Aesthetics, ethics, and the role of Teleology in the third Critique

Abstract

Kant’s dualism in anthropology and morality is said to be bridged only by means of a teleologywhich seems to betray the historical constitution of its subjectivity. And yet the Kantianarticulation of problems of theoretical and practical reason can be explored only insofar asthey help us understand the correlated problems of the unity of reason, the relation of aestheticsand ethics in the light of the three Critiques, and the teleological conception of history.In this paper, I argue for a teleological reading of the systematic architectonic so as tomake sense of the concept of purposiveness as the a priori principle of judgment in its logical,aesthetic, and teleological reflection and of the unifying, a priori principles of each faculty–namely, conformity to law, final purpose, and conformity to purpose or purposiveness(Gesetzmäßigkeit, Endzweck, Zweckmäßigkeit) – respectively dealt with in the three Critiques.