The metaphorical idea of epigenesis of reason in the Critique of pure reason: an interpretation in light of Kantian racial theory

Abstract

In this paper I offer an interpretation of the metaphorical idea of epigenesis of reason that Immanuel Kant introduced in §27 in the second edition of his Critique of pure reason. Such an interpretation is made in light of Kantian racial theory, which is used in order to explain the spontaneity of the categories of understanding (as conditions of the experience) in analogy to the Kantian explanation on the origins of human races. For this purpose I explain three things: 1) that such a metaphor must be understood within the goal of transcendental deduction of the categories, 2) that such a metaphor refers to the coincidence between concepts and experience, and 3) that Kant defends an idea of epigenesis with preformationist connotations from his concerns about the origins of human races.