ABSTRACT
In this chapter, starting from the Kantian account of organisms, I will expose how it makes sense of Kant’s own biological essays, and more generally relates to the ongoing embryology of the times. I will then clarify the problem of the history of nature in its relation to architectonics, which had seemed to be one of the major concerns that prevented Kant from being satisfied with the conception defended in the “Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic.” Then, I will identify the correlation between Kant’s analysis of biological knowledge and the fundamental concepts of biological thought developed at that time, beginning with the notion of type. The preceding chapters of this book explained Kant’s analysis of biology within the conceptual landscape of biology in the 18th century; now, I turn to its resonances in the 19th century. The next chapter will then explain how this configuration paves the way for theoretical cleavages that still constitute the ground of theoretical biology.
