We are pleased to share the article An Unstable Middle Position: The Kantian Account of Teleology and its Controversial Legacy by Andrea Gambarotto (Catholic University of Leuven).
The article has been published in the electronic journal “Estudos Kantianos”, v. 5, n. 2 (2017), pp. 91-104.
Please find the author’s abstract of the paper below:
The paper analyzes the Kantian account of teleology with specific regard to Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, Kritik der Urteilskraft and the Erste Einleitung. In particular, I take into account the Kantian distinction between external and internal purposiveness: the former implies a technical-teleological approach of organized beings, according to which they must be understood as the result of purposeful design, the latter points towards a different understanding of teleology as self-organization. I argue that, despite this distinction, Kant was ultimately unable to move beyond a technical understanding of organization and consequently took a scientific treatment of the purposeful characters displayed by living organisms to be an impossible task.
The full version of the article can be downloaded here.
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