Introduction V
Original German
V. A XXIX Das Princip der formalen Zweckmäßigkeit der Natur ist ein transscendentales Princip der Urtheilskraft.
Ein transscendentales Princip ist dasjenige, durch welches die allgemeine Bedingung a priori vorgestellt wird, unter der allein Dinge Objecte unserer Erkenntniß überhaupt werden können. Dagegen heißt ein Princip metaphysisch, wenn es die Bedingung a priori vorstellt, unter der allein Objecte, deren Begriff empirisch gegeben sein muß, a priori weiter bestimmt werden können. So ist das Princip der Erkenntniß der Körper als Substanzen und als veränderlicher Substanzen transscendental, wenn dadurch gesagt wird, daß ihre Veränderung eine Ursache haben müsse; es ist aber metaphysisch, wenn dadurch gesagt wird, ihre Veränderung müsse eine äußere Ursache haben: weil im ersteren Falle der Körper nur durch ontologische Prädicate (reine Verstandesbegriffe), z. B. als Substanz, gedacht werden darf, um den Satz a priori zu erkennen; im zweiten aber der empirische Begriff eines Körpers (als eines beweglichen Dinges im Raum) diesem Satze zum Grunde gelegt werden muß, alsdann aber, daß dem Körper das letztere Prädicat (der Bewegung nur durch äußere Ursache) zukomme, völlig a priori eingesehen werden kann. — So ist, wie ich sogleich zeigen werde, das Princip der Zweckmäßigkeit der Natur (in der Mannigfaltigkeit ihrer empirischen A XXX Gesetze) ein transscendentales Princip. Denn der Begriff von den Objecten, sofern sie als unter diesem Princip stehend gedacht werden, ist nur der reine Begriff von Gegenständen des möglichen Erfahrungserkenntnisses 182 überhaupt und enthält nichts Empirisches. Dagegen wäre das Princip der praktischen Zweckmäßigkeit, die in der Idee der Bestimmung eines freien Willens gedacht werden muß, ein metaphysisches Princip: weil der Begriff eines Begehrungsvermögens als eines Willens doch empirisch gegeben werden muß (nicht zu den transscendentalen Prädicaten gehört). Beide Principien aber sind dennoch nicht empirisch, sondern Principien a priori: weil es zur Verbindung des Prädicats mit dem empirischen Begriffe des Subjects ihrer Urtheile keiner weiteren Erfahrung bedarf, sondern jene völlig a priori eingesehen werden kann.
Daß der Begriff einer Zweckmäßigkeit der Natur zu den transscendentalen Principien gehöre, kann man aus den Maximen der Urtheilskraft, die der Nachforschung der Natur a priori zum Grunde gelegt werden, und die dennoch auf nichts als die Möglichkeit der Erfahrung, mithin der Erkenntniß der Natur, aber nicht bloß als Natur überhaupt, sondern als durch eine Mannigfaltigkeit besonderer Gesetze bestimmten Natur, gehen, hinreichend ersehen. — Sie kommen, als Sentenzen der metaphysischen Weisheit, bei Gelegenheit mancher Regeln, deren Nothwendigkeit A XXXI man nicht aus Begriffen darthun kann, im Laufe dieser Wissenschaft oft genug, aber nur zerstreut vor. »Die Natur nimmt den kürzesten Weg (lex parsimoniae); sie thut gleichwohl keinen Sprung, weder in der Folge ihrer Veränderungen, noch der Zusammenstellung specifisch verschiedener Formen (lex continui in natura); ihre große Mannigfaltigkeit in empirischen Gesetzen ist gleichwohl Einheit unter wenigen Principien (principia praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda)«; u. d. g. m.
Wenn man aber von diesen Grundsätzen den Ursprung anzugeben denkt und es auf dem psychologischen Wege versucht, so ist dies dem Sinne derselben gänzlich zuwider. Denn sie sagen nicht, was geschieht, d. i. nach welcher Regel unsere Erkenntnißkräfte ihr Spiel wirklich treiben, und wie geurtheilt wird, sondern wie geurtheilt werden soll; und da kommt diese logische objective Nothwendigkeit nicht heraus, wenn die Principien bloß empirisch sind. Also ist die Zweckmäßigkeit der Natur für unsere Erkenntnißvermögen und ihren Gebrauch, welche offenbar aus ihnen hervorleuchtet, ein transscendentales Princip der Urtheile und bedarf also auch einer transscendentalen Deduction, vermittelst deren der Grund so zu urtheilen in den Erkenntnißquellen a priori aufgesucht werden muß.
Wir finden nämlich in den Gründen der Möglichkeit einer Erfahrung 183 zuerst freilich etwas Nothwendiges, nämlich die allgemeinen A XXXII Gesetze, ohne welche Natur überhaupt (als Gegenstand der Sinne) nicht gedacht werden kann; und diese beruhen auf den Kategorieen, angewandt auf die formalen Bedingungen aller uns möglichen Anschauung, sofern sie gleichfalls a priori gegeben ist. Unter diesen Gesetzen nun ist die Urtheilskraft bestimmend; denn sie hat nichts zu thun, als unter gegebnen Gesetzen zu subsumiren. Z. B. der Verstand sagt: Alle Veränderung hat ihre Ursache (allgemeines Naturgesetz); die transscendentale Urtheilskraft hat nun nichts weiter zu thun, als die Bedingung der Subsumtion unter dem vorgelegten Verstandesbegriff a priori anzugeben: und das ist die Succession der Bestimmungen eines und desselben Dinges. Für die Natur nun überhaupt (als Gegenstand möglicher Erfahrung) wird jenes Gesetz als schlechterdings nothwendig erkannt. — Nun sind aber die Gegenstände der empirischen Erkenntniß außer jener formalen Zeitbedingung noch auf mancherlei Art bestimmt, oder, so viel man a priori urtheilen kann, bestimmbar, so daß specifisch-verschiedene Naturen außer dem, was sie als zur Natur überhaupt gehörig gemein haben, noch auf unendlich mannigfaltige Weise Ursachen sein können; und eine jede dieser Arten muß (nach dem Begriffe einer Ursache überhaupt) ihre Regel haben, die Gesetz ist, mithin Nothwendigkeit bei sich führt: ob wir gleich nach der Beschaffenheit und den Schranken unserer Erkenntnißvermögen diese Nothwendigkeit gar nicht einsehen. Also A XXXIII müssen wir in der Natur in Ansehung ihrer bloß empirischen Gesetze eine Möglichkeit unendlich mannigfaltiger empirischer Gesetze denken, die für unsere Einsicht dennoch zufällig sind (a priori nicht erkannt werden können); und in deren Ansehung beurtheilen wir die Natureinheit nach empirischen Gesetzen und die Möglichkeit der Einheit der Erfahrung (als Systems nach empirischen Gesetzen) als zufällig. Weil aber doch eine solche Einheit nothwendig vorausgesetzt und angenommen werden muß, da sonst kein durchgängiger Zusammenhang empirischer Erkenntnisse zu einem Ganzen der Erfahrung Statt finden würde, indem die allgemeinen Naturgesetze zwar einen solchen Zusammenhang unter den Dingen ihrer Gattung nach, als Naturdingen überhaupt, aber nicht specifisch, als solchen besonderen Naturwesen, an die Hand geben: so muß die Urtheilskraft für ihren eigenen Gebrauch es als Princip a priori annehmen, daß das für die menschliche Einsicht Zufällige in den besonderen (empirischen) Naturgesetzen dennoch eine für uns zwar nicht zu ergründende, aber doch 184 denkbare gesetzliche Einheit in der Verbindung ihres Mannigfaltigen zu einer an sich möglichen Erfahrung enthalte. Folglich, weil die gesetzliche Einheit in einer Verbindung, die wir zwar einer nothwendigen Absicht (einem Bedürfniß des Verstandes) gemäß, aber zugleich doch als an sich zufällig erkennen, als Zweckmäßigkeit der Objecte (hier der Natur) vorgestellt A XXXIV wird: so muß die Urtheilskraft, die in Ansehung der Dinge unter möglichen (noch zu entdeckenden) empirischen Gesetzen bloß reflectirend ist, die Natur in Ansehung der letzteren nach einem Princip der Zweckmäßigkeit für unser Erkenntnißvermögen denken, welches dann in obigen Maximen der Urtheilskraft ausgedrückt wird. Dieser transscendentale Begriff einer Zweckmäßigkeit der Natur ist nun weder ein Naturbegriff, noch ein Freiheitsbegriff, weil er gar nichts dem Objecte (der Natur) beilegt, sondern nur die einzige Art, wie wir in der Reflexion über die Gegenstände der Natur in Absicht auf eine durchgängig zusammenhängende Erfahrung verfahren müssen, vorstellt, folglich ein subjectives Princip (Maxime) der Urtheilskraft; daher wir auch, gleich als ob es ein glücklicher unsre Absicht begünstigender Zufall wäre, erfreuet (eigentlich eines Bedürfnisses entledigt) werden, wenn wir eine solche systematische Einheit unter bloß empirischen Gesetzen antreffen: ob wir gleich nothwendig annehmen mußten, es sei eine solche Einheit, ohne daß wir sie doch einzusehen und zu beweisen vermochten.
Um sich von der Richtigkeit dieser Deduction des vorliegenden Begriffs und der Nothwendigkeit ihn als transscendentales Erkenntnißprincip anzunehmen zu überzeugen, bedenke man nur die Größe der Aufgabe: aus gegebenen Wahrnehmungen einer allenfalls unendliche Mannigfaltigkeit empirischer Gesetze enthaltenden Natur eine zusammenhängende A XXXV Erfahrung zu machen, welche Aufgabe a priori in unserm Verstande liegt. Der Verstand ist zwar a priori im Besitze allgemeiner Gesetze der Natur, ohne welche sie gar kein Gegenstand einer Erfahrung sein könnte: aber er bedarf doch auch überdem noch einer gewissen Ordnung der Natur in den besonderen Regeln derselben, die ihm nur empirisch bekannt werden können, und die in Ansehung seiner zufällig sind. Diese Regeln, ohne welche kein Fortgang von der allgemeinen Analogie einer möglichen Erfahrung überhaupt zur besonderen Statt finden würde, muß er sich als Gesetze (d. i. als nothwendig) denken: weil sie sonst keine Naturordnung ausmachen würden, ob er gleich ihre Nothwendigkeit nicht erkennt, oder jemals einsehen könnte. Ob er also gleich in Ansehung derselben 185 (Objecte) a priori nichts bestimmen kann, so muß er doch, um diesen empirischen sogenannten Gesetzen nachzugehen, ein Princip a priori, daß nämlich nach ihnen eine erkennbare Ordnung der Natur möglich sei, aller Reflexion über dieselbe zum Grunde legen, dergleichen Princip nachfolgende Sätze ausdrücken: daß es in ihr eine für uns faßliche Unterordnung von Gattungen und Arten gebe; daß jene sich einander wiederum nach einem gemeinschaftlichen Princip nähern, damit ein Übergang von einer zu der anderen und dadurch zu einer höheren Gattung möglich sei; daß, da für die specifische Verschiedenheit der Naturwirkungen eben so viel verschiedene Arten der Causalität annehmen zu A XXXVI müssen unserem Verstande anfänglich unvermeidlich scheint, sie dennoch unter einer geringen Zahl von Principien stehen mögen, mit deren Aufsuchung wir uns zu beschäftigen haben, u. s. w. Diese Zusammenstimmung der Natur zu unserem Erkenntnißvermögen wird von der Urtheilskraft zum Behuf ihrer Reflexion über dieselbe nach ihren empirischen Gesetzen a priori vorausgesetzt, indem sie der Verstand zugleich objectiv als zufällig anerkennt, und bloß die Urtheilskraft sie der Natur als transscendentale Zweckmäßigkeit (in Beziehung auf das Erkenntnißvermögen des Subjects) beilegt: weil wir, ohne diese vorauszusetzen, keine Ordnung der Natur nach empirischen Gesetzen, mithin keinen Leitfaden für eine mit diesen nach aller ihrer Mannigfaltigkeit anzustellende Erfahrung und Nachforschung derselben haben würden.
Denn es läßt sich wohl denken: daß ungeachtet aller der Gleichförmigkeit der Naturdinge nach den allgemeinen Gesetzen, ohne welche die Form eines Erfahrungserkenntnisses überhaupt gar nicht Statt finden würde, die specifische Verschiedenheit der empirischen Gesetze der Natur sammt ihren Wirkungen dennoch so groß sein könnte, daß es für unseren Verstand unmöglich wäre, in ihr eine faßliche Ordnung zu entdecken, ihre Producte in Gattungen und Arten einzutheilen, um die Principien der Erklärung und des Verständnisses des einen auch zur Erklärung und Begreifung des andern zu gebrauchen und aus einem für uns so verworrenen A XXXVII (eigentlich nur unendlich mannigfaltigen, unserer Fassungskraft nicht angemessenen) Stoffe eine zusammenhängende Erfahrung zu machen.
Die Urtheilskraft hat also auch ein Princip a priori für die Möglichkeit der Natur, aber nur in subjectiver Rücksicht in sich, wodurch sie, nicht der Natur (als Autonomie), sondern ihr selbst (als Heautonomie) 186 für die Reflexion über jene, ein Gesetz vorschreibt, welches man das Gesetz der Specification der Natur in Ansehung ihrer empirischen Gesetze nennen könnte, das sie a priori an ihr nicht erkennt, sondern zum Behuf einer für unseren Verstand erkennbaren Ordnung derselben in der Eintheilung, die sie von ihren allgemeinen Gesetzen macht, annimmt, wenn sie diesen eine Mannigfaltigkeit der besondern unterordnen will. Wenn man also sagt: die Natur specificirt ihre allgemeinen Gesetze nach dem Princip der Zweckmäßigkeit für unser Erkenntnißvermögen, d. i. zur Angemessenheit mit dem menschlichen Verstande in seinem nothwendigen Geschäfte, zum Besonderen, welches ihm die Wahrnehmung darbietet, das Allgemeine und zum Verschiedenen (für jede Species zwar Allgemeinen) wiederum Verknüpfung in der Einheit des Princips zu finden: so schreibt man dadurch weder der Natur ein Gesetz vor, noch lernt man eines von ihr durch Beobachtung (obzwar jenes Princip durch diese bestätigt werden kann). Denn es ist nicht ein Princip der bestimmenden, A XXXVIII sondern bloß der reflectirenden Urtheilskraft; man will nur, daß man, die Natur mag ihren allgemeinen Gesetzen nach eingerichtet sein, wie sie wolle, durchaus nach jenem Princip und den sich darauf gründenden Maximen ihren empirischen Gesetzen nachspüren müsse, weil wir, nur so weit als jenes Statt findet, mit dem Gebrauche unseres Verstandes in der Erfahrung fortkommen und Erkenntniß erwerben können.
Musean translation
A complete machine-assisted translation from the German text of the 1793 edition in the 1913 Academy printing, including Kant’s notes. The faculty table is given as lines.
V. A XXIX The Principle of the Formal Purposiveness of Nature Is a Transcendental Principle of the Power of Judgment.
A transcendental principle is one through which the universal condition a priori is represented under which alone things can become objects of our cognition in general. A principle, by contrast, is called metaphysical if it represents the condition a priori under which alone objects whose concept must be given empirically can be further determined a priori. Thus the principle of the cognition of bodies as substances, and as changeable substances, is transcendental when it states that their alteration must have a cause; but it is metaphysical when it states that their alteration must have an external cause. For in the first case a body need be thought only through ontological predicates (pure concepts of the understanding), for example as substance, in order to cognize the proposition a priori; in the second, however, the empirical concept of a body (as a movable thing in space) must underlie the proposition, but then it can be understood wholly a priori that the latter predicate (motion only through an external cause) belongs to the body.—Likewise, as I shall show presently, the principle of nature's purposiveness (in the manifoldness of its empirical A XXX laws) is a transcendental principle. For the concept of objects, insofar as they are thought as standing under this principle, is only the pure concept of objects of possible experiential cognition 182 in general and contains nothing empirical. By contrast, the principle of practical purposiveness, which must be thought in the idea of the determination of a free will, would be a metaphysical principle: for the concept of a faculty of desire as a will must nevertheless be given empirically (it does not belong among transcendental predicates). Yet neither principle is empirical; both are principles a priori, because no further experience is required to connect the predicate with the empirical concept of the subject of their judgments; rather, that connection can be understood entirely a priori.
That the concept of a purposiveness of nature belongs among transcendental principles is sufficiently evident from the maxims of the power of judgment that are laid a priori at the foundation of the investigation of nature. These concern nothing but the possibility of experience, hence of cognition of nature—not merely as nature in general, but as nature determined by a manifold of particular laws.—In the course of this science they occur often enough, though scattered, as sayings of metaphysical wisdom on the occasion of various rules whose necessity A XXXI cannot be demonstrated from concepts. “Nature takes the shortest path (law of economy); nevertheless it makes no leap, either in the succession of its changes or in the arrangement of specifically different forms (law of continuity in nature); its great manifoldness in empirical laws is nevertheless unity under a few principles (principles must not be multiplied beyond necessity)”; and the like.
But if one thinks to explain the origin of these principles by attempting a psychological approach, this runs wholly counter to their meaning. For they do not say what happens—that is, according to what rule our cognitive powers actually engage in their play, and how people judge—but how they ought to judge. And this logical objective necessity cannot emerge if the principles are merely empirical. Thus the purposiveness of nature for our cognitive faculties and their use, which plainly shines through these principles, is a transcendental principle of judgments and therefore also requires a transcendental deduction, through which the ground for judging in this way must be sought in the sources of cognition a priori.
In the grounds of the possibility of an experience 183 we do indeed first find something necessary: the universal A XXXII laws without which nature in general (as an object of the senses) cannot be thought. These rest on the categories, applied to the formal conditions of all intuition possible for us, insofar as that intuition is likewise given a priori. Under these laws the power of judgment is determining, for it has nothing to do but subsume under given laws. For example, the understanding says: every alteration has its cause (a universal law of nature); transcendental judgment then has only to state a priori the condition of subsumption under the concept of the understanding presented to it: and this is the succession of the determinations of one and the same thing. For nature in general (as an object of possible experience), this law is cognized as absolutely necessary.—But beyond that formal condition of time, the objects of empirical cognition are also determined—or, as far as we can judge a priori, determinable—in many ways, so that specifically different natures, beyond what they have in common as belonging to nature in general, can be causes in infinitely manifold ways. Each of these ways must (according to the concept of a cause in general) have its rule, which is a law and hence carries necessity with it, although, given the constitution and limits of our cognitive faculties, we have no insight into this necessity. Thus A XXXIII with regard to nature's merely empirical laws we must think the possibility of infinitely manifold empirical laws that are nevertheless contingent for our insight (cannot be cognized a priori). With regard to these we judge the unity of nature according to empirical laws, and the possibility of the unity of experience (as a system according to empirical laws), to be contingent. Yet such a unity must necessarily be presupposed and assumed; otherwise there would be no thoroughgoing connection of empirical cognitions into a whole of experience, since universal natural laws provide such a connection among things generically, as natural things in general, but not specifically, as such particular natural beings. Hence the power of judgment must assume as a principle a priori for its own use that what is contingent for human insight in the particular (empirical) laws of nature nevertheless contains a lawful unity, unfathomable for us but still 184 thinkable, in the connection of their manifold into an experience possible in itself. Consequently, since lawful unity in a connection that we cognize as conforming to a necessary intention (a need of the understanding), yet at the same time as contingent in itself, is represented as the purposiveness of objects (here, of nature) A XXXIV, the power of judgment, which is merely reflective with regard to things under possible empirical laws (still to be discovered), must think nature with regard to these laws according to a principle of purposiveness for our faculty of cognition. This is expressed in the maxims of judgment given above. Now this transcendental concept of a purposiveness of nature is neither a concept of nature nor a concept of freedom, because it attributes nothing at all to the object (nature), but represents only the sole way in which we must proceed in reflecting on the objects of nature with a view to a thoroughly connected experience. It is therefore a subjective principle (maxim) of the power of judgment. This is also why, when we encounter such a systematic unity under merely empirical laws, we are delighted (properly speaking, relieved of a need), as though by a fortunate chance favoring our intention, although we had necessarily to assume that such a unity existed without being able to understand or prove it.
To convince oneself of the correctness of this deduction of the concept before us, and of the necessity of assuming it as a transcendental principle of cognition, one need only consider the magnitude of the task: to make, out of given perceptions of a nature containing a possibly infinite manifoldness of empirical laws, a connected A XXXV experience—a task that lies a priori in our understanding. The understanding does indeed possess a priori universal laws of nature, without which nature could not be an object of experience at all; yet beyond these it also needs a certain order of nature in its particular rules, which can become known to it only empirically and which are contingent in relation to it. These rules, without which there would be no advance from the general analogy of a possible experience in general to particular experience, it must think as laws (that is, as necessary), since otherwise they would constitute no order of nature, although it does not cognize their necessity and could never gain insight into it. Thus although it can determine nothing a priori concerning them 185 (objects), in order to pursue these so-called empirical laws it must nevertheless lay a principle a priori at the foundation of all reflection on nature: namely, that an order of nature cognizable according to them is possible. Such a principle is expressed by the following propositions: that in nature there is a subordination of genera and species comprehensible to us; that those genera in turn approach one another according to a common principle, so that a transition from one to another and thereby to a higher genus is possible; that although, given the specific diversity of natural effects, the need to assume as many different kinds of causality A XXXVI initially seems unavoidable to our understanding, these may nevertheless stand under a small number of principles, with whose discovery we must occupy ourselves; and so forth. This agreement of nature with our faculty of cognition is presupposed a priori by the power of judgment for the sake of its reflection on nature according to its empirical laws. The understanding at the same time recognizes it as objectively contingent, and only the power of judgment attributes it to nature as transcendental purposiveness (in relation to the subject's faculty of cognition). For without presupposing this, we would have no order of nature according to empirical laws, and hence no guiding thread for experience and the investigation of those laws in all their manifoldness.
For it is quite conceivable that, despite all the uniformity of natural things according to universal laws, without which the form of experiential cognition in general could not occur at all, the specific diversity of nature's empirical laws together with their effects might nevertheless be so great that it would be impossible for our understanding to discover a comprehensible order in it, to divide its products into genera and species so as to use the principles explaining and understanding one also to explain and comprehend another, and to make a connected experience out of material so confused for us A XXXVII (properly, only infinitely manifold and not commensurate with our power of comprehension).
The power of judgment therefore also contains within itself a principle a priori for the possibility of nature, but only in a subjective respect, through which it prescribes a law not to nature (as autonomy), but to itself (as heautonomy) 186 for reflection on nature. This could be called the law of the specification of nature with regard to its empirical laws. Judgment does not cognize this law in nature a priori, but assumes it for the sake of an order of nature cognizable by our understanding, in the division it makes of nature's universal laws when it seeks to subordinate a manifold of particular laws to them. Thus when we say that nature specifies its universal laws according to the principle of purposiveness for our faculty of cognition—that is, in a manner commensurate with human understanding in its necessary task of finding the universal for the particular presented to it by perception, and, for what is diverse (though universal for each species), a connection in the unity of a principle—we thereby neither prescribe a law to nature nor learn one from it by observation (although that principle can be confirmed by observation). For it is not a principle of determining A XXXVIII but only of reflective judgment. We mean only that, however nature may be arranged according to its universal laws, we must pursue its empirical laws entirely according to that principle and the maxims grounded on it, because only insofar as that principle holds can we advance in the use of our understanding in experience and acquire cognition.
Plain English translation
A complete, independent machine-assisted translation from the German text of the 1793 edition in the 1913 Academy printing, including Kant’s notes. The faculty table is given as lines.
V. A XXIX The principle of nature's formal purposiveness is a transcendental principle of the power of judgment.
A transcendental principle is one through which we represent a priori the universal condition under which alone things can become objects of our cognition in general. A principle is called metaphysical, by contrast, if it represents a priori the condition under which alone objects whose concept must be given empirically can be further determined a priori. Consider the principle for knowing bodies as substances and as changing substances. It is transcendental if it says their change must have a cause. But it is metaphysical if it says their change must have an external cause. In the first case, to know the proposition a priori, the body need only be thought through ontological predicates, that is, pure concepts of the understanding, such as substance. In the second, however, the proposition must be based on the empirical concept of a body as a movable thing in space. But once this is given, we can understand entirely a priori that the latter predicate—motion only through an external cause—belongs to the body.—Similarly, as I will show shortly, the principle of nature's purposiveness in the diversity of its empirical A XXX laws is a transcendental principle. For the concept of objects, insofar as they are thought to stand under this principle, is only the pure concept of objects of possible experiential cognition 182 in general, and contains nothing empirical. By contrast, the principle of practical purposiveness, which must be thought in the idea of the determination of a free will, would be a metaphysical principle. For the concept of a faculty of desire as a will must be given empirically and does not belong to the transcendental predicates. Yet neither principle is empirical; both are a priori principles. No further experience is needed to connect the predicate with the empirical concept of the subject in their judgments. That connection can be understood entirely a priori.
We can see sufficiently that the concept of nature's purposiveness belongs among transcendental principles from the maxims of judgment that underlie the investigation of nature a priori. These concern nothing but the possibility of experience, and thus of knowing nature—not simply as nature in general, but as nature determined by a diversity of particular laws.—These maxims occur often enough in the course of this science, though only scattered through it, as sayings of metaphysical wisdom. They appear in connection with various rules whose necessity A XXXI cannot be demonstrated from concepts. "Nature takes the shortest way (law of economy); yet it makes no leap, either in the sequence of its changes or in the arrangement of forms that differ in kind (law of continuity in nature); its great diversity in empirical laws is nevertheless unity under a few principles (principles must not be multiplied beyond necessity)," and other sayings of this kind.
But if we try to explain the origin of these principles through psychology, we go entirely against their meaning. They do not say what happens—that is, according to what rule our cognitive powers actually operate, and how people judge. They say how people ought to judge. This logical, objective necessity cannot emerge if the principles are merely empirical. The purposiveness of nature for our cognitive faculties and their use, which clearly shines through these maxims, is therefore a transcendental principle of judgments. It consequently also requires a transcendental deduction, through which the ground for judging in this way must be sought in the a priori sources of cognition.
In the grounds of the possibility of experience 183, we first find something necessary: the universal A XXXII laws without which nature in general, as an object of the senses, cannot be thought. These rest on the categories applied to the formal conditions of all intuition possible for us, insofar as this intuition too is given a priori. Under these laws the power of judgment is determining. It has only to place things under given laws. For example, the understanding says, "Every change has its cause," a universal law of nature. Transcendental judgment then has only to state a priori the condition for placing something under this given concept of the understanding. That condition is the succession of determinations of one and the same thing. For nature in general, as an object of possible experience, that law is known to be absolutely necessary.—But besides this formal condition of time, the objects of empirical cognition are determined in many other ways, or, as far as we can judge a priori, are capable of being so determined. Things of specifically different natures, besides what they share as belonging to nature in general, can therefore be causes in infinitely many different ways. Each of these ways must, according to the concept of a cause in general, have its rule, which is a law and therefore carries necessity with it. Yet given the character and limits of our cognitive faculties, we have no insight at all into this necessity. Thus A XXXIII, with regard to nature's merely empirical laws, we must think of the possibility of infinitely many different empirical laws that are nevertheless contingent to our insight: they cannot be known a priori. In this respect we judge nature's unity according to empirical laws, and the possibility of the unity of experience as a system according to empirical laws, to be contingent. Yet such a unity must necessarily be presupposed and assumed. Otherwise there would be no complete connection of empirical cognitions into a whole of experience. Universal natural laws provide such a connection among things generically, as natural things in general, but not specifically, as particular natural beings of this kind. For its own use, then, the power of judgment must adopt the following a priori principle. What is contingent to human insight in particular empirical laws of nature nevertheless contains a lawful unity that we cannot fathom but 184 can think, connecting their diversity into an experience possible in itself. Now a lawful unity in a connection that we recognize as agreeing with a necessary aim—a need of the understanding—yet also as contingent in itself, is represented as a purposiveness of the objects, here of nature A XXXIV. The power of judgment, which is merely reflective regarding things under possible empirical laws still to be discovered, must therefore think nature, with respect to these laws, according to a principle of purposiveness for our faculty of cognition. This is expressed in the maxims of judgment given above. This transcendental concept of nature's purposiveness is neither a concept of nature nor a concept of freedom. It attributes nothing at all to the object, nature. It represents only the way we must proceed in reflecting on natural objects with a view to completely connected experience. It is therefore a subjective principle, or maxim, of judgment. That is also why finding such systematic unity under merely empirical laws makes us glad—strictly speaking, relieves a need—as though it were a lucky accident favoring our aim. Yet we necessarily had to assume that such unity existed, without being able to understand or prove it.
To be convinced that this deduction of the concept in question is correct, and that we must adopt it as a transcendental principle of cognition, consider the size of the task. We must turn given perceptions of a nature that may contain an infinite diversity of empirical laws into connected A XXXV experience. This task lies a priori in our understanding. The understanding possesses a priori universal laws of nature, without which nature could not be an object of experience at all. But it also needs a certain order in nature's particular rules, which it can know only empirically and which are contingent in relation to it. Without these rules there would be no advance from the general analogy of a possible experience in general to particular experience. It must think of these rules as laws, that is, as necessary, because otherwise they would not constitute an order of nature, although it does not know their necessity and could never understand it. So although it cannot determine anything about these 185 objects a priori, in tracing these so-called empirical laws it must base all reflection on nature on an a priori principle: that a knowable order of nature according to them is possible. Such a principle is expressed by the following propositions. Nature contains a subordination of genera and species that we can grasp. The genera in turn approach one another according to a common principle, allowing a passage from one to another and thereby to a higher genus. Assuming as many different kinds of causality as there are specific differences in natural effects A XXXVI at first seems unavoidable to our understanding. Yet these may still fall under a small number of principles that we must occupy ourselves with finding, and so forth. Judgment presupposes a priori this agreement of nature with our faculty of cognition for the sake of reflecting on nature according to its empirical laws. At the same time, the understanding recognizes this agreement as objectively contingent. Judgment alone attributes it to nature as transcendental purposiveness in relation to the subject's faculty of cognition. Without presupposing it, we would have no order of nature according to empirical laws, and thus no guide for experiencing and investigating these laws in all their diversity.
For we can certainly think the following possibility. Natural things may conform to the universal laws without which the form of experiential cognition in general would be impossible. Yet the specific differences among nature's empirical laws and their effects could still be so great that our understanding could not discover an order in nature it could grasp. It could not divide nature's products into genera and species, so as to use the principles for explaining and understanding one also to explain and comprehend another. Nor could it turn material so confused A XXXVII for us—strictly speaking, merely infinitely diverse and unsuited to our capacity to grasp it—into connected experience.
The power of judgment therefore also contains an a priori principle for the possibility of nature, but only in a subjective respect. Through it, judgment prescribes a law not to nature, as autonomy, but to itself, as heautonomy, 186 for reflecting on nature. We could call this the law of the specification of nature with regard to its empirical laws. Judgment does not know this law in nature a priori. It assumes it for the sake of an order in nature that our understanding can know, in the division it makes of nature's universal laws when it seeks to subordinate a diversity of particular laws to them. We may therefore say that nature specifies its universal laws according to the principle of purposiveness for our faculty of cognition. This means that it suits the human understanding in its necessary task: finding the universal for the particular offered by perception, and finding, for what differs, a connection in the unity of a principle, even though each species itself has something universal. In saying this, we neither prescribe a law to nature nor learn one from nature through observation, although observation can confirm the principle. For it is not a principle of determining A XXXVIII judgment, but only of reflective judgment. What we mean is simply that, however nature may be arranged according to its universal laws, we must trace its empirical laws entirely according to that principle and the maxims grounded on it. Only insofar as it holds can we advance in using our understanding in experience and gain knowledge.
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Introduction V is part of Critique of Judgment by Immanuel Kant. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is part 7 of 21 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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