Natural Purposes and the Reflecting Power of Judgment: The Problem of the Organism in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

Abstract

Kant’s conception of organisms as natural purposes is profoundly amphibious, reflecting the form of teleological judgment in its movement between the terrains of empirical cognition and reason. By comparing teleological and aesthetic judgments as species of the reflecting power of judgment, and comparing reflecting and determining powers of judgment, all judgments, in their synthetic acts, are shown to involve reflection, subjectivity, and wit. The suggestion in the third Critique that a basis for the activity of judgment might be found in the purposiveness of nature for our intellect is confounded by natural purposes, which defy our understanding and the principles of natural science. The Critique of the Power of Judgment thus offers an opening of judgment to further interrogation, rather than a closure of the critical system.