Being-for. Purposes and Functions in Artefacts and Living Beings

Illetterati, Luca

doi:10.1515/9783110321241.135

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 10 publications

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“…As Kant puts it in his writing Teleological Principles (VIII 182.11 f.), purposes have "a direct relation to reason". This assumption has been criticized, for instance, by Illetterati (2008) and Toepfer (2008), who argue that the purposiveness of living beings should not be interpreted on the model of intentional agency but as a type of circular causality. Ginsborg (see pp. xy in this volume) argues for a conception of teleology that is independent of intentionality, but attributes it to Kant himself.…”

Section: Kant's Analogical Conception Of the Organismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological Purposiveness and Analogical Reflection

Breitenbach¹

2014

Kant's Theory of Biology

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In the "Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment", Kant claims that in the realm of living nature we encounter phenomena that appear to display a peculiar purposiveness. The wings of a bird, for example, seem to be conducive to the bird's capacity to fly and thereby to the survival of the bird as a whole. The whole organism, moreover, appears to be the result of an end-directed developmental process. Some natural objects, namely the living organisms, thus appear to us as if they were characterized by a purposive organization of the whole and its parts, and by a particular end-directedness. In order to account for this, Kant introduces the concept of biological purposiveness, that is, an objective, material, and internal purposiveness. 1 1 In §61 of the CPJ, Kant introduces the concept of objective purposiveness as the third of three types of the purposiveness of nature. The first is the subjective purposiveness of nature as a whole for its "comprehensibility" by the human intellect (CPJ V 359.4 f.

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Section: Kant's Analogical Conception Of the Organismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biological Purposiveness and Analogical Reflection

Breitenbach¹

2014

Kant's Theory of Biology

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‚Hervorbringende Organe‘, ‚bildende Kraft‘?

Meincke

2023

Deutsche Zeitschrift Für Philosophie

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This article presents Heidegger’s little-known theory of the organism developed in his 1929/30 lecture The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics and interprets it as an antithesis to Kant’s theory of the organism contained in his Critique of Judgement (1790 and 1792/3). Heidegger drops Kant’s transcendental caveats in favour of a robust ontological understanding of organismic teleology. Moreover, Heidegger’s alternative approach draws attention to the fact that Kant’s notion of a ‘natural end’ (Naturzweck), by being tied to the idea of intelligent design, still places the organism too close to the machine, notwithstanding assumptions of a ‘formative force’ (bildende Kraft) and ‘productive organs’ (hervorbringende Organe). Heidegger, in contrast, analyses organismic purposiveness in terms of an instinctual capacity (triebhafte Fähigkeit) in which an organism’s organs are ontologically grounded as its products, and which explains the specificity of an organism’s wholeness, motility and relation to the world.

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Being-for. Purposes and Functions in Artefacts and Living Beings

Cited by 2 publications

References 10 publications

Biological Purposiveness and Analogical Reflection

Biological Purposiveness and Analogical Reflection

‚Hervorbringende Organe‘, ‚bildende Kraft‘?

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