(1) Research Unit “Evolution and Complexity,” Department of Philosophy, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent
Abstract:
This paper analyses the actual meaning of a transcendental philosophy of biology, and does so by exploring and actualising
the epistemological and metaphysical value of Kant's viewpoint on living systems. It finds inspiration in the Kantian idea
of living systems intrinsically resisting objectification, but critically departs from Kant's philosophical solution in as
far as it is based in a subjectivist dogmatism. It attempts to overcome this dogmatism, on the one hand by explicitly taking
into account the conditions of possibility at the side of the subject, and on the other hand by embedding both the living
and the knowing system into an ontology of complexly organized dynamical systems. This paper fits into the transcendental
perspective in acknowledging the need to analyse the conditions of knowability, prior to the contents of what is known. But it also contributes to an expansion and an actualisation of the
issue of transcendentality itself by considering the conditions of possibility at the side of the object as intrinsically
linked to the conditions of possibility at the side of the subject.