Paula Órdens (University of Trier, Heidelberg University) will give a talk on July 7th at 3:30 pm CEST on Organized Beings and Living Beings: Reconceptualizing Kant’s Philosophy of Biology.
The talk will be held in Room 117 of the Institute of Philosophy (Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg) and can be viewed remotely here.
This talk is organized by SynthImmune PI Nora Heinzelmann.
Topics
Kant is commonly regarded as a precursor of modern philosophy of biology because of his account of organized beings in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. Recent scholarship has further reinforced the centrality of the concept of the organism for understanding both the historical emergence and the philosophical significance of biological thought. Yet this emphasis raises a fundamental question that has received comparatively little attention: What exactly is the relation between organized beings and living beings in Kant’s critical philosophy?
This talk argues that Kant’s theory of organized beings is not coextensive with his theory of life. Although the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment establishes a close connection between life and organization, Kant’s explicit concept of life relies on a distinct conceptual framework. First, I show that Kant consistently defines life in terms of the capacity to act through representations by means of the faculty of desire. Second, I argue that the theory of organized beings developed in the Critique of the Power of Judgment cannot be reduced to this conception of life, despite the close association between organization and living nature that characterizes Kant’s account of natural purposes. Third, I examine the case of plants, which function as paradigmatic organisms in Kant’s theory of natural purposes while failing to satisfy the volitional conditions associated with life. On this basis, I argue that the relation between organization and life in Kant is considerably more complex than is usually assumed.
The talk concludes by considering the implications of this distinction for contemporary debates in the philosophy of biology and systems biology, suggesting that Kant’s contribution is best understood as a theory of biological organization rather than as a straightforward theory of life.
Paula Órdenes is a Walter Benjamin scholar (DFG) in Kantian philosophy at the University of Trier and lecturer at Heidelberg University. At Heidelberg, she also received her doctorate and worked as a research fellow. Her current work is focused on Kant’s philosophy of biology and its potential challenges to contemporary conceptions of life, organisms, and biology as a natural science. Beyond numerous papers and book chapters, Paula Órdenes’ central publication is her 2023 monograph Teleologische Erhabenheit der Vernunft bei Kant.