A Kantian Account of the Knowledge of Life and the Life Sciences

This paper offers an interpretation of Kants philosophy of biology in the context of current debates concerning experiment and causality in scientific practice. My interpretation is strongly indebted to Neo-Kantian contributions (from H. Cohen and A. Stadler to M. Hartmann), and does not intend to provide a historically exhaustive reconstruction of Kants philosophy of biology. My aim is to show that the third Critique offers a relevant theoretical framework to explore the limits and scopes of experimental practice in life sciences. From a Kantian (and Neo-Kantian) point of view, biology is causal research that objectifies causal systems. The idea of “organic being” is only regula- tive, and therefore has a different epistemic status than the concept of “model organisms.” In general, the Kantian view neither proposes nor presupposes a theoretical understanding of the idea of “life.” Funda- mental concepts such as “program,” “gene,” “organicism,” etc., should be referred to causal entities or processes that have no meaning outside concrete experimental contexts. Finally, the Kantian (and Neo-Kantian) approach rejects any alternative mode of knowing living nature, whether based upon vitalistic intuitions of inner life (as described by Bergson, Canguilhem or Deleuze), or based upon indirect modes of lived experi- ence (as described by phenomenology).