This paper discusses Kant's view on the innate, by means of an examination of organic metaphors and biological vocabulary found in the handwritten reflexions of the 1770's, and also in two passages of the first Critique. Considering next other references of the author to the epigenesis (now in the strict sense, in the Critique of the faculty of judgment) as well as to the innate, the paper suggests the possibility of the occurrence of a "biological" meaning of that form of representation, which would be present in the philosopher's texts.
Epigenesis; Preformation; Innate; Acquired; Original acquisition
