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Understanding Purpose: Kant and the Philosophy of Biology
A collection of essays investigating key historical and scientific questions relating to the concept of natural purpose in Kant's philosophy of biology.
Understanding Purpose is an exploration of the central concept of natural purpose [Naturzweck] in Kant's philosophy of biology. Kant's work in this area is marked by a strong teleological living organisms, in his view, are qualitatively different from mechanistic devices, and as a result they cannot be understood by means of the same principles. At the same time, Kant's own use of the concept of purpose does not presuppose any theological commitments, and is merely "regulative"; that is, it is employed as a heuristic device. The contributors to this volume also investigate the following key historical questions relating to Kant's philosophy of How does it relate to European work in the life sciences that was done before Kant arrived on the scene? How did Kant's unique approach to the philosophy of biology in turn influence later work in this area?
The issues explored in this volume are as pertinent to the history of philosophy as they are to the history of science -- it is precisely the blurred boundaries between these two disciplines that allows for new perspectives on Kantianism and early nineteenth-century German biology to emerge.
Jean-Claude Dupont, Mark Fisher, Philippe Huneman, Robert J. Richards, Phillip R. Sloan, Stéphane Schmitt, and John Zammito.
Philippe Huneman is researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unit of the Université Paris.
Understanding Purpose is an exploration of the central concept of natural purpose [Naturzweck] in Kant's philosophy of biology. Kant's work in this area is marked by a strong teleological living organisms, in his view, are qualitatively different from mechanistic devices, and as a result they cannot be understood by means of the same principles. At the same time, Kant's own use of the concept of purpose does not presuppose any theological commitments, and is merely "regulative"; that is, it is employed as a heuristic device. The contributors to this volume also investigate the following key historical questions relating to Kant's philosophy of How does it relate to European work in the life sciences that was done before Kant arrived on the scene? How did Kant's unique approach to the philosophy of biology in turn influence later work in this area?
The issues explored in this volume are as pertinent to the history of philosophy as they are to the history of science -- it is precisely the blurred boundaries between these two disciplines that allows for new perspectives on Kantianism and early nineteenth-century German biology to emerge.
Jean-Claude Dupont, Mark Fisher, Philippe Huneman, Robert J. Richards, Phillip R. Sloan, Stéphane Schmitt, and John Zammito.
Philippe Huneman is researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unit of the Université Paris.
- GenresPhilosophy
202 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2007
17 people want to read
About the author
Philippe Huneman
31 books2 followersPhilippe Huneman is CNRS Research Professor and Professor of Philosophy at LInstitut dHistoire et de Philosophie des Science et des Technique, Université Paris I SorbonneWalsh: Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Biology in the Department of Philosophy, Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology and the Department of Ecology and evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto.
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March 3, 2012
This is a very helpful collection of essays. I had read some of books by the authors and gotten somewhat lost in the details. I could understand their points more clearly in these shorter essays. How did the ideas Kant expressed in the Third Critique affect biology in the first half of the nineteenth century? These authors take issue with Timothy Lenoir's suggestion that there was a 'teleomechanism' based on the ideas of purpose expressed by Kant. As I understand it, what Kant proposed as a regulative or heuristic notion of purpose others took as a constitutive or real principle of causation. this presumably involved a misreading or willful transformation of Kant's ideas. Whatever it was, this notion of purpose as constitutive led to ideas of vitalism that in turn allowed for ideas of the transformation of species. I get a bit lost before this gets to Darwin, but i had a good time trying to grapple with this corner of the history of science/philosophy and I will read on.
Displaying 1 of 1 review