Nature, Signs, Reflective Judgment

The standard Academic classification of Berkeley--as part of sequence with Locke and Hume--tends to obscure how anomalous he is in it.  For, unlike either of the other two, as well as traditions to which they have given risen, e. g. Positivism and Pragmatism, Berkeley can interpret the occurrence of a rainbow as a 'covenant from God', and, in general, reads Nature as a system of divine signs.  Now, while the cognition of Nature as such can be classified in Kant's system as 'Reflective Judgment', he never considers that possible application of that faculty, though he needs to.  For, that application combines Aesthetic Judgment and Teleological Judgment, as he presents them--the former conceives natural Beauty and Sublimity as singular phenomena seemingly addressed directly to a subject of experience, while the latter conceives Nature as organically interconnected, in order to promote scientific research.  In contrast, the application of Reflective Judgment to the interpretation of a phenomenon as a divine sign, conceives it as both singular and as teleological.  Furthermore, Kant's doctrine requires that combination of Aesthetic Judgment and Teleological Judgment, because, as has been previously discussed, the thesis, entailed by the doctrine, that Happiness can be a divine reward, is no different than that which interprets a rainbow as a divine sign..