Kant's critique of the leibnizian conception of organisms: an unnoticed cornerstone of criticism

National audienceIn the Antinomies of reason, there is a short text whose meaning can be grasped only by determining what is exactly Kant's target in the critique that he elaborates there (A525/B553-A528/B556). This target is the Leibnizian conception of organisms as "infinitely articulated machines". What is at stake in this critique is thus the presuppositions of such a conception. Then, reading Kant's critic may allow us to understand the extent to which the theory of organised beings in Leibniz is embedded in his own metaphysical commitments. Thus, reciprocally, such an interpretation will grasp the precise link between questions about organisms and metaphysical problems, so that we will understand why the critical project is in itself concerned by the question of defining organisms. In fact, this critique of Leibniz is important since the leibnizian conception shares many presuppositions and schemes of the common metaphysical framework of what Kant called dogmatism, and which he critically addressed in his works after 1764. While Leibniz addressed the question of organised beings in order to avoid Cartesian mechanism and vitalism (mainly in the form of Stahl's animism), Kant's critique points out that this project could not be fulfilled within Leibniz's guidelines. The present paper reconstruct Kant's critique within this background, and questions its significance for criticism in general. After having briefly reminded the Leibnizian conception, I shall present the concept of those Antinomies of reason, in order to expose the second Antinomy; I will justify that at this point, the idea of organised beings raises a specific problem, so that, in the course of the second Antinomy, such issue should be addressed and one has to define some requisites for any theory of organisms. I end up by stressing the consequences of such an analysis upon the meaning of the divorce between Kant and Leibniz (and, more generally, classical metaphysics), and its consequences concerning further Kantian conceptions