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Series:   Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant

Kant and Teleology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2025

Thomas Teufel
Thomas Teufel
Affiliation:
City University of New York

Summary

Kant's mature teleological philosophy in the Critique of the Power of Judgment is predicated on innovations that address a set of unprecedented challenges arising from within critical philosophy. The challenges are (1) a threat of “transcendental chaos” between sensibility and understanding, emerging from the structure of critical epistemology; (2) a threat of “critical chaos” between determination and reflection, generated by Kant's response to that first threat. The innovations include (a) a transcendental conception of purposiveness, (b) a principle of nature's purposiveness based on that conception, (c) a power of judgment governed by that principle, (d) and so governed in an unusual (self-given and self-governing) way, (e) a view on which nature does make leaps. This Element argues that Kant's mature teleological philosophy – and a fortiori Kant's aesthetics and philosophy of biology – cannot be understood without a fully systematic account of these challenges and innovations, and it presents such an account.
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Keywords

functionorganismpurposivenessreflecting judgmentsystematicity
Type
Element
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Series: Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant
Online ISBN: 9781108529617
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 08 May 2025

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Kant and Teleology
  • Thomas Teufel, City University of New York
  • Online ISBN: 9781108529617
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Kant and Teleology
  • Thomas Teufel, City University of New York
  • Online ISBN: 9781108529617
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Kant and Teleology
  • Thomas Teufel, City University of New York
  • Online ISBN: 9781108529617
Available formats
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