著者

渡辺 祐邦

出版者

北見工業大学

雑誌

北見工業大学研究報告

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2, no.5, pp.861-881, 1970-12

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German philosophers in the late eighteenth century rejected the mechanical explanation of the organic world. In the Critique of Judgement, published in 1790, Kant stated that the organism was not a machine like a watch which was unable to reproduce the same watch or to repair the injured part for its own power, but a natural purpose with which we had no analogue in our technical products. This argument is often referred to his unscientific and merely philosophical contemplation. It was, however, based on the observations and the experiments carried by famous naturalists of the eighteenth century, like Reaumur, Trembley, Spallanzani. In the mid-eighteenth century the Des-cartes's doctrine of bete machine was abondened by these experiments. In the same time, the French philosophers attacked the natural theology of Derham, Nieuwentyt and Abbe Pluche whose view of the world was strongly affected by the mechanical philosophy. In 1763, Kant began to combat with the natural theology of Derham and Nieuwentyt and received the biological theory of Buffon and Maupertuis. With the influence of these movenlents, we could interpret properly that argument of the Critique of Judgement and evaluate its meaning in the history of the metaphysics.