Le critiche e gli sviluppi schopenhauerinani alla teleologia di Kant. Problemi e prospettive per il dibattito attuale

Abstract

The paper means to connect some themes and problems of today’s debate about teleology with the Schopenhauerian model of natural teleology. The thesis is that, since Schopenhauer took part in the early process of re- determining Kantian teleology and outlined a kind of inquiry into nature no longer Kantian but not yet Darwinian, neither creationist nor evolutionist, he may offer some useful theoretical solicitations to today’s debate. Starting from Schopenhauer’s criticism to Kant’s teleology of nature, the paper goes through the developments of this criticism into the Schopenhauerian idea of nature as
‘will’, up to the elaboration of a form of teleology released by intentional ends, fundamentally impulsive and instinctual, based on the conception of an unintelligent, immanent to all beings, and endless purposiveness. The aim is to highlight some limits and possible developments of today’s debate, concerning especially: the relation among the transcendentalist and the etiological-evolutionist perspectives, the origin of the instinct of survival, the ontological and epistemological status of teleological explanations, the role of the deliberative-intentional model within the so called ‘naturalistic’ teleologies.