With Kant’s conception of organisms as “natural ends” nature and freedom are represented as harmoniously cohering with each other thereby giving us a special reassurance of reason’s causal efficacy in nature. For Kant, in order to make organic formations intelligible, we must represent the rule of their organization as reciprocal causality. I contend that this rule of reciprocal causality serves as a schema-analogue of reason’s Idea of absolute freedom. Moreover, I proceed to show that the antinomial conflict of teleological judgment is a conflict between two perspectives on nature: theoretical (scientific) in the thesis and practical in the antithesis. Therefore, the solution to the antinomy does not merely offer a justification for the explanatory compatibility of mechanical and teleological explanation in our representation of a single organic formation but also leads to a view of the world according to which the theoretical and the practical representations of nature “must cohere.”

In this chapter, I explore the role of the concept of inner purposiveness in the final section of Hegel’s Logic and also the Philosophy of Nature. Hegel defends the claim that the concept is meaningfully applied to living organisms, particularly animals. The concept is actually used precisely where we should expect it, given the argument of ‘Teleology’, both when talking about the internal organisation of animals in parts-organs and when talking about the self-repair or regeneration processes by which they stay alive. By contrast, the concept no longer dominates the description of the natural process that Hegel designates ‘process of the genus’ (or ‘generic process’), in which he considers that natural life is ultimately submitted to externality. I argue that this application and lack of application taken together confirm my views on ‘Teleology’.

This chapter considers Hegel's treatment of the further subtopics of traditional logic, concept, judgment and syllogism. It demonstrates how Hegel resolves the logocentric predicament by deriving the subject matter of logic, and its diverse forms, from a more primative foundation that does not already presuppose them. It aso considers the alternative views of Kreines and Stern and the role of empiricism in Hegel's system and of Ancient and modern forms of skepticism.

Chapter 2 argues that although the Analytic of the Teleological Power of Judgment offers an argument for the necessity of teleological judgments of organisms, Kant is ultimately interested in the conceptual purposiveness of nature as a whole. He constructs an argument from the organism to this conclusion, because it allows him to assimilate characteristic features of a dialectic, specifically the fact that it ensnares ordinary understanding. This serves the end of showing that although the principle of the purposiveness of nature is a transcendental principle of reason, employing it is free of the sort of contradictions that typically beset reason. It has a legitimate and indeed necessary role to play in experience. The chapter further argues that the discussion of the methodology of biology is of great philosophical interest. For Kant all causal explanations are mechanistic and he develops a unique model for mechanistic explanations of the processes through which organisms produce or organize themselves. Teleological judgments of organic nature are not therefore a threat to the project of the comprehensive mechanistic explanation of the natural world. The chapter demonstrates this by examining Kant’s views of contemporary theories of generation, Blumenbach, his papers on human races and his evolutionary speculation.

Most Ruskin studies deal with his art theory and economic theory separately. This chapter intends to interpret both discourses in a unified way from the viewpoint of romanticism. While his economic theory is famously summarized in a thesis ‘No wealth but life’ the art theory he worked on can be formalized as a thesis ‘No beauty but life’. Thus we have a unified thesis, ‘Neither wealth nor beauty but life’, which may be called ‘Ruskin’s triangle’. I argue that the concept of life is vital for Ruskin’s unified knowledge. It is identified with its three aspects (capability, composition, and labour) and linked with its six symbolic determinants (admiration, hope, and love; air, water, and earth).

This chapter focuses on shelters and their significance for providing protection for living things from environmental factors such as seasonal weather changes, natural disasters, extreme weather events and climate change. An ecosystem is the name given to a group of interacting organisms in a particular environment – which could be a city street, a creek in dense bushland or a coral reef. The world contains a huge variety of ecosystems where living things interact and often compete for available resources such as water, air, light, food, space and the resources required to provide shelters. This chapter examines the notion of community and the physical shelters that organisms require for long-term survival. It presents common examples of shelters created by humans and other animals, and describes three integrated STEM projects designed for Australian primary school classrooms.

Here, I consider the wide variety of habitats in which organisms live. Some are obviously conducive to life, such as a rainforest, while others are not, for example a black smoker in a mid-ocean trench. Wherever the habitat of a particular organism is, it can be divided into microhabitats, each of which differs in its array of constituent species. I distinguish between the place where an organism lives and the way it makes its living there. The latter is often referred to as the ecological niche, though care is needed with this term as it is used in different ways by different authors. I then focus on three particular examples of habitats to get a more in-depth view: the soil, hydrothermal vents, and the intertidal zone. Finally, I ask the question: to what extent should we expect habitats on exoplanets to have similar features to those on Earth? Considering the ubiquity of topography (on rocky planets) and of liquid water (on habitable-zone rocky planets), it seems reasonable to expect both aquatic and land-based habitats; the latter will generally be a mixture of high and low altitudes, as well as high and low latitudes.