Purposiveness of nature and destination of reason in Kant’s writings from 1784

Abstract

By revisiting some controversies about the meaning of Kant’s concept of the purposiveness of nature in his moral and political writings from 1784, this paper has two aims. First, I will emphasize that in the Lectures on Natural Law, in the Groundwork and in the Idea this concept has a critical and non-dogmatic status. Second, I intend to elucidate that the use of this concept is anchored in the Kantian presupposition of “natural dispositions” and of “destination” of human reason, introduced in the first Critique.