Anna Wilks
Acadia U
Invited
ACSEMP
ABSTRACT:
HOW FUNCTION CHANGED SCIENCE – KANT’S CONTRIBUTION
The notions of purposiveness and function have typically been conceived as implying a
teleological view of nature, as exemplified by Aristotle’s appeal to final causality. While the early
modern period sought concertedly to rid the scientific landscape of all teleological elements, resistance
was met in the biological sciences by the challenges posed by living nature. Kant, in his Critique of the
Power of Judgment and Opus Postumum drew attention to the unique nature of an organism as a selforganizing natural product that exhibits reciprocal causality, i.e., its parts exist for the sake of the whole
and the whole exists for the sake of its parts (Kant, KU, 5: 372-74). As such, Kant asserts, we view an
organism as if it were a natural purpose (Naturzweck), an end of nature, equipped with a function –
though only in a regulative and not a constitutive sense. Kant stresses that the feature of organisms that
renders them distinct from other organized beings, is that the source of the organization is not external
to the organism but rather internal. This source is the self which the organism generates in the activity
of sustaining and regulating its existence (Breitenbach, 2009; Keller, 2007). It is for this reason, Kant
maintains, that organic beings are not entirely reducible to merely mechanistic phenomena, and thus
are underdetermined by the laws of physics.
Kant’s characterization of organic beings profoundly influenced the study of natural science in
his time and ultimately resulted in the demarcation of a new domain in the scientific disciplines of the
eighteenth century – the field of biology. The establishment of this new discipline derived from the
recognition of the irreducible notion of purposiveness that an understanding of organic beings requires.
(Quarfood, 2006; Van den Berg, 2014). Among the most notable players in this enterprise were Buffon,
Brandis, Reil, Herder, and Blumenbach. These figures made a substantial contribution to the shaping of
this new domain of science, especially in their discussion of concepts such as Grundstoffe (elementary
matter), Lebenskraft (vital force), genetische kraft (genetic force), and Bildungstreib (formative force),
which rivaled Kant’s notion of bildende Kraft (formative power) in the attempt to explain the
fundamental feature of organic beings (Goy, 2012).
Kant’s account of the nature of organisms and the new study it engendered has, however,
produced more complexity than it has resolved. Specifically, it has left scholars bewildered as to what
status the notion of natural purpose has in scientific explanation, and to what extent it is indicative of
genuine purposiveness and functionality in nature. Kant explicitly states that the notions of purpose,
function and final end are not to be taken as indicative of a constitutive teleology pertaining to nature
itself, but merely as regulative principles for guiding our investigation of organic beings. This framework
is operative in the current study of biology which claims to adopt a teleonomic rather than a teleological
approach (Neander 1991b; Reese, 1994), and stresses the merely apparent purposefulness manifested
by organisms. Teleonomy also emphasizes that any apparent goal-directedness or function ought to be
understood as having its source in natural laws, as opposed to human-like or divine activity. Moreover,
teleonomy has been associated with a programmatic or computational conception of purposiveness,
distinguishing it even more definitively from robust Aristotelian teleology. Very recent debates in
genomics concerning “junk DNA,” however, suggest that the notions of purposiveness and function still
require substantial scrutiny before we can adequately employ them in scientific study.
I suggest that consideration of the Kantian conceptual framework concerning these matters may
significantly facilitate the resolution of at least some of the difficulties stemming from these debates.
Specifically, I argue that the notion of function, even in the teleonomic sense employed in current
microbiology, seems to acknowledge the Kantian notion of the irreducibly biological element that
demarcates organic nature as a unique field of scientific inquiry. My position supports Toepfer’s general
claim that there is a very restricted but very substantive sense of teleology operative in Kant’s account
(Toepfer, 2012), though it is important to note its boundaries. I contend that, despite the radical
development that the notion of function has undergone, it has not been completely deflated. It retains,
in fact, much of the force of Kant’s notion of natural purpose, as an ineliminable factor in the study of
natural science, not only in Kant’s own time but also in ours.