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.Accordingto Kant s second law of mechanics, the law of inertia, every changein matter must have an external cause, i.e.it persists in rest or motion,in the same direction and with the same speed, unless there is someexternal cause to make it change its direction and speed (IV 543).This principle states, therefore, that changes in matter cannot beinternal, or that matter has no intrinsic grounds of determination.Thismeans, Kant contends, that matter is essentially lifeless.For life is thefaculty of a substance to act from an internal principle, its power tochange itself.Kant vehemently insists that the very possibility ofnatural science rests upon fully recognizing these implications of 100 Hegelthe law of inertia, damning hylozoism as nothing less than thedeath of all philosophy of nature (der Tod aller Naturphilosophie).On the basis of all these arguments Kant concludes that the con-cept of an organism or a natural purpose has only a regulativestatus.To avoid some common misunderstandings, it is importantto see precisely what this doctrine means.Except for the mostradical version of vital materialism, Kant is not saying that thisconcept is only a fiction, as if it were false that there are organismsin nature.Rather, he is saying that this concept has only a problem-atic status.In other words, we have no evidence or reason to assumethe existence or non-existence of organisms; while it is indeedpossible that there are organisms or natural purposes, it is alsopossible that there are none at all and that they are really onlycomplicated machines.It is important to see that, as a critical philo-sopher whose only goal is to determine the limits of our cognitivepowers, Kant neither affirms nor denies the sui generis status oforganisms, and he neither affirms nor denies the impossibility ofmechanism.He states explicitly at §71 of the third Critique: We arequite unable to prove that organized natural products cannot beproduced through the mechanism of nature (V 388).When Kantdenies the possibility of a complete mechanical explanation oforganisms, when he famously proclaims that there will never be aNewton to explain the growth of a single blade of grass, he does sonot because he thinks that organisms are extra-mechanical for thattoo would be a dogmatic claim to knowledge but because hethinks that it is a necessary limitation of the human understanding that wecannot fully understand an organism mechanically, and that wemust resort to teleology to make them comprehensible.REPLY TO KANTIt was these Kantian arguments that posed such a challenge toHegel and the whole generation of Naturphilosophen in the 1790s.Tovindicate their organic concept of nature to establish its constitu-tive validity they would have to show the need to overcome The Organic Worldview 101Kant s regulative restraints.How did Hegel and the Naturphilosophenrespond to Kant s arguments?Their first strategy was to distance themselves from traditionalChristian teleology with all its indefensible metaphysical assump-tions.They insisted that they did not wish to retain or revive theold extrinsic teleology, according to which the purposes of naturehad been imposed upon it by God during the creation.This oldteleology was essentially anthropocentric, holding that naturalthings were created by God to serve the purposes of human beings.God had created cork trees, for example, so that their bark couldserve as stoppers in wine bottles.Hegel and the Naturphilosophenstressed that their teleology was completely intrinsic, limited to theends observable within nature itself.According to their view, natureis an end in itself, and it has no higher purpose beyond itself.While this strategy purges teleology of some questionable meta-physics, it still has little purchase against Kant s main arguments.Although Kant sometimes wrote as if the concept of the objectivepurposiveness of nature inevitably led to a physico-theology (§75;V 398 9), the thrust of his arguments was directed against theconcept of a natural purpose (Naturzweck), the idea that nature alone wasself-generating and self-organizing.Hence his target was indeed thecentral doctrine of Hegel and the Naturphilosophen: an intrinsicteleology.Limiting the question to the realm of nature itself, Hegel and theNaturphilosophen still counter that the concept of a natural purposeinvolves none of the other questionable assumptions Kant hadattributed to it.First of all, Hegel insists that this concept does notinvolve intentionality, the attribution of will or self-consciousagency to a living thing.To state that a natural object serves apurpose is not to hold that there is some intention behind its cre-ation, still less that there is some concealed intention within theobject itself.Rather, all that it means is that the object serves afunction, that it plays an essential role in the structure of the organ-ism.Secondly, Hegel and the Naturphilosophen also contest that the 102 Hegelidea of living matter entails that there is some kind of soul or spiritwithin matter itself, directing and organizing its growth [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.Accordingto Kant s second law of mechanics, the law of inertia, every changein matter must have an external cause, i.e.it persists in rest or motion,in the same direction and with the same speed, unless there is someexternal cause to make it change its direction and speed (IV 543).This principle states, therefore, that changes in matter cannot beinternal, or that matter has no intrinsic grounds of determination.Thismeans, Kant contends, that matter is essentially lifeless.For life is thefaculty of a substance to act from an internal principle, its power tochange itself.Kant vehemently insists that the very possibility ofnatural science rests upon fully recognizing these implications of 100 Hegelthe law of inertia, damning hylozoism as nothing less than thedeath of all philosophy of nature (der Tod aller Naturphilosophie).On the basis of all these arguments Kant concludes that the con-cept of an organism or a natural purpose has only a regulativestatus.To avoid some common misunderstandings, it is importantto see precisely what this doctrine means.Except for the mostradical version of vital materialism, Kant is not saying that thisconcept is only a fiction, as if it were false that there are organismsin nature.Rather, he is saying that this concept has only a problem-atic status.In other words, we have no evidence or reason to assumethe existence or non-existence of organisms; while it is indeedpossible that there are organisms or natural purposes, it is alsopossible that there are none at all and that they are really onlycomplicated machines.It is important to see that, as a critical philo-sopher whose only goal is to determine the limits of our cognitivepowers, Kant neither affirms nor denies the sui generis status oforganisms, and he neither affirms nor denies the impossibility ofmechanism.He states explicitly at §71 of the third Critique: We arequite unable to prove that organized natural products cannot beproduced through the mechanism of nature (V 388).When Kantdenies the possibility of a complete mechanical explanation oforganisms, when he famously proclaims that there will never be aNewton to explain the growth of a single blade of grass, he does sonot because he thinks that organisms are extra-mechanical for thattoo would be a dogmatic claim to knowledge but because hethinks that it is a necessary limitation of the human understanding that wecannot fully understand an organism mechanically, and that wemust resort to teleology to make them comprehensible.REPLY TO KANTIt was these Kantian arguments that posed such a challenge toHegel and the whole generation of Naturphilosophen in the 1790s.Tovindicate their organic concept of nature to establish its constitu-tive validity they would have to show the need to overcome The Organic Worldview 101Kant s regulative restraints.How did Hegel and the Naturphilosophenrespond to Kant s arguments?Their first strategy was to distance themselves from traditionalChristian teleology with all its indefensible metaphysical assump-tions.They insisted that they did not wish to retain or revive theold extrinsic teleology, according to which the purposes of naturehad been imposed upon it by God during the creation.This oldteleology was essentially anthropocentric, holding that naturalthings were created by God to serve the purposes of human beings.God had created cork trees, for example, so that their bark couldserve as stoppers in wine bottles.Hegel and the Naturphilosophenstressed that their teleology was completely intrinsic, limited to theends observable within nature itself.According to their view, natureis an end in itself, and it has no higher purpose beyond itself.While this strategy purges teleology of some questionable meta-physics, it still has little purchase against Kant s main arguments.Although Kant sometimes wrote as if the concept of the objectivepurposiveness of nature inevitably led to a physico-theology (§75;V 398 9), the thrust of his arguments was directed against theconcept of a natural purpose (Naturzweck), the idea that nature alone wasself-generating and self-organizing.Hence his target was indeed thecentral doctrine of Hegel and the Naturphilosophen: an intrinsicteleology.Limiting the question to the realm of nature itself, Hegel and theNaturphilosophen still counter that the concept of a natural purposeinvolves none of the other questionable assumptions Kant hadattributed to it.First of all, Hegel insists that this concept does notinvolve intentionality, the attribution of will or self-consciousagency to a living thing.To state that a natural object serves apurpose is not to hold that there is some intention behind its cre-ation, still less that there is some concealed intention within theobject itself.Rather, all that it means is that the object serves afunction, that it plays an essential role in the structure of the organ-ism.Secondly, Hegel and the Naturphilosophen also contest that the 102 Hegelidea of living matter entails that there is some kind of soul or spiritwithin matter itself, directing and organizing its growth [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]