SULLA NATURA EPISODICA DEL § 76 NELLA CRITICA DEL GIUDIZIO: LA TENSIONE SISTEMATICA DI UNA NOTA

This paper examines § 76 of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment, a paragraph placed at the conclusion of the Dialectic of the Teleological Power of Judgment. While § 76 is usually read as a final elucidation of the conditions under which natural purposiveness can be coherently thought – namely, the limits of mechanical causality and the problematic analogy with intentional causality – this contribution focuses instead on a formal feature that might initially seem marginal: the fact that it is presented as a mere «Remark» (Bemerkung), entering the argument only episodically and for purposes of clarification rather than demonstration. The paper is structured in three parts. First, it situates the issues addressed in § 76 within the broader horizon of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Second, it accounts for Kant’s refusal to offer a demonstration in favor of a clarification of the functioning of reflective judgment and, through it, of the other higher faculties. Third, the paper shows that the episodic Remark fulfils a systematic function, consisting in a reworking and expansion of the table of faculties introduced in § IX of the Introduction. The central thesis is that it is precisely the episodic form of § 76 that enables its distinctive systematic role.