Kantian ticks, Uexküllian melodies, and the transformation of transcendental philosophy

The chapter investigates the complex and ambiguous relation between Kant’s transcendental philosophy and Jacob von Uexküll’s theoretical biology. Rather than considering how, and to what extent, Kant influenced Uexküll, I explore how the latter reshaped and transformed Kant’s transcendental philosophy for adapting it to his particular, and extremely original, anti-Darwinian project. More specifically, the chapter focuses on two basic questions: Why did Uexküll need Kant’s transcendental philosophy for underpinning his biological agenda? And, related to that, why did Uexküll need teleology for justifying his particular version of transcendental biophilosophy? I conclude that Uexküll’s ambitious synthesis required a revision of Kant’s first Critique, a revision based on the fundamental idea that the relation between the transcendental subject and the world (whether human or animal) is a semiotic one.