A High point in the Dialectic of Teleological Judgment

Because we have in the understanding and sensibility two stems of cognition independent of one another, we must distinguish between possibility and actuality (otherwise we would have an intellectual intuition); because we are both sensible and rational beings, the moral law appears to us as what ought to be, not as what is or volition (otherwise we would have a holy will); because our understanding is discursive, the power of judgment judges organisms inevitably as natural purposes (otherwise we would have an intuitive understanding). And since Kant in all three causes insists that the ground for our corresponding judgments lies in our subjective character and not in things themselves, he draws for us general limits of cognition and at the same time indicates that it is necessary to attempt to think beyond those limits, at least experimentally. Such an attempt, if undertaken seriously, will hardly be without consequences.

- Eckart Förster, The Significance of §§76 and 77 Of the Critique of Judgment for the Development of Post-Kantian Philosophy (Part 1) , p. 7.
Written on December 11, 2009