L’osservatore e l’osservato. Difficoltà teoretiche nella biologia di Jakob von Uexküll

Jakob von Uexküll draws on Kant’s transcendental gnoseological theory to support his anti-anthropocentric conception of subjective environments. Indeed, he argues of extending the idea of a mutual dependence between the biological constitution of animals and their environmental dimension to the animal kingdom, while maintaining the assumptions of Kant’s transcendentalism. This paper attempts to show that he claims to penetrate the structure of animal environments and to understand the Innenwelt of other subjects, contradicting the initial gnoseological assumptions. Moreover, the use of a special ‘intuitive vision’ with which to grasp the Gesetzmaßigkeit of life distances him from the original framework and brings him into the realm of vitalism. At the same time, his interesting attempt to found an anti-anthropocentric biology remains burdened by a number of particular anthropomorphic influences.