Marco Sgarbi

Aim of the paper is to reconstruct the role played by Aristotle in Kant’s Methodenlehre der Kritik der Urteilskraft. The first part shows Kant’s appropriation of the following Aristotelian structural elements: 1) analogy as a tool of investigation; 2) impossibility of applying mathematics to teleology and metaphysics; 3) regulative use of teleology; 4) inner finality; 5) universal order; 6) ethico-teleological proof; 7) God as condition of the good. The second part deals with Kant’s Aristotelian sources. The paper demonstrates that the Aristotelian elements that are at work in the Methodenlehre der Kritik der Urteilskraft leave little doubt that Kant had read Aristotle either directly or consulting the works of Zabarella and of other pure Aristotelians. Aristotelian philosophy is thus the primary reference for Kant’s writing on teleology and on the relationship between philosophy of nature and metaphysics.