HEGEL’S CRITIQUE OF KANT’S PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY

Abstract

Kant’s account of teleology in the Critique of Judgement denied that we could ever have genuine knowledge of living beings; Kant demoted teleological thinking to a heuristic status (albeit a necessary one). Many of Kant’s Idealist successors reacted against this skeptical move, including Goethe and Schelling. Hegel offers the best account of how to think about thoughts of living beings, and his Science of Logic and Philosophy of Nature offer many insights into how we should understand the special nature of living beings in nature and our thoughts about them. My dissertation offers an account of these insights in historical and systematic context.