The relation between teleological judgment and imagination in Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy

In this study, we inquired the possibility of a transition from teleology to theology via imagination in Kant's critical philosophy. In the first chapter, in order to examine the constitution of the object, we discussed the functions of the faculties of knowledge i.e., reason, perception and imagination. Besides, while aiming to clarify the construction of the object, on the other hand, we emphasized that the imagination is not a mediating but a constitutive faculty. Thus, we presented fundamental activities of this constitutive faculty such as apperception, schematism and judgment. That led us to examine the reciprocity that is admitted existing between the use of pure reason free from the experience, that is working with concepts and judgments only and the experiential use of understanding working with senses and intuition. In the second chapter, we focused on the issue concerning the mediating role of the judgment between the principles given by reason and the objects constructed by understanding. We discussed the concepts of play and harmony that stemmed from the relationship of imagination with understanding and reason. Thus, before we proceed to the teleological judgments, we examined universality claim of the aesthetical judgments via beautiful and sublime. On the other hand, we focused on the subject matter regarding judgment's role as an intermediary between principles given by reason and objects founded by understanding. By this means, we focused on how the subjective universality of aesthetic judgments will affect the nature of our knowledge of God. As for the last chapter, we discussed the faculty of judgement connecting the concept of freedom that belongs to the practical field and the concept of nature that belongs to the theoretical field within the framework of the teleological judgment. This led us to investigate the existence of the creator of a moral world in Kant's critical philosophy. We included the existence of God in our work, which we can call Kant's God, limited to the practical field and the organizer of this field. Throughout our research, as from the concept of the border determined by Kant, we investigated the possibility of talking about what is outside the border. We stated that in Kant's critical philosophy, transitivity from teleology to theology would not lead us to a definitive proof of the existence of God; however, it would inform us about the meaning of the idea of God, which has been postulated in the practical field. We claimed that we can only see this from outside the border. The fundamental faculty that enables us to look from outside the border is the faculty of imagination. As a result, we concluded that the existence of God cannot be directly pointed out, based on the relationship between teleological judgments and imagination in Kant's philosophy. We tried to demonstrate that the imagination, which is considered as a constitutive component in this system, cannot encompass this uncertain area.