Kant often compares reason to an organized body, which suggests that reason should be understood as a whole from which all possible uses of the faculties of reason are derived. However, Kant does not elaborate his conception of the whole of reason. Nor does the secondary literature. This paper suggests that the wholeness of reason is the apodictic modality of reason, i.e., the necessary standard that determines what can systematically belong to reason, and thus works as the systematic condition for (...) all possible uses of the faculties of reason. This necessary standard is the discipline of pure reason. Kant compare souvent la raison à un corps organisé, ce qui suggère que la raison devrait être comprise comme un tout à partir duquel dérivent systématiquement toutes les fonctions possibles des facultés de la raison. Ni Kant, ni la littérature secondaire n’élabore cependant sa conception de la raison comme un tout. Autrement dit, ils n’élaborent pas la notion d’unité de la raison. Je soutiens que l’unité de la raison devrait être comprise comme la modalité apodictique de la raison, c’est-à-dire le critère nécessaire qui détermine ce qui peut appartenir systématiquement à la raison. Ce critère nécessaire est la discipline de la raison pure. (shrink)

Kant’s philosophy of science takes on sharp contour in terms of his interaction with the practicing life scientists of his day, particularly Johann Blumenbach and the latter’s student, Christoph Girtanner, who in 1796 attempted to synthesize the ideas of Kant and Blumenbach. Indeed, Kant’s engagement with the life sciences played a far more substantial role in his transcendental philosophy than has been recognized hitherto. The theory of epigenesis, especially in light of Kant’s famous analogy in the first Critique, posed crucial (...) questions regarding the ‘looseness of fit’ between the constitutive and the regulative in Kant’s theory of empirical law. A detailed examination of Kant’s struggle with epigenesis between 1784 and 1790 demonstrates his grave reservations about its hylozoist implications, leading to his even stronger insistence on the discrimination of constitutive from regulative uses of reason. The continuing relevance of these issues for Kant’s philosophy of science is clear from the work of Buchdahl and its contemporary reception. (shrink)

In the 1787 Transcendental Deduction of the Categories Kant indicates the only possible ways by which one can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects (B166), using analogies between modes of explanation and biological theories about the origin of life. He endorses epigenesis as a model for his system of pure reason (B167). This paper examines various interpretive claims about the meaning of this theory of generation and its significance for Kant’s philosophy (Section 1), (...) showing that, after his Critical shift in perspective, in 1775/77 Kant already combined preformed elements and their purposively oriented formation by natural forces (Section 2). Contrary to the standard view, Kant’s theory of race appears to constitute the background to assess Blumenbach’s later (1799/1781) shift to epigenesis after supporting Haller’s preformism (Section 3). In Section 4, I argue that the ground of affinity between epigenesis and formal idealism rests in tracing the first origin of these conformities: external a posteriori climate conditions and predisposed germs and dispositions within the generative power of the human body; and external a posteriori experience and spontaneous a priori concepts of its objects, within pure sensory intuiting and pure thinking. In both cases the external empirical conditions would function as occasioning propelling factors affecting internal pre-established forms of generation. (shrink)

O foco deste artigo é identificar e expor o conceito de racionalidade que opera na filosofia kantiana, considerando, sobretudo, a “Doutrina transcendental do método” da Crítica da razão pura. De modo mais específico, a investigação toma como ponto de partida o texto da “Arquitetônica da razão pura” e destaca o conceito de sistema ali exposto, levando em conta sua paridade com o organismo, que lhe serve de metáfora. A partir daí, tem-se a ocasião para qualificar o método da razão como (...) profundamente dinâmico e caracterizar, desde semelhante qualificação, a própria postura filosófica como atividade de pensamento que se exerce crítica e sistematicamente sobre a multiplicidade de conhecimentos. (shrink)