CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION……………………………….………………………………………………………….. 2
(1) THE INTRODUCTION OF FREE FORMATIONS………………………………………………….. 3
(2) THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FREE FORMATIONS. ………………………………………………….. 4
(3) ORGANIZATION AND HYLOMORPHISM………………………………………………………….. 7
(4) CONSEQUENCES FOR TELEOLOGY.…………………………………………………………….. 8
(5) THE ANALOGY WITH GENIUS…………………………………………………………………….. 10
(6) CONCLUSIONS…………………………..………………………………………………………….. 12
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………………….. 13

Introduction
In this essay I will approach the problem of Kant’s hylomorphism and its repercussions, through the use of “free formations”, a part of the Critique of Judgment which Kant himself appears to treat as incidental and without importance. I will argue that it is possible to find an analogy between free formations in nature and the creations of genius, which would demonstrate Kant’s antagonism towards any type of self-ordering of matter in nature. This argument consists of the following parts:

(1)
Kant attempts to argue in section 58 of the Critique of Judgment that the principle of taste must be ideal. His introduction of “free formations” such as the crystal as an argument against the alternative ‘realistic’ interpretation (that the subjective purposiveness of beauty is “an actual (intentional) purpose that nature (or art) pursues” [CJ 347]) holds that, since such forms are produced in a simple, mechanical manner, we have no reason to suppose any purpose in them at all. As if this argument were not quite sufficient, Kant resorts to “one fact that virtually proves the principle that the purposiveness in the beautiful in nature is ideal” [CJ 350]: this ‘fact’ is apparently only a tautological statement of the a priori nature of the standard by which we judge beauty.

(2)
Kant fails to give much importance to the process of crystal free formation. However, I shall argue, this process gives an alternative to the hylomorphic schema which he uses throughout the Critique of Judgment: it is neither passive matter susceptible only to mechanical (and therefore determinate) laws, nor is it an entity forming matter by means of concepts. Free formations are non-organized order, they produce their own order according to no determinate concept. Kant uses the movement of caloric as an explanatory tool for the sudden and unpredictable ‘shooting’ of ice crystals [CJ 348], later referring merely to “some cause forcing… particles… to combine into definite external shapes” [CJ 349].

(3)
Although Kant finds it “conceivable” that other natural phenomena could be attributed to similar processes, he limits this to superficial elements such as “flowers, plumage and sea-shells” and consequently this conception of nature as indeterminate, purposeless production “involves no infringement on the teleological principle by which we judge organization” [CJ 349]. We could say that this infringement had been ruled out illegitimately by Kant, and too soon. For:

(4)
In the later teleological arguments, such processes are not addressed. This might result in consideration of things which would be indeterminate in their production, and yet not attributable to a purpose, hypothetical or real. This would force Kant to properly face the problem of ‘hylozoism’, properties of life or self-ordering/forming inherent in matter; thereby the matter/form gap of Kant’s hylomorphism would be problematized.

(5)
An analogous situation arises in the discussion of genius (production according to no determinate rule), where Kant, however, allows to genius the examination he avoided in the case of free formations in nature. This points towards a prejudice on Kant’s part: he can take seriously the proposition that genius has the power to produce novel forms and therefore new rules for ordering, but he will not do the same for formations of matter

(6)
It can be argued that Kant’s system only allows order by analogy with formation through concepts, in other words human concepts. Kant puts aside any other possible processes, only concentrating on their purpose for us in our own terms.

(1) The Introduction of Free Formations
Having established what taste is (“the ability to judge an object, or a way of presenting it, by means of a liking or disliking devoid of all interest. The object of such a liking is called beautiful [CJ 211]), Kant seeks to find out upon what basis the judgment of taste is made [CJ 346-351]. His steps run as follows: Kant argues that there are two possible ways of interpreting the principle of taste. If taste is interpreted “empirically”, taste will be a matter of judging on the basis of sensation; alternatively, it could be interpreted “rationalistically”, in which case taste would be based on determinate conceptual principles/ideas. Kant argues that both of these interpretations either devalue or misconstrue what the beautiful is. The first interpretation, as Kant says, reduces the beautiful to the agreeable, whilst the second makes it into the good. Kant has already established that a liking for the beautiful depends on no interest in the object judged as beautiful [CJ 210]. A judgment of taste depends upon reflection on an object that leads to no conceptual determination of the object, we need not know what the object is, if it exists or what is the concept to which the reflection leads. To find an object agreeable rests entirely on the sensation of that object, involving interest in the object. To find an object good, one must have a determinate concept of what that object is meant to be. A judgment of taste rests neither on the significance nor the determinate concept of an object, it rests simply on our reflection on the object, no interest is involved in a judgment of taste; thus beauty is distinguished from the good or the agreeable.

Even if we decide to interpret taste “rationalistically”, Kant has already shown that this cannot mean that beauty is an objective property of an object - which would lead to a logical, determinate judgment of it, as though it were weight or length - due to the necessary involvement of the subject in reflection regarding the object. A judgment of taste cannot be a judgment regarding the perfection of the object, a beautiful object is not a logically perfect object because beauty is not intrinsic to the object, as is logical perfection [CJ 228]. If a judgment of taste involved perfection of an object then this judgment would be objective, we would have to look to nature to see what is beautiful and there would be no room for the subject’s liking or pleasure. Any necessity involved in the judgment would come not from a certain object/subject relation but from a necessary reaction to a certain formula in an object, and the possibility of the beautiful as a feeling of pleasure would be lost. (As I shall make clear later, with the genius, fine art also cannot be reduced to a certain formula or be in any way predetermined.)

This opens the way for a third interpretation. Kant explains taste as a reflective judgment, neither conceptually determined in advance nor empirical. The third interpretation must combine the subjective feelings of pleasure and the demand for universal assent. The reflective judgment has an a priori basis in the structure of all subjects but is not conceptually determined.

The judgment of taste is not necessitated conceptually, yet there is a demand for universal consent even though the judgment is based on the subject’s feeling of pleasure and so the investigation into the base principle of taste is shifted to one of interpreting rationalistically the subjective purposiveness, ie, this pleasure must be based on the universal structure of the imagination and understanding which tends to universal assent to subjective judgments about the world. Still, these faculties must be in play over the presentation and not determined by concepts, they play over the purposive potential of presentations and not over the presentations considered in terms of specific purposes (concepts).

Kant argues [CJ 347] that one can be either realistic or idealistic about subjective purposiveness. If one is realistic then the subjective purposiveness will be an intentional purpose, nature intending to be in harmony with us: nature would be purposive with purpose. On the other hand, the idealistic interpretation would lead to purposiveness without purpose, nature has no purpose in creating beautiful objects (because purposiveness would be constructed by the subject out of intuitions - the imagination, through schematization, orders intuitions in ways that allow for conceptual identification which leads to production of order and purpose), the object will have been free formed and the judgment of taste will be a reflective judgment based on the harmony between the subject and the objective world the subject constructs.

Intuitively there is much to support the realistic interpretation. Kant cites flowers, graceful animals and plants as examples of objects whose beauty has no purpose in the objects’ functioning, it is as though their purpose in forming be purposive for our own imagination’s benefit.

“Consider above all the variety and harmonious combination of colors, so likeable and charming to our eyes (as in pheasants, crustaceans, insects, down to the commonest flowers) since these colors have to do merely with the surface, and even these have nothing to do with the figure [ie, (visible) structure] of these creatures - which might be needed for these creatures’ inner purposes after all - it seems that their sole purpose is to be beheld from the outside.” [CJ 348]

Although it appears intuitively that many things are designed in nature to be purposive, Kant gives three reasons to reject this approach. The first is simply that “reason resists it with its maxims to avoid, wherever possible, unnecessary multiplication of principles”, it is against reason to have more than one rule when one would be sufficient. The more important second reason is that certain forms in nature do not require you to think there is any more than nature’s mechanism involved in producing what is beautiful, so Kant argues:

“[N]ature shows in all its free formations a great mechanical tendency to produce forms that seem made, as it were, for the aesthetic employment of our power of judgment, and nature gives us no grounds whatever for supposing that requires anything more than nature’s mechanism… since nature’s mechanism can make these forms purposive for our judging of them even if they are not based on any idea.” [CJ 348]

These are nature’s “free formations”, of which crystals are an example. Kant’s use of free formations is as an example of how one might be fooled by mere mechanism into instead seeing a purpose. I shall later argue that inherent in Kant’s description of crystals is the fact that crystals cannot form according to simple mechanical laws, and therefore he introduces something which disrupts his simple opposition of matter/mechanics and form/purpose.

Kant’s third and final argument against the realistic interpretation, which “virtually proves the principle that the purposiveness in the beautiful in nature is ideal” [CJ 350] is that since subjective purposiveness is the basis for our judging something beautiful, we cannot attribute a purpose to nature in producing beauty:

“What counts in judging beauty is not what nature is, nor even what purpose it [has] for us, but how we receive it.” [CJ 350]

While restating the case against the realistic interpretation, this still leaves open the possibility of a purposiveness or order in free formations which is separate from our subjective reception of it, and irrelevant to our notions of beauty. Kant only leaves open two possibilities for free formations: that they either have a purpose in their purposiveness, that nature has designed them for us; or that we ourselves create the purposiveness. Both these possibilities centre the order in free formations around our own faculties. There is no room for purposiveness being produced by free formations without purpose, that free formations order themselves beautifully.

Kant argues that although it does not go against teleology to say that beauty is objective and dependent on the mechanical laws of the object - ie, that such products of nature have their own purposiveness - it does go against the notion of beauty.

“Now it is quite conceivable, and involves no infringement on the teleological principle by which we judge organization, that beauty in both the shape and the color of flowers, plumage, and sea-shells can similarly be attributed to nature and its ability to structure itself with aesthetic purposiveness as well - freely, without following specific purposes but merely in accordance with chemical laws, by deposition the matter needed for this organization.
”But there is one fact the virtually proves the principle that the purposiveness in the beautiful in nature is ideal… [N]amely, the fact that whenever we judge any beauty at all we seek the standard for it a priori in ourselves, and that the aesthetic power of judgment itself legislates concerning the judgment as to whether something is beautiful or not.” [CJ 349-350]

However Kant’s ‘virtual proof’ is tautological: he is asking us to assume what he is proving. The argument that Kant uses for saying that nature has no purpose in producing what is beautiful, is that nature cannot produce beauty for us or else we would not find the beauty beautiful. He must argue this because otherwise he might have to admit that crystals produce their own order. and then all things would not be dependent on us for their order (see below). A judgment of taste relies on the assumption that we give order to things, that we give purposiveness to things we find beautiful, and that this is why they are beautiful. But the argument for what is beautiful relies on the fact that that we give the object a beautiful order, if we agree with the one statement then of course we must agree with the other; that we must bring purposiveness to that which we find beautiful and that the principle of taste must be ideal

The argument also holds, using objects of natural beauty as an example, that beauty cannot be determinately produced by following mechanical laws or else we would have to look to nature to tell us what is beautiful and then Kant’s notion of beauty would be lost. Beauty cannot survive if it is a determinate rather than a reflective judgment. Kant argues this by saying that beauty cannot be a property produced in nature for us with a purpose because it would go against the nature of taste to say it did. So the principle must be in us, we cannot look to nature to find purposiveness as it must lie in us.

In arguing this point, Kant raises the problem of free formations.

Kant argues that there cannot be free formations in nature that produce their own purposiveness because these things will only be beautiful as we find them purposive, because we have given them purposiveness. However, since the argument Kant uses to prove this is tautological and if we do not need to give an object purposiveness then it is no longer dependent on us, it will have formed not for us, but, as it were, for itself leading to consequences for taste and the rest of Kant’s system that would not have pleased him. The most immediate consequence is that crystals and other free formations are exemplary of an order which is not organic nor provided by human purposiveness; their formation is an indeterminate process which can consequently be looked upon in a parallel with genius.

(2) The Significance of Free Formations
Mechanical laws do not determine the outcome of crystallization because crystallization happens in a “shooting”: to quote Kant, “some cause” determines this process suggesting that as the shooting process begins, it cannot be predicted where the crystal will form or what shape it will take.

“In speaking of free formations of nature, I mean those where, in a fluid at rest, one part (sometimes merely caloric) evaporates or separates from the fluid, and this separation makes the remainder solidify and take on a definite shape or fabric (figure or texture) that varies in accordance with what difference in kind there is in the matter, but is exactly the same whenever the matter is the same.” [CJ 348]

But we know that different forms are formed every time the free formation process produces crystals: for example, there are millions of different looking snow flakes, and as far as we know, they are all different. This shows that it cannot be predicted what form a crystal will take, and so it cannot be reduced to a production by mechanical laws. The transformation between fluid and crystal is not a gradual (progressive) one, formation takes place “as it were by a leap: a sudden solidification called shooting” [CJ 348]. Despite Kant’s attempts to show he understands the process as if it were completely predictable (“At first slivers of ice form in [water]; these join together at angles of sixty degrees, while others similarly attach themselves to them at every point until all the water has turned to ice” [CJ 348]), he cannot explain why the slivers form in the places they do, and why they should do so at a particular time, since “during this time the water between the slivers of ice is perfectly fluid…yet it is quite as cold as ice”. This shows that the most basic answer cannot possibly be that crystallization is a process determinable by mechanical laws. Though Kant argues that it is, still he can only answer the sort of queries I have just set out by saying that there is “some cause forcing these particles to leave their vehicle and to combine into definite external shapes” [CJ 349].

Even Kant’s more complex description in the Opus Postumum uses the hypothetical “caloric” as its basis:

“…when caloric, or a part of it (whose vibration was responsible for mixing together the species of fluid matter) escapes, a moderate form of this vibration of heterogeneous, but, yet, reciprocally resolved, elementary materials, now produces stratification (stratificatio). This is a texture in which the tremblings of those (fibers, laminae) which are not in accord separate themselves from those which are. Thus they form fascicles which resist redisposition of their layers, in that their parts cannot (unlike a fluid) be displaced in all directions without resistance.” (OP 21:522)

This brings to mind the principle of Kant’s first argument against the realistic interpretation of purposiveness, that “reason resists it with its maxims to avoid, wherever possible, unnecessary multiplication of its principles” [CJ 348]. The crystallization process is clearly not reducible to mechanical laws. Even so, and although Kant dwells on crystallization and it is quite clearly troublesome for him, he argues against the possibility of it being an example of a production of order. Kant attempts to argue that because crystals and their like cannot be ordering beautifully for us and that a judgment of taste involves reflection on an object, then they cannot be anything but mechanical. Now this argument does not follow logically.

The fact that crystals do not produce beauty for us does not show that crystals cannot be self-ordering formations. Firstly, if this were so then they would escape Kant’s hylomorphic system. Secondly, if objects could order themselves beautifully then beauty would be a property of an object, the consequences being that it either already has a purpose or it disrupts taste. If things are not dependent on us for ordering, judgments of taste would be cognitive rather than aesthetic judgments, and it is not certain what the consequences would be for taste if there was such a thing as self-ordering processes, even if it does not disrupt teleology, because we rely on our ordering powers to make sense of taste.

Throughout his critical system, Kant maintains a hylomorphic position. This position implies that matter is inert and thereby needs to be externally acted upon by a forming force in order for it to be organized. Kant makes the rather platitudinous assertion that it would be against the nature of matter to say that it could organize itself (‘hylozoism’ [CJ 374]). We have only Kant’s word for this assertion (possible reasons for Kant’s firm belief in hylomorphism are, as Zammito writes, as a strike against the “metaphysical sophistry” rampant in the philosophy of Spinoza and in the trends towards ‘pantheism’ and ‘materialism’, all threatening to bring “atheism in the form of materialistic determinism” [Z 191]), and if there is anything to show that this assumption is not necessary then it must be immediately dismissed because “reason resists it with its maxims to avoid, wherever possible, unnecessary multiplication of principles” [CJ 348]. If an argument were to be made against needing to treat nature as if it had a purpose, this argument would also be against the apparently analytical need for hylomorphology in Kant’s system, as the need for a purpose is brought about by there being no other answer to how ‘mere’ matter could organize itself. Alternatively, if an argument can be made to show that Kant cannot justify the sharp dichotomy between form and matter, this opens up big questions about Kant’s system where any ordering is done by us or by something like us.

Kant attempts to argue that nature is organized according to mechanical rules but that what causes it to organize in such a way must be attributed to an undetermined purpose, believing this to be the only way we can systematize nature, but what if nature could systematize itself? As I have argued, Kant does not manage to adequately fit the crystallization process into his equation. As we have seen above, the novel ordering behaviour of crystallization is used as an argument against the need for a realistic interpretation of purpose in nature, and yet it also cannot be fitted into a purely mechanical account.

For these reasons I shall argue that it is necessary to look closely at crystals which seem to trouble Kant in his attempt to show that the formation of nature must be hylomorphic. If Kant had a conception of matter such that it could organize and distribute itself this may well remove the need for teleology as an appendage of natural science. For this leads to the possibility that organized nature could itself freely form. Just because free formations do not agree with Kant’s system does not mean that he has any right to dismiss them.

(3) Organization and Hylomorphism
Formation appears in two ways in Kant’s examples: in crystallization and in growth. For crystallization, in science, Kant finds no need for a purpose because he believes that crystals are formed merely mechanically. For growth, however, since Kant believes that this shows that matter is organic and so has life, he does. Crystals, since they are not organic, must, according to Kant’s arguments, be produced mechanically as there is no room for anything else in his dialectical system.

Importantly though, as opposed to science, in aesthetics, crystals (“mere” matter) and trees (organic matter) are classed alike by Kant as freely formed things of beauty. It can be said that

“in view of the universal affinity of all types of matter [without] infringement on the teleological principle by which we judge organization that the beauty in both the shape and the color of flowers plumage, and sea-shells can similarly be attributed to nature and its ability to structure itself with aesthetic purposiveness as well - freely, without following specific purposes but merely in accordance with chemical laws, by depositing the matter needed for this organisation.” [CJ 349]

Here Kant merely addresses superficial aspects of nature, those which appear to be relatively unimportant for life itself (“Shape and color of flowers, plumage, and sea shells”). He does not admit the possibility of similar ordering processes forming properly organic, functional beings.

Scientifically, Kant argues that trees’ growth is to be understood “in a sense that distinguishes it completely from any increase in size according to mechanical laws: it must be considered to be equivalent to generation” [CJ 371]. Organized beings are distinguished from the so called mechanical formations of crystals because they produce themselves as individuals. The tree assimilates matter and gives it the particular character of its species through “separation and recombination” - “these natural beings have a separating and forming ability of very great originality; all our art finds itself infinitely outdistanced if it tries to reconstruct those products of the vegetable kingdom from the elements that we obtain by dissecting them” [CJ 371]. As I have shown, however, Kant has failed to appreciate that the process of crystallization leaves open a space for a third type of ‘growth’/production, a production that is as new, and equally unattributable to mechanical laws as is the growth as trees, yet is not there for the sake of an organic whole, and so cannot be explained away by the supposition that there is some purpose behind its production. Though Kant finds a need to proffer a purpose for the sake of understanding in organization:

“It is entirely possible that some parts in an animal body (such as skin, bone or hair) could be grasped as accumulations governed by merely mechanical laws. Still the cause that procures the appropriate matter, that modifies and forms it in that way and that deposits it in the pertinent locations must always be judged teleologically.” [CJ 377]

he does not find it necessary to do the same for crystals, trying to file them away as no more than the necessary products of mechanical laws.

We need not think of the mechanical formation as having a purpose because we can find a place for it in our conception of the world, we are able understand it, says Kant, because we are able to simulate mechanical laws. However, we cannot find a place for, or understand, organized nature without an idea of purpose; it is only through the concept of a purpose that we can attribute laws to organized nature in our conception of it, thereby systematizing it in a neat and theoretical way, make rules and have a unified experience of nature as a whole. Crystals problematize this account, however, because crystals are in no way necessary results of known mechanical laws as we can see for the reasons noted above. It will be very useful to look at crystals in terms of the products of genius because the similarities between them in terms of the exemplary products of a “shooting” or non-determinate process are striking. First, I will examine the arguments for the introduction of teleology in light of the arguments above.

(4) Consequences for Teleology
Organized nature, according to Kant, is too complex to understand and capture in science. We must treat organized nature as if governed by a purpose and yet it is a concept that we can think but never grasp. By bringing a priori concepts to bear on our experience of nature, that is by categorizing and ordering it, we have a set of laws (the natural sciences) that we have deduced from experience, and with which, by analogy, we can conceptually simulate the processes of nature:

“when we study nature, we keep to what we can observe or experiment on in such a way that we could produce it as nature does, at least in terms of similar laws; for we have complete insight only into what we can ourselves make and accomplish according to concepts.” [CJ 384]

The foundation of the system upon our ability to conceptually reproduce is important when it comes to organized nature: for where the organized whole is greater than the sum of its parts, we can see how the parts work mechanically but what we cannot see is how they come to be working as an organic whole (each part reciprocally supporting each other as a part of a higher unity). This is something that we cannot reproduce as art so we cannot have complete insight into it: “organization, as an intrinsic purpose of nature, infinitely surpasses all our ability to exhibit anything similar through art” [CJ 384]. So as not to be confused by this aspect of nature, or stalled in the growth of scientific knowledge, we must assume a purpose in nature and our understanding of it should be regulated by such a transcendental maxim in order to allow conceptual unity to happen; accordingly, we must act as if there were a cause behind the organization of matter, ie, as if the organization of matter had some indeterminate purpose - in order to make sense of the purposiveness which we see in nature

However, purposiveness in nature is something that we bring to an object of nature in our way of presenting it: when a harmony between the understanding and the intuitions is cognized it is cognized a priori, not empirically. It appears to us as though all our discoveries into nature seem to fit together just as though they were discoveries into an empirical nature outside of us, but this is not entirely so, it is rather that intuited experience lends itself to ordering-otherwise,

“it [would] seem as if the rules of this unity had an empirical basis outside of us and distinct from our presentational power, and hence as if the harmony [Jbereinstimmung] of the object with our understanding’s need for rules were in itself contingent and hence possible only through a purpose that aimed expressly at this harmony.” [CJ 364-5]

This cannot be so, the purpose does not rest contingently in the matter; and so a teleological judgment, as to a purpose in nature. is an a priori judgment. It is this that Plato did not recognize when he saw harmony everywhere in the world, believing that harmony is empirical and not a priori [CJ 363]. We can see that it is an a priori judgment because this object’s purposiveness does not depend on the object itself but is introduced by ourselves. We have no entitlement to suppose a purpose is needed in nature to give an object of nature purposiveness. This consideration does not happen at the same time as the judging of purpose in the object. We find new rules which are not yet present as presuppositions in the mind, and so we cannot tell if we have judged correctly, leading to admiration of nature as a natural effect of purposiveness observed in nature. This is because we cannot immediately explain where an understanding/sensible intuition harmony has come from, and we suspect that there may be an overarching thing holding the ‘ultimate basis’ for this harmony.

So organized nature is intuited as fitting together so well that it is as though it already has a purpose, however, this purpose has not been imposed by us and so we are amazed and confused by nature. To prevent this confusion and to enable us to advance our scientific knowledge free from such problems, we must presume that a purpose has been imposed from somewhere else, though we cannot determine how this has happened or who or what might have brought concepts to bear on nature thereby imposing a purpose on nature in order to organize it. Therefore we must judge organized nature teleologically, as though it already has a purpose - and it is this which makes it possible for us to see nature as not merely mechanically necessary but also as provided with a purpose, even though we cannot bring concepts to bear on it ourselves. This idea of a purpose is above all necessary for there to be a systematic unity in the way we see the world, that is, if we are to have a unified system of natural science. If this is the only possibility for our ability to put aside our lack of understanding of organized nature, then it is this that allows us to believe that nature does not just happen to have a purposiveness, but that this purposiveness is based on a purpose.

Mechanical things of nature could not come up with anything so “infinitely contingent that there might as well be no natural law for it at all” [CJ 370], it must be a product of art. As an example, we could think of observing a discovered mathematical shape [CJ 370-371), it cannot be a product of nature as it is so contingent, and it does not rest on any mechanical laws “…or any other non-rational cause” [CJ 370], so it must be there for some other reason, because its purposiveness does not rest in us, like the purposiveness of beauty in crystals does. At least according to Kant this would be so, for he sees the purposiveness of crystals only in an aesthetic sense; whereas we could say that the snowflake was an example of exactly the same sort of “discovery” as that of a mathematical shape found in the sand. Importantly, though, it has been observed to be produced in such a way as to persuade Kant that it was not to be grouped together with organized forms: it has the property of “infinite contingency” which for Kant discounts any “non-rational cause” and yet it lacks the property of ‘organization’, which for Kant makes an object truly deserving of amazement.

The event of such discoveries is when our mind usually gives us no alternative but to construct such objects in terms of purposes, even though it is too complicated to grasp what this would be or where it has come from. It is transcendentally necessary that such objects are treated as though they have purposes because we must construct objects out of intuitions in terms of their ‘purposes’, ie, in terms of concepts. This is a “regulative concept for reflective judgment, allowing us to use a remote analogy with our own causality in terms of purposes generally, to guide our investigation…” [CJ 375]. Since the concept of a purpose in nature is given objective reality we are justified in bringing in a new principle not available through natural science; moreover, we thus relegate such questions to a separate discipline, that of teleology, based upon that principle:

“This principle, which is also the definition of organized beings is: An organized product of nature is one in which everything is a purpose and reciprocally also a means. In such a product nothing is gratuitous, purposeless, or to be attributed to a blind mechanism.” [CJ 376]

This principle must be a priori because of its universal and necessary nature (according to Kant), though it is a priori merely regulatively: it is a maxim transcendentally necessary for experience. Though we can observe how things work mechanically - “It is entirely possible that some parts in an animal body (such as skin, bone or hair) could be grasped as accumulations governed by merely mechanical laws” - still “the cause that procures the appropriate matter and forms it in that way, and that deposits it in the pertinent locations must always be judged teleologically. Hence, everything in such a body must be regarded as organized; and everything, in a certain relation to the thing itself, is also an organ in turn.” [CJ 377]

Again, it must be stressed that since free formations do not fall under these principles, they remain anomalous to Kant’s system.

Confusion and amazement at organized nature is no good for Kant’s system which requires that we have, as far as possible, a synthesized unity of experience, an experience that we create with our faculties into which we have complete insight, and over which, complete mastery as the eventual aim. It is this that we expect to reach, not the transfixion of our inability to understand, confusion and amazement. Judgments on nature should be more similar to judgments of taste than to the sublime, in order to fit into the unity of experience. It is for this reason that we must treat organized nature as though it had a purpose (as if it had been brought under a concept). We find so much of nature to be purposive, yet all our intuitions lead to the contingency of what is purposive to us. In order to generalize, produce a law-governed nature that we understand and can place onto the chaotic nature we do not understand, we must treat organized nature as if we do understand it, as a purpose. This is why, according to Kant’s system, we need teleology, on top of science, to think something that we cannot think mechanically. Teleology must be used alongside science, aiding our virtual mastery of nature. Teleology is a transcendental maxim we use so we can set aside the fact that we do not really understand, and act as if we did.

We can see here how strict the delineation of two separate realms is: the mechanical, whose predictability and unremarkableness give us mastery over it, and the organized, whose unification, integration and growth is inexplicable, but acceptably so, once it is brought under the teleological maxim

If teleology’s purpose were to be simply as a placeholder for knowledge not yet gathered, we could say now that it is simply redundant (developments such as evolutionism and the sciences of complexity) As Zammito says, the impossibility of conceiving of “a form of causality which, without intellect and will, could nevertheless organize itself” was based on the lack of a “model in ourselves and [a] basis in experience” for such a process, models which may now be available. But for Kant, it seems that the sharp distinction it brings out has a more important, constitutive role in the unified system of philosophy. It is this which free formations put into question, since (regardless of new scientific developments) they are presented within Kant’s system. The description of the crystallization process shows a free formation process happening within one matter: when the ‘caloric’ escapes, stratification ensues. What is the difference between this process and what happens when matter is organized; why must Kant suppose that there is a difference between formations of organic and formations of inorganic matter? We now know that lots of simple, mechanical things can add up to more than mechanical things: bees in a hive, ant colonies. Where does the sharp contrast organic/inorganic come from? Kant has no justification to say things are either easily understandable (and so free, mechanical formations) or too complex to understand (and so must be organized by something else for a purpose). In doing this he again models nature on human cognition and its capabilities, apparently ruling out the possibility of a nature truly external and indifferent to us

Just because there is a difference between things with organic structure and things without does not mean that one has an ultimate purpose behind it and the other has not. Who knows what mechanical relationships of inorganic matter can achieve, even organic matter? Because of the third term opened up by free formations, such questions about nature are legitimate in their assumption that nature can work without our determinations, and yet also without another, assumed, purpose.

(5) The Analogy With Genius
Kant allows genius to do many things that he does not allow of crystals: produce according to no determinate rule and produce new things, create a new nature (unlike growth which produces itself, ie, it is not a “shooting”). At the same time, Kant allows crystals to do things he would not allow of genius: to order beautifully (even if we are to follow Kant, that it is the result of simple mechanism) without being reined in by taste. By looking at both these parts of Kant’s system we can see where he shows bias to either producer of exemplary material. Through examining the spontaneity of the genius and the “shooting” of crystallization, parallels can be drawn between them. I shall argue that this leads to a radicalization of our reading of the genius as well as of matter, leading to the following questions:

  • Do crystals in their production exemplify new rules?
  • To what extent does taste have control over genius’ imagination?
  • What is the resultant disruption to Kant’s conception of taste and order?

Genius produces human art according to no determinate rule, in leaps. Crystals form in leaps and exactly what will be produced cannot be predicted because the “shooting” process follows no formula: there is no determinate rule. It is Geist, Kant argues, which allows the genius to produce exemplary art. What is it that makes the crystals produce what is new and exemplary? The escape of the “caloric”? It appears viable although Kant does not want free formations to be read in this way.
Kant argues that genius produces fine art which is ultimately regulated by taste:

“Taste, like the power of judgment in general, consists in disciplining (or training) genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it civilized or polished; but at the same time it gives it guidance as to how far and over what it may spread while still remaining purposive.” [CJ 319]

  • to be beautiful, something must be purposive for the understanding; that is, it must hold open a space for a meaningful play of thought. Genius’ work must conform to taste, and cannot be too far ahead of its time.

“…there is no fine art that does not have as its essential condition something mechanical, which can be encompassed by rules and complied with, and hence has an element of academic correctness… Genius can only provide rich material for products of fine art; processing this material and giving it form requires a talent that is academically trained, so that it may be used in a way that can stand the test of the power of judgment.” [CJ 310]

For Kant, there must be an academically trained artist to form the material of genius into something beautiful. Genius without taste or power of judgment produces art as useless as that produced by taste without genius (ie, by a process of imitation*). A subject can develop their capacity for taste by hard work and studying as it is based on the history of art - although taste will never add up to creation of fine art, since the production of fine art is the future, a place as yet undiscovered: fine art is produced according to no determinate rule, and so cannot be summed up in an equation. The talent to produce art is a talent bestowed by nature on the few, though everyone has the natural capacity (this can be developed and enhanced) to judge that art.

I shall argue that crystallization shows that this is not so. If it can be argued that crystals somehow form themselves and provide their own purposiveness, then they are not producing beauty for us. Neither are they doing it by accident. In the crystal there is no process giving form to matter; crystallisation happens automatically: no academic talent is required, and so, by analogy, we may ask the question to what extent does taste govern the imagination of the genius”?

If, in fine art, the products of genius were to be treated as the formations of crystals are treated by Kant - since both form similarly, according to no determinate rule - this would lead to the potential for concluding that taste does not govern the production of the beautiful and the object of beauty is a self-ordered free formation.

If Kant treated crystals like he treated genius then they, too, would be considered to produce objects of beauty according to no determinate rule. So, while seeing crystals in the light of Kant’s genius gives crystals the possibility of being seen as producing new rules, seeing genius in light of crystals (which are not ‘reined in’ by any determinate concepts) gives genius the possibility of being seen as not governed by taste.
Either way, these are conclusions at odds with Kant’s system of thought.

Kant allows that genius produces according to no determinate concept and it cannot be denied that there is an apparent parallel between genius and the crystallization processes. To take both to their rightful conclusion would be to say that both are organic processes - both are ways of re-schematizing - which both we (qua human); and matter can do (or perhaps, alternatively, we humans qua matter). If this is so then the least we can say is that crystals will freely form in a beautiful way - and so they will not be subject to the hylomorphism that the rest of Kant’s system is.

”…[T]o apprehend the imagination’s rapidly passing play and to unite it in a concept that can be communicated without the constraint of rules (a concept that on that very account is original, while at the same time it reveals a new rule that could not have been inferred from any earlier principles or examples).” [CJ 317]

This principle of art, whilst not directly communicating art’s fundamental structure or rule, or suggesting by which determinate route it must follow - which it can never do - does show the way by which new art may follow; this is why Kant emphasised the fact that a work of art is not to be copied but followed. Each work of art does instantiate a particular structure and rule for ordering matter, although this is not a structure that can be produced by determinate concepts - it is a product of the imagination. As the rules come after the event, each work is like a threshold that cannot be gone back on. Whilst retrospectively one can look and find rules, these rules are already history: the work of art will have been incorporated into the history of art. Art by its very production creates its own rule, creating a new threshold in its production, new rules which can be used only as examples. In the same elusive way, art, in its material presentation, suggests the way towards truth, but it does not actually communicate the end, because, of course, the in-itself is not communicable.

6) Conclusions
The following passage sums up the genius:

“Spirit [Geist] in an aesthetic sense is the animating principle in the mind…. This principle is nothing but the ability to exhibit aesthetic ideas, and by an aesthetic thought I mean a presentation of the imagination which prompts much thought, but to which no determinate thought whatsoever, ie, no [determinate] concept, can be adequate, so that no language can express it completely and allow us to grasp it…. [These aesthetic ideas] strive toward something that lies beyond the bounds of experience, and hence try to approach the exhibition of rational concepts, and thus [these concepts] are given a semblance of objective reality.” [CJ 313-314]

And the following is a description of “caloric”/the space filled by “caloric”:

“Caloric, the basis of heat, requires heat to become elastic. It is a matter without gravity and not displaceable, but which moves all matter internally, renders matter elastic but also cohesive- nevertheless, it is without gravity. It is extended in the whole of cosmic space: the world, however, has no position from which it might move. Permanent-elastic and yet alterable in its influence on bodies.” [OP 21:525]

Perhaps “Geist” is something akin to “caloric”, a groundless assumption to explain something which we cannot understand. Kant can only manage to deal with matter that produces something greater than what can be mechanically programmed if he has such a term to, as it were, intervene in the mechanical process: he must have an idea of an alien property at work in the process (Geist /Caloric / “some cause”).

It is through contradictions in Kant’s Critique of Judgment that all of the arguments outlined in this essay have been formed. It is clear that such contradictions arise because of the difficulty Kant has in holding together both his strong belief in hylomorphism and the more immediate evidence he received from his senses: he is unable to reconcile these differences.

Taking Kant’s writing on crystals to its rightful conclusion, as we have done here, yields important information about the limits of a hylomorphic system. If crystals (and how much else in nature?) form in a like manner to the beautiful creations of genius, then we can only assume that we have found a second, non-conceptual, process of ordering which is to be completely distinguished from “organization”, being more comparable to finding a work of art - a concept - in nature than to something actually purposive in an organic way.

Comparing the passages Kant writes on crystals to the passages on genius shows a bias on Kant’s part against the possibility of matter ordering itself. We may reflect again on Zammito’s conclusions about Kant, the man, and ponder whether Kant’s bias is a prejudice that, perhaps, that he considers must be held onto if he is to keep open a space for God and for our own superiority over nature (and especially ‘mere’ matter):

“Kant had not only scientific but also metaphysical positions to defend the traditional notion of a transcendent, intelligent Deity who created the world, and the notion of individual moral freedom and responsibility. As he saw it, the trends in science and cosmology, ‘materialism’ and ‘pantheism’, threatened these positions” [Z 191]

Regardless, the consequence of this bias is that the potential repercussions of free formations have not been treated in a critical way, something I hope to have done myself in this essay.

* To the 2023 reader, this is a concept brilliantly exemplified by AI generated “art”.

**Bibliography

**Cohen, Ted and Guyer, Paul. Essays in Kant’s Aesthetics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment (CJ), Indianapolis, In: Hackett, 1987, Trans. Werner S. Pluhar
Opus Pastumum (OP), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, Trans. Eckart Förster and Michael Rosen.
Kemal, Salim. Kant on Fine Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986
Makkreel, Rudolf A. Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990
Zammito, John H. The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Z), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992