Understanding Purpose
Title Details

202 Pages

22.8 x 15.2 cm

1 line illus.

Series: North American Kant Society Studies in Philosophy

Series Vol. Number: 8

Imprint: University of Rochester Press

Understanding Purpose

Kant and the Philosophy of Biology

Edited by Philippe Huneman

  • Description
  • Contents
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 concern: 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 biology: 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.

Contributors: 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.
Pre-Kantian Revival of Epigenesis: Caspar Friedrich Wolff's De formatione intestinorum (1768-69) - Jean-Claude Dupont
Kant's Persistent Ambivalence toward Epigenesis, 1764-90 - John H. Zammito
Reflexive Judgment and Wolffian Embryology: Kant's Shift between the First and the Third Critiques - Philippe Huneman
Kant's Explanatory Natural History: Generation and Classification of Organisms in Kant's Natural Philosophy - Mark Fisher
Succession of Functions and Classifications in Post-Kantian Naturphilosophie around 1800 - Stéphane Schmitt
Goethe's Use of Kant in the Erotics of Nature - Robert J. Richards
Kant and British Bioscience - Phillip R. Sloan

Paperback

9781580462655

July 2007

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Ebook (EPDF)

9781580466950

July 2007

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Title Details

202 Pages

2.28 x 1.52 cm

1 line illus.

Series: North American Kant Society Studies in Philosophy

Series Vol. Number: 8

Imprint: University of Rochester Press