𝔎𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔦𝔨 𝔡𝔢𝔯 𝔘𝔯𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔦𝔩𝔰𝔨𝔯𝔞𝔣𝔱 #32 - The (Natural) End Continues

What we just discussed: Natural organisms are not just complicated machines. We are compelled to think of them as (if) they exist for a reason, aka, a purpose.

What we will discuss next time: More of the same.

READ FOR NEXT TIME

Paragraphs 5:376 - 5:383
Pages 247 - 263 in the Guyer/Wood translation

§66 - Principle for judging internal purposiveness
§67 - Nature as a System of Ends
§68 - Teleology as internal, natural principle
§69 - Antinomies of Judgment
§70 - Representing the Antinomy
§71 - Preparing to Resolve the Antinomy
§72 - Various Systems of Purposiveness

09/21/25 - Session 31 - Finish the Analytic of Teleology
10/05/25 - Session 32 - Start the Dialectic of Teleology
10/19/25 - Session 33 - Get about 2/3rd through the Dialectic

THIS IS WHAT WE JUST COVERED

§63 – Relative Purposiveness vs Internal Purposiveness

1, Main Points 1. Natural Ends vs. Mere Mechanism.

The function of the wing of a bird is like the function of the wheel of a car. Both wing and the wheel have purpose, but the wing and the wheel themselves do not have purpose or intention. And yet we tend to treat the wing as if it were a wheel, as if the wing and the bird were like the wheel and the car, designed by something external for some purpose.

2. Definition of Natural End

Something is a natural end if it is 1) both cause and effect of itself and 2) its parts are possible only through their relation to the whole and the whole is possible only through the parts. This is most striking in organisms. A tree produces seeds (the whole reproduces itself), and every organ of the tree exists in mutual service with the others.
It's obvious to anyone that the car itself has no purpose, and yet the organized bird or tree has no obvious outside designer. It's as if its purpose were internal or endemic to nature. The car, on the other hand, has relative purpose, i.e., its purpose is relative to our needs.

3. Judgment’s Role

The power of judgment must regard organisms as natural ends in order to understand them at all. However, this “objective purposiveness” is still regulative, not constitutive. We cannot claim to know that nature is in itself purposive, only that we must regard it as so when judging organisms.

4. The Argument

Organisms force us to think beyond mechanism, since mechanism alone cannot explain selforganizing beings. It does not prove teleology in nature as fact, but it argues that our cognition requires us to treat organisms as though they were ends in themselves.

• Mechanism suffices for inanimate nature.
• Organisms are different - parts/whole reciprocally produce each other.
• Mechanism alone can’t explain this.
• So judgment must apply the concept of purposiveness.
• This is only regulative, not a constitutive property of nature.

§64 - Natural Ends Are Special

In §§62–63, Kant distinguished between the reflective use of judgment (which looks for purposiveness in nature only as a principle for our cognition) and constitutive claims about nature itself having actual purposes. By §64, he shifts toward the special case of organized beings.

Main Argument

Organized Beings as Natural Ends. Kant argues that an organized being (a plant, an animal) is fundamentally different from a machine or artifact.
In a machine, the parts exist for each other only through an external cause (a designer).

In an organism, the parts exist for and through each other:

• The whole produces the parts.
• The parts in turn maintain and produce the whole.
• Each part is both cause and effect of the other parts.
• Kant is locating organisms between two poles

Inanimate objects → entirely reactive, external efficient causes.
Rational beings → capable of intentional purposiveness
Organisms → self-organizing systems resembling ends without intention.

They occupy a “midway” position — we cannot reduce them to mechanism, but we cannot ascribe free rational choice either.
Limitation of Human Judgment. Kant stresses that this self-organizing quality cannot be explained mechanistically by human reason. Our judgment is compelled to regard living beings as if they were designed for purposes, but this is a regulative principle for cognition, not an objective insight into nature’s ultimate causes.

§65 - Organisms Are Natural Ends

Organisms must be judged as if their parts and whole reciprocally cause and sustain one another. This goes beyond the linear efficient causes and requires final causes. In art, the whole (the idea) precedes and determines the parts, but in organisms the whole and parts co-generate. An organism’s parts are not just instruments for the whole; they also produce and repair one another.

Calling this merely an “analogue of art” understates it, but calling it an “analogue of life” risks contradiction. Neither hylozoism nor a soul-as-artificer explains self-organization, and no causality we know is fully analogous. Still, the concept of a natural end regulates judgment: it guides research into living beings as if purposive. This concept is not constitutive knowledge of nature’s ground but a necessary regulative standpoint. Thus, organisms uniquely make the concept of a natural end valid, grounding a teleology within science.