Transcendental Idealism & the Organism: Essays on Kant

This is a Ph.D. dissertation. The notion of the organism has a somewhat ambiguous status in Kant’s philosophy. On the one hand it belongs to natural science, on the other hand it is based on an analogy with the structure of reason. Biology therefore has a peculiar place among the sciences according to it is constituted by the use of a regulative maxim. The present study places Kant’s views on biological teleology in the larger context of transcendental idealism. It consists of five essays. These essays The Thing in Methodological Perspective or Metaphysical Entity?, Kant’s Practical Deduction of Moral Obligation in Groundwork III, Acquisitio Originaria and Metaphors for the A Priori, Biological Functions in a Kantian Perspective, The Antinomy of Teleological Judgemnt.