On the Sages of Königsberg and Down: Rethinking Darwin’s Relationship to Kant

Abstract The aim of this essay is to provide a comprehensive account of the intellectual links between Darwin and Kant, bringing clarity to their relationship on both a historical and philosophical register. Understanding how and what Darwin knew of Kant’s philosophy provides a way to reconceptualize far more than their direct relationship. This case study allows us to rethink Kant’s legacy in British thought, the possible uses of Kant for later German writers, and the important role of the natural theological tradition in British aesthetics. First, I explore the sources through which Darwin encountered Kant during the 1830s and 40s, detailing Darwin’s response to various texts and assessing their impact on the development of his theory during these formative years. Secondly, I explore how British and German contemporaries understood the possible links between Darwin and Kant. I examine Darwin’s strategy in answering their views, and how Kant was thereby incorporated into Darwin’s later work. Finally, I discuss the use of Kantian philosophical resources by present-day historians to understand Darwin’s thought. Via a brief historical exploration of Darwin’s theory of beauty, I argue for a corrective reading, claiming we should reframe the habitual deployment of Kantian philosophemes in recent approaches to Darwin’s thought through the terms of a largely forgotten natural theological tradition to which both Darwin and Kant were, in divergent ways, equivalently disruptive heirs.