He is not just a flat map called truth, goodness, and beauty. To unify truth, goodness, and beauty, he also feels the inevitable problem caused by the binary system, which is the division between sensibility and super sensibility, phenomena and ontology. So, he moralizes aesthetic experience, not only to unify truth, goodness, and beauty, to connect truth, goodness, and beauty, but also to unify sensibility and super sensibility, phenomena, and the essence of the world.
To achieve our goals, relying solely on aesthetic judgment is not enough, we still need purposive judgment. Therefore, the power of aesthetic judgment lies in viewing nature as a unified entity suitable for our various activities and purposes.
So, 'Critique of Judgment' consists of two parts, aesthetic judgment and teleological judgment.
The general meaning of teleological judgment is that it requires us to view nature as a unified entity that is suitable for our various activities and purposes. In this way, nature is already purposeless, while art is purposeless.
If nature is once again a unity with purpose, there is no doubt that nature and freedom are the same thing. In one sentence, they are the kingdom of purpose, and it can be observed that Kant's intention is actually very clear. However, Kant believed that both art and purposefulness can be understood, because art is exquisite and ingenious, and it is impossible without a purpose inside.
However, Kant had to put in a lot of effort to say that nature must have a purpose. Kant was a great thinker who never tire of learning throughout his life, constantly criticizing based on new things. A critique of the understanding of nature in the first critical era. Because during the first critique, his understanding of nature was essentially based on classical mechanics, and to him, nature was a lifeless and lifeless entity. And by his later years, biology had already become very advanced. As a studious person like him, he couldn't help but see that I had a major oversight. Nature is not only an inanimate body, but also an organic body.
From the smallest bacterial cells to our most advanced individuals, we are all such organisms. So, at this point, due to the organic thinking in biology, he has a new perspective on nature, allowing him to reflect on it from a teleological perspective, which is the background of his era's environment.
Kant first saw the necessity of teleological judgment in biology. Kant said that when we see an organ in the biological world, he says that we all need to judge it based on its purpose. We see something as an eye, and we first need to understand it based on the purpose of seeing it. Without the purpose of seeing, we cannot understand the organs of the eyes.
So, he believes that the purpose is a basis for us to judge something. This is an important word in German philosophy. But Kant used the lowest level example here. When we study an animal or a plant organ, such as a flower bud, we would say that it is a tool for absorbing nutrients or spreading pollen. Without such an understanding of the purpose, we cannot understand what it is for.
Another one is that we have discovered an insect or a new crab, and researchers can say that based on a certain characteristic of the animal, which is its eyes, or consider the eyes as a characteristic of the animal. All of these require us to have an understanding of the purpose of things. When making judgments about an animal, the observer is based on it as a feature, based on its key purpose as a feature, and based on a certain function of the animal as a reflective judgment.
The elephant best illustrates Kant's example, because its trunk is particularly long due to its appearance, and other animals do not have such a long trunk precisely because the function of the trunk is extremely important to it.
From a teleological perspective, this is a tool he must use when eating food. In addition, he is a tool for self-defense and so on. Sometimes, based on such characteristics, Shanghai people call him "Elephant Nose Head".
It is precisely because the example used to explain Kant is based on a certain function of an animal, that we understand its certain organ, which is also a reflective judgment. What is the difference between reflective judgment and prescriptive judgment?
Normative judgment is a universal concept, and then we categorize the special under the concept; There is a concept of universality in reflective judgment, but the concept of universality is uncertain.
The purpose is a universal concept, and what purpose is uncertain. Therefore, when we judge an object based on its purpose, it is also a reflective judgment. It is not simply categorizing the special under the general, and they are not based on pure physical properties. If you have this property, muscles can do it. If you have this property and nerves, we can classify you under the nerves.
And Kant believed that precisely because we judge an organ based on its purpose, organ damage or failure does not violate natural laws. Sometimes when our eyes are damaged and we go blind, we still call them 'eyes'. It doesn't affect our ability to call them' eyes'. It's just a matter of principle. He is defined based on his purpose, not a physical attribute of his reality. He is currently in effect. No, we judge whether he is the way he should be based on his purpose.
Just like how to judge 'beauty', it should be the way it should be judged. The example just given is that the eyes are able to see things clearly, rather than judging that they cannot see here. It does not mean that it violates the laws of nature. I call it the eyes, and we are only based on its normal function and the way it should be. As for what he is violating the laws of nature now, whether he is blind or has cataracts or something, that is not something we need to consider.
This is our judgment of the purpose of things, it is reflective, it judges based on what it should be, rather than judging based on what it actually is. Normative judgment is based on the fact that a triangle has three sides combined to form a whole, and anything that meets the regulations is considered a triangle. He should be, you should be able to see it, but if you can't see it now, it can still be his eyes.
Obviously, such purposes and judgments arise, and there is a question of whether the judgments they produce are factual judgments or seemingly judgments, because Kant himself saw that he said the purpose is perceived by others as something we added to him. It's not something that nature itself encountered. What is the purpose of an elephant growing such a long trunk according to nature? Isn't the purpose we added to him? And the teeth of tigers can catch their food, can we add them?
Originally, it didn't matter if a tiger had two tiger teeth. This was just an ordinary natural phenomenon, with a purpose similar to ours. When a fork grows under a tree, it is a phenomenon. Kant said that some people would raise such questions. Your concept of purpose seems to be completely artificial.
If this is the case, it is equivalent to Kant saying that we must make some kind of judgment about organs, as if they were designed for some purpose, and Kant had already thought that others would question him in this way. Things seem to serve a certain purpose, but in reality, it may not necessarily be the case. Kant also considered that others may doubt him and say that it is for other reasons. We must criticize him purposefully because there are other theoretical problems, which is why you say that we must explore things purposefully now.
Kant said that on the one hand, we cannot exclude the explanation of teleology from biology. He still insists on explaining without a purpose. We cannot say that organs are organs, and there is no difference between the stomach and the liver. Of course, it is judged based on their functions or purposes. The stomach helps us digest food, and the liver helps us detoxify, based on its purpose.
If there is no purpose, no understanding of the purpose of cells and organs, how can we judge a cell and view an organ?
Of course, he said that although it seems necessary for us to make judgments about organs based on their purpose, it is also necessary to see why things that are not so purposeful serve their purpose? It's not purposeful, because there are also some things on us that are not very purposeful. So why is he?
Kant said that it is obvious that when you ask questions about things that are not so purposeful, why do they serve a purpose? If you can ask questions, it precisely requires us to regard the entire nature as purposive. Only in this way can we clarify that things without a purpose can also serve something themselves, and that can also serve us.
On the other hand, although we can subjectively assume that everything in nature is arranged according to purpose, such as the characteristics that appear in animals without hesitation to help them survive. Why does the wool grow so thick in this way? Because he has to spend the winter, it is vulgar teleology, which Kant opposes because he is completely subjective.
However, we cannot objectively assume that nature is a system of ends. Especially many people would say that if you want to talk about the purpose, subjective purpose is still acceptable. Sheep hair is subjective, that's how we think. However, objectively speaking, how can we consider nature as a system of purpose, especially since our countless experiences and research have shown us that it seems more appropriate to say that nature is in a state of chaos. It may be more appropriate to say that nature operates in a mechanical and barbaric way, without showing any intentional design.
Kant's meaning, of course, is that a tragedy occurred during his time, which was the Lisbon earthquake, and all of a sudden, a city was ruined because the Lisbon earthquake caused a tsunami. So, death. Because there are not many people in Portugal so far, they died suddenly at 100000 that time. It's a bit like China now, with its population concentrated in the capital, so for such a small country like 100000 at once, the impact is particularly significant and tragic.
