Session for the Enlightenment congress in Los Angeles (August 2003) Kant and biology This congress as we see it would give us the opportunity to have an update on the works that, for the past ten years, have tried to think about the effect of the

Session for the Enlightenment congress in Los Angeles (August 2003)
Kant and biology


This congress as we see it would give us the opportunity to have an update on the works that, for the past ten years, have tried to think about the effect of the development of biology on Kant and Kantianism. There is, as a first question, the context of the Critique of judgment, very thoroughly studied, since Baümler (Irrationälitatsproblem in der KU, 1932) et Adickes (Kant als Naturforscher, 1923), by philosophers such as on the continent Gérard Lebrun (Kant et la fin de la métaphysique, 1972), or, in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, Mac Farland (Kant's concept of teleology, 1970), then Mac Laughlin (Kant's critique of teleology in biolgical explanation, 1990). Then there is the question of how biology itself and the evolution in biological knowledge affected Kant and the genesis of his thinking, this from the first biological examples of the 1755 Allgemeinnaturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, and also the question of how Kantianism affected the school of biology initiated by Blumenbach, focused on embryology, that evolved with Johannes Müller and Von Baer, till Schwann, and that is characterized by its well-argued hostility to Darwinism as much as by its opening up to the cellular theory. Through the study of his work, the issue would be to deal as much with the tensions betwen these two tutelary "philosophical" figures that Kant and Goethe were for these scientists, as with the relationship, within the scientific framework hence laid out, between embryology and morphology. The history of sciences would then draw benefits from the philosophical inquiry on the Kantian elaboration of concepts that will have a critical importance for the future of biological research in the 18th century : function/purpose, organization, germs and predispositions& The relations between Kant and physics have been intensely studied since the neo-Kantianism, and they keep on throwing light on both the philosophical meaning of critical approach and the movement of problems in physics in the 18th century. If biology has a minor role in the Kantian corpus, it appears to us that recent and convergent works begin to bear fruit and to enhance an epistemological, historical and metaphysical interest similar to the one that, through Cohen, Paton, Kemp Smith, Beck, Vuillemin, Puech and many others, was able to make of the relations between Kantianism and physics an almost obligatory passageway for the inquiry on scientific concepts in the 18th century. That is why, in our opinion, here is a good opportunity to bring together the researchers who, in philosophy as well as in history and epistemology of biology, are interested by this issue. An issue that, confronting science and philosophy, falls well within the spirit of a "circulation" of concepts that was decisive in the 18th century, and in that respect is very much meant to interest reserachers working on that century. It seems that the form of a a round table, with a few communications, would be well indicated to launch such an informal exchange, and make it a fruitful experience.


Prospective contributors :
Tobias Cheung
Philippe Huneman
John Zammito
Victoria Wike