THE KNOWABILITY OF BIOMEDICAL LAWS

A KANTIAN APPROACH

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on the knowability of empirical laws in Kant. Specifically, I explore the interpretative thread according to which the knowability of an item is secured through an appropriate classification within a hierarchical ordering.The relationship between the knowability and classification is ultimately based on Kant’s characterization of our understanding as being “discursive”, i.e., relying on subsuming-procedures. More specifically, the focus is on empirical laws referring to biological phenomena broadly construed, which are interestingly intertwined with the teleology-mechanism specific relationship. “Critique of the Power of Judgment” and related Kant’s works, thus, address the class of teleological judgments and/or functional statements that should also have the status of a law of nature. I argue that the knowability of generally biological laws equally relies on subsuming-procedures, which in the life sciences, that is, primarily, biology plus its application to medical practices, consist in an explanatory integration between normative teleological judgments and those causal-mechanical. Finally, I try to clarify how a Kantian take on these issues fits within the current function debate: namely, in what way it acknowledges the explanatory and normative dimensions of function statements as they contribute to the practice of the life sciences.