Some interpreters claim Kant distinguishes between organisms and living things. I argue this claim is underdetermined by the textual evidence. Once this is recognized, it becomes a real possibility that Kant's various remarks about the essential properties of living things generalize to organisms as such. This, in turn, generates a puzzle. Kant repeatedly claims that the capacity for representation is essential to the nature of a living thing. If he does not distinguish between living things and organisms, then how might the capacity for representation be essential to the latter? Drawing on the writings of Kant and his contemporaries, I reconstruct a framework within which representational capacities might conceivably be thought to play this role. On this view, what distinguishes an organism from mechanically explicable products of nature is its capacity for endogenous behavior that is instinctual and representationally mediated.

中文翻译：

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康德，有机体和代表性。

一些解释者声称，康德区分生物和生物。我认为这种说法是由文字证据确定的。一旦认识到这一点，康德关于生物的基本特性的各种说法就很有可能推广到生物本身。反过来，这引起了困惑。康德一再声称，代表能力对于生物的本质至关重要。如果他不区分生物和生物，那么代表能力对生物至关重要吗？借鉴康德及其同代人的著作，我构建了一个框架，在该框架内可以想象代表能力发挥这种作用。根据这种观点，