This dissertation concerns the role of analogy in Kant’s “Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment”, especially the role of analogy for the formation of the concept of a natural end ... Show moreThis dissertation concerns the role of analogy in Kant’s “Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment”, especially the role of analogy for the formation of the concept of a natural end (Naturzweck). A ‘natural end’ is a ‘regulative concept’ of the reflective power of judgment, that is, a heuristic device that enables us to make sense of the seemingly end-directed and self-organizing character of living beings. Kant’s description of the concept of Naturzweck appeals to the analogy with our “causality in accordance with ends”. However, he is not clear at all what “causality in accordance with ends” means in this context. The philosophical literature on Kant has typically—and predominantly—conflated this analogy with the traditional analogy from design. On this reading, Kant is drawing an analogy between artifacts and living beings. My proposal is that the best way to construe this analogy is not by identifying it with the old argument from design, but rather with our own reason in its “technical use”. That is to say, the analogy with our causality in accordance with ends does not establish a relation of identity between organisms and artifacts, but between organisms and technical reason itself. Show less
This dissertation addresses the different use of the same philosophical model: immanent teleology. In this work Aristotle, the founder of the study of final causes, is put in relation with the... Show moreThis dissertation addresses the different use of the same philosophical model: immanent teleology. In this work Aristotle, the founder of the study of final causes, is put in relation with the modern French evolutionary thinker Henri Bergson, the philosopher of time. The dissertation tackles the two ways of understanding final causality in regard with the structure of their arguments (analogy, perfection and regularity) and it also shows the way in which these arguments are applied to different fields of knowledge (from embryology to anthropology, from anthropology to cosmology). Show less
Political philosophy is not only a form of theory, but also a practice. If we wish to learn something about politics, therefore, we should focus not only on its propositional content, but also on... Show morePolitical philosophy is not only a form of theory, but also a practice. If we wish to learn something about politics, therefore, we should focus not only on its propositional content, but also on its performative meaning. This dissertation offers a reconstruction of the propositional contents of the writings of Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, and Hannah Arendt while bringing these into discussion with their performative meanings, such as polemical forms of reasoning, analogical and metaphorical uses of language, and hidden assumptions that become manifest as soon as people start acting upon them. First, it is demonstrated that Popper prescribes a conception of politics that is modeled after science, while he performs a polemical conception of politics. Next, it is shown that Strauss is aware of the performative condition of philosophy, whereas his way of framing it in terms of the mutually hostile opposition between phi losophy and politics and his remedy of the art of writing amount to an unrealistic escape from it. Finally, it is argued that Arendt not only shows to be aware of the contingent character of human action, but also develops forms of political thinking that do justice to it. Show less
