A Note on Kant’s Teleology
Kant argued that the idea of natural purpose or a wilful universe is impossible to confirm through experience. When we attribute purpose to nature, he said, we do so only by analogy with our own conscious intentions.
However, it is telling that in this observation Kant did not dismiss the idea of natural purposiveness, but rather he was arguing that reality is so deeply enmeshed in the image our mind interprets of our sensory perception of it, that it is impossible for us to grasp natural intention in a truly objective manner.
Our experience tells us that only organisms can have intentions, but while it would be wrong to assume that nature is an organism, it is also true that we can only proceed as if it were one. Or in other words, the Universe probably does not have a will, but the only way we can understand it (or understand our place in a meaningful way within it) is to assume that it does have one.
For Kant human thought is not a constitutive but only a regulative principle. Rather than describe existence we simply organise our detailed knowledge into a system that more or less works.
And the importance of this idea is that we can see how important it is that the view of the system we create does actually work. By work we mean that it can operate in a harmonious fashion with the real natural system rather than in opposition to it.
To do that we have to conceive of a mechanical representation of how the natural world works, which is what science attempts to do. Our System, with a capital S, which is the amalgamation of all our systems – economic, political, theological, or cultural – and which we usually call civilisation, should therefore be developed harmoniously, at all levels, with our scientific perception of the natural world. Unfortunately, this relationship has always been a topsy turvy one in which science, since its development and refinement, has always played second fiddle to civilisation – a system which operates in an essentially anti-natural way. The result is the tremendous climate crisis we face today.
To get back to Kant’s argument, although no natural purpose can be confirmed through what we know of the physics of the Universe, we have to apply our own purpose to this lack of real understanding, but this application of human purpose must be applied in a way that does not disturb the real nature of the world.
Likewise, for a universal purposiveness, (i.e. the conception of a natural purpose regulated by human thought) to exist, it needs to be mirrored through an authentically human reflection of harmonious reality and for that to happen it must involve humanity. A human-imposed purpose must be authentically human and purposive, and not nihilistic. It must avoid individualising an interest or personalising one and steer clear of concepts like God and the Absolute. And remember, natural purpose can only be confirmed through human purpose and not vice versa, as Nietzsche did with his Will to Power.
