Known Effects without Known Causes: Kant's Philosophy of “Biology” and Its Scientific Legacy

• Applicant: Dr. Paula Mariel Órdenes Azúa
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 573944210

The present project investigates Kant’s philosophy of biology by asking: In what ways does Kant’s critical philosophy challenge traditional and contemporary conceptions of life, organisms, and biology as a science? The central aim is to develop and defend three key theses that question conventional assumptions underlying the philosophical foundations of biology in the Kantian tradition. First, in Kant’s theoretical framework, the concept of life is inextricably linked to the faculty of desire. In contrast to prevailing biological definitions that classify all self-organizing systems as "alive," Kant restricts true life to beings capable of acting in accordance with representations. Since plants lack the faculty of desire, they do not qualify as living beings in the full Kantian sense. This thesis invites a reconsideration of what it means to philosophize about life—beyond the criteria of organization and metabolic self-maintenance. Second, neither Blumenbach nor Darwin fulfilled the ideal of a “Newton of the blade of grass.” This is not merely because they failed to unify biological principles, but because they did not address the deeper metaphysical problem Kant identifies: the origin of living organisms from non-living matter. Their contributions to empirical biology and natural history remained within explanatory frameworks that bypassed Kant’s ontological distinction between matter and life. Third, Kant’s legacy remains discernible in modern systematic biology. Biologists such as von Bertalanffy and Maturana & Varela have radicalized the concept of self-organization and redefined the limits of mechanistic explanation. Conversely, Robinson has taken a rigorously cautious stance toward attributing representational capacities to non-human organisms, particularly plants. His resistance to anthropomorphism reflects a nuanced philosophical inheritance of Kant’s refusal to posit faculties of desire or representation without sufficient justification. Together, these theses offer a reinterpretation of Kant’s philosophy of biology and its implicit legacy in the life sciences.

• DFG Programme: Position