Believing in organisms: Kant's non-mechanistic philosophy of nature.

Abstract

In this paper, I defend a non-mechanistic interpretation of Kant's philosophy of nature. My interpretation contradicts the robust tradition of reading Kant as a mechanist about nature - or as someone who endorses the view that we can know the internally purposive causality characteristic of organisms has no place in nature. By attending closely to Kant's remarks about the possibility of internal purposiveness in nature and to key premises from Kant's arguments in the Antinomy of Teleological Judgment, we shall see that it is not only plausible, but preferable, to believe that internally purposive things (i.e., organisms) exist in nature. Making room for such a belief leaves Kant with a philosophy of nature that simultaneously aligns with and surpasses the philosophies of nature offered up by his Early Modern predecessors.