to resolve these tensions by attributing
them to the interference of factors extraneous to Kant’s analysis of
teleological judgment. Recent interpreters tend in particular to see Kant's
analysis as, at least in part, a defense of teleological explanation in
biology. Some say that Kant only seems to deny such a role for teleology,
because he is independently committed to an artificially narrow use of the
term “explanation”
(Erklärung).3
Some say that Kant only doubts the legitimacy of teleological explanation
because he makes outdated assumptions about intelligent design; others more
recently say that Kant means to defend teleology by questioning just such
assumptions.4
And some argue that Kant’s independent ambitions to address problems
concerning freedom and morality in the KU require him to make claims about
living beings which are unsupported by his own
analysis.5
Though I am indebted to recent interpreters on a number of points, I argue for
a very different overall account. Kant consistently claims that we can never
legitimately explain living beings in teleological terms. This claim is
absolutely central to his undertaking, and does not create a tension within
Kant’s account which needs to be explained away. On the contrary, Kant is
arguing for the existence of what is supposed to be a very real
tension: on the one hand, our experience of living beings inevitably suggests
to us a form of teleological judgment which is indispensably useful; on the
other hand, such teleological judgment carries strong explanatory implications
which render it problematic. Furthermore, Kant’s conclusions emerge directly
from his analysis of teleological judgment in a tightly unified line of
argument. This analysis, properly understood, cannot be married to any
claim that we may legitimately employ some form of teleological
explanation to account for living beings. Finally, there is nothing obsolete
about Kant’s argument and conclusions specifically concerning teleology,
explanation and biology. Alternative contemporary accounts require the
rejection of one or another of Kant’s central premises, and this carries real
philosophical costs. Or so I will argue.
Kant's overall argument is unified and driven throughout by recognition of a
crucial peculiarity of teleological judgment. Appreciating this peculiarity
requires noting that Kant does not think that explanation
(Erklärung) is a purely pragmatic or
subjective notion. That is, he does not think that an account qualifies as
explanatory solely in virtue of describing an explanandum in a way which
addresses the pragmatic interests or subjective point of view of a specific
audience. Explaining something must always involve some way of getting at why
it is as it is, or why it happens as it does—some way of getting at the real
underlying causes or determining factors. I will mark this point by saying
that Kant holds an “objective” notion of
explanation.6
Now it does not seem natural to associate judgment generally with explanation:
generally speaking a judgment “S is P” would be true if and only if S can
truly be described as P, and it would be irrelevant whether P explains S or
vice-versa. But Kant’s argument is driven by the recognition that a
teleological judgment “M is for E” implies more than just that M can be truly
described as benefiting E; it implies that the benefit to E explains M.
And what is important about this for Kant’s argument is not any requirement it
might impose on how E and M appear given particular subjective perspectives or
pragmatic interests. What is crucial is the requirement that M really occurs
specifically for the sake of E, or that the benefit to E plays some real role
in causing, determining or bringing about
M.7
This principle connecting teleological judgment and explanation drives Kant’s
initial argument that mere relations of benefit do not themselves justify the
application of the concept of a
Naturzweck
(section 1). And this principle is built into Kant’s requirement that a true
Naturzweck would have to be an organized being (section 2). The same
principle opens up the space for Kant to claim that actual living beings
appear to us to be mechanically inexplicable
Naturzwecke while denying that we can know
them to be such (section 3). And the same principle lends real philosophical
strength to Kant’s argument that a truly organized being would have to
originate in a concept, blocking any possibility of empirical knowledge of
real organization in nature (section 4). With this unified line of argument in
hand, we can understand why teleological judgment is both justified (in virtue
of a crucial role guiding the scientific investigation of living beings) and
yet also inevitably problematic (in virtue of its explanatory implications)
(section 5). Interpreters often see Kant as denying the principle connecting
teleological judgment and explanation, because they see this as the only way
to eliminate a tension internal to Kant’s analysis. I argue that these
readings are mistaken (section 6), and that Kant intends the tension
specifically to limit the status of teleological judgment of nature and to
prevent any intrusion of theology into empirical science (section 7). And
Kant’s denial that there can be any room for teleological explanation in any
empirical science is not contradicted or even mitigated by the solution of the
“Antinomy of the Teleological Power of Judgment” (section 8). I conclude by
showing that Kant’s analysis is incompatible with contemporary defenses of
function explanation in biology, but has philosophical strengths of its own
(section 9).
Finally, the interpretations I criticize may well be motivated by charity to
find in the KU currently popular lines of thought—a defense of teleological
explanation similar to contemporary forms of nonreductive physicalism, an
appeal to the multiple realizability of functions,
etc.8
I embrace the goal of charity, but argue that it is not well served in this
case. For I argue that these contemporary views fit poorly with Kant’s
arguments, so that introducing them can only muddy the philosophical waters.
Furthermore, philosophical views generally tend have weaknesses as well as
strengths, and it is hardly charitable to burden Kant with any weaknesses of
contemporary views which his own approach need not share. Charity is crucial
if we are to discover and understand the lasting philosophical importance of
figures in the history of philosophy. But charity should not mean that we seek
to interpret Kant’s conclusions so that they are as near as possible to
those favored by contemporary tastes. It should mean rather that we seek to
understand the real philosophical strengths of Kant’s arguments—even
and especially where those arguments support conclusions which challenge
contemporary tastes, and so promise to broaden our understanding of the
fundamental philosophical possibilities. That, in any case, is the charity I
aim for here.
1. Why Relative Purposiveness Does Not Justify Teleological Judgment
Kant begins the “Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment,” with an
analysis of the teleological judgment of natural phenomena, or—in his terms—of
the concept of a Naturzweck (“natural end” or “natural purpose”). It is
crucial to avoid the common but mistaken view that Naturzweck is just
Kant’s “expression for biological
organisms”9.
If that were so, then Kant would merely be analyzing an empirical concept like
living being or organism, which (by his own lights) could not
result in an extension of our knowledge but merely the clarification or
explication of the concept. If we go down this path then Kant will seem to be
trying to dictate by means of conceptual analysis how actual living beings
must be—an unlikely undertaking for the philosopher who broke with traditional
metaphysics precisely by denying the possibility of cognizing objects “through
mere
concepts”10.
What Kant proposes instead is an analysis of the conditions under which a
teleological judgment would be true specifically of a natural being. The
corresponding concept of a
Naturzweck
is constructed to apply by definition to anything which meets those
conditions. Kant will also consider the degree to which this analysis applies
to actual living beings, and so the degree to which it makes sense to judge
them in teleological terms or to judge them to be
Naturzwecke. It is impossible to understand
Kant without distinguishing the analysis and its application; his basic point
will be that the proper analysis of teleological judgment carries such strong
implications that its application to nature is bound to be problematic.
It is worth proceeding carefully with Kant’s initial steps, as they contain
often unnoticed keys to his conclusions. This is particularly true of Kant’s
consideration in §63 of relations of benefit between the parts of nature, or
“relative purposiveness”. Kant proposes an example in which a sea shrinks from
its shores, leaving behind sandy soil which benefits the subsequently
flourishing forest of pine trees (5:367). There may well be some reason to
judge sea, sand and trees in teleological terms. But the benefit to the trees
does not itself provide such a reason. If it did, then there would be reason
to judge in teleological terms any and everything in nature which happens to
benefit something else. But that would be absurd: benefit cannot be a reason
for teleological judgment of natural phenomena which make possible human life
in arctic conditions, for “one does not see why human beings have to live
there at all” (5:369). The question is, then, how to avoid such absurd
consequences in a non-arbitrary way? How to give principled reasons why
relations of benefit should fall short of justifying teleological judgment?
Kant’s solution turns on the connection between teleological judgment and
explanation. The fact that changes in one thing benefit another gives us no
reason to doubt that these changes can be explained perfectly well without
reference to benefit or beneficiary, and so no reason to think anything
happens because of a function, purpose, end,
etc.11
And that is why relations of benefit give us no reason to judge natural
phenomena in teleological terms. Taking benefit to justify such judgment would
be “bold and arbitrary,” specifically because of its explanatory irrelevance:
“for even if all of this natural usefulness did not exist, we would find
nothing lacking in the adequacy of natural causes for this state of things”
(5:369). For example, teleological judgment of the movements of sand and sea
might be justified if these could not be explained “without ascribing an
end” (ohne […] einen Zweck unterzulegen)
(5:368). But the mere benefit of sea and soil to the trees gives us no
reason to doubt that these movements can be explained perfectly well without
any reference to the pine trees or to any purpose at all. In Kant’s terms,
such “relative purposiveness” “justifies no absolute teleological judgments”
(5:369). In other words, it does not justify the literal application of the
concept of a
Naturzweck.
The relation of benefit suggests only a purposiveness which is “contingent” or
extrinsic to the sea; it is merely “external purposiveness”
(äußere Zweckmäßigkeit) (5:368). Grasping the
conditions which would justify teleological judgment of natural beings will
require making sense of a contrasting sense of intrinsic or internal
purposiveness (innere
Zweckmäßigkeit).12
Note the indispensable role played in Kant’s solution by both the objective
notion of explanation and the peculiarity of teleological judgment. First of
all, say we grant that relations of benefit give us no reason to doubt that an
event can be explained in non-teleological terms. If you held a purely
pragmatic notion of explanation, you might still say that benefit suggests a
role for teleological explanation: the existence of benefit shows that there
is indeed another available description of the event which might well address
a different set of pragmatic interests concerning it. Kant reasons
differently: if benefit gives us no reason to doubt that a natural event
occurs because of causes having nothing to do with purposes or ends, then it
would be “bold and arbitrary” to take this benefit itself as reason to think
this very same event can also be explained by a purpose or end. Furthermore,
say we grant this first point, accepting that relations of benefit do not
themselves suggest any role for teleological explanation. This still
presents no problem with describing the movements of the sea and the
sand in terms of their benefit to the forest. So why should this present a
problem for teleological judgment? Only because teleological judgment
never just describes, but always implies an explanation.
2. The Organization Condition
Kant proceeds on the basis of his discussion of relative purposiveness to
argue that a Naturzweck would have to be an organized being. This
‘organization condition’ (as I will call it) requires that the whole system
determines its parts, in the sense that the parts are present specifically
because of their purposes or functions within the whole.
This organization condition is only the first of two parts of Kant’s analysis;
by itself it defines only the general concept of an organized being, or a
Zweck (“end” or “purpose”)—not yet the concept of a natural
organized being or a Naturzweck in particular. In fact, Kant tends
to explain this first requirement by demonstrating how it is met in the
specific case of non-natural artifacts, such as a house or a watch (5:372ff.).
To elaborate on Kant’s example, consider a spring in a watch. As with the
movements of sea and sand, there is a sense in which the behavior of the
spring itself can be explained in non-teleological terms: the spring behaves
as it does because of its own material constitution and shape. But this spring
might have been constructed differently so as do to virtually anything: to
break when wound, to turn the gears at speeds varying with the temperature, to
make squeaking noises, etc. As Kant says later, “nature, considered as mere
mechanism, could have structured itself differently in a thousand ways without
hitting on precisely the unity in terms of a principle of purposes”
(5:360).13
And this makes room for teleological explanation, specifying that the spring
and the other parts of the watch are present specifically on account of the
determinate and coordinated functions they are to fulfill within the organized
whole.
In the case of non-natural artifacts, such as a watch, the organization of the
whole determines the parts only via human design. But this particular aspect
of such examples is not itself crucial specifically to Kant’s claim that
teleology would be justified by organization as opposed to mere benefit or
relative purposiveness. What is crucial is only that the functional
organization of the whole (in some way or other) determines the parts—or that
the presence of the parts is (in some way or other) determined by their
functions within the organized whole. In terms of Kant’s official statement of
the requirement, “for a thing as Naturzweck it is requisite,
first, that its parts (as far as their existence and their form are
concerned) are possible only through their relation to the whole”
(5:373).14
Note how this requirement follows specifically from Kant’s treatment of
relative purposiveness. Mere benefit does not justify teleological judgment,
because it provides no reason to doubt that the benefit itself is just an
accidental consequence of non-teleological causes. So Kant’s analysis must
rule out the possibility that the parts of a system are present for some other
reason, and happen by chance to benefit the whole by fulfilling functions.
Thus the analysis must require that the parts of the system are not present
for other reasons—they must be present specifically on account of functions
within the whole, or “possible only through their relation to the whole”. This
is to build the objective notion of explanation into the analysis of
teleology. And this results in a demand far stronger than any requirement that
a system be ‘organized’ only in the sense that it currently has a structure or
form which meets some standard (e.g. is sufficiently complicated, regular, or
appears to us in a particular light). For any requirement of the latter sort,
no matter how demanding, could be conceivably be satisfied by a system whose
parts happen by chance to have come together with the required structure or
form.
As mentioned above, Kant’s first requirement is not enough by itself for an
analysis of the concept of a Naturzweck. For one way this first
requirement can be met is the way it is met in the case of artifacts, which
are non-natural in that they are the products of our own design. So Kant needs
a second requirement in order to rule out artifacts and narrow the analysis.
He needs to narrow his analysis of organized beings generally (including those
organized by the action of an external designer) to an analysis of naturally
“self-organizing” (5:374) beings. Or, he needs to narrow this analysis of
Zwecke in general to come up with an analysis of
Naturzwecke in particular. Kant seeks to do
this by means of a second requirement again governing the relations between
whole and parts. Considered in these terms, ruling out non-natural products of
design means ruling out the mere imposition of an organizational form or
structure onto parts by the work of “a rational cause distinct from the
matter” (5:373). To exclude the possibility that the form or structure is
imposed from the outside is to require that it is imposed from within. And
considered in terms of part/whole relations this means that the parts
themselves must be responsible for the organized form of the whole.
Kant’s own gloss on this second requirement is difficult to follow because it
effectively combines the force of both requirements into a single statement.
Kant says: “it is required, second, that its parts be combined into a
whole by being reciprocally the cause and effect of their form” (5:373). To
begin with, the functional organization of the whole must not be merely
imposed by an external designer, but rather determined by the parts
themselves. But the first requirement already demands that the presence of
parts of a particular type or form must also depend on the functional
organization of the whole. So, drawing both points together, the parts would
have to be both cause and effect of their own form.
It is imperative that we not confuse the content of this highly abstract
analysis with Kant’s discussions of how the analysis applies to actual living
beings—for example, Kant’s attempt to “elucidate” the analysis by discussing
its applicability to three features of trees: they have parts which mutually
compensate to preserve the whole, they incorporate matter to grow, and they
reproduce
(5:371f.).15
Kant’s applications of the analysis are a complex topic in their own right, to
which we must carefully attend as we proceed. But concerning the abstract
analysis itself, the most important thing to note is a puzzle concerning how
its conditions could possibly be jointly met. For the two requirements appear
to conflict: the first requires that the parts are determined by the whole;
the second requires that the whole is determined by the
parts.16
This puzzle is especially important here because recent interpreters tend to
see at as reason to give a reading of Kant’s first requirement that is very
different than mine. In particular, Kant’s view is often supposed to be this:
(a) Actual living beings are
Naturzwecke, or systems in which the parts
seem to us to be present on account of functions within the
whole.
Interpretation (a) substantially weakens Kant’s first requirement, so that it
demands only that the whole seems to determine the parts; and this
would not conflict with the second requirement that the parts really do
determine the whole, thus resolving the puzzle. But I will argue for a very
different placement of the ‘seem to us,’ and so attribute to Kant a very
different view, namely:
(b) Actual living beings seem to
us to be
Naturzwecke,
or systems in which the parts are present on account of functions within the
whole.
According to (b), Kant’s analysis does include the full-strength organization
condition, or the requirement that the whole really does determine the parts.
In other words, the “seems to us” is not part of the content of Kant’s
analysis of the concept of a
Naturzweck,
but part of this position on the applicability of this concept to living
beings. I have already argued above that it is (b), and specifically the
full-strength organization condition, which follows from Kant’s treatment of
the merely external purposiveness of benefit (as in cases like the sea, sand
and trees). I will continue to argue that (b) is the correct reading, and that
the same full-strength organization condition does a remarkable amount of
philosophical work throughout Kant’s account, lending real support to
conclusions that can otherwise seem to be inadequately defended and even
mutually inconsistent. I’ll then return to discuss in more concrete terms the
point of Kant’s second requirement and the puzzle of its relation to the
first.
3. The Mechanical Inexplicability of the Naturzweck
The full-strength organization condition makes it easy to understand Kant’s
claim for the mechanical inexplicability of
Naturzwecke.
This claim does not directly concern actual living beings, but rather the
constructed concept of a
Naturzweck.
And mechanical inexplicability is built right into this concept. More
specifically, Kant uses “mechanism” to single out accounts which explain
entirely without reference to any special organization, structure, or
arrangement of whole systems. So mechanism applies to complex systems where
the structure and behavior of the whole is completely determined by the
independent changes of the parts. But Kant defines
Zweck as the
concept of something of which this cannot be true: the whole cannot be
explained completely in terms of the independent changes of the parts, for the
parts themselves are only present because of their roles within the organized
whole. Thus the very concept of a
Zweck itself
rules out mechanical explicability:
If we consider a material whole, as far
as its form is concerned, as a product of the parts and of their forces and
their capacity to combine by themselves […] we represent a mechanical kind of
generation. But from this there arises no concept of a whole as a
Zweck. (5:408)
Again, this claim concerns Kant’s abstract analysis, and in particular the
general concept of a
Zweck, or
any sort of organized being at all. This claim for mechanical inexplicability
is not directly about actual living beings, and in no way concerns the
features which distinguish them from
artifacts.17
We can also understand in these terms how Kant recognizes a sort of
compatibility while also holding that teleology and mechanism are
fundamentally incompatible. The example of the spring in the watch highlights
the compatibility. If we want to explain the current behavior of the spring,
considered in isolation, then we can explain in mechanistic terms. Given a
spring of this sort, it will respond to surrounding conditions without
consideration of any special whole—it will respond just as a piece of such
metal with the same shape and internal constitution would respond anywhere.
Nonetheless, teleology can explain something else, namely, why a spring with
just these mechanical properties is present within the whole watch. This is
one sense in which Kant refers to the “subordination” of mechanism to
teleology as “means” to an end (5:414).
But mechanism and teleology are nonetheless fundamentally incompatible when
applied to one and the same complex system (such as the whole watch). When so
applied, both purport to account for the origin of the system. To be sure,
there can be distinct but compatible explanations of this origin: two
different accounts could both explain in virtue of providing information about
different portions or aspects of the complete causal history of one system.
This is a sense in which explanation can vary in context of the different
explanatory interests we might have. But it is crucial that teleology and
mechanism, as analyzed by Kant, cannot be compatible in this way. For
teleology and mechanism are conflicting ways of characterizing the complete
explanation of the origin of the system. Teleology requires that, whatever the
details might be, the parts turn out to be present specifically because of
functions within the whole. Mechanism requires that, whatever the details,
functions or purposes within the whole play no real role in determining
the form and presence of the parts: the system must be “the product of the
parts and of their forces and their capacity to combine by themselves,”
or independently of any relation to an organized whole (5:408; my emphasis).
And that is why Kant correctly concludes that we cannot compatibly apply both
teleology and mechanism to one and the same natural system; we cannot consider
one and the same thing both to be and not to be a Zweck, specifically
because “one kind of explanation excludes the other”
(5:412)18.
What does this mean about actual living beings? Only that if they are
natural organized beings, or Naturzwecke,
then they cannot be explained in mechanistic terms. For example, Kant says,
“if I assume” that a maggot “is a Naturzweck, I cannot count on a
mechanical mode of generation for it”
(5:411)19.
Yet Kant also leaves open the possibility that the ground of the generation of
actual living beings is “mere mechanism” (5:400; 5:418). The reason for this
is strikingly simple, though it is usually obscured by the confusion between
the constructed concept of a Naturzweck and the empirical concept
living being. Kant simply denies we can know that living beings really
are Naturzwecke. When one draws upon the
“problematic” concept of a Naturzweck, Kant says, “one does not know
whether one is judging about something or nothing” (5:397).
There are passages some interpret as conflicting with this denial of knowledge
of actual Naturzwecke; I will argue for
alternative interpretations of these passages below. But the first and most
pressing difficulty concerning Kant’s denial is this: how could Kant possibly
rule out knowledge of Naturzwecke, given his
claims that actual living beings really do seem to fit the analysis? Why
shouldn’t the fact that living beings consistently appear to meet both Kant’s
requirements be a perfectly good reason to think that they really are
Naturzwecke? The answer turns again on the
full-strength organization condition. Certainly Kant thinks that living beings
appear to be organized; their form appears to us as completely undetermined by
mechanical laws governing the matter out of which they are composed; the fit
between their parts is so great that those parts seem as if they must be
present in order to fulfill coordinated purposes within the whole. Living
beings thus present a case in which “experience leads
(leitet) our power of judgment” (5:366) to
the concept of a Naturzweck, or a case in which the need for
teleological judgment is “suggested
(veranlaßt) by particular experiences”
(5:386). But to really be organized requires more than this—more than a
special current structure or form. It requires that the parts really are
present specifically because of their functions within the whole. Thus we
could know something to be a Naturzweck only if we could really explain
part in terms of whole. And Kant will argue that we can never have
insight into such explanations of nature, so that our experience “exhibits”
but nonetheless cannot “prove” the existence of natural organized beings or
Naturzwecke
(EE 20: 234).
4. Intelligent Design, and Why We Cannot Know Living Beings are
Naturzwecke
Kant’s argument against the possibility of knowledge of
Naturzwecke turns on his claim for a
connection between the Naturzweck and intelligent design. As noted
above, this claim has found few friends among recent interpreters: some see it
as an outdated and mistaken assumption about living beings, others as an
assumption Kant himself questions. But we are in a position to appreciate that
Kant’s analysis does indeed justify the claim he does indeed advocate: insofar
as a
Naturzweck
had a genesis we can make comprehensible at all, this would have to be an
origin in a concept of the whole system. It is crucial that this in no
way implies the reality of intelligent design, for the argument directly
concerns not actual living beings but rather Kant’s constructed concept of a
Naturzweck.
Kant’s argument addresses a familiar problem concerning backwards causation to
his own requirement that the functional organization of a whole must determine
the
parts.20
For example, assume for the moment that circulation of the blood is the
purpose or function of the heart. The beating of the heart would have to be
the cause, and circulation of blood will have to be among its effects when
present within a whole body. But before the presence of the cause within the
whole system there can be no such effect. And the effect cannot travel back in
time to bring into place its own cause; it cannot directly cause its own
cause. More generally, before the parts of a system are present, there can be
no functioning whole. So the not-yet-existent functional organization of the
whole cannot itself travel back in time in order to cause or determine the
presence of the parts; it cannot directly cause its own causes. As Kant says,
“it is entirely contrary to the nature of physical-mechanical causes that the
whole should be the cause of the possibility of the causality of the parts”
(EE 20:236).
The only solution, Kant argues, is that the system must be the product of a
prior concept of the whole. Kant argues by means of an example:
The house is certainly the cause of the
sums that are taken in as rent, while conversely the representation of this
possible income was the cause of the construction of the house […] The first
could perhaps […] be called the connection of real causes, and the second that
of ideal, since with this terminology it would immediately be grasped that
there cannot be more than these two kinds of causality. (5:372f.)
In the order of “real causes” the effect cannot precede and so explain the
cause; thus it can only do so as “ideal,” or as represented by a prior
concept. Applied to complex systems: in the order of “real causes,” effects of
the parts within a functioning whole cannot precede and so explain the
presence of those very parts; thus they can do so only as “ideal,” or as
represented by a prior concept. So the only conceivable genesis of a truly
organized being would have to be an originating idea or concept of the whole
and the roles to be played by the parts (5:393; 5:407f.). This argument
licenses Kant to proceed to link his statement of the organization condition
directly to the requirement that the whole has an origin in “a concept or an
idea that must determine a priori everything that is to be contained in it”
(5:373).
The best way to appreciate the strength of Kant’s argument here is to identify
three key premises on which it rests. To begin with, the argument clearly
draws on the premise that (i) there is a unidirectional order of “real causes”
in time. The argument does not require any more specific commitments about
causality and explanation which Kant may otherwise hold, such the idea that
explanation must always have the form of a strict deduction of effects from
general causal laws and prior
conditions.21
The argument requires only that a single direction of time prevents effects
themselves from directly bringing about or determining their own causes, and
so prevents effects from directly explaining why their own causes occur.
A second premise turns on the idea that the analysis of the concept of a
Naturzweck
must build in the objective notion of explanation, placing constraints on the
actual determination or causal history from which a complex system originates.
Kant’s argument would indeed be weak without this premise, or if the concept
of the Naturzweck constrained only on the current structure or form of
a system. For no matter how interesting or complicated a current structure or
form might be, it can still fail to be the product of a concept or
idea.22
Kant’s more specific premise (ii) is the full-strength organization condition:
in a
Naturzweck
the functional organization of the whole must determine the presence and form
of the parts.
Now it is true that some contemporary philosophers propose that natural
selection can also explain in precisely this required sense—can explain the
presence of the parts of living beings in terms of their functions—without any
appeal to intelligent
design.23
But, first, this contemporary “etiological” approach is controversial. Its
contemporary critics charge that any notion of function purporting to account
for the presence of parts will inevitably carry some implication of
intelligent design, which will be inappropriate in an interpretation of
natural
selection.24
Second, the etiological approach to functions requires a very different
analysis of the conditions under which such functions apply. In particular, it
must specifically require the repeating process of reproduction of complex
individuals within a larger biological species. Only this makes possible the
claim that the heart (for example) is present on account of the function of
hearts in previous organisms of this species. The resulting analysis has a
complex two-level structure, according to which teleological notions like
function or purpose apply directly to inherited general and repeatable
traits, and through them to the parts of individual complex
systems.25
Kant’s analysis, by contrast, neither requires the reproduction of individuals
within a species, nor applies to individual parts via repeatable traits.
Kant’s analysis is far simpler: it is composed entirely terms of two
requirements on part/whole relations of a complex
system.26
Kant certainly does consider the application of his analysis to reproduction
within a biological species (5:371). The analysis can be so applied by simply
treating the species itself as a complex system. But this will clearly bring
with it the very problem under discussion: it will still be the case that the
parts of the whole (now the species) cannot have come to be present on account
of their effects within this very whole, because they must first be present in
order to have those effects at all. Kant himself reasons similarly in §80 when
contrasting his analysis with alternatives focused on the mechanisms of
reproduction and the generation of ever more complicated and well-adapted
species.27
So while there is an alternative to Kant’s analysis, that alternative is
controversial, and it does nothing to undermine the argument from Kant’s own
analysis to intelligent design. It rather makes clear a final crucial premise,
namely, (iii) that the proper analysis of teleological judgment can and should
be stated in terms of simple conditions on the relations between parts and
whole in a complex system.
Kant’s connection between the Naturzweck and an origin in a concept or
idea follows inexorably from these premises. The second premise requires parts
which are present on account of their functions within the whole. Given the
first and the third premises, there will be no way this requirement can be met
save by an origin in a concept or an idea of the whole and the functions of
its parts; for there will be no other way that the effects of the parts within
the whole can precede the presence of those very parts, and so explain how
they came to be present within that very system. There is nothing weak or
obsolete about this argument. The conclusion can be avoided only by rejecting
one or another of the premises, and this would have philosophical costs, to be
discussed below.
Kant’s point, of course, is not to argue that actual living beings are
designed or that there is a designer of nature (5:399). Quite the opposite:
Kant’s consistent denial of the possibility of theoretical knowledge beyond
the empirical natural world leads him to deny the possibility of knowing
actual living beings to be Naturzwecke. If
the notion of a Zweck requires an origin in a concept, and if there are
no concepts at work in nature independent of minds capable of representing
them, then the very notion of a
Zweck
“implies relation to a cause that has understanding”
(5:393)28.
So we could know something to be a Zweck only if we could know it to be
the product of such an
understanding.29
And something could be known to be a natural organized being only if
known to be the product of an understanding responsible for the design of
nature, “an (intelligent) world cause that acts according to purposes”
(5:389; also 5:400; 5:410). Our ignorance of any designer of nature prevents
us from having insight into any such explanations of
nature.30
And that means we can never know that living beings (or anything else) really
are Naturzwecke. Kant himself summarizes this
argument in a clear and concise manner: “purposiveness in nature, as well as
the concept of things as Naturzwecke, places
reason as a cause into a relation with such things, as the ground of their
possibility, in a way which we cannot know through any experience” (EE
20:234).
5. Justifying and Limiting Teleological Judgment of Nature
We can, then, neither know natural beings to be
Naturzwecke, nor make any headway with
teleological explanation of them. Yet Kant does have something to say for the
teleological judgment of living beings: he argues that it is both
inevitable and even justified in that it is irreplaceably useful to scientific
research.
To begin with, it is the specific character of our
experience of living beings which will inevitably suggest teleological
judgment to us. We do not experience at once their genesis and development,
but only their structure at a given time. And because of the rules which form
our experience—the causal principle relating events in time, in
particular—this structure inevitably appears strikingly contingent to us. This
feature is not unique to living beings or due to any special features
distinguishing them from artifacts: experience of a living being is akin to
seeing a “regular hexagon, drawn in the sand in an apparently uninhabited
land”—we “would not be able to judge” this as anything but truly organized
(5:370). Though we believed this land to be uninhabited and nothing here to be
the product of design, still our experience of the hexagon itself would
suggest that someone created it in accord with an idea of a
hexagon.31
Furthermore, teleological judgment of living beings is supposed to be
irreplaceably useful, but not in virtue of explaining anything. Kant
consistently holds that our explanatory insight into nature must always be
mechanistic. And we must always attempt to discern mechanistic explanations
for everything in nature, even though there can be no guarantee we can
complete the task prescribed by this “regulative” principle of
mechanism.32
Teleological judgment is justified insofar as it plays an indispensable role
in this project; it serves as “a heuristic principle for researching the
particular laws of nature, even granted that we would want to make no use of
it for explaining nature itself” (5:410).
To see this indispensable role of teleology in “researching the particular
laws of nature,” imagine we were to discover a completely unknown artifact
with intriguing behavior. Kant holds that our epistemic limitations are such
that we can have direct insight neither into what is and what is not a natural
kind, nor into which particular empirical generalizations are natural
laws.33
This raises the threat that we might mistake an utterly unknown and
uncomprehended artifact for a yet unknown natural kind. Such a mistake would
block any inquiry into the underlying structure of the artifact; for it would
suggest instead primitive natural laws specifying that this natural kind has a
natural disposition to whatever intriguing surface behavior we observe.
Judging it to be an artifact, by contrast, would suggest underlying natural
materials were chosen for inclusion because the natural laws governing their
behavior generate some specifically desired effects. This might occasion an
inquiry into such functions and their overall intended purpose. But it also
might occasion a different sort of inquiry, aimed at better understanding the
underlying natural materials and the interrelations of the natural laws
governing them.
It is precisely this second sort of research project to which are we supposed
to be directed by teleological judgment of living beings. Such judgment is
justified because, given our epistemic limitations, it alone can prevent us
from stalling at the surface presented by living beings, “wandering about
figments of natural capacities” (5:411). Teleological judgment guides us
specifically toward trying to understand how smaller and smaller parts of
living beings contribute to the functioning of the whole. For example, the
“maxim” that “nothing in such a creature is in vain”—or that the parts are
present not by chance but in order to fulfill functions—serves as a
“guideline” for “observation” directing us away from the surface behavior and
specifically toward inquiry into anatomy
(5:376).34
The ultimate (though perhaps unreachable) goal of such research is to analyze
living beings until we can form empirical concepts fit to classify their parts
into natural kinds, and to frame natural laws governing how those parts
produce systems with just these capacities. That is, the ultimate goal would
be to so improve our grasp on natural kinds and laws that we can understand
living beings as mechanistic systems, completely determined by their
independent parts. Teleology thus directs or guides us to seek explanations
from which teleology itself must be excluded. And we can thus “keep the study
of the mechanism of nature restricted to what we can subject to our
observation or experiments, so that we could produce it ourselves, like
nature, at least as far as the similarity of its laws is concerned” (5:383).
This is the sense in which scientific research into “mechanical explanation”
itself requires the “subordination” of mechanism to teleology (5:417).
Kant’s claims for the inevitability and justification of teleological judgment
of living beings are often mistaken for a claim that living beings are
mechanically inexplicable Naturzwecke. This
is especially true of the following well-known passage:
It would be absurd for humans
even to make such an attempt to grasp
[fassen], or to hope that there may yet arise
a Newton who could make comprehensible
[begreiflich] even the generation of a blade
of grass according to natural laws that no intention has ordered; rather, we
must absolutely deny such insight to human beings. (5:400; emphasis
mine)
But the point of this passage is not to rule out the possibility that living
beings originate in “mere mechanism”; indeed Kant’s next sentence explicitly
insists on leaving open that very possibility. The key to this passage is that
it carefully avoids any doubts about mechanical explanation (in the objective
sense) or Erklärung. What Kant doubts is
rather that we can successfully “grasp”
(fassen), “understand” or “comprehend”
(begreifen) living beings in mechanistic
terms, and he explicitly makes his claim relative to our human perspective.
The point is that, given our epistemic limitations, ‘grasping’ living beings
in teleological terms is both inevitable the only hope we have of advancing
toward any explanation of them at all—even though such explanation itself
could only be
mechanistic.35
It remains true, however, that teleological judgment always implies
teleological explanation, and this is a first reason why such judgment must be
severely restricted in status. Kant says:
Teleological judging is rightly drawn
into our research into nature, at least problematically, but only in order to
bring it under principles of observation and research in analogy with
causality according to ends, without presuming thereby to explain
[erklären] it. It thus belongs to the
reflecting, not to the determining power of judgment. (5:360)
Teleological judgment always carries explanatory implications which we can
never make good upon; so such judgment may be used only “problematically” to
guide “observation and research,” but never accepted literally into the
content of our knowledge of nature. Using Kant’s technical terms: in our
discursive experience the “determining” power of judgment determines the
objects of experience, drawing (for example) on the form of causal judgments
and on ordinary empirical concepts. Teleological judgment and the concept of a
Naturzweck
cannot legitimately play anything like this role. They may be legitimately be
employed only because of the need for guidance of our “reflecting” power of
judgment—only, that is, to guide the process of forming empirical concepts fit
to capture natural kinds and frame necessary natural
laws.36
The preceding points connect to a number of important further philosophical
ambitions of the KU which cannot be treated adequately here, in particular:
the argument in the two introductions that we also need the guidance of
reflective teleological judgment of nature as a whole, and the moral
conclusions which later sections draw from that
need.37
We must instead return to our specific focus on our
initial questions concerning teleology, biology and explanation; for we can
now understand how Kant consistently holds the views which at first seemed
inconsistent. In fact, we have seen how each part of Kant’s complex position
is supported by arguments anchored in the full-strength organization
condition, itself built upon the objective notion of explanation. First, with
regard to the question of mechanical explicability, Kant can indeed
legitimately answer both ‘no’ and ‘maybe’: a true
Naturzweck
could not be explained in mechanistic terms; actual living beings cannot be
known to be Naturzwecke and so we cannot rule
out their mechanical explicability. Second, with regard to the justification
of teleology applied to living beings, Kant can indeed legitimately answer
both ‘yes’ and ‘no’: teleological judgment is justified insofar as it
sets us an indispensable research project; but when it comes to nature we may
not hope for any insight at all into teleological explanation.
6. Against Weakening the Organization Condition
Our interpretive success so far, however, makes more pressing still the puzzle
concerning the tension between the two requirements built into the concept of
a Naturzweck. If the first requirement can be met only with an origin
in a concept of the whole system (5:373), and the point of the second is to
rule out external design (5:373), then the two certainly seem to conflict.
As noted above, interpreters generally have tried to read Kant’s analysis so
that it is free of such a tension between requirements. The most popular
proposal is that Kant’s first requirement demands only that the whole seems
to determine the parts, and this need not conflict at all with the second
requirement that the parts really do determine the whole. In other
words, Kant is supposed not to endorse the full-strength organization
condition (or premise (ii) in the argument for a connection to intelligent
design). The first requirement would then demand no special explanation of the
origin of a system, or no special causal history. It would require only a
special current structure or form—namely, one which is sufficiently
complicated, complex, or regular that it inevitably seems to us as if it were
designed. The analysis (says MacFarland) demands “systems whose parts are so
intimately inter-related that they appear to depend on a plan of what
the whole was to be like”; it does not (Zumbach adds) demand wholes that
“literally cause their
parts”38.
And Kant himself can seem to suggest this reading after stating the second
requirement: “the idea of the whole” must function “not as a cause—for
then it would be a product of art” (5:373; my emphasis). And, “in such a
product of nature each part is conceived […] as if existing […] on account
of the whole” (5:373f.).
But this interpretation, while popular, is a decisive mistake. To begin with,
Kant’s own statement of the first requirement demands specifically systems
whose parts themselves “are possible only through their relation to the whole”
(5:373). Contra recent interpreters, Kant does not require systems whose parts
are such that our judging them is only possible insofar as we judge
them in relation to a
whole.39
Thus Kant repeats explicitly that the very idea of a
Zweck or
organized being requires a special “causality of its origin” (5:369; also
5:393). And Kant also repeats that the very concept of a Naturzweck
also requires a special causal history: “the concept of a thing as a
Naturzweck is a concept that subsumes nature under a causality that is
conceivable only by means of reason” (5:396; see also EE 20:234). Note that
there are two points here: First, the very concept of a
Naturzweck
requires a special causal history, namely, the organized whole must really
determine or bring about the presence of the parts. And, second, the only way
such a causality is “conceivable” is “by means of reason.” The precise status
of this second point and the implications of intelligent design is a
complicated matter to be discussed further below. But none of these
complications in any way affect or mitigate the status of the first point: the
concept of a
Naturzweck
simply and directly requires a special causal origin.
Furthermore, this requirement of a special causal origin is not incidental but
rather fundamental to Kant’s entire discussion of teleology. For this is what
grounds the distinction in the KU between Kant’s discussions of aesthetics and
of teleology. It grounds the contrast between the “subjective formal
purposiveness” or “purposiveness without a purpose” of aesthetic judgments, on
the one hand, and the “objective purposiveness” of teleological judgments, on
the other. The point of the contrast is not that judgments drawing on the
concept of a
Naturzweck
have an objective status—or that we can know real
Naturzwecke exist—as Kant denies
this.40
The point concerns rather the content of Kant’s two analyses: an
aesthetic judgment may imply only that its object has a form which
subjectively appears to us as if truly organized, but a teleological judgment
implies that the parts of a system objectively are present specifically
because of their roles in the
whole.41
Finally, if we were to remove from the analysis of teleological judgment all
explanatory implications about the presence of the parts, then we will
contradict nearly every step of Kant’s extended argument. First of all, we
lose Kant’s critique of merely relative purposiveness: the failure of benefit
to carry such explanatory implications will no longer affect its fitness as a
justification for teleological judgment. Second, it will now be easy to
conceive of a system of purely mechanistic origin which is also a true
Naturzweck—we
need only conceive of a system which inevitably appears designed to us but in
fact is not. This would contradict Kant’s repeated claim that we cannot even
think (denken) or make conceivable how a
genuine Naturzweck could be
non-designed.42
And it would also contradict Kant’s claim that we cannot comprehend how one
and the same thing could be both a
Zweck and a
completely mechanical whole, specifically because “one kind of
explanation excludes the other” (5:412; my emphasis). Finally, the
weakened organization condition would leave Kant with no reason for his
denials that we can know objects of experience to be
Naturzwecke (5:397; EE 20: 234); such
knowledge would merely require identifying those natural systems with a
structure which is such as to appear designed to
us.43
Nor can there be any hope for any alternative interpretation which in some
other way relaxes the demand of the first requirement so as to weaken the tie
to intelligent design and remove the tension between requirements, as in
McLaughlin or
Ginsborg.44
For the critical difficulties will affect any step away from the
full-strength organization condition, no matter how small. The basic problem
is that any weaker requirement will fall prey to the argument Kant himself
deploys against the idea that merely relative purposiveness justifies
teleological judgment. Kant argues as follows: the fact that one thing
benefits another does not justify the attribution of purposes, because this
benefit might not occur specifically because of any purpose or goal;
the benefit itself might be merely accidental. To exclude such accident is to
rule out the possibility that the parts are present for some other reason and
just happen by chance to benefit the whole by fulfilling specific functions.
To rule this out simply is to impose the full-strength organization
condition—to require that the parts are present not for some other reason, but
specifically because of their functions within the
whole.45
A closely related point is that only the full-strength organization condition
can make sense of the normative implications of teleological notions, or the
possibility a part might malfunction or might fail to perform as it ought. As
Kant says, “a teleological judgment compares the concept of a product of
nature as it is with one of what it ought to be” (EE 20:240). Now
imagine a hexagon traced in the sand which came about by an extraordinary
coincidence. And imagine that its sides are very slightly unequal, though
still close enough that we could not but judge them as designed to make up a
perfect hexagon. Surely our inability to judge otherwise would not make it
literally true that the lines making up this purely coincidental hexagon are
themselves slightly defective, or themselves ought to be more perfectly equal
in length. That a system seems a certain way to us might have consequences
concerning how we would wish the system to be, but not consequences concerning
how that system itself really ought to be. If the parts themselves are to have
specific functions which they ought to fulfill, then it cannot be the case
that the connection between part and function is merely apparent from our
point of view. To rule this out is again to impose the full-strength
organization condition—to require that the parts really are present
specifically in order to fulfill specific functions within the
whole.46
In sum, Kant provides excellent reasons for the full-strength organization
condition, which he certainly does endorse: teleological judgment of complex
systems implies that the functional organization of the whole really does
determine the presence and form of the parts. We will see below that this
claim is not challenged by either of the two most prominent contemporary
philosophical approaches to the notion of function.
7. Kant’s Second Requirement and the Inexplicability of the Naturzweck
To understand Kant’s analysis and the point of its second requirement, we must
reject the assumption that the tension between requirements is a potential
defect we should interpret away. The truth is that Kant himself recognizes the
tension, and treats it as a desired conclusion. Most prominently, this tension
is Kant’s topic in §74, which focuses on the “inexplicability of a
Naturzweck” (5:395). Here Kant argues that the impossibility of
empirical knowledge of Naturzwecke follows
from the analysis itself, specifically because of a conflict between the two
requirements. That is, the concept of a
Naturzweck
is “problematic”—its “objective reality” is not “demonstrable”—because of a
conflict: “as a concept of a natural product it includes natural
necessity and yet at the same time a contingency of the form of the object (in
relation to mere laws of nature) in one and the same thing”
(5:396f.)47.
We could of course change the analysis to eliminate the conflict. But we have
been attending to Kant’s arguments that the analysis needs just these
requirements in order to draw the most important distinctions: the first is
necessary to distinguish genuine from merely external purposiveness (as in the
sea, sand, and trees); the second is necessary to distinguish systems which by
nature or intrinsically would call for teleological judgment from artifacts.
Insofar as these requirements are both justified but conflict in a way ruling
out knowledge that they can be jointly satisfied, Kant is right to deny that
we can know living beings to be Naturzwecke.
Kant goes further still in explaining the point of the second requirement. The
point is not to rule out mechanical explicability, as this is guaranteed by
the first requirement alone. The point is rather to introduce a conflict which
can protect against any intrusion of theology into our empirical knowledge of
nature. Given the single order of real causes, the first requirement demands
an origin in a concept. But the second requirement redirects the force of the
first away from any search for a supernatural intelligent designer, and toward
the parts of natural systems themselves—ultimately toward their constituent
matter. The two requirements might actually be jointly satisfied if matter
itself could represent concepts and organize itself in accordance—if material
nature itself were self-designing or self-organizing. But matter cannot do
this. Here Kant’s analysis justifies more than the merely epistemological
conclusion that we can never know whether actual living beings are
Naturzweck;
it justifies the conclusion that no system exclusively part of material nature
could be a
Naturzweck
at
all.48
This conclusion is intended by Kant:
In teleology we certainly talk about
nature as if the purposiveness in it were intentional, but at the same time we
ascribe this intention to nature, i.e., to matter, by which we would indicate
(since there can be no misunderstanding here, because no intention in the
strict sense of the term can be attributed to any lifeless matter) that this
term here signifies here only a principle of the reflecting, not of the
determining power of judgment. (5:383; also
5:411)49
The tension between requirements built into the analysis of the concept of a
Naturzweck
is designed to compel this conclusion: the analysis cannot be completely
satisfied by anything exclusively part of material and empirically accessible
nature; so we cannot accept the literal truth of teleological judgments of
nature, or presume that they really signify objects; such judgments may
be legitimately employed only as a guideline for our research. Thus Kant can
protect empirical knowledge of nature from any intrusion of “something which
does not belong to physics at all, namely a supernatural cause” (5:383).
What about Kant’s own apparent suggestions that the organization condition
must be weakened? Here we must again be careful to distinguish the content
of Kant’s analysis from his claims about its application. First,
consider Kant’s comment that the concept of the whole must not figure “as a
cause” (5:373). The point is that something which really meets the second
requirement could not be literally caused by “the concepts of a rational being
outside of it” (5:373); so it can lead us to teleological judgment not by
having such a cause, but only by having a current structure which nonetheless
suggests intelligent design. Kant clearly thinks that living beings have the
requisite structure. But we must not confuse this point about how experience
suggests that we should apply the concept of a Naturzweck with the
content of Kant’s analysis of that concept. Kant’s analysis requires more than
such a special structure—it requires that the parts really are present on
account of their roles in the whole. Only this makes possible Kant’s claim
that our experience “exhibits” but cannot “prove” the existence of
Naturzwecke (EE 20: 234).
Similarly, Kant certainly does conclude that teleological judgment of nature
can only be “reflecting judgment,” and he sometimes characterizes this
limitation using the “as if” locution. But this is a point about the status of
judgments applying the concept of a
Naturzweck;
it is not a point about the content of Kant’s analysis. To see the difference,
contrast the placement of the “as if” in two very different interpretations:
(a) The concept of a
Naturzweck
requires only that it seems to us “as if” the whole determines the
presence of the parts. Thus there need be no problem with the application of
that concept in teleological judgment.
(b) The concept of a
Naturzweck
requires that the whole determines the presence of the parts. Thus the
application of that concept in teleological judgment must be restricted to an
“as if” status.
Interpretation (a) removes all the problematic explanatory implications from
teleological judgment of nature. But interpreters who go this route remove as
well all reason to limit teleological judgment of nature to a merely “as if”
status, leaving them in an awkward position. They must say that Kant has no
good reason for the limitation he places on all teleological judgment
of nature, or all judgment drawing on the concept of a
Naturzweck
(EE 20:241). Kant would have reason to limit only something else: judgments
drawing specifically on the concept of
design.50
The right reading is rather (b). Kant gives one single analysis of
teleological judgment of nature, corresponding to one single constructed
concept of a
Naturzweck.
He distinguishes the unjustified use of that concept from the justified use of
the very same concept. Put another way, he distinguishes a special limited
status to which judgments employing the single concept of a
Naturzweck
must be restricted. For example:
The concept of an objective
purposiveness of nature serves only for the sake of reflection on the
object, not for the determination of the object through the concept of
a Zweck, and
the teleological judgment on the inner possibility of a natural product is a
merely reflecting, not a determining, judgment. (EE 20:236)
Teleological judgment of nature (the application of the concept of the
Naturzweck)
has such strong explanatory implications that it must be restricted in status
to a mere subjective validity, and can be justified only as a guide for
“reflection on the object” in our research. Its literal implications need not,
and should not, be accepted into the content of scientific investigation of
nature. Although it is occasioned by certain experiences, such teleological
judgment is not justified in virtue of capturing any truth about the
natural world—not even a limited or weaker truth about the current structure
of some natural object. Such judgment is justified only in virtue of a
truth about us: we have epistemic limitations that leave us in need of
guidance by teleological judgment (more specifically, guidance is required by
our “reflecting” power of judgment, responsible for forming empirical concepts
and framing particular laws of nature.) The resulting merely subjective
necessity or validity is compatible with the possible mechanistic
explicability of living beings. It is even compatible with the possibility,
which Kant refuses to rule out, that judgments drawing on the concept of a
Naturzweck
might be literally true of nothing at
all.51
8. The Antinomy and Transcendental Idealism
Kant does offer a sort of resolution of the conflict between the two
requirements, specifically in the “Antinomy of the Teleological Power of
Judgment”. Much of what Kant has to say here depends on his transcendental
idealism, and aims to integrate his conclusions concerning teleology and
biology with the central commitments of the critical philosophy. Given the
monumental systematic issues this raises, there can be no question of a
comprehensive interpretation of the antinomy
here.52
But it is important to venture far enough to defend my central claims against
the consensus of recent interpreters that Kant’s solution to the antinomy
demotes the status of the connection between the concept of a
Naturzweck
and intelligent design to a mere “assumption” or
“presupposition”53.
The line of thought behind the recent consensus is this: We are supposed to
make the “assumption” about design on account of the nature of our
cognition—because we have a discursive intellect dependent on sensible
intuition. The antinomy stresses, however, that this is not the only
conceivable type of cognition. We can conceive of, though not know anything
about, an “intuitive understanding”—“another (higher) understanding than the
human” which would not be merely dependent on sensible intuition but rather
enjoy a “complete spontaneity of intuition” (5:406). If the connection between
organization and the need for design follows only from the nature of one among
different possible sorts of cognition, then it is supposed to be only an
assumption this connection applies to nature, thus removing all reason to
doubt the real possibility of a non-designed organized natural being.
This reading begins on the right track, but ends up attributing to Kant
conclusions for which he does not and cannot argue. It is true that Kant’s
argument connecting the
Naturzweck
and intelligent design (§65; EE 20:236) requires the key premise that there is
a single order of real causes in time—or premise (i) above. And Kant’s
idealism holds that time is only the form of our sensible intuition, and that
the principle demanding a necessitating cause holds only for events in time.
So Kant’s key premise must indeed be limited in application by its connection
to our type of cognition. What this shows is that Kant’s argument concerning
design would not apply to unknowable, non-spatial-temporal “things in
themselves”. But this definitely does not demote Kant’s key premise (i), or
his conclusion concerning design, to the status of a mere “assumption”. For it
is a cornerstone of the critical philosophy that time and the principle of
causality remain constitutive conditions of the possibility of objects
of experience. So as long as we focus exclusively on the living beings
familiar from our experience—considered exclusively as part of material,
empirical nature—Kant’s connection between organization and an origin in a
concept must remain in force, and will continue to generate a conflict within
the analysis of a
Naturzweck.54
It is true, however, that the antinomy introduces consideration of the
intuitive intellect in order to open up the possibility that actual living
beings are true
Naturzwecke.
It does so by introducing a merely logical possibility—that is, a possibility
we can think without contradiction but of which we could never have
theoretical knowledge. It opens in particular a logical possibility concerning
a “supersensible real ground of nature” or a “thing in itself (which is not an
appearance) as substratum” for material nature (5:409). If space and time are
only the forms of our intuition, then such a ground would not be
spatio-temporal, and would not be bound by the principle that every event is
necessitated by a prior cause. So here true organization wouldn’t necessarily
require a prior representation of the whole as a separate
determining cause. This means that such a supersensible ground might—unlike
empirical, material nature—be able to organize itself from within. And this
might allow the organization condition to be met without a violation of the
second requirement’s stricture against systems which are the products of
external design. So we can at least think without contradiction the
possibility that the living beings we experience are true
Naturzwecke.
We can do so by thinking of them at once in two different but compatible ways:
(i) as phenomenal, material nature “in accordance with mechanical laws,” and
yet also (ii) as somehow determined or conditioned by a “supersensible real
ground” specifically “in accordance with teleological laws” (5:409).
I have defended here neither the need for Kant’s project in the antinomy, nor
the doctrine of transcendental idealism to which Kant appeals. But if
Kant is going to seek such a resolution of his two requirements, then he
certainly does have good reason to appeal to the idea of an unknowable
supersensible ground of nature. For he correctly and consistently sees that
his analysis rules out the compatibility of teleology and mechanism as applied
to the origin of one single system considered as exclusively part of material
nature. What if there is no supersensible ground beyond material nature? What
if we are instead “justified in regarding material beings as things in
themselves”? Kant is clear: in that case it “would in fact follow” that no
material natural being could be a self-organizing Naturzweck—for it
would be “impossible” for there to be true organization “without intentional
production” (5:408f.). Similarly, with respect to “one and the same thing”
there can be no reconciliation of the two requirements of Kant’s analysis: “if
there is not to be a contradiction here,” we must distinguish from natural
phenomena “something which is not empirically cognizable nature
(supersensible) and thus is not cognizable at all for us” (5:396; my
emphasis). And teleology and mechanism cannot compatibly apply to “one and the
same thing in nature”; for
one kind of explanation excludes the
other […] The principle which is to make possible the unifiability of both […]
must be placed in what lies outside both (hence outside of the possible
empirical representation of nature).
(5:411f.)55
Furthermore, Kant’s solution here denies us not only
knowledge but also comprehension or understanding. We can grasp in positive
terms neither the “intuitive understanding” itself (5:406) nor how the two
requirements might be jointly met. If we try to get beyond consideration of
merely logical possibility we inevitably bring to bear the necessary
conditions of our finite cognition. And this brings the key premise (i) into
force, leaving us no way to conceive of organization without an origin in a
concept, and so without external design (5:393; 5:396; 5:400)—thus violating
Kant’s second requirement. In this connection the “Introduction” to the KU
compares the role played by of the idea of the supersensible here to its role
in Kant’s theory of freedom: it allows a “possibility which cannot of course
be understood, although the objection that there is an alleged contradiction
in it can be adequately refuted”
(5:195)56.
That is, we can defend the mere logical possibility that living beings are
Naturzwecke,
but can have no theoretical knowledge or even understanding of that
possibility. So whatever the further goals of the antinomy, and whatever the
ultimate meaning of the transcendental idealism Kant appeals to, none of this
is meant to advance our knowledge or understanding beyond the inexplicability
of the
Naturzweck,
or to introduce a role for teleological explanation in any empirical science
of nature.
Finally, these conclusions of the antinomy are crucially important in
understanding earlier sections of the KU. For instance, consider Kant’s
well-known application of his analysis to the example of trees, and the three
organic processes of growth, self-maintenance, and reproduction (5:371f.).
This can seem to presume knowledge that the analysis does truly apply, or that
trees and other living beings are truly self-organizing
Naturzwecke.
And Kant’s list of three special organic processes can seem to be meant as an
explanation of why actual living beings must be mechanically
inexplicable.57
But reading in light of Kant’s solution to the antinomy reveals a different
point. What the passage does claim is that these three organic processes show
trees to be unlike artifacts, such as a watch (5:374): in the case of trees
the form of the whole is not merely imposed by an external designer. But the
passage does not assert knowledge that this form of the whole organism is
truly organized, or that the parts are truly present on account of their roles
within the whole. Kant thinks that this inevitably seems to be the case to us.
But he also rules out any possibility of our knowing this, or even
comprehending it. Kant specifically says here that the possibility of such
organization without design “can be conceived without contradiction but cannot
be comprehended” (5:371). So this passage certainly does not explain how
actual organisms might be non-designed yet also organized and so mechanically
inexplicable. On the contrary, the passage explicitly reminds us that this is
a possibility we cannot comprehend at all.
9. Contemporary Defenses of Function Explanation in Biology
There are, to be sure, contemporary approaches available which do cut the tie
between the notion of function and intelligent design, and consequently can
defend a role for function explanation within biology. But we must not limit
ourselves to choosing between either criticizing Kant’s approach as obsolete
in comparison, or defending Kant’s approach by reading it as anticipating
contemporary views. Kant’s account is fundamentally incompatible with the two
most prominent contemporary approaches, but it is not obsolete. In fact,
noting the rivalry between these two contemporary approaches, and the
difficulties faced by each, can help us to appreciate the philosophical
strengths of Kant’s contrasting account.
The contemporary “etiological” approach turns on an interpretation of natural
selection. This approach agrees with Kant that the notion of function of use
in biology is teleological and normative, but argues that natural selection
can provide the etiology or causal history which determines such functions for
the parts of living beings. As discussed above, this requires building details
about reproduction and heritable general traits into the analysis of function,
and so rejecting Kant’s commitment to a simple analysis governing only
part-whole relations within a complex system (or premise (iii) in Kant’s
argument for a connection to intelligent design).
This contemporary approach has its strengths, but also raises philosophical
difficulties. Consider a recently popular example: the perceptual mechanism in
a frog which detects the presence of flies to be caught with a snap of the
tongue. Does this mechanism have the function of detecting flies? If
so, then it would be malfunctioning if triggered by some other sort of insect,
no matter how nutritious. Is the function rather to detect any sort of
catchable nourishment? If so, it would be malfunctioning if triggered by a
diseased and poisonous fly. It can be hard to see how the selection history
itself can decide on a determinate characterization of the normative function,
because all the details about how the mechanism has been used in the past will
always be compatible with different characterizations of its normative
function. (Compare Kripke’s [1982] well-known point about language: the
history of the use of a term will always be compatible with different
formulations of the normative rule governing its use.) The difficulty is
compounded by the possibility this mechanism has simply played very different
roles at different times during the evolution of the species, and perhaps
plays a brand new role in the very newest generation of
frogs.58
Contemporary versions of these worries are in fact flourishing descendents of
a complaint already present in the KU. Kant argues that a focus on the history
of the development of ever more adapted species cannot itself successfully
account for determinate teleological functions, but serves only to “put off
the explanation” (5:419).
The alternative approach, also prominent, advocates a non-teleological notion
of function, as in Cummins’ influential “Functional Analysis” (1975). Cummins
essentially endorses Kant’s claim that any notion of function which purports
to explain the presence of the parts of a complex system will indeed carry
implications of designed
artifacts.59
But Cummins takes this to mean that the notion of function useful in empirical
science must not purport to explain the presence of the parts. (That
is, he rejects Kant’s organization condition, or premise (ii) in Kant’s
argument for a connection to intelligent design.) The resulting notion of
function—or ‘Cummins-function’—does not explain how systems came to be formed.
Rather, given a complex system with some present capacity of interest to us,
Cummins-functions explain by providing an analysis of how the parts currently
realize that capacity (1975, 762). This is not meant to capture a teleological
function of the parts, in the sense of some privileged function for the sake
of which each part is supposed to be present (1975, 747f.). Such functions
are, because indifferent to causal origins, perfectly compatible with any sort
of purely mechanistic origin. And this sort of function explanation may be
argued to be non-reducible to mechanism on grounds that the functions
themselves might be realized by multiple different sorts of underlying
materials and
mechanisms.60
This approach too has strengths, but it also raises difficulties. Dropping
etiological implications (and Kant’s organization condition in particular)
results in a notion of function that is indiscriminate. For example, Kant’s
analysis is founded on a distinction between genuine and merely external
purposiveness. Cummins’ notion of function is entirely indifferent to that
distinction. Even the benefit of sea and sand to the spruce trees, given the
right interests on our part, provides perfectly good reason to attribute
Cummins-functions to the sand, sea and their
parts.61
Furthermore, the Cummins-functions which apply to a single
system can vary freely with the capacity of interest to us. One well-known
example: if we take an interest in the capacity of the human body to die of a
disease, this will be perfectly good reason to attribute some surprising
Cummins-functions to our organs according to how they contribute to that
capacity. So Cummins’ analysis (unlike Kant’s) cannot help to account for how
our explanatory interests are guided away from the accidental effects of many
different randomly defined chunks of nature, and towards the particular sort
of system in which a specific subset of capacities seem to be natural or
intrinsic.62
Contemporary criticisms tend to stress the related point that
Cummins-functions cannot be normative. Just because we take an interest in the
capacity of the sea to support the spruce trees, this is no reason to think
that the parts of the sea ought to function in this way, so that failure to do
so would be a malfunction. And yet the notion of function applicable to living
beings can seem to be normative: The heart could have innumerably many
different Cummins-function depending on the capacity we choose to analyze. And
yet it seems as if the heart itself has a more specific natural
function, namely, to pump blood. A heart that stops would no longer have
the Cummins-function of pumping blood at all. But we tend to think that a
heart which stops still has the same function, and is now
malfunctioning.63
Kant’s interpreters have sometimes wanted to defend him by associating him
with this second contemporary approach, or with something like contemporary
alternatives to teleology such as
“teleonomy”64.
But Kant’s view is very different, and incompatible. Granted, all positions
discussed here are similar in that they deny any possible theoretical
knowledge of intelligent design in nature. But there are very different ways
of proceeding from such a denial. This second sort of contemporary approach
reacts specifically by limiting the requirements imposed by the analysis of
the notion of function: removing all etiological requirements yields a notion
of function with no implications of either teleology or intelligent design.
Kant proceeds in the opposite manner. He does not limit or weaken the
content of his analysis of the notion of function or purpose; he
instead limits the status of judgments applying that notion. It should
be no surprise that the resulting notion of function or purpose is very
different: Kant’s notion is teleological, normative and discriminates between
merely external and genuine purposiveness; Cummins’ notion is
non-teleological, non-normative, and indiscriminate in this respect.
Some also see in the second contemporary approach a reason to think that Kant
does (or should) defend a form of teleological explanation of living
beings. The idea is to read Kant as denying that teleology can “explain” only
in a special narrow and technical sense that teleology cannot deduce the
structure of a system from general exceptionless causal laws and prior
conditions. But if teleology is supposed to be completely indifferent to such
causal origins, then Kant might still be defending a distinct role for
teleology in biology, one we could recognize as legitimately explanatory (even
if not in Kant’s narrow sense of deductive causal
explanation).65
But this line of thought is also mistaken. Kant may well endorse some such
narrow conception of explanation generally, but it does not drive this
argument. What drives the argument is an independent claim about teleology in
particular: capturing a teleological and normative notion of function
requires an analysis which imposes constraints on, and is not
indifferent to, the causal history of a system. We saw above that this claim
is well-supported by Kant’s own arguments. You cannot simply decide, because
both appear attractive in different ways, to combine the teleological and
normative notion of function with an indifference to causal origins or
etiology. And this point is affirmed by the contemporary debate about
functions; both sides generally agree that removing the etiological
implications yields not a defense of a non-reducible form of teleological
explanation but something very different: a non-teleological and non-normative
notion of
function.66
Kant’s approach has its peculiarities, to be sure, but one thing it can do is
combine the primary advantages claimed on behalf of both contemporary
approaches: it can combine (i) recognition of the inevitability and scientific
importance of a normative and teleological notion of function, with (ii)
critical doubts that we can know that such a teleological and normative notion
really applies to nature itself. Some will see a large cost for Kant in any
conceptual connection to the idea of intelligent design, though it is unclear
why this should be a drawback given that Kant’s point is to deny all
possibility of theoretical knowledge of intelligent design. Perhaps the most
general problem is rather that this leaves Kant in a complicated and difficult
position: he must defend an essential role in empirical science for a concept
(Naturzweck)
whose application to nature can never itself be the object of empirical
knowledge. Many will see an additional cost in any connection to Kant’s
transcendental idealism. But these are, at very worst, philosophical costs—not
reason to think that progress in the biological sciences has rendered Kant’s
position simply obsolete. While I have made no attempt here at a final
comparative weighing of the costs and benefits of each approach, I have shown
that Kant supports his conclusions and highlights the advantages of his
position (difficult though it may be) with a tightly unified series of
philosophical arguments. Departing from Kant’s conclusions requires rejecting
one or another of his premises. Where contemporary approaches reject these
premises, this generates very real philosophical difficulties—difficulties
akin to those Kant himself seeks to avoid. So contemporary comparisons do not
suggest obsolescence. They point to some surprising and enduring philosophical
strengths of Kant’s very different approach to teleology, biology, and
explanation.67
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Ed. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1900-. Cited by Volume and Page.
All citations not otherwise identified are from Kritik
der Urteilskraft, Bd. 5 from the
Akademie edition. Translations from
Critique of the Power of Judgment. Translated by Guyer and Mathews.
Cambridge, 2000. Translations occasionally modified.
EE refers to the posthumously published first introduction to the Critique
of the Power of Judgment, cited by the Akademie
edition Volume and Page. Also translated by Guyer and Mathews.
A/B indicates standard references
to Kritik der reinen
Vernunft. Ed. R. Schmidt. Hamburg: Felix Meiner
Verlag, 1956. Translations from
Critique of Pure
Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge, 1998.
Translations occasionally modified.
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1
Citations in the text not otherwise identified are from KU; for references
to Kant’s works, see my list of abbreviations below. In this passage, the
“mere mechanism” is missing in the Cambridge translation. See also (5:418).
2
For example: “teleological judging is rightly drawn into our research into
nature […] without presuming thereby to explain it (ohne sich
anzumaßen sie darnach zu erklären)” (5:360; Kant's emphasis). “Positing
ends of nature in its products […] belongs only to the description of nature
(Naturbeschreibung)” but “provides no information at all about the
origination and the inner possibility of these forms, although it is that
with which theoretical natural science is properly concerned” (5:417; see
also 5:411).
3
See especially Zumbach (1984, e.g. 123).
4
For the former approach, see MacFarland (1970, 106 and 111); for the latter,
see Zumbach (1984, 12); Allison (1991, 33-4); Warnke (1992, 45); Ginsborg
(1997, 2001).
5
See especially Zanetti (1995, 49). It is true that Kant aims to draw
conclusions concerning practical philosophy. But this ambition is not itself
responsible for the tension: Kant argues on grounds specifically concerning
teleology and biology that teleology and mechanism conflict in a way that
rules out the possibility a role for teleological explanation in empirical
science. See also Guyer, who stresses Kant’s moral argument, but also notes
the argument internal to Kant’s discussion of teleology and biology for the
problematic status of teleological judgment of nature (2001a, 383).
6
I do not mean to suggest that there is some other “subjective” type of
explanation, but to capture a commitment concerning the nature of
explanation generally. As will be clear below, this commitment does not
exclude contextual variation. Nor do I mean to say that addressing pragmatic
interests somehow disqualifies an account from being explanatory, only that
this in itself is not sufficient. Kant himself raises the possibility that
“subjective principles” might lead us to judge in teleological terms an
object whose “explanation” (Erklärung) would require not teleology
but rather mechanism (EE 20: 218). See also MacFarland’s reading of Kant’s
use of Erklären in the KU as “objective explanation” (1970, 95 note
1). And also Kitcher’s contrast between Kant and anti-realist “followers of
Mach and Duhem”: “Kant’s proposal […] is that there is an objective notion
of scientific explanation” (1986, 213).
7
My formulation of the peculiarity of teleological judgment is heavily
indebted to Wright’s “etiological” analysis (1975, 24; see also 81). As
discussed below, Wright argues from here to conclusions very different from
Kant's. Compare also Garrett on earlier modern treatments of teleology:
“Teleology is the phenomenon of states of affairs having etiologies
that implicate, in an explanatory way, likely or presumptive consequences of
those states of affairs. No proposed teleological explanation, no matter
how compelling, can be correct unless it cites an actual example of
teleology” (1999, 310; my emphasis).
8
E.g. Zumbach (1984, 91 and 112 note 23); Meerbote (1984); Ginsborg (2001,
247 and 256 note 18).
9
Zumbach (1984, 19). See also MacFarland (1970, 102). Many others take Kant
to be analyzing the concept or the real features of actual living beings
without explicit note. I am following the most notable exception:
McLaughlin’s careful and persuasive treatment (1990, especially 46-7). See
also Wood (1999, 219). The analysis and its application are intertwined in
the text, as Kant himself notes (5:371).
10
(Bxiv). See also (A5-6/B9-10), and compare Zumbach (1984, 139) and
MacFarland (1970, 97). Kant’s continuing commitment in the KU to this
touchstone of the critical philosophy can be seen, for example, in his
discussions of “mere logic” (EE 20:204 and 211-2 note).
11See
Kant’s own stress on darum and weil at (5:369).
12
It is crucial that Kant is not just arguing that sea and sand belong to a
non-teleological class of things (as in MacFarland 1970, 99). In fact,
Kant’s introductions provide other grounds for thinking that all of nature
must be judged in teleological terms. Kant’s point here concerns not
different things but different possible grounds for
teleological judgments; see especially McLaughlin (1990, 43). Mistaking this
point can lead to a misunderstanding of Kant’s claim that relative
purposiveness depends on internal purposiveness because only a true
Naturzweck could be benefited. Kant’s point is not just to propose a
division between the types of things which can and cannot be benefited.
Kant’s main challenge in §63 is to provide an argument to justify the claim
that mere relations of benefit themselves fall short of grounds to judge
nature in teleological terms, or to consider something (e.g. the system of
sand, sea and trees) to be a Naturzweck. Only with that argument in
hand can he draw the further consequence that even the existence of real
relations of benefit will require that some parts of nature (e.g. the trees)
satisfy stronger requirements which better justify the application of
teleology.
13
This passage actually concerns the more complicated case of living beings.
Another way of putting the point: in an organized system there is a
“contingency of form (in relation to the mere laws of nature)” (5:396).
Compare Wright (1976, 73-83).
14
Kant goes on to connect this requirement to his argument that the only way
to make comprehensible such determination of the parts by the whole is to
think of the system as the product of an idea representing the whole. But
the point of the organization condition itself is independent of this
further argument, which I discuss below.
15
Interpreters who take
Naturzweck
to be the empirical concept organism tend to mistake these three
features for part of the content of Kant’s analysis and/or for an
explanation of why actual organisms are not supposed to be mechanically
explicable (e.g. Zumbach [1984, 24-6]). But Kant himself says that the three
features are meant to “elucidate” an analysis he has not even completely
stated at this point (5:371); see especially McLaughlin (1990, 46-7). And
see Ginsborg’s persuasive arguments that Kant’s important claim for
mechanical inexplicability follows from the first requirement, not from
these observations about what distinguishes living beings from artifacts
(2001, 255 note #10) and (2004). I will return to this passage below.
16
Ginsborg gives a nice formulation of the puzzle and defense of its
difficulty and importance (2001, 236 and 251); I argue for a different
resolution below.
17
Also: “that a thing is possible only as a
Zweck,
i.e. that the causality of its origin must be sought not in the mechanism of
nature” (5:369). See especially Ginsborg (2001; 2004). On the distinction
between mechanism in this sense and causality generally, see also McLaughlin
(1990, 152f.) and Allison (1991). Compare also Garrett (1999, 310) on
mechanism in earlier modern philosophy.
18
See also (5:425f.) and Zanetti (1995, 50ff.). I argue below that Kant’s
solution to the antinomy does not contradict or mitigate this fundamental
incompatibility.
19
Also, mechanism must “always be inadequate for things that we once
acknowledge as
Naturzwecke”
(5:415). Note that is not an assertion that we can know living beings
to be
Naturzwecke,
as this would mean we could know of limits to our ability to explain in
mechanistic terms; yet this same passage insists that we “do not know how
far the mechanical mode of explanation that is possible for us will extend”
(5:415).
20
MacFarland stresses the backwards causation problem (1970, 106), but the
argument is far better than he recognizes here. See also Zuckert (2000,
chapter 2) and Guyer (2001a, 383 and 2001b, 265) on backwards causation. And
see Spinoza’s (Ethics Part IV Preface) similar treatment of the house
example, itself central to Aristotle’s discussions of teleology (e.g.
Physics II.9).
21
See especially Zumbach’s view of the role of this more specific commitment
(1984, 95-7 and 123).
22
Some readings of Kant’s argument require him to deny this (e.g. MacFarland
1970, 106). But he does not deny it. For example, he attends to the complex
structure of actual organisms and yet refuses to rule out the possibility
that they originate in mere mechanism (5:400 and 5:418). And he also points
out that the remarkable structures of crystal formations seem as if designed
and yet are mechanically explicable (5:348; 5:419). (EE 20:217-8 on crystals
does not conflict with this, for it concerns not “explanation” or “the
possibility of the objects themselves” but rather the “subjective principles
of reflection” on objects.)
23
Wright (1976, 24, 81, and 84ff.) And (different in some respects) Millikan
(1984, ch. 1), especially the definition of “proper function” (28); Neander
(1991, 174) and Godfrey-Smith (1994, 347).
24
See Boorse (1976), Nagel (1977, 282-87), and Cummins (1975, 746) for similar
criticisms of etiological analyses, and also Sober’s (1984, 147-55)
additional argument that natural selection does not explain why any
particular individual develops as it does but only the make-up of a general
population.
25
See especially Millikan (1984, ch. 1) on “reproductively established
families” and Wright on general traits or capacities (1976, 88). Boorse’s
(1976) criticism brings out the pressures on Wright to incorporate more
about natural selection into his analysis.
26
See also McLaughlin: “All determinations of the concept of natural purpose
that Kant introduces have to do with the relation of part and whole” (1990,
50).
27
Kant argues that this cannot provide an alternative account of the
purposiveness of living beings, but only “put off the explanation” by
raising questions about the original beginning of this historical process
(5:419). I will return to this argument briefly below.
28
Though I cannot argue for this here, my view is that Hegel’s response to
Kant requires (in part) denying that concepts are at work in nature only
where represented by a mind, which is why Hegel ties his defense of
teleological explanation so closely together in the Science of Logic
with his defense of objective concepts (Begriffe) and “the idea”
(die Idee).
29
“For we can be conscious of the causality of reason in objects, which on
that account are called purposive or Zwecke, only in the case of
products of art” (EE 29:234).
30
See (5:410) and compare especially Descartes’ response to Gassendi’s first
objection to the fourth meditation.
31
Why can’t we learn to experience living beings differently? Because Kant
takes the relevant forms of our experience—time and the category of
causality—to be not plastic but invariable. And we do continue to think of
(e.g.) the heart in teleological terms—to take it to have a specific purpose
of its own, in terms of which it might malfunction. See Millikan (1989),
Neander (1991) and Ginsborg on Kant (2001, 252).
32
See especially (5:383; 5:387; 5:410; 5:418; EE 20:218). MacFarland argues
that reflective teleological judgment is a “presupposition” necessary to our
search for mechanistic explanations (1970, 89-90; also 35-6, 131).
See also McLaughlin (1990, 156-7) and Guyer (2001b, 266).
33
On natural laws see for example (5:183); on empirical concepts and kinds,
see for example (EE 20:212-3). Regarding both see also the “Appending to the
Transcendental Dialectic” at (A642/B670ff). Compare Ginsborg’s different
reading of the relevance of these topics to Kant on biology (2001, 246-7),
and compare also Cummins on functional analysis (1975, 758-9).
34
Note that this passage ties the idea of “an order of things entirely
different form that of a mere mechanism” specifically to “a supersensible
determining ground beyond the mere mechanism of nature”—none of which can be
the object of theoretical knowledge (5:377).
35
Those who take the passage to deny mechanical explicability sometimes see
some hope at least for the claim that practical difficulties make it
unlikely that such explanation could be possible for us; see McLaughlin
(1990, 158) and (Wood 1999, 222). But note that Kant’s denial is absolute or
utter (“schlechterdings”), and he adds that “probabilities count for
nothing here” (5:400). The key features of the above passage are carefully
repeated elsewhere: “absolutely no human reason (or even any
finite reason that is similar to ours in quality, no matter how much it
exceeds it in degree) can ever hope to understand (Verstehen)
the generation of even a little blade of grass from merely mechanical
causes” (5:409; my emphasis). Guyer also correctly recognizes that these
passages provide no good reason to rule out the mechanical explicability of
living beings; he sees Kant here failing to reach a desired conclusion
(2001b, 275), whereas I deny that Kant endorses or desires the conclusion
which does not in fact follow.
36
On the reflecting power of judgment, see especially (EE 20:211ff.) and
(5:179ff.)
37
I make no claim to defend here these further ambitions of the KU. Regarding
Kant’s case for the necessity of reflective teleological judgment of nature
as a whole: experience of living beings leads us to judge them in
teleological terms, and this in turn leads us to judge nature itself
similarly; but this amounts neither to knowledge of organization in
nature, nor to an empirical justification of teleological judgment.
True, the general principle that nature does nothing in vain “is of course
to be derived from experience”. But this is so only in the sense that
experience of living beings “occasions” the principle. Kant immediately
contrasts this with a justification: there can be no “grounds in experience”
(Erfahrungsgründen) for the principle (5:376; see also 5:378-9). The
principle is justified only by facts about us—by our need for guidance given
our lack of direct insight into natural kinds and laws. See also Kitcher
(1986), Horstmann (1989), and Guyer (1990); on the connection to biology
specifically, see especially Guyer (2001b). Kant also seeks to draw
consequences concerning practical philosophy from the need to judge nature
in teleological terms. Here too it is crucial that this is not supposed to
require theoretical knowledge that nature is truly organized. On the moral
argument, see especially Guyer (2001a).
38
MacFarland (1970, 104; my emphasis); Zumbach (1984, 129 also 20, 127).
Allison sometimes suggests a similar reading, insofar as the analysis is
supposed to demand merely systems which “can only be understood” by us in a
particular light (1980, 212). In some cases the confusion between the
constructed concept of a
Naturzweck
and actual organisms makes this further mistake inevitable: Zumbach, for
example, reasons that the analysis cannot possibly require that “wholes
literally cause their parts” because then the existence of living
beings would require the reality of backwards causation (1984, 129).
39
For a contrasting recent interpretation, see e.g. Zumbach (1984, 20). Note
that Kant consistently uses the term “possibility” in this connection to
refer to the objective issue of how a system really came about, not the
subjective issue of how we must judge. For example, he explicitly
distinguishes issues concerning “the possibility of the objects themselves”
from those concerning the “subjective principles of reflection” on those
objects (EE 20:217). He speaks of “the real ground” of the “possibility” of
a Zweck (5:220), and he denies we can completely rule out a “ground
of the possibility” or “generation” of living beings in “mere mechanism”
(5:400). It is clearly in this objective sense of “possibility” that
teleological judgment “provides no information about the origination and the
inner possibility of these forms” (5:417).
40
Teleological judgments of natural beings can have only a status which is
subjective (5:391; 5:400) not objective (5:388; 5:401). This limited status
is shared by all judgments applying to nature the concept of “objective
purposiveness” (EE 20:236). On this point too, interpreters are led astray
by the failure to distinguish the concept of a
Naturzweck
from the empirical concept organism; Zanetti, for example, interprets
“objective purposiveness” in light of the fact that “organisms exist” (1993,
348).
41
On “subjective formal purposiveness”, see e.g. (5:190; 5:228; 5:361); on
objective purposiveness see (EE 20:221; 5:194; 5:360). In aesthetic
judgment, “purposiveness” is represented “on a merely subjective
ground”, and in teleological judgment “as an objective ground, as a
correspondence of its form with the possibility of the thing itself, in
accordance with a concept of it which precedes and contains the ground of
this form” (5:192; my emphasis). Kant’s discussion of aesthetic judgment
famously introduces “purposiveness without a purpose”; but this is
“subjective formal purposiveness” (5:190), in contrast to the “objective
real purposiveness” (5:193) of teleological judgments and the concept of a
Naturzweck.
Also, Kant says that, in the case of “objective purposiveness,” “judgment is
no longer purely aesthetic, i.e. a mere judgment of taste. Nature is no
longer judged as it appears as art, but to the extent that it really
is art” (5:311). I thank Ginsborg especially for pressing me on this
topic.
42
E.g. (5:393; 5:396; 5:400). Contrast Zumbach: “according to Kant […]
functional descriptions are appropriate to parts of those mechanical systems
whose parts are considered to be brought about by the whole” (1984, 127).
Zumbach, and those who follow him, must use terms like “considered” here to
blur Kant’s distinction between denken (think) and erkennen
(cognize). The distinction allows us to think or conceive many
possibilities we cannot empirically cognize. If something has a structure
which we cannot but cognize in our experience in teleological terms, then we
might not be able to so cognize it also in mechanistic terms. But that is no
impediment to conceiving or thinking that it might in reality not be
designed. Compare: we must cognize our behavior as causally determined, but
that is no impediment to thinking or conceiving ourselves as free (e.g.
Bxxviii).
43
If this reading were correct, then we could even know other things (aside
from living beings) to be true Naturzwecke. For example, Zumbach
concludes from his reading of Kant’s analysis that “it is clear given his
explication of the concept, a social group is a natural purpose” (1981, 72);
see also a similar suggestion in McLaughlin (1991, 64). I think the right
conclusion is not that Kant misses something which would indeed be so “hard
not to notice” (Zumbach 1981, 72) about his own analysis, but rather that
Zumbach has misinterpreted the analysis.
44
Ginsborg and McLaughlin advocate versions of a less-demanding first
requirement which depart less radically from Kant. They agree in particular
that the first requirement carries some implications about causal
history, or about why the parts of a system are present. Ginsborg reads the
analysis as including the negative requirement that the origin of a
Naturzweck
must really be such as could not be determined or caused by the basic laws
governing the motion of matter alone (2001, 238-43). McLaughlin’s version
requires more still: it requires specifically a form whole-to-part
“efficient causality,” but one which is not “a teleological relation at all”
(1990, 50).
45
Consider McLaughlin’s requirement of a non-teleological whole-to-part
“efficient causality” (1990, 50). But this would allow systems where the
parts fulfill functions only as an accidental consequence of such a
causality. This is why Kant does, and must, require a specifically
teleological relation between whole and part: the parts must be present
specifically for the sake of certain of effects: their
functions or purposes within the whole. This is made especially clear by
(EE 20:236), by Kant’s recognition of the normative implications discussed
below, and by his emphasis on the house example itself (which McLaughlin
must dismiss, saying it “raises more questions than it answers”) (1990, 49).
46
I am indebted to Ginsborg’s (2001) enlightening stress on Kant’s recognition
of this normativity, but I do not think her account can make sense of it.
She claims that this normativity of functions carries no implication of
origins in a concept or of intelligent design because it is “independent of
questions about […] historical origin” (2001, 251). But that cannot be
right, because it would allow functions for the parts of merely coincidental
wholes. Elsewhere, Ginsborg recognizes the difficulty: she requires
“normative regularities” which “do not hold as a matter of sheer
coincidence” but are rather “laws governing the structure and functioning of
organisms and their organic parts” (2001, 246). But that now is to
require a special historical origin: one which is non-accidentally governed
by norms.
47
Or, even if we could have knowledge of an external designer of living
beings, precisely this would undercut the sense in which they are natural in
the sense of self-organizing: “how could I count things that are definitely
supposed to be products of divine art among the products of nature” (5:397)?
48
I will argue below that Kant’s resolution of the antinomy does not back away
from this claim. Note that Kant holds not only that matter is not capable of
self-organization, but also that empirical matter could not possibly be
capable of this. The status of the stronger claim in Kant raises difficult
issues about the (supposed) a priori status of the nonetheless
empirical concept of matter. See especially Friedman (2001). See also: “the
possibility of a living matter ... contains a contradiction” (5:394). Note
that this is not to say that Kant is analyzing the ordinary notion of
life, and declaring it to require mechanical inexplicability. Kant is
here arguing against a view which defends “the realism of
Naturzwecke”
by claiming to find “intentionally acting causes” in matter itself (5:394;
see also 5:392). It is the idea of such intentionally acting
causality which is supposed to be contradicted by the concept of matter.
The same point is made by similar passages in Lectures on Metaphysics
29:275 and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science 4:544.
49
Note that this merely reflective status attaches not just to judgments
explicitly invoking intelligent design; it is shared by all teleological
judgments of nature, or all judgments drawing on the concept of a
Naturzweck
(EE 20:241).
50
Probably the most frank about this is Zumbach: he reads Kant as suggesting
by “punning” that the concept we may make only non-determining use of is
actually the concept of “design” itself (1984, 120). Note in addition that
the weakened analysis could not serve to guide research: analytic inquiry
into initially hidden underlying mechanisms is suggested where it is “as if”
nature itself requires the thought ‘those parts are present on account of
some role within the whole.’ The very different thought ‘this whole does not
literally cause its parts, but merely seems as if it does when viewed from
our perspective’ would be more apt to inspire research into ourselves and
our peculiar perspective.
51
“One does not know whether one is judging about something or nothing”
(5:397; also EE 20: 234). “Nothing is to be decided with regard to the
possibility of such things themselves by means of this fundamental
principle” (5:413). And: “it is entirely consistent that the
explanation of an appearance […] be mechanical, while the rule for
judging of the same object, in accordance with the subjective
principles of reflection on it, should be technical” (EE 20: 218). I
think that EE 20:238 suggests not a different content but that we cannot
embrace the literal content of teleological judgment (contrast Ginsborg
1997, 334).
52
For example, I cannot address here the basic systematic question of why
consideration of the
Naturzweck
gives rise to something which is, strictly speaking, an “antinomy” parallel
to the others found in Kant’s critical writings. On this topic, see
McLaughlin 1990; Allison 1991; Zanetti 1993.
53
Zumbach (1984, 12); Allison (1991, 33-4) and Thompson (1995, 445). See also
Warnke (1992, 45) and McLaughlin (1990, especially 166-7).
54
Meerbote (1995) raises a similar worry about McLaughlin’s reading in
particular. Kant does assign the principle of mechanism a merely
regulative status in the antinomy. But this principle is not
identical to the constitutive causal principle from the “Second Analogy” in
the Critique of Pure Reason (KrV); see McLaughlin (1990), Allison
(1991), and Ginsborg (2004). Also, the conceivability of another intellect
means that this principle “does not pertain to the possibility of things
themselves (even considered as phenomena)” (5:408; my emphasis). But
that will open the possibility that phenomena in material nature might be
Naturzwecke only insofar as it means we can consider them as grounded
by something non-sensible, and so by something not bound by the constitutive
conditions of the possibility of experience.
55
Perhaps the central problem concerning Kant’s idealism is accounting for his
apparent ambivalence concerning the transcendental contrast between
appearances and things in themselves: sometimes it seems to be a contrast
between numerically distinct objects (e.g. A30/B45); sometimes rather a
contrast between two ways of considering one and the same thing (e.g.
Bxviii-xix note;. Prauss 1971 and Allison 1983). While I cannot resolve that
problem here, I mean to emphasize that Kant consistently denies that
teleology and mechanism in particular can be two ways of
considering “one and the same thing in nature”. Though I cannot argue the
point here, I think this suggests that interpretations or reconstructions of
Kant’s idealism which rely exclusively on the contrast between two ways of
considering one and the same thing do not yield a form of idealism which can
do the philosophical work Kant envisions in the KU. A further connection to
transcendental idealism is that the concept of a
Naturzweck
is “problematic” (5:397) in precisely the sense introduced in the KrV
discussion of the concept of a noumenon: “I call a concept
problematic that contains no contradiction but that is also, as a boundary
for given concepts, connected with other cognitions, the objective reality
of which can in no way be cognized” (B310/A254).
56
As far as we can see, freedom too is “inexplicable (just as is that which
constitutes the supersensible substrate of nature)” (5:196 note). Also, it
is important that no particular concept of God can allow us to understand in
a positive sense the reconciliation of the two requirements of a
Naturzweck.
A designer God would violate the second requirement requiring the
self-organization of a true Naturzweck (5:397). But any positive way
of thinking of a ground of nature as something other than a designer—as for
example in Spinoza—would violate the organization requirement on
Naturzwecke: it would “remove their contingency, without which no
unity of purpose can be thought (5:393); see also Baum (1990),
Thompson (1995, 449); Allison (2000, 87).
57
E.g. Zumbach (1984, 24-6).
58
The frog example is used by Fodor to argue that an indeterminacy problem
undermines attempts to use the teleological notion of function to build a
naturalistic account of intentionality in philosophy of mind (1990, 70ff.).
See also Millikan’s response (e.g. 1993, 125; 2002). The worry about
different roles played in different parts of a selection history is stressed
by Godfrey-Smith (1994) in his argument that it motivates a modified version
of the etiological approach. On the connection to “the Kripke-Wittgenstein
paradox,” see Millikan (1993, ch. 11).
59
“There is, of course, a sense in which the question ‘why is x there?’
is answered by giving x’s function […] But it seems to me that the
question, ‘why is x there?’ can be answered by specifying x’s
function only if x is or is part of an artifact” (1975, 746).
60
Cummins stresses multiple realizability at 1976, 764. For two excellent
non-reductionist accounts of teleology and biology which nonetheless
emphasize the philosophical limitations of multiple realizability
considerations, see Papinau (1992) and MacDonald (1992).
61
“Cummins-functions can be contrasted with ‘accidental effects’ only in the
sense of effects that do not help to explain the capacity one has chosen to
analyze” (Millikan 2002, 119). See also Millikan’s examples of clouds with
Cummins-functions (1993, 20), and Griffiths on the Cummins-function of a
piece of dirt stuck in a pipe (1993, 411).
62
As Cummins himself says: “no matter which effects of something you happen to
name, there will be some activity of the containing systems to which just
those effects contribute” (1975 752; Millikan 2002, 118). The disease
example is discussed by Griffiths (1993, 411). Cummins responds to a worry
that this indiscriminateness renders his functional analysis trivial (1975,
764). But he recognizes the indiscriminateness: nothing about functions
guides our interests specifically toward the heart’s capacity to pump blood;
we single this out only because we happen to already be interested in “the
circulatory system’s capacity to transport food, oxygen, wastes, and so on”
(1975, 762). The indiscriminateness is also the root of some difficulties
with the use of such a notion of function to generate a functionalist
approach to the philosophy of mind; see Sober (1985).
63
We might think it worth capturing the normative notion in our analysis, even
if we deny the possibility of knowledge that anything natural really answers
to that notion (as Kant does). Cummins himself rules out malfunction insofar
as he claims that having a function means being able to perform it (1975,
757). See also Cummins on the heart in the previous note. Those with
etiological accounts stress this complaint: Millikan (1989, 294), Neander
(1991, 181).
64
Zumbach effectively reads Kant in this way, insofar as he denies that Kant’s
analysis has implications concerning the origin of a system (1984, 129 and
also 20). See also McLaughlin’s contrast between function-explanation and
teleology, and his claim that Kant’s interest is not in “a teleological
relation at all” (1990, 50). Warnke (1992) in particular emphasizes a
claimed similarity between Kant’s analysis and “teleonomy” (also Düsing
1990, 142).
65
Zumbach advocates this approach, see especially (1984, 123). Ginsborg takes
Kant to argue for a role for a normative notion of teleology with no
implications about causal history (2001, 251), though she remains consistent
with Kant’s usage and so does not call this role “explanatory”.
66
Cummins draws on this claim in arguing that, because teleology has
unacceptable implications, the analysis of the scientifically useful notion
of function cannot be etiological (1975). Proponents of the etiological
analysis draw on the same claim to generate complaints about the resulting
Cummins-functions being non-normative (Millikan 1989, 294; Neander 1991,
181). Those who advocate combining the advantages of each analysis do not
aim to blur the distinction between them, but rather to make appropriate but
different use of each; see e.g. Griffiths (1993) use of Cummins’ analysis to
build what is nonetheless an alternative formulation of an etiological
analysis.
67
This paper has benefited greatly from all of the following: comments from
and discussion with Michael Forster, Hannah Ginsborg, Desmond Hogan, David
McNeill, Adrian Piper, Robert Pippin, Houston Smit, Richard Velkley, Candace
Vogler, Rachel Zuckert and two very helpful anonymous referees; comments on
related work from Willem deVries and Allen Wood; presentation to the faculty
colloquium at Yale and also a group meeting of the North American Kant
society at the Pacific American Philosophical Association; and conversations
with the students in my Spring 2003 seminar on the KU at Yale.
