BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

Studies in German Idealism
Series Editor:
Reinier Munk, Leiden University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Advisory Editorial Board:
Frederick Beiser, Syracuse University, U.S.A.
George di Giovanni, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Helmut Holzhey, University of Zürich, Switzerland
Detlev Pätzold, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Robert Solomon, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
VOLUME 6
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.

BODY AND PRACTICE
IN KANT
by
HELGE SVARE
Oslo, Norway

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If, instead of gluing a child to books, I bury him in a workshop, his hands
work for the profit of his mind; he becomes a philosopher and believes he
is only a laborer.
Rousseau, Émile

CONTENTS
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1. The embodied mind 11
1.1 Seele, Gemüt and Geist 14
1.2 Empirical and rational psychology and anthropology 14
1.3 Some preliminary remarks on Kant’s intellectual development 17
1.4 Living forces 20
1.5 New elucidation 27
1.6 Universal natural history 29
1.7 Maladies of the mind 33
1.8 Dreams of a spirit-seer 34
1.9 A crisis? 39
1.10 An embodied empiricism 41
1.11 Kant’s Inaugural dissertation 44
1.12 A new perspective on the body-mind problem 47
1.13 Holism in the Critique 50
1.14 The virtual presence of the mind 53
1.15 Anthropology 55
1.16 Conclusion 59
2. Body and space 61
2.1 The European discussion of space in the 18th century 63
2.2 Rousseau and space 67
2.3 Directions in space 69
2.4 A Copernican position? 73
2.5 Orientation 74
2.6 Anthropology 75
2.7 Summary 77
3. Rationality and embodied practice 79
3.1 Practice 82
3.2 Pragmatism 85
3.3 The historical origin of Kant’s pragmatism 86
3.4 Rousseau’s influence 89
vii

viii
CONTENTS
3.5 Basedow and Crusius 95
3.6 Kant’s theory of the understanding 99
3.7 Concepts and rules 102
3.8 Rules and practices 104
3.9 Learning by doing 106
3.10 The unconscious employment of the understanding 109
3.11 Judgments cannot be learned 111
3.12 Pragmatic priority 115
3.13 Some modern parallels 117
3.14 More about Kant’s theory of concepts 123
3.15 Summary 126
3.16 A short summary of the first part of the book 127
4. The body in the Critique 129
4.1 The Critique – a brief presentation 130
4.2 Phases, perspectives and continuities 131
4.3 Some trends and positions in the interpretation of the Critique 136
4.4 Transcendental philosophy 142
4.5 Kant’s Copernican perspective 145
4.6 Some further remarks on the transcendental and the empirical 147
4.7 Transcendental idealism 148
4.8 What did Kant mean? 151
5. Spatial experience and the body in the Critique 155
5.1 A brief remark about the structure of my argument 158
5.2 The architectonic of the Critique 159
5.3 The cognitive theory of the Critique 160
5.4 Synthesis 162
5.5 The syntheses of imagination 164
5.6 Apprehension 165
5.7 Reproduction 166
5.8 The B-deduction 167
5.9 Transcendental apperception 168
5.10 § 26 of the B-deduction 171
5.11 Problems of comparison 173
5.12 Two versions of the same theory? 174
5.13 Summary 176
6. Spatial schematism 177
6.1 The production of images 181
6.2 The construction of geometrical figures 182
6.3 Mental constructions? 183

CONTENTS ix
6.4 Rossvær’s anti-mentalist approach 185
6.5 Kant’s theory of mathematical construction 186
6.6 Further remarks on the imagination 190
6.7 Construction and subsumption 192
6.8 The key argument 196
6.9 Visual perception 198
6.10 Schematism in the transcendental deduction 201
6.11 Degrees of consciousness 201
6.12 The empirical aspect of apprehension 204
6.13 Falkenstein’s argument concerning intuition and body in the
Critique 207
6.14 The embodied agent 210
6.15 Summary 212
7. The body and the transcendental 213
7.1 The transcendental distinction 216
7.2 The unknown subject 218
7.3 The temptations of self-consciousness 219
7.4 The unknown origin of affection 220
7.5 From the empirical to the transcendental 223
7.6 Kant’s representationalism 229
7.7 Kant’s anti-skepticism 235
7.8 More about the Kantian notion of a representation 240
7. 9 Summary 242
8. Kant’s transcendental epistemology 245
8.1 The necessary structure of the world 246
8.2 Problems 248
8.3 The a priori 249
8.4 Embodied practice as a condition of experience 251
8.5 An empirical or a transcendental deduction? 252
8.6 The normativity of practice 255
8.7 Arithmetic as an a priori synthetic science 258
8.8 Thinking as practice 259
8.9 Logic 261
8.10 Transcendental logic 263
8.11 The categories are acquired 264
8.12 Summary 266
9. Quantity 267
9.1 Transcendental schematism 268
9.2 Quantity 269

x
CONTENTS
9.3 The production of time 270
9.4 Some objections and answers 273
10. The relational categories 277
10.1 The analogies of experience 278
10.2 The second analogy 281
10.3 The third analogy 283
10.4 Time and the world 284
10.5 Time measuring practices 284
11. Causality and common sense physics 289
11.1 Piaget and the cognitive development of the child 291
11.2 Practice as a condition of experience 293
11.3 Sensorimotor practices and the relational categories 296
11.4 Causality and interaction 297
11.5 Sensorimotor intelligence in the adult 299
11.6 Objective time revisited 301
11.7 A very brief remark on transcendental apperception 304
11.8 The categories of quality and modality 305
11.9 Summary 306
Conclusion 307
Bibliography 313
Name index 327

ABBREVIATIONS
Ak: The Academy edition [Kants gesammelte Schriften]
a.t.: Author's translation.
Announcement: Mr. Immanuel Kant's announcement of the program of
his lectures for the winter semester 1765-1766. [Nachricht von der
Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem Winterhalbenjahre von 1765-
1766.]
Anthropology: Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view.
[Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht.]
Critique: Critique of pure reason. [Kritik der reinen Vernunft.]
Directions in space: Concerning the ultimate ground of the
differentiation of directions in space. [Von dem ersten Grunde des
Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume.]
Dreams of a spirit-seer: Dreams of a spirit-seer elucidated by dreams of
metaphysics. [Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der
Metaphysik.]
Inaugural dissertation: On the form and principles of the sensible and the
intelligible world. [De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et
principiis/Von der Form der Sinnen- und Verstandesvelt und ihren
Gründen.]
Living forces: Thoughts on the true estimation of living forces, and
criticism of the proofs propounded by Herr von Leibniz and other
mechanists in their treatment of this controversy, along with some
preliminary observations concerning the force of bodies in general.
[Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte und
Beurtheilung der Beweise, derer sich Herr von Leibniz und andere
Mechaniker in dieser Streitsache bedienet haben, nebst einigen
xi

xii
ABBREVIATIONS
vorhergehenden Betrachtungen, welche die Kraft der Körper überhaupt
betreffen.]
Logic: The Jäsche logic. [Immanuel Kants Logik, ein Handbuch zu
Vorlesungen, hrsg. von G.B. Jäsche.]
Maladies of the mind: An essay on the maladies of the mind. [Versuch
über die Krankheiten des Kopfes.]
Negative magnitudes: Attempt to introduce the concept of negative
magnitudes into philosophy. [Versuch, den Begriff der negativen Größen
in die Weltweisheit einzuführen.]
New elucidation: A new elucidation of the first principles of metaphysical
cognition. [Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova
dilucidatio/Neue Erhellung der ersten Grundsätze metaphysischer
Erkenntnis.]
On a discovery: On a discovery according to which any new critique of
pure reason has been made superfluous by an earlier one. [Über eine
Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine
ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll.]
On the common saying: On the common saying: that may be correct in
theory, but it is of no use in practice. [Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag
in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis.]
Orientation: What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? [Was heißt:
sich im Denken orientieren?]
Prolegomena: Prolegomena to any future metaphysic that will be able to
come forward as science. [Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen
Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können.]
Universal natural history: Universal natural history and theory of the
heavens; or an essay on the constitution and mechanical origin of the
entire world edifice treated according to Newtonian principles.
[Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, oder Versuch
von der Verfassung und dem mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen
Weltgebaüdes nach Newtonischen Grundsätzen abgehandelt.]

INTRODUCTION
I still believe that, with classical works of the past,
philosophers today should attempt, at least on
some occasions, to give attention to all the
dimensions of a major thinker’s work.
Karl Ameriks 1
Kant has often been accused of being a philosopher who blatantly
ignores both the body and the fact that we experience the world in and
through our bodies. This purported neglect is sometimes used as a basis
for arguing that Kant’s philosophy is hopelessly outdated today.
Occasionally it is also ascribed to some unfortunate feature of Kant’s
psychological predisposition. Hartmut and Gernot Böhme exemplify
both trends. They first declare that Kant’s philosophy represents an
extreme version of the baseless dualism separating mind and body that
has haunted Western philosophy for too long, a dualism that tends to
devalue the physical aspect of human existence, and then explain this
purported extremism by claiming that Kant was alienated from his
body. 2 Thandeka categorically states that Kant fails to see that we are
biological beings. 3
Looking at more than two hundred years of Kant research seems to
confirm that our embodied existence was of little concern to Kant. As for
the Critique of pure reason, 4 which has probably received more attention
than any of his other works, scholars contend that it contains a theory of
human experience. It even contains the concept of an empirical subject,
referring to humans as biological, embodied beings. However, following
tradition, they deny that this empirical subject occupies any substantial
position in the work. If the Critique is regarded as containing a
1
Ameriks (2000), viii.
2
Böhme and Böhme (1983), 14ff.
3
Thandeka (1995), 18.
4
In this book the Critique of pure reason will be referred to simply as the
Critique. For other texts by Kant referred to, please consult the list if
abbreviations at the beginning of the book and the bibliography at the end of the
book.

2
INTRODUCTION
philosophy of man at all, this man is seen as a transcendental subject
existing somehow above or behind the empirical dimension.
The aim of this work is to show that this established image of Kant as
a philosopher who ignores embodied human existence is radically wrong.
Not only does Kant, throughout his career, in works published before
and after the Critique, constantly reflect upon the fact that human life is
embodied, but he is also occupied in exploring the philosophical
implications of this fact. Discussing human cognition, for instance, he
often emphasizes that cognition is embodied, and that the constitution
and functioning of the human body condition our way of experiencing
the world: Our experience of space, for instance, is based on the
immediate awareness we have of being in our bodies and of our
embodied acts. This idea is found in the first scholarly work that Kant
published in 1747 and is repeated in a number of works until his death in
1804.
In the Critique the case is not that simple. Its highly abstract style
seems to support those scholars who maintain that human embodiment is
a topic of little significance within it. Against this, I would argue that the
idea that human life is embodied is not only clearly assumed in the text
but also that in a very basic sense the Critique may be read as a critical
reflection upon the very fact that human life is embodied. This implies
not only the simple and relatively trivial fact that while writing the
Critique Kant held that a human being was both mind and body, it also
means that a number of the philosophical doctrines promoted in this
work, such as transcendental idealism, cannot be fully understood
without taking human embodiment into account.
Bringing this aspect of Kant's philosophy into the light is important,
not only because it has too long been generally ignored, but also because
it is highly relevant to contemporary discussions in philosophy about, for
example, embodiment, learning and practice. By taking his philosophy of
embodiment into account, we discover that far from being outdated,
Kant stands out as a true contemporary.
Even if this aspect of Kant’s philosophy has for the most part been
ignored, I am not alone in emphasizing that central parts of it rest on
reflections upon human embodiment. A growing number of scholars are
paying attention to this dimension in his thought today. In the German
Kantian tradition, this trend goes back further than it does in the Anglo-
American one, due to the fact that in Germany more attention was given
earlier to what Kant wrote before and after the Critique, texts in which
human embodiment is more explicitly discussed. Discussing his early

INTRODUCTION 3
academic years, Friedhelm Nierhaus, for instance, has written a helpful
study of the young Kant’s views on the mind-body relation. 5 Turning to
the Critique, in the 1960s Friedrich Kaulbach published a number of
studies arguing that the central part of this work may be interpreted as a
reflection upon self-conscious, embodied movement. 6 Friedrich
Kambartel later argued that Kant’s theory of the categories may be read
(at least in part) as a theory of embodied practice. 7
Within the Anglo-American Kantian tradition, the significance of the
body in his early philosophy has been explored by, among others, Alison
Laywine, Susan Meld Shell and Andrew Carpenter, to mention only a
few. 8 Kant’s reflections on embodiment have also received an increasing
amount of attention through the growing interest in his ideas on
pedagogy and anthropology, stimulated by, amongst other things, the
publication of volume 25 of the Academy edition containing his lectures
on anthropology. 9
As for the Critique, the idea that parts of its theory
refer to embodied events, acts or practices has been suggested by, among
others, Sarah L. Gibbons, Lorne Falkenstein and Howard Caygill. 10 Most
radically this approach has been followed by Arthur Melnick. 11 In
5
Nierhaus (1962).
6
Kaulbach (1960, 1965, and 1968). It may be worth noting that while in the texts
referred to here he seems to be taking it for granted that Kant’s critical
philosophy is a philosophy of the body, he later appears to be more cautious. In
his Philosophie als Wissenschaft from 1981 he suggests that the notion of
embodied acts and practices were first incorporated into Kant’s transcendental
philosophy towards the end of his life, cf. Kaulbach (1981), 101.
7
Kambartel (1976).
8
Shell (1996) demonstrates convincingly how throughout his life Kant held a
continuous interest in the embodied aspects of human life, and also how this
interest is reflected in his philosophy. Where the period up to the Critique is
concerned, the philosophically most systematic studies I have found in English,
besides Shell’s study, are Laywine (1993) and Carpenter (1998). Also worth
mentioning is Kitcher (1990) which, moreover, gives valuable information on the
intellectual context in which Kant’s ideas of mind and body were moulded. I also
want to draw attention to Schönfeld (2000) who even if he does not see the mindbody
problem as the young Kant’s central concern, still offers a comprehensive
discussion of the topic. Cf. also Ameriks (2000).
9
A survey of relevant literature regarding Kant’s pedagogical and
anthropological ideas is found in Munzel (1999), 1ff. Here I want to emphasise
Pitte (1971 and 1978), Brandt (1999) and Zammito (2002).
10
Cf. e.g. Falkenstein (1995). Cf. also Gibbons (1994) and Caygill (1995).
11
Cf. Melnick (1989). I came across Melnick’s work just as I was about to finish
my own, thus, I do not relate extensively to it. On a number of points I think

4
INTRODUCTION
Norway Jens Saugstad has defended what he calls an externalist
interpretation of the Critique, arguing, for instance, that Kant’s theory of
the categories should be interpreted as a theory referring to what he calls
behavioral techniques. 12
Despite the highly valuable efforts of these authors and others
working along similar lines, I think more work is needed in order to
establish a proper grasp of this important aspect of Kant’s philosophy.
We need to see how his reflections in this field are more than just
fragments. They form a philosophy of embodiment that underlies much
of his philosophical activity throughout his life. There are also problems
and aspects of this philosophy of the body that are still neglected or
poorly understood. 13 I hope that the present work will make a positive
contribution in this respect.
When I started to work on Kant some years ago, my interest was
originally in the Critique and its interpretation. In a sense, I still think of
the present work as essentially a study of the Critique, or to be more
specific, of certain central parts of the Critique, such as its cognitive
theory (often referred to as Kant’s transcendental psychology), its theory
of experience, and its transcendental idealism. My understanding of these
parts, however, has changed dramatically. When I first approached the
Critique, my understanding of the text conformed more or less to the
mainstream interpretation found in standard textbooks. According to
this, the Critique is not a text dealing with human embodiment.
However, I soon started to notice how terms that normally refer to
embodied acts and practices abound on its pages. I started to ask myself
whether Saugstad, whose work I had then just become acquainted with,
might not after all be right in his claim that Kant’s theory of the
categories should be interpreted as a theory referring to behavioral
techniques, or what I prefer to call embodied practices.
Melnick’s position conforms to the one defended here, such as his attempt to
interpret Kantian notions like space, time and the categories as referring to
embodied human behavior. Nevertheless, there is also a sense in which his
project diverges from mine. His main approach is systematic, and he places little
emphasis on showing that the ideas he presents, and which he claims to be
Kantian, conform to or are supported by Kant’s actual text. Thus he omits what
is most central to my approach, namley to show how extensively these ideas fit in
with what Kant actually wrote.
12
Cf. Saugstad (1992, 1993a, 2000, and 2002), and also (1982, 1986, and 1993b).
Cf. also Rossvær (1974), Wyller (2000 and 2001) and Svendsen (1999).
13
I have here in mind, for instance, the relation between Kant’s philosophy of
embodiment and his transcendental idealism.

INTRODUCTION 5
I could not fail to notice, however, the almost unanimous resistance
to this interpretation among my colleagues. A standard criticism I
frequently encountered was that this interpretation was incompatible
with basic Kantian ideas. One such idea, frequently ascribed to Kant,
was the idea of a Cartesian mind, a mind constituted solely by mental
acts and processes. Kant’s theory of concepts had to be understood
within this Cartesian context, I was told, as a theory referring to inner,
mental acts and processes and not to embodied practices. 14 Another
objection I met with was that the idea of concepts being practices
belonged to a later period in the history of philosophy. It was a
Wittgensteinian conception, presupposing the intellectual climate of the
late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and could not have appeared
as early as the eighteenth century.
Susan Meld Shell’s work The Embodiment of Reason, 15 in which she
explores the significance of the body in Kant’s philosophical reflections in
works published before and after the Critique, inspired me to pursue my
own investigations into these texts. The results astounded me. While the
Critique presents us with a theory of an abstract subject with certain
abstract skills and abilities which make experience possible, in these texts
Kant explicitly and vigorously defends the idea that man as we know him
is an embodied being, experiencing the world in and through the body,
or better, as a body. In some of these Kantian works we also find what I
will call a life-world perspective that takes into account not only the
material or physical, but also the social conditions under which we live
our lives.
I had originally started to read these texts in order to learn more
about the context in which the Critique emerged. I soon realized,
however, that they also deserved to be studied in their own right. Of
course, in these texts we also find highly abstract and formal arguments
like the ones occurring in the Critique. However, through my reading of
these texts a different image of the famous Königsberger emerged from
that of the abstract and lofty thinker. They revealed a Kant deeply
involved in the philosophical project of exploring the basic significance of
our physical and social existence. As part of this project we find
philosophical theories and perspectives that are stunningly modern, for
instance, what I will call a pragmatic theory of embodied rationality, a
theory inviting us to study rationality at the level of human behavior or
14
For a discussion and criticism of Cartesian interpretations of Kant, cf. Collins
(1999).
15
Shell (1996).

6
INTRODUCTION
practice. This theory, I shall suggest, was developed in part inspired by
Rousseau, who, I think, had a far more profound influence on Kant than
most interpreters have acknowledged. In both Kant and Rousseau we
find expressions of a deep respect for the skills and practices of the
common artisan and everyday life. This, I suggest, is far more than just
superficial admiration, but serves as the basis for revising the very
concept of rationality.
The first part of the present work deals with what I have found most
significant in my reading of Kant’s early publications, as well as some
works published after 1781, the year the Critique first appeared. I see this
first part as an independent work that might have been published
separately because it draws attention to some aspects of Kantian
philosophy that, even if they are now receiving more attention than they
used to, are still too little known within the general community of
philosophers, let alone among the wider public. However, this first part is
included in the present work because I think it also has an important role
to play in understanding the context in which the Critique should be
interpreted.
That a work has to be interpreted in context, and that this should
include what its author wrote at other times, is of course neither new nor
foreign to interpreters of Kant. With a few exceptions, however, the
works I explore in the first part of this work have not generally been
regarded as really relevant to the Critique, and I think this has been
detrimental to our understanding of it. Even if the Critique contains
some philosophical reflections that have few if any parallels outside it, we
also find strong continuities between the Critique and the works just
referred to. A number of concepts with a central function in the Critique
also appear in these other Kantian texts. More than one of the questions
discussed in the Critique is also examined there. By including these texts
in the context within which we interpret the Critique, therefore, we are
in a better position to understand this central piece of Kantian
philosophy than we would be if they were ignored.
Finally, by reading the Critique in this context, we are able to
respond to those who claim that the theoretical reflections of the Critique
cannot be taken to refer to embodied events, skills or practices, because
Kant did not care about the body, or that such reflections were foreign to
the intellectual climate of the eighteenth century. By becoming
acquainted with the writings discussed in part one of this work, we
discover that Kant both could and did ascribe a basic significance to
embodied events, skills and practices in his philosophy in a way that may
seem radical even today. Reading the Critique in the context of these

INTRODUCTION 7
texts, therefore, makes it easier to accept that embodied events, skills and
practices may have a similar function there.
It is impossible to write a work like the present one without entering
into a discussion about Kant’s intellectual development. In my view, this
development is characterized by both continuity and change. Continuity
first: throughout his life, Kant took it as evident that human life as we
know it is embodied. Central in this respect is the idea of the embodied
mind, i.e. the idea that the mind of a living human being is not a freefloating
mental entity that can be studied in abstraction from the body.
On the contrary, as it has no life that we know of except its embodied
life, it can only be examined and understood in its communion with the
body. From start to finish, through all the changes and transformations
that his thinking underwent, Kant continued to defend this idea.
However, this very same idea that remained constant is also
responsible for one of the most significant developments in Kant’s
thought. It began as he started to reflect on its epistemic implications.
Early signs of such reflections can be seen when he was still quite young
and are found in most of his so called pre-critical works and they were
triggered by the following problem. If human existence is radically
embodied, then it follows that there is no other way of exploring the
world except in and through the body. This means not only that a
tenable cognitive theory has to explain how the body is used to establish
knowledge of the world, it also implies that all knowledge has a subjective
origin, which may be specified by reference to the specific constitution of
our body, its position within the world and its capacity for action.
This, however, raises a troubling question. If the origin of our
knowledge is subjective in the sense specified, how is objective knowledge
possible? My idea is that Kant, especially from the mid-1760s, was
preoccupied with answering this question, and that his transcendental
philosophy, as found in the Critique, is the outcome of this endeavor. It
may be read as a theory of how man as a self-conscious embodied being
confronts the world, how he is totally dependent on his body in
establishing knowledge of this world, how he employs certain embodied
acts and practices to explore it, and, finally, how such acts and practices
make objective knowledge possible, i.e. objective knowledge in a Kantian
sense.
This interpretation conflicts not only with most other interpretations,
it also seems to be incompatible with how Kant defines transcendental
philosophy in the Critique. In part two of this work I shall maintain that
a careful reading of the Critique reveals that this is not the case. Not only
do there exist embodied acts and practices that serve as a priori
conditions for knowledge in a Kantian sense, and not only is it possible to

8
INTRODUCTION
deduce a philosophical position from this fact, but there are also passages
in the Critique that support the view that Kant himself held this position.
I also argue that Kant’s transcendental idealism is the outcome of
reflections on the facts of human embodiment. The reason why there is
no way in which we can arrive at a detached, objective perspective of the
world from which we can see it as it is in itself, as perhaps its creator sees
it, is the subjective origin of our experience due to the fact that, qua
embodied beings we are always limited to the specific perspective offered
by our bodies. This also accounts for the specific epistemic status that
Kant ascribes to objective knowledge. Objective knowledge is possible,
but not of the world as it really is, only as it appears to us.
Compared with most works on Kant published today, this one is
different. It does not concentrate on a limited part of the Critique or
other text. It is more global and examines a large number of texts he
wrote over a period covering most of his intellectual career. While there
is obviously a place for philosophical studies that focus on a limited text
and examine it in minute detail (what, following Thomas Kuhn, we
might call ‘puzzle-solving’), I think Ameriks is right, in the passage
quoted at the beginning of this introduction, that sometimes it is also
profitable to broaden the perspective. Sometimes, distance helps you see
what is missed from close up. On the other hand, such a perspective also
makes it hard or even impossible to see each and every detail in the
material studied. So, each perspective has its advantages and
disadvantages. I would maintain, however, that both perspectives are
useful and consequently that global studies like the present one should be
accepted as legitimate. I would also maintain that in the present case the
global perspective is needed in order to establish and get across the
intended message. First, throughout his career Kant reflected upon the
fact that human life is embodied and how this affects us. Secondly,
reading the Critique in this context makes it appear in a different light
from the one standard interpretations suggest.
The literature on Kant, after two hundred years of research, debate
and interpretation, is vast, and the day is long past when a scholar could
hope to have anything like a complete overview of the field. 16
Today,
even someone working on only a limited aspect of Kant’s philosophy has
this problem. It goes without saying that in the present study this
problem is even more acutely felt. I have responded to this in a number
16 Zoeller (1993), 445 comments that over the past twenty-five years, scholarship
on Kant has taken on ‘colossal proportions, effectively defying summary
assessments and manageable presentation’.

INTRODUCTION 9
of ways. With some exceptions, I have given priority to recent secondary
publications over older ones. I have also given priority to those scholars
who address topics or perspectives that are relevant to my own discussion.
As for the Critique, this approach has led me to ignore works that in
other contexts would have been indispensable. For instance, as I do not
examine the logical structure of the so called transcendental arguments of
the Critique, of which the transcendental deductions of the categories are
the more famous, I have generally ignored the secondary literature
discussing these arguments. Seen from the position of mainstream
contemporary research on the Critique, this may appear as unforgivable
neglect. However, given the extent of the territory covered here,
attempting to deal with the transcendental deductions as well would have
resulted at best in merely paraphrasing what other commentators have
already said much better. So I am happy to leave the transcendental
deductions to those who have more time and energy to devote to them.
This, of course, also reflects my general priorities. This work is not
intended to be yet another contribution to mainstream Kant research,
but an attempt to draw attention to aspects of Kantian philosophy that
deserve more attention than they have so far received.
A note on translation and citation: the titles of Kant’s works are all
rendered in English, as are all quotations from his works. The original
terms or phrases used by Kant are added in brackets whenever I think it
may help. Passages I have translated myself are marked ‘a.t.’ In citing the
Critique, I refer, as is customary, to the pagination of the original ‘A’
(1781) and ‘B’ (1787) editions. All other references to Kant’s works cite
the volume and page number of the Academy edition. The pagination of
the Academy edition is also included in most standard translations of
Kant's works, such as the English Oxford Edition.
A number of people deserve to be thanked for the generous help
offered me in support of my work. I would like to thank Associate
Professor Steinar Mathisen at the University of Oslo for the good advice
and support that he offered as I worked with the doctoral dissertation
that has now become this book. I would also like to thank Dr. Trevor
Curnow of St Martin's College, Lancaster (England) for copy-editing the
text and the Norwegian Research Council for meeting the expense
involved. First and foremost, however, I wish to thank Professor Jens
Saugstad at the University of Oslo. His academic work on Kant has been
a constant source of inspiration.

1. THE EMBODIED MIND
It is noteworthy that the only form we can think
of as suitable for a rational being is that of a man.
Any other form represents, at most, a symbol of a
certain quality of man – as the snake is an image
of evil cunning – but not the rational being itself.
From Kant’s Anthropology 1
In this passage from his Anthropology, Kant reflects upon what he sees
as a remarkable fact, which is that the only proper form we can think of
as a symbol of a rational being is the form of a human being. Even if he
does not explicitly say so, it is clear from the context that this is the form
of an embodied human being. What is it about the embodied human
being that makes it the only proper symbol of rationality? Is it its upright
position, the shape of its head or other organs, or is it the way it moves
and interacts with the world? The above passage does not answer this
question. However, at some level, a connection is suggested between the
human body and rationality.
One of the central aims of this work is to explore in more detail how,
according to Kant, the body is involved in human rationality. This aim
will be pursued as part of a more general project, addressing central
topics within his philosophy such as his ideas about the relation between
mind and body, his cognitive theory and his epistemology. By ‘cognitive
theory’ I mean, roughly, a theory aiming to describe how our experience
of the world is constituted. In what follows, ‘rationality’ will be used to
denote those aspects of human cognition that are associated in Kant’s
theory with the higher cognitive faculties such as the understanding
[Verstand] and the power of judgment [Urteilskraft]. Cognitive theory is
to be distinguished from epistemology, understood as the theory
concerned with whether our beliefs are true or justified. 2 Cognitive
1
Ak VII: 172.
2 The distinction here suggested between cognitive theory and epistemology
conforms to Henry Allison’s distinction between a psychological and an epistemic
condition, cf. Allison (1983), 11. By a psychological condition Allison means some
mechanism or aspect of the human cognitive apparatus that is appealed to in
order to provide a genetic account of a belief or an empirical explanation of why

12
THE EMBODIED MIND
theory does not appear as an independent discipline in the Kantian
corpus, but reflections on human cognition are typically integrated into
other discussions dealing with topics such as cosmology, physiology,
pedagogy or anthropology. Even in the Critique, epistemology is Kant’s
main interest, not cognitive theory. However, passages dealing with what
we now call cognitive theory are clearly present in several Kantian texts,
and they increase both in number and in volume along with the
development of his thoughts.
This work is divided in two parts. While its second part is dedicated
to a study of the Critique, this first part, comprising chapters 1 to 3, rests
mainly on the study of works published before and after the appearance
of Kant’s groundbreaking masterpiece in 1781. These are, among others,
Living forces from 1747, Universal natural history and New elucidation,
both from 1755, Maladies of the mind from 1764, Dreams of a spirit-seer
from 1766, Directions in space from 1768, the Inaugural dissertation
from 1770, Orientation from 1786, On the common saying from 1793,
and then finally Anthropology, Logic and On pedagogy, all published
during Kant’s latter years. Dedicated to a wide range of topics and
representing different phases in his intellectual development, these texts
nevertheless all justify their place in this work because they deal with
various aspects of our present concerns, such as the relation between
mind and body, cognition and rationality. 3
we perceive things in a certain way, and which includes physiological as well as
narrowly psychological factors. An epistemic condition, on the other hand, is
appealed to in order to account for the objective validity of knowledge. Allison’s
use of the term ‘psychology’ here corresponds to what I call ‘cognitive theory’.
3
In addition to the above mentioned texts, a number of Kant’s unpublished
lectures are of relevance to the topics discussed here, especially his unpublished
lectures on metaphysics and anthropology. ‘Unpublished’ here means
unpublished by Kant. Most of them have subsequently been published in the
Academy edition. These lectures are today receiving an increasing amount of
attention, but are not included in the following discussion, except for occasional
and mostly indirect references. One reason for not including them is to prevent
this work from growing too voluminuous. Then comes the specific interpretative
challenges following from the fact that they were published without Kant’s
supervision. As we know them today, they are based on lecture notes taken by
students. This raises the question of whether these students were reliable
witnesses. To illustrate the difficulty in answering this question, Reinhold
Bernhard Jachmann, a student and friend of Kant, claims that the notes taken
from his metaphysics lectures are not always reliable, due to the fact that the
students frequently misinterpreted what Kant was saying, cf. Gross (1993), 117.
There is also the problem how to decide the status of the content of the lectures

THE EMBODIED MIND
This first chapter is dedicated to an investigation of Kant’s general
ideas about mind and body as put forward in the above-mentioned texts,
including some general remarks on cognition. It teaches us that
throughout his life, when he discussed the mind and body, he almost
exclusively emphasized how deeply the mind as we know it is ingrained
in the body. This I will call Kant’s idea of the embodied mind, or
perhaps better, his idea of the embodied self. It is the idea that in man as
we know him, that is, man as a biological being in a world of physical
objects, mind and body form a whole in the sense that all the operations
of the mind, understood in a broad sense, depend on, and are
conditioned by the body. This also means that human cognition,
according to Kant, is embodied: the constitution and functioning of the
human body determine, in ways that will be specified below, how we
represent the world.
While this first chapter deals with the embodiment of cognition at a
more general level, the second chapter explores in more detail Kant’s
theory of spatial experience, that is, his account of how it is possible for
us to experience objects in space. As we shall see, the body is central to
this theory as well. Finally, in the third chapter I investigate some of
Kant’s remarks on human rationality found in some of the abovementioned
texts, especially those dealing with pedagogy, logic and
anthropology. Here he also demonstrates a remarkable interest in the
body, an interest reflected both in the general framework and the details
of his theory of rationality.
This first chapter is also divided into several parts. First come some
brief remarks on the general intellectual background against which Kant
unfolded his reflections on mind, body and cognition. Special emphasis is
placed on the existing tradition of metaphysics, and the emergence of the
new study of anthropology in eighteenth-century Germany. Then follow
some remarks on the phases into which his intellectual career is often
divided, and on the nature of the young Kant’s philosophical enterprise.
Then, finally, we will approach the texts to be investigated in this
chapter, one by one, to see what they reveal about his ideas about mind
and body and the embodied nature of cognition in general. As the aim of
this chapter is to give a general overview of how these ideas developed, I
even if we assume that the students were accurate in their notes: To what extent
do the lectures represent Kant’s own views, and to what extent do they represent
ideas that Kant for some reason chose to present as part of his official role and
duty as a public servant?
13

14
THE EMBODIED MIND
shall also take a brief look at some relevant passages from the Critique,
even if the main treatment of that text belongs in part two.
1.1 Seele, Gemüt and Geist
I will normally use ‘mind’ to translate three German terms; Seele, Gemüt
and Geist. By this I do not mean to imply that the three terms, when
used by eighteenth-century Germans, always meant the same thing, or
that they did to Kant. Nevertheless, they often did. According to
Grimm’s Deutsches Wörterbuch all three terms were used in eighteenthcentury
Germany to refer to the mental or spiritual part of man in
general. In this usage the meanings of the terms included both the
contents of our consciousness and what made this consciousness possible.
Additionally, both Geist and Seele were sometimes used in an even more
general sense, denoting the life of an organism in general, or what gave it
life. These meanings also reappear in Kant’s use of the three terms.
Often he switches between Geist, Seele and Gemüt in a way that makes
it hard to see why he uses one term instead of another.
To the extent that he distinguishes between the three terms, there is a
tendency, at least in the more mature Kant, to use Gemüt in contexts
where cognitive issues are discussed, and Seele in more ontologically
oriented discussions. The distinction here suggested belongs, however, to
the mature years of his intellectual life. In his earlier writings it is not yet
established and there the term Seele is the dominant one, used both when
the context is metaphysics and when the discussion deals more explicitly
with cognitive issues. However, the terms Geist and Gemüt are sometimes
also used in a similar way. This is why I will normally translate all of
them as ‘mind’. When it seems more natural, however, I occasionally
render Seele as ‘soul’ and Geist as ‘spirit’. Where it seems necessary or
helpful to do so, I indicate the original German word being translated.
1.2 Empirical and rational psychology and anthropology
In eighteenth-century German philosophy there were two main contexts
in which the mind or the soul was discussed and these were rational and
empirical psychology. While the first aimed by means of logical proofs to
reach knowledge of the ontological nature and status of the soul, and thus
may be counted as a branch of metaphysics or ontology, the second
allowed empirical statements to be included in its body of knowledge. 4
4 A brief but good introduction to the empirical psychology of eighteenth-century
Germany is found in Klemme (1996), 15ff., cf. also Hatfield (1992).

Both these forms of psychology belonged within a more
comprehensive system of disciplines. In the system of the eighteenthcentury
German philosopher Christian Wolff, whose works were
frequently read at German universities, a distinction was made between
what he called ‘general metaphysics’ [metaphysica generalis] and ‘special
metaphysics’ [metaphysica specialis]. 5
The task of general metaphysics,
according to Wolff, was to discover the nature of things in general.
Special metaphysics had three branches: cosmology was the a priori
science of every possible material world; rational theology was the science
of the existence and attributes of God as far as they could be known by
rational argument; and then, finally, there was rational psychology.
Even if it may be argued that, strictly speaking, they did not belong
there, Wolff included chapters on empirical psychology in both his
German and his Latin works on metaphysics. In his Latin Metaphysica
he introduces the chapter on empirical psychology with a proof for the
existence of the human soul. He points to the fact that we have
consciousness of ourselves as well as of objects outside us. From this the
existence of the soul is proven by means of a syllogism. Klemme makes a
good point, I think, in remarking that the structure of Wolff's proof here
demonstrates a close link between empirical psychology and cosmology. 6
By this syllogistic proof, the existence of the mind is established in
Wolff’s system. The deeper, ontological nature of the soul, however,
remains to be explored. This is the task of rational psychology. In his
rational psychology, Wolff argues that the soul is simple, immaterial and
immortal. 7 In his system the task of explaining how it is possible for soul
and body to communicate also belongs to rational psychology. The
reason why this problem belongs here is obvious. Rational psychology
proves that the soul is immaterial, but if it is immaterial how can it
communicate with a body conceived to be material? In empirical
psychology, it is the actual life of the soul as it may be observed through
introspection that is the topic, which is why this problem does not belong
there.
This does not mean that the body is irrelevant to the empirical
psychologist. To the extent to which the mind is influenced by the body,
the body and its ways of influencing the mind are of concern to empirical
psychology. This is not an insignificant point. It means that the
5
For a general overview of Wolff’s metaphysics, see e.g. Tonelli (1967) and
Klemme (1996).
6 Klemme (1996), 19.
7 Ibid., 17-19.
THE EMBODIED MIND
15

16
communion of mind and body was discussed at two levels within
eighteenth century German philosophy, resulting in two parallel
discourses. One belongs to empirical psychology and there the
communion of mind and body was regarded as a fact, not a problem. 8
The problem arises only when we move to the discourse of rational
psychology. The problem there is to explain the communion of mind and
body given the radical difference thought to exist between them. In what
follows I will refer to this as ‘the ontological mind-body problem’. In
seventeenth and eighteenth-century European metaphysics several
possible solutions to this problem were presented and discussed, among
these the theory of influxus physicus or real interaction, the idea of preestablished
harmony, and occasionalism.
In addition to empirical and rational psychology, a third discipline in
which the mind was examined and discussed emerged during the
eighteenth century, namely anthropology. One of its roots was empirical
psychology. 9 Like empirical psychology it considered the community of
mind and body to be a fact and not a problem, a fact, moreover, to be
examined by empirical observation. However, it also included within its
field of study other aspects of human life, such as culture, habit and
society. Through his lectures in anthropology, which he gave regularly
throughout most of his academic career (starting in 1772 but based on
reflections that may date back as far as 1757 10
), Kant signaled an acute
interest in the new discipline, and also a positive attitude towards the new
approach of studying man that was associated with it. In an early
anthropology lecture he said that he saw the advantage of anthropology
over psychology in that it observed not only the soul, but the whole
human being. 11
To be aware of the disciplines within which the human mind and its
relation to the body were examined and discussed in eighteenth century
German philosophy is important as it helps us arrive at more adequate
interpretations of the texts dealing with this topic. Within the disciplines
8
To say that the community of mind and body is here a fact, means that it is
taken as a premise that is not questioned. Thus, within empirical psychology one
is allowed to investigate or speculate upon the various effects that the body exerts
on the mind (or vice versa) without being troubled by the ontological task of
explaining how this is possible in the first place.
9
For the development of anthropology in Germany, cf. Klemme (1996), 14ff. and
also Zammito (2002).
10
Cf Pitte (1978), xi and (1971), 11.
11 Ak XXV: 471.
THE EMBODIED MIND

just mentioned different questions were asked, which meant that they
were looking for different kinds of answer. Consequently, in order to
come up with a fair evaluation of whether or not an author succeeds in a
certain text, it is necessary to know which discipline he associated himself
with when he was writing it.
It is not always easy to decide within which context Kant is operating
when he discusses the mind-body relation. He discusses this relation in
texts dealing with topics as varied as cosmology, medicine, 12
epistemology, anthropology, pedagogy and logic. There is evidence,
however, that at an early stage he adopted an agnostic attitude towards
the mind-body problem in its ontological form. I shall return to this later.
1.3 Some preliminary remarks on Kant’s intellectual development
In the secondary literature surrounding the Kantian corpus the claim is
often advanced that Kant’s intellectual development may be divided into
more or less distinct phases. Even if there is no general agreement on the
number and nature of these phases, the idea of a threefold structure is
often suggested. First, we have a pre-critical phase which includes his
early years. Then we have his critical phase, the years that saw the
publication of the three Critiques. Finally, there is his later years, when
he was struggling to develop a new or revised philosophical outlook, as
evidenced by the notes compiled and published in what is now known as
his Opus postumum.
As for Kant’s pre-critical phase, it has been argued that it too may be
divided into phases. According to Ameriks, Kant began as an empiricist,
turned toward rationalism in 1756, shifted to a skeptical position in 1766,
and finally adopted a quasi-critical point of view after 1768. 13
Beiser in
his study of Kant’s early intellectual development identifies four phases as
well but they are different from Ameriks’. 14
According to Beiser, Kant
was initially infatuated with metaphysics, then became disillusioned in
1760, partially reconciled himself with metaphysics in 1766, and finally
liberated himself from metaphysical concerns in 1772.
Just as there is no agreement on how best to divide Kant’s intellectual
development into phases, so there are various answers to the question of
how his projects and their aims are best described. In part two in this
work I will briefly look at some interpretations of the Critique. Where his
12
In Maladies of the mind.
13
Ameriks (2000), 11ff.
14
Beiser (1992).
THE EMBODIED MIND
17

18
THE EMBODIED MIND
early years are concerned, he is typically regarded either as a traditional
metaphysician or as a philosopher of science, or both. Michael Friedman
may be seen as representing the second view, in characterizing the young
Kant as a committed and sophisticated Newtonian, who attempted to
construct the philosophical underpinnings of the Principia. 15 Schönfeld
presents a version of the first view by claiming that the underlying theme
of Kant’s early philosophy was the attempt to reconcile natural science
and metaphysics, or, more specifically, to help construct a unified, nondualist
model of nature. Inside this model, the young Kant hoped it
would be possible to harmonize Newtonian physics with the main
assumptions of metaphysics, i.e. the presence of purpose in the world, the
possibility of freedom, and the existence of God. 16
Many views also prevail concerning which philosophers or traditions
influenced the young Kant. There is a longstanding tradition within
Kant scholarship of looking at the young Kant as a dogmatic follower of
Leibniz. I think Tonelli is right, however, in claiming that even if he was
influenced by Leibniz, at no point was he a dogmatic disciple of the great
German philosopher. 17 Further, an overemphasis on Leibniz may easily
overshadow the fact that Kant also oriented himself in other directions.
Tonelli reports that when Kant started his philosophical career, Leibniz
had for a long time been subject to the criticisms of the Pietist school of
philosophers, of which Crusius was a distinguished member. Against the
rationalism of Leibniz, Crusius argued that the domain of human
knowledge was more limited than the rationalists assumed, a point Kant
also adopted. And even if Kant never became an orthodox follower of
Crusius, his early philosophy was clearly influenced by him. 18 Other
influences included Hume, Locke, Reid, Tetens, Lambert, Condillac,
Newton and Rousseau, to mention just a few. 19
This variety of philosophers and thinkers to whom Kant related in
the development of his own thoughts should alert us, I will argue, to their
15
Friedman (1992).
16
Schönfeld (2000), 10.
17
Tonelli (1969), LI.
18
For the influence of Crusius on Kant, cf. also Wundt (1924), 70.
19
Kant’s contemporary Ludwig Ernst Borowski reports that Kant was extensively
concerned with Hume and Rousseau, cf. Gross (1993), 69. Rousseau’s influence
is also emphasized by Pitte (1971), Cassirer (1981) and Zammito (2002). As for
Kant’s relation to other thinkers, cf. also Beck (1969a), Vleeschauwer (1962),
Kitcher (1990), Kuehn (2002), Schönfeld (2000), Vorländer (1977), Kaulbach
(1982), and Beiser (1987).

THE EMBODIED MIND
diversity. Instead of seeing his early reflections as part of a single major
philosophical project, inspired by just one or a few philosophers and
centered on only one problem or set of problems, I think an approach
that acknowledges a variety of dimensions is preferable. Throughout his
life he was engaged in dialogue, whether real or imaginary, with a wide
range of philosophical and academic traditions and with a number of
philosophers both living and dead. His reflections may be seen as
prompted by and commenting upon thinkers as different as Leibniz,
Newton, Hume and Rousseau. And as is the case with any great
philosopher, I think that the philosophy resulting from this is far too rich
and multifaceted to be summed up in any single formula.
This is also why I am skeptical of a too strict adherence to the idea
that Kant’s intellectual development is to be divided into phases. The
principal division of his philosophical career into a pre-critical phase and
a critical phase is entirely reasonable, but when it comes to dividing the
pre-critical years into different phases I think we should be more
cautious. It is better, I think, to see his early years as representing a multidimensional
development in which many questions, problems, themes
and perspectives were elaborated alongside each other. Of course certain
ideas, perspectives and inspirational sources stand out as more important
than others. As for those who inspired him, I will be emphasizing
Rousseau, not because he was the only one who helped Kant develop his
own ideas, but because I think his influence on Kant has still not been
adequately understood. It is also the case that he stimulated Kant’s
philosophical reflections in areas that are highly relevant to this work.
As for Kant’s intellectual development, I will underline, among other
things, his evolving agnosticism towards ontology, along with what I
conceive to be a growing empiricism and a constantly more outspoken
pragmatism. I will argue that these three elements combined to form a
powerful influence in his philosophy. Dreams of a spirit-seer from 1766
in many ways epitomizes the development here suggested. This text
represents a radical agnosticism towards ontology, combined with a just
as radical empiricism. This empiricism, moreover, may be regarded as an
embodied empiricism, i.e. an empiricism that ascribes to the immediate
experience of being in a body an epistemic status that no theoretical
speculation can undermine. The text also has a strong pragmatic tone,
demanding that priority should be given to knowledge that is useful, i.e.
knowledge that improves the quality of life on earth.
The development here suggested, I will argue, may also account for a
significant change that took place in Kant’s cognitive theory sometime
between 1750 and 1770. In the beginning, when he explored how
human cognition depends on the body, his focus was on the internal
19

20
organic constitution of the body. At some point, however, this approach
was broadened to take embodied acts and practices into account as well.
It may even be argued that he gave these acts and practices priority in his
cognitive theory. I will argue that he did so not only because these acts
and practices are easy observable, which was of significance relative to
his empiricism, but also because they could be developed and perfected
and so become more useful, which was of significance in the context of
his pragmatism.
The young Kant’s ontology in the field of mind and body has been
frequently discussed. 20 One of the views put forward is that in his early
years he subscribed to a Leibnizian model according to which both mind
and body were of a monadic nature, and also that he conceived of the
mind as an independent monad within this model. My intention is not to
enter deeply into this discussion about ontology. However, I cannot help
but note that in my reading I have never come across any passages where
Kant explicitly maintains this position. Instead, as has already been
noted, he seems to be following what we might today call a holistic
approach, according to which mind and body should not be perceived as
two independent entities, monads or substances, but rather as different
sides, aspects or dimensions of one being or substance, that is, man as we
know him. Whether Kant conceived of this as an ontological model, i.e.
as a model competing with the theories put forward by the rational
psychologists of his time, is a question to which I do not have a definite
answer, but I shall offer some further reflections on this point later.
1.4 Living forces
The mind and its relation to the body preoccupied Kant from the very
start, as we can see from his first published writing, Living forces from
1747. He wrote this text while he was still a student at the Herzog
Albrecht University of Königsberg, before financial problems following
the death of his father forced him to abandon his studies and earn a
living as a tutor. Very roughly, the topic of the text is the concept of force
and the question of whether this concept should include only those forces
operating from outside an object, or whether it should include more than
this. Kant argues for the second option, seeking inspiration from a
Leibnizian concept of force. 21
20
THE EMBODIED MIND
Cf. e.g. Nierhaus (1962), Carpenter (1998), Laywine (1993) and Schönfeld
(2000).
21 For a further discussion of this text, as well as for biographical notes about its
genesis, cf. Kuehn (2004), 89f, Shell (1996), 10ff. and Schönfeld (2000), 19f.

Kant is known for having later considered the text a thorough
embarrassment and most interpreters have agreed with him. Schönfeld,
for instance, writes:
21
An unsuspecting reader of the Living forces, who thinks that the Bdeduction
in the Critique of Pure Reason is the most difficult text in
Kant’s oeuvre, will be in for a surprise. Studying Kant’s first book is
an extraordinarily strenuous and frustrating undertaking. 22
Even if Schönfeld has a point, it should not be exaggerated. I agree with
Nierhaus 23 when he says that this early text represents both an interesting
and for the most part consistent piece of philosophy, and perhaps even
more important, it is a text in which Kant approaches topics that will
preoccupy him for most of his career.
Let us return to the question of the relation between mind and body.
A characteristic feature of Kant’s approach in Living forces is that both
this question and its solution are part of a general discussion of the
concept of a world. A world is a totality [Ganze] of objects [Wesen,
Dinge] that stand in real connections [wirkliche Verbindung] to each
other, he argues. 24
This connection, further, is established by the
exchange of forces. He is obviously operating here within the discipline
that is called cosmology within the Wolffian system.
The relation between mind 25 and body is first addressed in § 5. Kant
here discusses how to explain the fact that a physical impact on the
human body provokes changes in the mind. The problem, he explains, is
that metaphysics tells us that the two, matter and mind, are of different
kinds. How, then, do they communicate?
How is it possible that a force that only causes movement could also
produce representations and ideas? These things are so different
[unterschiedene Geschlechter von Sachen] that it is impossible to
conceive how the one may be a source of the other. 26
In the next paragraph he goes on to ask how it is possible for the mind to
move matter. This problem is closely related to the first, he argues, and
equally intriguing. However, as we shall soon see, he claims to be able to
solve them both. The solution, he argues, is found by adopting a
Leibnizian theory of force and movement.
22
THE EMBODIED MIND
Schönfeld (2000), 19.
23
Nierhaus (1962), 12ff.
24
Ak I: 22.
25
Kant here, as well as in the rest of this text, uses the term Seele.
26
Ak I: 20, a.t.

22
What is this theory? He approaches the answer indirectly, by first
formulating the view to which he is opposed, namely, the idea that force
is something that affects bodies [Körper] only from the outside. Further,
according to this view, only moving bodies possess force, that is, only a
body that moves has the capacity to influence another body. A resting
body, consequently, does not possess force. This, Kant claims, has been
the dominant view up to Leibniz, with the exception only of Aristotle. 27
In addition to Aristotle, Leibniz is mentioned as a philosopher who
understood more about the concept of force than others: Leibniz saw
that a body possesses an essential force even prior to its extension. This
he called its ‘working force’. 28 Unfortunately, according to Kant,
Leibniz’s followers misunderstood this concept and so his project may be
understood as motivated by the intention to restore the theory of working
force to its original state.
Due to the brief and rather unsystematic character of the text, it is
not easy to determine exactly what the theory is that Kant is proposing.
Here is an example of his style, taken from § 4, where for the first time he
purports to be give a positive account of his theory:
Nothing is easier than to deduce the origin of what we call movement
from the general concept of working force. The substance A, which
force is directed to work outside itself (that is, to change the inner
state of other substances), either immediately finds an object which
receives its entire force, or it does not. 29
What does the above passage tell us about Kant’s theory of force and
movement? In the first sentence, he draws a distinction between working
force and movement, but he does not say what he means by movement.
If we consider the context, however, ‘movement’ seems to be used in its
normal sense denoting the movement of material objects in space.
What is the relation between such a movement and a working force?
The concept of a working force has something to do with the origin of a
movement, we are told. More precisely, if we search for the origin of a
movement, then this origin may be deduced from the concept of a
working force. Does this mean that a working force is simply the origin of
a movement? Let us see what the next sentence of the passage says. Here,
the working force of a substance is said to be that in the substance which
makes it possible for it to work outside itself? What does a substance do
when it works outside itself? One possible answer is that it creates a
27
Ak I: 17.
28
Ak I: 17.
29
Ak I: 19, a.t.
THE EMBODIED MIND

movement. An example of such a movement may be when substance A
hits substance B and creates a movement in the latter. Is this what Kant
has in mind? This seems to be a reasonable answer. However, if we
examine what Kant adds in brackets in the above sentence, the answer
seems not to be exhaustive. When a substance A acts on a substance B,
then ‘the inner state’ of B is altered, Kant tells us. What does he mean?
I take his theory to be this. A substance may be described under two
perspectives. The first we may call the external perspective. Central to
this perspective is extension and position in space. When we describe the
movement of a substance in space, then this description takes place
according to this external perspective. Then there is what we may call
the internal perspective, focusing on the inner aspect of the substance.
Kant does not explain in detail what we find when we establish this
internal perspective. From the text, however, we may infer that the
concept of working force belongs to this internal perspective. That is,
when we ascribe to a substance a working force, then the description of
this force takes place according to this internal perspective. The concept
of working force, moreover, seems to be part of a theory claiming that
what we observe as an external movement taking place in space typically
has its origin within the substance. And also when a substance is
externally affected, the effect involves more than what we observe from
the outside. It affects its inner state as well.
When a substance A acts on a substance B, we may consequently
distinguish between three moments of the corresponding event. First, we
have the working force of A considered as the origin of the event. In
order to conceptually identify this force, we have to establish an internal
perspective on A. Then we have the external movement in which A
externally exerts its force on B. This is described according to the
external perspective. In this process, however, something also happens
with the inner state of B. In order to conceptually identify this, we have
again to establish an internal perspective. 30
This is only meant as a rough interpretation. 31 Instead of going deeper
into Kant’s theory of working forces, I would like now to show how he
uses it to explain the communion of mind and body. Before we can do
this, however, we have to consider another idea from Living forces.
Space is not a structure existing independently of the substances existing
30
THE EMBODIED MIND
Kant seems also to be arguing that sometimes two substances may interact
without external movement taking place, for instance when a substance acts at
another without overcoming its resistance, see §§ 4 and 5.
31 For more details see e.g. Nierhaus (1962), 13ff.
23

24
THE EMBODIED MIND
in it, but is constituted through the physical interaction of these
substances:
It is easy to demonstrate that no space and no extension would exist if
a substance had no force to work outside itself. For without this force
there is no connection, without this no order, and without this,
finally, no space. 32
Kant also argues that the specific three-dimensional character of space as
we know it is a product of the specific laws according to which substances
interact in our universe.
We are now in a position to see how Kant uses his general theory of
forces and substances to explain communication between mind and
body. This explanation is found in § 6 and the paragraph is divided in
two parts. The first concerns how the mind affects other substances, the
second how the mind is affected by other substances. Unfortunately,
again the argument is not unambiguously clear. Let us, however, start
with the first part of the argument. A basic premise of this argument is
the idea just presented, that space is constituted by the interaction of
substances. The argument, further, seems to contain two propositions.
The first states that the mind is able to produce changes outside itself and
thus to partake in the general interaction of substances. The second states
that the mind has a spatial position. Exactly what is the logical relation
between these propositions? Kant starts by posing the question of
whether the mind has a working force, that is, whether it has the capacity
to work outside itself. The answer has to be positive, he argues, due to the
fact that the mind has a position in space. That the mind has a position
in space is here presented as a fact, and thus seems to have the status of a
premise. Kant then proposes what I take to be another premise of the
argument, the idea that space is constituted by the interaction of
substances. So his argument seems to be that since the mind has a spatial
position, and space is constituted by the interaction of substances, we
may infer that the mind partakes in the general interaction of substances,
which again means that it is capable of producing changes outside itself.
Here is the argument. 33
32
Ak I: 22, a.t.
33
Nierhaus (1962), 19 argues that Kant’s theory of space in Living forces is
ambiguous. Sometimes he treats space as an epiphenomenon of the interaction of
substances, sometimes space seems to be a condition of the possibility of such
interaction. If this is so, it may explain why Kant’s account of the relation of the
two premises just mentioned is not totally clear.

25
The question of whether the mind [Seele] may cause movements,
namely, if it has a moving force, turns into this one: whether its
essential force may be judged to have an outbound force, that is,
whether it is capable of creating changes in other beings [Wesen]?
This question may be quite decisively answered in the following way:
the mind must be able to work outside itself, because it inhabits a
place [weil sie in einem Orte ist]. For when we analyze the concept of
what we call place, we find that it points to the reciprocal effects of
substances on each other. 34
I will not discuss whether this argument is tenable or not. The author
himself, however, seems to be convinced that the question has been
settled and that the argument explains how it is possible for a mind to
produce effects outside itself. And it is just as easy, Kant argues, to
understand how physical objects may imprint representations and images
in the mind. Matter in movement influences everything with which it is
spatially connected, and that includes the mind.
It is just as easy to understand the seemingly paradoxical statement
on how it is possible that matter, which we imagine can produce
nothing but movement, may in fact imprint upon the mind certain
representations and images [der Seele gewisse Vorstellungen und
Bilder eindrücke]. For matter that is brought to move, works on and
in everything that is connected with it in space [was mit ihr dem
Raum nach verbunden ist], thus, also the mind [Seele], that is, it
changes its inner state in so far as it relates itself to the external [in so
weit er sich auf das Äußere beziehet]. 35
Exactly what theory of the mind does this line of argument imply? I think
Nierhaus is on the right track when stating that no general distinction
between mind and body is made in this text. 36
Nierhaus suggests instead
that Kant’s view here is a sort of monism according to which physical
movement and thinking are seen not as activities performed by different
kinds of substances, but as different forms of expressions
[Erscheinungsbilder] of substances that are basically similar
[gleichartig]. 37 As I read Living forces Kant here defends a model
according to which mind and body are nothing but different aspects or
dimensions of the human being, perceived as one substance. An
argument in favor of this interpretation is that in discussing the
34
Ak I: 20-21, a.t.
35
Ak I: 21, a.t.
36
Nierhaus (1962), 27.
37
Ibid., 17.
THE EMBODIED MIND

26
communion of mind and body, Kant claims that this may be explained
as a special case of a general principle governing all interactions between
substances. In all such interactions both the outer and the inner aspects
of the substance are involved, he argues. This suggests that he took the
mind to be the inner aspect of the ‘substance man’. If so, this explains
why he thought that the communion of mind and body could be
understood by reference to this general theory of interaction. Kant’s idea
was not that the mind interacts with other substances qua independent
substance, but that it does so in virtue of being the inner aspect of the
substance man.
Regardless of whether this interpretation is correct or not, we may
regard it as established that in his very first publication Kant states as an
obvious fact that mind and body are intimately united. And as we will
see, this is an idea that will stay with him for the rest of his life. In Living
forces we also find signs of another idea that will stay with him, namely
that cognition has both a passive and an active aspect. Cognition is a
passive process to the extent that our representational state is changed
following externally caused impacts on the mind. It is active to the extent
that the mind modifies its representational state through its own activity.
In Living forces the idea is not yet explicitly expressed in this way, but it
is clearly present in a primitive form. Most interesting, perhaps, is the fact
that in his very first published writing Kant is already explaining the
three-dimensionality of space by reference to human activity. The fact
that we represent the world as having three dimensions, and that we
cannot represent it in any other way, he says, is due not just to the
specific way in which substances in our world interact in general, but also
to the fact that we are ourselves part of this interaction. This means not
only that we are affected according to the rules of the world, but also we
also act outside ourselves according to these same rules. 38
As I will argue,
Kant will later claim, for instance in Directions in space and also in his
Anthropology, that our representation of space is constituted by
embodied acts. Even if the present text is too brief and too abstract to
allow us to come to a firm conclusion, the above passage may
nevertheless be read as a precursor to this theory. If so, we have here
found yet another idea that is to stay with Kant for the rest of his life.
Shell goes a step further and argues that Kant’s theory of the
constitution of space through embodied activity in Living forces
anticipates by almost forty years his critical treatment of space and time
38
Ak I: 24.
THE EMBODIED MIND

as forms of intuitions in the Critique. 39 Schönfeld objects that such a
claim credits the young Kant with greater originality than the text
justifies. 40 In the dispute between Shell and Schönfeld much depends on
how Kant’s critical theory of space is interpreted. I will argue later that in
the Critique Kant sees space, considered as a form of intuition, as
constituted by embodied acts. If this is so, then Shell’s claim is perhaps
better founded than it may at first seem. However, the fact remains that
Kant’s account of the constitution of space in Living forces is very brief
and we should perhaps try not to deduce too much from it.
1.5 New elucidation
In 1755 two works by Kant were published. One of them, New
elucidation, was written as a Latin dissertation and helped him achieve
the status of Privatdozent at the Herzog Albrecht University. As he did in
Living forces eight years earlier, in New elucidation Kant puts forward a
theory according to which the relation between mind and body is
explained in the context of a general theory of interaction between
substances, i.e. the context is cosmology. A world, he argues in New
elucidation, as he did in Living forces, consists of a number of substances
included in the same space and reciprocally conditioning each other
through a dynamic interplay of physical forces. The mind, he maintains,
participates in this interplay of physical interaction.
This is how Kant presents his argument. Substances may only be
changed when in connection with others. So a substance totally isolated
from other substances would be unchanging. This also applies to changes
in the inner condition of a substance.
27
In a world that was free from all motion (for motion is the
appearance of a changed connection), nothing at all in the nature of
succession would be found even in the inner states of substances. 41
Following this, he argues that no change in the mind of a human being
would occur if the mind did not interact with physical (i.e. external)
things.
39
Shell (1996), 21.
40
Schönfeld (2000), 42.
41
Ak 1: 410.
THE EMBODIED MIND

28
For it follows immediately from what we have demonstrated that, if
the human soul were free from real connection with external things,
the internal state of the soul would be completely devoid of changes. 42
What may we infer from this? First, Kant claims, the above principle
proves that, contrary to what idealism teaches, the body really exists. It
also supports those who claim that a finite mind has to be connected to
an organism:
And should anyone, perchance, seek to provoke a dispute with me, I
should refer the matter to the modern philosophers who unanimously
and as with one voice openly declare that the connection of the soul
with an organic body is necessary. 43
As representatives of this view, he points to those he loosely calls ‘the
moderns’, and Crusius is mentioned as one. According to Crusius, so
Kant tells us, the endeavor of the mind to have representations always
corresponds to an endeavor for outer movement. 44 Here embodied
movement is again associated with cognition.
In a highly interesting passage Kant then faces an imaginary critic
accusing him of being a materialist. 45 It is true, he admits, that his theory
seems to lie close to materialism. Instead of explicitly denouncing
materialism, however, he targets what he takes to be a fatal flaw in a
purely idealist view of the mind. The idealist contends that the mind
operates independently of all physical interaction. But, he asks, would not
this imply the idea of an unchanging mind, or worse, would we not then
deprive the mind of the capacity to represent altogether?
Regardless of what changes Kant’s thinking may have undergone
between Living forces and New elucidation, his theory of how the mind
communicates with the body, and thus, indirectly also with the physical
universe, seems to be more or less the same in the two texts. In both texts
we learn that the mind, conceived as the inner aspect of the human
substance, partakes in the general interaction of substances, because this
is how all substances interact. Moreover, in all such interaction, the inner
as well as the outer aspect of the substance are involved. If this is so, then
it is obvious why the mind has to partake in the general interaction of
42
Ak I: 412.
43
Ak I: 412.
44
Ak I: 412.
45
Ak I: 412.
THE EMBODIED MIND

substances. It does so in virtue of being the inner aspect of the substance
man.
Let us now proceed to he second work that Kant published in 1755,
Universal natural history.
1.6 Universal natural history
At a general level, the topic of Universal natural history is the same as
that of the other texts examined so far. 46
It deals with the physical
universe. Its aim, more precisely, is to explain the present structure of the
universe without presupposing divine intervention. In a remarkable
appendix, Kant then proceeds to discuss the relation between mind and
body. To most modern readers, his approach in this appendix must seem
exotic as he enters into a hypothetical discussion concerning life on other
planets. If we assume that the other planets of our solar system are
inhabited by intelligent beings, he asks, what would they be like, given
the differences in physical conditions prevailing on those planets?
Regardless of the exotic character of this question, however, and the
hypothetical nature of the discussion, the appendix is worth studying.
What we should look for is what ideas underlie the discussion.
Among these we find the idea of a very intimate integration of mind and
body.
Let us take a closer look at the text. Due to gravitational force,
Kant argues, the planets orbiting near the sun are composed of a
denser and heavier matter than the more distant planets. If thinking
beings exist on all these planets, these differences in material
conditions will probably influence their cognitive processes in a radical
way. 47
More specifically, he argues that the inhabitants of the more
distant planets, being composed of a lighter and finer matter are likely
to surpass the cognitive powers of their neighbors closer to the sun.
Not only will their senses be so constituted that the representations
they receive are clearer and more vivid, but their capacity to think,
that is, to connect and use these representations will also be swifter and
more appropriate than that of their more unfortunate neighbors. Kant
writes:
46 For the story behind the publication of the text, see Vleeshauwer (1962), 17.
47
Ak I: 352.
THE EMBODIED MIND
29

30
…. we can conclude with more than probable confidence that the
excellence of thinking natures, the promptness in their reflections [die
Hurtigkeit in ihren Vorstellungen] the clarity and vivacity of the
notions [Begriffe] that come to them through external impression,
together with their ability to put them together, finally also the skill in
their actual use, in short, the whole range of their perfection, stands
under a certain rule, according to which these natures become more
excellent and perfect in proportion to the distance of their habitats
from the sun. 48
As we see from this passage, as part of his hypothetical discussion
concerning the cognitive skills of extraterrestrial beings, Kant presents a
radical theory of an intimate integration of mind and body. Despite the
infinite distance between mind and body, he argues, it remains a fact that
the mind receives all its representations and concepts from the
impressions that the universe produces in it through the body. And not
only does the capacity to receive representations depend on the body but
the capacity to connect and compare these representations, he argues, is
also conditioned by the matter of which the body is constituted.
Whatever the infinite distance between the ability to think and the
motion of matter, between the rational mind [Geist] and the body, it
is still certain that man – who obtains all his notions [Begriffe] and
representations through the impressions that the universe through the
mediation of bodies [vermittels des Körpers] evokes in his soul, both
in respect of their meaning [der Deutlichkeit derselben] and of the
readiness to connect and compare them, which man calls the ability
to think – is wholly dependent on the properties of that matter to
which the Creator joined him. 49
The anatomy of the human body is also introduced in the discussion.
The coarse nature of the matter of which the earth is composed is
reflected in human anatomy, Kant argues, making it gross and inflexible.
This, again, affects our cognitive functioning. The nerves and fluids of
the human brain, for instance, and their lack of flexibility, are part of the
reason why most people find it so hard to think clearly:
48 Ak 1: 359.
49 Ak I: 355.
THE EMBODIED MIND

31
If one looks for the cause of impediments, which keep human nature
in such a deep abasement, it will be found in the crudeness of matter
into which his spiritual [geistiger] part is sunk, in the unbending of
the fibers, and in the sluggishness and immobility of fluids that should
obey its stirrings. The nerves and fluids of his brain deliver to him
only gross and unclear concepts … 50
He thinks this also explains why old age normally leads to a decline in
cognitive functioning.
Because of this dependence, the spiritual [geistigen] faculties
disappear together with the vigor of the body: when owing to the
slackened flow of fluids advanced age cooks only thick fluid in the
body, when the suppleness of the fibers and the nimbleness in all
motions decrease, then the forces of the spirit too stiffen into a similar
dullness. The agility of thought, the clarity of representation, the
vivacity of wit, and the ability to remember lose their strength and
grow frigid. 51
As part of the discussion of mind and body, Kant also discusses whether
our immortal souls are reborn on other planets. 52 Even if the term
‘immortal soul’ may seem to signal an ontological position on his behalf,
it is worth noting that his remarks are here characterized by an explicit
agnosticism. Despite what our senses and consciousness tell us, he argues,
we do not really know what a human being is. And we know even less
about the afterlife:
It is not really known to us what man really is today, however selfawareness
and reason [Bewußtsein und die Sinne] should instruct us
on this point; how much more may we err as to what he is to become
eventually! Still the human soul’s thirst for knowledge reaches out
eagerly after these topics so distant from here and strives to find some
light in such a dark [field of] knowledge. 53
The idea that the mind is perhaps reborn on other planets is nothing but
a fantasy, Kant concludes. When the discussion turns to more earthly
matters, however, and he considers how body and mind are related in a
50
Ak I: 356.
51
Ak I: 357.
52
Ak I: 367.
53
Ak I: 366.
THE EMBODIED MIND

32
THE EMBODIED MIND
living human being, he is more decisive. Psychology teaches us that mind
and body communicate:
It is clear from the principles of psychology that in virtue of the actual
arrangement by which the creation made soul [Seele] and body
dependent on one another, the former not only must obtain all
concepts about the universe through union with the latter and under
its influence, but that also the exercise of the faculty of thinking
depends on the latter's disposition and borrows from its support the
necessary ability. 54
What is the relation between the ideas of mind and body promoted in
this text and the two other texts so far examined? First, it may be worth
noting that in Living forces and New elucidation, Kant presents his ideas
about the communication between mind and body within a more
comprehensive theory dealing with physical interaction in general. In the
appendix to Universal natural history no such context is present. True,
the cosmological context is present in the first main part of the text, but
cosmological arguments, i.e., arguments dealing with the general
interaction of substances, are absent from the appendix. Here we enter a
different context, one more related to that found both in the short text
Maladies of the mind published a few years later, and also in the
Anthropology. In these texts the community of mind and body is not
discussed at a general level, that is, as something in need of a general
explanation. It is simply presupposed as something obvious, and the
discussion revolves instead around the question of how at a very concrete
level the body affects our mental or cognitive processes. On the basis of
the similarity between the three texts, I will argue that Kant’s discussion
in the appendix of Universal natural history belongs within the context of
empirical psychology, or even anthropology. 55 At first sight, this may
escape our attention, due to both the hypothetical character of the
discourse, and also, perhaps, the cosmological nature of the first main
part of the text. Yet, if we look at the basic structure of the ideas present
in the appendix, they are remarkably similar to what we find in Maladies
of the mind and parts of the Anthropology.
That the appendix of Universal natural history belongs within the
theoretical context of empirical psychology or anthropology may also
account for the fact that Kant here expresses an explicit agnosticism, for
54
Ak I: 355, footnote.
55
The medical content of Maladies of the mind may here also be sorted under
the anthropological.

instance when the question of the afterlife is raised. 56 He does not deny
that we, in some way or other, may live on after death, in fact, I think he
most certainly believed that we did. Still, it is remarkable to see how
elusive he is when the matter is discussed. We know neither what man
really is, nor what he will become, he says, not only denying that we have
decisive knowledge of what happens after death but extending his
agnosticism to the question of what man really is, i.e. man considered
ontologically.
How then can he be so confident when it comes to the actual relation
between mind and body in a living human being as we know it? The
answer is that the relation on this level may be studied empirically.
According to its program, the empirical psychology of the eighteenth
century was an empirical discipline, and so was anthropology. Thus Kant
may safely discuss, in the context in which he has now placed himself, for
instance, how the material constitution of the body affects the mental and
cognitive processes of man, being confident that, in doing so, his
statements are (or at least may be) confirmed by observation. As
Nierhaus also points out, Universal natural history promotes the idea
that mind and body are somehow different, 57 but explicit statements
regarding the ontology of mind and body and their community are
avoided. Instead the community of mind and body is simply taken to be
an indubitable fact of the experience [Tatsache der Lebenserfahrung]. 58
As we shall soon see, both the agnosticism and the empiricism of
Universal natural history are more than passing fancies on Kant’s behalf.
Indeed, I shall argue that they combine to form a strong basis for his
subsequent reflections.
1.7 Maladies of the mind
An example of this is found in the small text Maladies of the mind from
1764. I do not want to put too much emphasis on this text, but within the
present context it deserves some attention. In it, Kant develops a
typology of mental illnesses associated with a theory of cognitive
capacities. Mental illnesses may be divided into three main categories
corresponding to the main faculties or powers of the mind, he explains.
Among these he mentions reason [Vernunft] and the power of judgment
[Urteilskraft]. Whenever one of these faculties deteriorates a specific kind
56
Ak I: 366.
57
Cf. e.g. Ak I: 355.
58
Nierhaus (1962), 30.
THE EMBODIED MIND
33

34
of mental illness results. 59 In his description of the functioning of the
mind, Kant also includes what in other contexts is called imagination
[Einbildungskraft]. He describes the capacity of the mind to ‘paint
pictures of things that are not immediately present’. 60 When this capacity
is disturbed there occurs the mental illness called Verrückung.
What is interesting in all this is not only that we recognize the
perspective from Universal natural history but it is also worth noting how
the cognitive powers of the mind, later to appear in the elevated spheres
of transcendental philosophy, are here discussed within the down-toearth
field of mental diseases. Kant more than suggests that these diseases
are caused by bodily disturbances. 61 He warns against what he takes to be
a common prejudice of his time, namely the assumption that mental
illnesses have only mental causes. Contrary to this common belief, the
causes of mental illnesses are primarily to be sought in bodily
disturbances, he claims. 62
The idea that mental diseases are caused by
bodily disturbances is also implied by his constant shifting between the
notion of a disturbed head [Kopf] or brain [Gehirn] on the one hand
and a disturbed mind [Gemüt] or soul [Seele] on the other, as if it were
obvious and beyond dispute that these corresponded to each other.
Maladies of the mind is a text devoid of any ontological hypotheses.
This does not mean, however, that Kant has now put all interest in
ontology behind him. On the contrary, two years later, in 1766, ontology
again becomes a major topic of discussion. However, the approach is
now more critical and agnostic than ever.
1.8 Dreams of a spirit-seer
Dreams of a spirit-seer from 1766 is one of the most commented on of all
Kant’s works apart from the three Critiques. Its association with the
Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, its dialectical and ironic style,
and its critical examination of central aspects of traditional ontology have
continued to intrigue readers up until our own time, resulting in a
number of commentaries. 63 It is often seen as heralding a new critical
59
THE EMBODIED MIND
Ak II: 264.
60
Ak II: 265.
61
That physical decay may negatively influence our cognitive functioning, was
maintained also in Universal natural history, cf. Ak I: 357.
62
Ak II: 270.
63
For a discussion of Dreams of a spirit-seer and its significance within in Kant's
development, as well as a survey of various interpretations of this text, see for
instance Laywine (1993), 15ff. or Shell (1996), 106ff.

outlook in the development of Kant’s philosophy. On the surface, the
work is written as an examination of the ideas of Swedenborg. Kant lets
it be understood, however, that indirectly the examination also relates to
certain aspects of traditional ontology, more specifically rational
psychology and its claims to possess decisive knowledge about the human
mind or soul.
Among those ascribing a fundamental significance to Dreams of a
spirit-seer in Kant’s intellectual development are Laywine and
Schönfeld. 64 According to them, because Kant’s earlier discussions of the
mind-body problem had been infected by dubious ontological
assumptions, a fact he now realized, the text may also be read as a critical
examination of Kant’s own position before 1766. In fact, they argue, this
was the real aim of the work. The real target of Dreams of a spirit-seer
was neither Swedenborg nor rational psychology in general, but Kant’s
own previously held position. Consequently, Dreams of a spirit-seer
represents a crisis in his pre-critical project. I will return to discuss this
idea of a crisis a little later. First, however, let us take a look at the text.
From the very outset he establishes a sarcastic, critical tone which is
going to characterize large parts of the text. If we add together all that
schoolboys and philosophers have to say about spirits [Geister], he
comments, then it may seem that we possess quite a lot of knowledge in
this field. However, this is hardly the case.
35
If it were to occur to someone to linger for a while over the question
as to what this thing which, under the name of spirit [Geist], people
claim to understand so well, exactly is, all the know-alls would be put
in a very embarrassing position. 65
For his own part, Kant admits, he does not know what a spirit is. He
does not even know what the term ‘spirit’ means. 66
In order to sort out his
thoughts concerning what a spirit is, and also, we must assume, the
thoughts of the reader, he then asks us to perform a thought experiment.
Imagine a cubic foot of space and imagine it to be filled up so that
nothing more can be placed inside it. 67 No one would refer to such an
entity as spiritual as it would obviously be of a material nature. And it
would possess all the properties we typically ascribe to a material object,
64 Cf. Laywine (1993), 8ff. and Schönfeld, (2000), 238ff.
65
Ak II: 319.
66
Ak II: 320.
67
Ak II: 320.
THE EMBODIED MIND

36
THE EMBODIED MIND
such as extension and impenetrability. Imagine now a simple being
endowed with reason, Kant continues, thereby introducing a definition
of spirit well-known to rational psychology. If such a simple being were to
be placed inside this same space, would we then have to remove some of
the matter already in there? And if so, could we then continue to replace
matter with spirits until the whole space was filled with spirits instead of
matter? And if this were possible, what would this cubic foot of space be
like then? Would it still offer resistance if we tried to insert a material
object into it? If that were the case, would it not then be indistinguishable
from a cubic foot of matter?
Between the lines Kant lets it be understood that the whole idea of
replacing matter with spirits is absurd. However, he asks, if it is absurd,
how can we then explain that the human mind, which we assume is a
spirit, interacts with physical entities, such as the human body to which it
belongs? If we subtract from the human mind all the essential features we
ascribe to matter, such as the capacity to fill a space and to offer
resistance, how can we then explain its interaction with the body?
Then the argument takes a somewhat unexpected direction. There
are several features of our experience that it is hard to explain, he tells us.
The impenetrability of matter is one example. Experience teaches us that
matter offers resistance, but we cannot explain how it is possible for it to
do that. The impenetrability of matter is acknowledged [erkannt], but
not understood [begriffen]. 68
We become aware through experience, that those things that exist in
the world, and which we call material, possess such a force; the
possibility of this, however, can never be understood. 69
Kant’s point in the last passage is that there are phenomena in the world
that we experience as real even if we cannot fully comprehend them.
This idea of a limit to the human understanding is then presupposed
when Kant returns to discuss the communion of mind and body: It is
possible that spirits may be present in space and may communicate with
material bodies, even if we cannot understand how this communication
takes place, he states.
68
Ak II: 322.
69
Ak II: 322 (a.t.). My translation here differs from the Cambridge edition. Here
is the original: ‘Denn nur durch die Erfahrung kan mann inne werden, daß
Dinge der Welt, welche wir materiell nennen, eine solche Kraft haben, niemals
aber die Möglichkeit derselben begreifen.’

Is this all there is to say, then? The limit to the human understanding
that Kant has just defined, seems to imply that the answer is yes. We are
therefore in for yet another unexpected turn of the discourse, when Kant
now puts forward a suggestion as to how we may conceive of the
presence of spirits in physical space. They are present in space as activity:
37
Such spirit-natures would be present in space, but present in space in
such a way that they could always be penetrated by corporeal beings;
for the presence of such spirit-natures would involve being active in
but not filling space. 70
The way this observation is phrased might lead us to think that Kant is
here merely putting forward an hypothesis towards which he is himself
neutral or even skeptical, and which is, consequently, of little significance
or relevance to his own thinking. However, we should not rush to
judgment. What he is doing is presenting a theory of how a spirit can be
conceived, without contradiction, to be present in space alongside
physical objects, or even in the same place as them, without interfering
with the repulsive forces offered by such objects due to their material
character. Spirits can do this because they do not exist in space in the
same way as material objects do, that is, as extended objects filling up
space. They exist in space as activity. A few lines later Kant makes a
connection between this idea, which has so far been discussed only at a
general level (i.e. concerning spirits in general), and the question of how
the mind [Seele] may exist in the body. The relevance of this question to
the more general discussion of spirits is clear: if the mind is a spirit in the
sense just suggested, then we can understand how it is possible for it to
inhabit the same space as its body without conflicting with the material
properties of this body. This is possible because the mind is present in the
body not as an entity with its own extension or repulsive forces, but
merely as activity. And even if he does not say so explicitly, I think we
may here add that it is present as the activity of the body, or perhaps
better, as the activity of the embodied self.
It is apparent from the many reservations Kant brings to his
presentation of this theory that he does not wish it to be accorded the
status of hard science. The best we can say in its favor, he seems to be
saying, is that it is not contradicted by experience. From this we might be
tempted to conclude, again, that he attaches little significance to the
theory, but I think that would be a mistake. His reservations tell us
70 Ak II: 322.
THE EMBODIED MIND

38
something of how he conceived of the epistemic status of the theory. It is
an hypothesis, but, he stresses, one that is not refuted by experience.
Even more important, however, is that associated with this hypothesis is
a particular idea that, I will argue, stands out from the others. This is the
idea that we may use the terms ‘mind’ or ‘soul’ to refer to the activity of
the embodied self. From now on, whenever Kant uses these terms, we
must be aware that this meaning may be part of their meaning. ‘Activity’
is here to be understood in a broad sense, akin to the German
Wirksamkeit, including both the biological processes of the body as well
as the conscious and unconscious behavior of the embodied self. The two
terms, it should be noted, also continue to carry their earlier meanings,
referring to our capacity to sense, feel and think, as well as our
consciousness of this.
When the term ‘soul’ is used a little later in the text, all these
meanings, I believe, are implied. Kant here states, as an irrefutable fact
of experience, that the soul is present wherever its body is:
Where is the place of this human soul in the world of bodies? My
answer runs like this: the body, the alterations of which are my
alterations — this body is my body; and the place of that body is at
the same time my place. 71
What about those who claim that the mind or soul is present only in one
particular place in the body, such as the brain? They are misled by a
certain way of reasoning that is not confirmed by experience, Kant
argues:
But no one is immediately conscious of a particular place in his body;
one is only immediately conscious of the space one occupies relative
to the world around. I would therefore rely on ordinary experience
and say, for the time being, where I feel, it is there that I am. I am as
immediately in my fingertip as I am in my head. It is I myself whose
heel hurts, and whose heart beats with emotion. And when my corn
aches, I do not feel the painful impression in some nerve located in
my brain; I feel it at the end of my toe. No experience teaches me to
regard some parts of my sensation of myself as remote from me. 72
Kant seems to be taking it as an obvious fact, directly confirmed by
experience, that the human mind is present in every part of the body.
However, he denies that we may infer from this that the mind,
71
Ak II: 324.
72
Ak II: 324.
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THE EMBODIED MIND
ontologically considered, is extended, that it has a certain shape, or that it
has other properties in common with a material object. All we can say is
that its domain of activity is congruent with the space of the body.
39
Immediate presence in the totality of a space only proves a sphere of
external activity; it does not prove a multiplicity of internal parts, nor,
therefore, any extension or shape. 73
Instead of delving deeper into the highly fascinating text of Dreams of a
spirit-seer, let us return to the question put forward above. To what
extent does Dreams of a spirit-seer involve a criticism of Kant’s previous
position? And to what extent does Dreams of a spirit-seer represent a
new critical or even skeptical trend in Kant’s way of thinking about mind
and body?
1.9 A crisis?
Both Laywine and Schönfeld claim that Dreams of a spirit-seer
represents a crisis in Kant’s intellectual development, and that its real
target was his own previously held ideas on the mind-body relation. Both
base their argument on the claim that in his pre-critical phase Kant
subscribed to an ontology of a Leibnizian kind. 74 This ontology
committed him to the idea that the mind was an independent monad
present in space in the same way as other monads, Laywine argues, that
is, by exerting attractive and repulsive forces. Actually, he had to
presuppose this, Laywine argues, for only a mind endowed with such
forces would be able to interact with the body. Still, this view also
entailed a serious problem, or even contradiction for if the mind had
repulsive forces, how could it be present in all parts of the body, or
inhabit the same space as the body, as Kant assumed? Would it not
rather produce an irresolvable conflict between its own repulsive forces
and those of the body?
The possibility cannot be absolutely ruled out that in his early years
Kant subscribed to an ontology of a kind that made him face such a
problem, and that this led him into a crisis as the one here suggested.
However, when one examines his explicit remarks on the topic, it is far
from obvious that he did. As I have already pointed out, in the two texts
where he discusses at a general level how it is possible for mind and body
73
Ak II: 325.
74
Cf. Laywine (1993), 1ff. and Schönfeld (2000), 243ff.

40
to communicate, his theory seems to be not that the mind is an
independent monad but rather that a human being must be thought of as
a single substance of which mind and body are nothing but different
aspects or dimensions. It is not obvious that this theory is affected by the
problems that, for instance, Laywine claims Kant was facing.
According to Schönfeld, Kant also struggled with the problem of
combining on the one hand the idea that the mind was part of the
physical universe and on the other the idea that it was immortal. Kant
was committed to the idea that the mind or the soul continued to exist
after it left its mortal body, Schönfeld maintains, and he wanted his
general theory of the world to have room in it for this idea of
immortality. I think there is little reason to doubt that Kant believed in
the afterlife of the soul. However, I do not see it as obvious that he
perceived this idea as a problem in need of a philosophical solution. If he
did, he would surely have raised it and discussed it more explicitly.
However, the immortality of the soul almost never surfaces in Kant’s
explicit discourse, and when it does, for instance in Universal natural
history, it is combined with an explicit agnosticism. Despite what our
senses and consciousness tell us, Kant argues, we do not really know what
a human being is, and we know even less about the afterlife. 75 It may also
be worth noting that he does not seem to find this agnosticism
problematic. On the contrary, he seems to be entirely happy to move the
question of the immortality of the soul out of the realm of philosophical
discourse and into the field of belief. In his critical phase, the idea that
the soul is immortal was explicitly classified as an ‘idea of faith’. Kant’s
explicit agnosticism in Universal natural history may be read as a sign
that this perspective may have been present as early as 1755. If so, the
idea of immortality would hardly have had the force to provoke a
philosophical crisis.
Finally, if Dreams of a spirit-seer is the product of a crisis following
Kant’s previous ontological commitments, one would have expected him
to now abstain from any further excursions into this dubious field of
human enquiry. However, as we have seen, in Dreams of a spirit-seer
Kant does not reject ontology in an absolute sense. The idea that the
mind is present in the body qua activity does not have to be regarded as
an ontological thesis. However, by claiming that this idea is compatible
with the idea that the mind as such is single and without extension, he is
obviously thinking against the background of classical ontology. He even
seems to adopt the above-mentioned idea as his own position within this
75 Ak I: 366.
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THE EMBODIED MIND
field. Does this mean that despite the explicit agnosticism of Dreams of a
spirit-seer, Kant here still puts forward an ontological position? Again,
we must be careful to see what he is actually doing. He does not claim
that it is possible to prove that the mind as such is single and without
extension. All he says is that this idea is compatible with the idea that the
mind is present in the body as activity. Whether the first of these ideas is
true or not, however, he leaves open. Thus, the basic outlook here too is
agnostic. Whether this outlook was new in 1766 is another question. As
already suggested, the explicit agnosticism of Universal natural history
may suggest that it was present as early as 1755. If so, this also
undermines the claim that Dreams of a spirit-seer is somehow the
product of a crisis developing in the years immediately preceding its
publication.
1.10 An embodied empiricism
If Dreams of a spirit-seer is not the product of a crisis in Kant’s
intellectual development, what is it? How does it fit into this
development, especially where his theory of the mind is concerned?
Rather than representing a crisis, I think that Dreams of a spirit-seer may
be read as a text where he sorts out and re-emphasizes perspectives and
ideas that have already been part of his thinking for some time. Let me
elaborate on this point.
I take the basic perspective of Dreams of a spirit-seer to be agnostic
and empirical. Its basic message is that agnosticism is required in all that
cannot be immediately experienced. Nothing in this is new. Empiricism
is present in Kant’s association with empirical psychology in the
appendix to Universal natural history in 1755, and his detailed discussion
of the embodied aspects of cognition in this text, as also in Maladies of
the mind, may be seen as taking place within the context of this
discipline, or even the new discipline of anthropology emerging from it.
Agnosticism is, as we have seen, also present in Universal natural history.
If not new, however, these empirical and agnostic tendencies appear
in Dreams of a spirit-seer in a dramatically more radical form. For
instance, Kant directs his agnosticism now not only at the afterlife of the
soul, but also at any purported explanation of how it is possible for mind
and body to communicate. Actually, even the possibility of explaining the
impenetrability of matter is now claimed to belong to the domain where
decisive comprehension must be given up. Instead the mind-body
communion, along with the impenetrability of matter, are now
maintained as facts immediately experienced. Immediate experience,
moreover, is claimed to represent a knowledge superior to all theoretical
41

42
THE EMBODIED MIND
explanations. In the terminology of Dreams of a spirit-seer this point is
expressed in the distinction between that which is experienced as real
[erkannt] and is therefore in some way obvious, and that which it is
impossible to comprehend [begreifen] because it lies beyond the reach of
human knowledge. The facts that mind and body communicate, and that
matter is impenetrable belong to the first. It is something of which we
have an immediate experience, and is therefore obvious. Any attempt at
trying to explain these facts, however, belongs to the second group, and
made subject to agnosticism.
It is worth noting that the epistemic superiority ascribed to immediate
experience as a form of knowledge is maintained in order to establish a
critical or agnostic outlook not only towards ontology, but also, it seems,
towards other kinds of theoretical models or explanations. For instance, if
anyone should try to locate the mind in a specific part of the body, they
are corrected by Kant with his appeal to experience: the soul is present
wherever I can experience (i.e. feel) myself, that is, throughout my body.
Even if this is not made explicit, we can see here an implied criticism of a
materialist science that tries to locate the mind in the brain or the
nervous system.
Although I have argued that the empiricism of Dreams of a spirit-seer
is not new, I think the passages examined so far demonstrate that it is
now more radical and more self-confident than it was earlier. Another
point worth noting is how this empiricism is very explicitly presented as
the empiricism of an embodied subject declaring that its embodied
experience has an epistemic status that no theoretical speculations can
undermine. 76 Thus, it may be called an embodied empiricism, in contrast
with, for instance, Humean empiricism, which is the empiricism of a
mind skeptical towards everything existing in the external world,
including its body. 77
Against Hume, Kant stresses how the space
inhabited by our bodies is also the space in which we immediately feel
ourselves to be present. If I am to base my beliefs on what immediate
experience tells me (and Kant advises that I should) then I have to
conclude that I am where my body is.
Historically, Kant’s radical empiricism and the associated agnosticism
present in Dreams of a spirit-seer may be seen as having a number of
sources. In addition to the scholarly disciplines of empirical psychology
and anthropology (both of which share an empirical approach), which
76
This point is also made by Shell (1996), 128ff.
77
I shall return to discuss the relation between Humean and Kantian empiricism
in part two.

THE EMBODIED MIND
seem to have attracted Kant’s attention early on, the influence of Hume,
Crusius and others may have sharpened his awareness of the limits of
human knowledge and made him adopt the idea of the primacy of
experiential knowledge. The influence of Crusius is emphasized by,
among others, Tonelli, 78 pointing to the fact that Crusius, distancing
himself from Leibniz, maintained that the domain of human knowledge
was more limited than the rationalists had assumed. Even if Kant never
became an orthodox follower of Crusius, Tonelli argues, his early
philosophy was clearly influenced by him. I also think that even if Hume
did not influence Kant as much as is often supposed, he may nevertheless
also have contributed to the empiricism of 1766. 79
Looking forward, Dreams of a spirit-seer is sometimes heralded as a
sign of a new critical outlook which will find its full expression in the
Critique. For instance, Nierhaus argues that at this time Kant was
already concerned with what was later to form the centre of his critical
project, establishing the limits of human knowledge through a critical
examination of our cognitive capacities. 80 I think this is largely true. Of
course, as Shell points out, this does not mean that in Dreams of a spiritseer
Kant presents anything like the full scale critical theory found in the
Critique. 81 However, like Nierhaus, Shell sees in the boundary-setting
activity of Dreams of a spirit-seer an anticipation of Kant’s more
developed critical stance. I also think there are other ways in which
Dreams of a spirit-seer points forward to the Critique, as will become
apparent later.
Before that it may be worth noting that Kant’s criticism of ontology
in Dreams of a spirit-seer also has a moral and pragmatic dimension.
Ontology should be avoided because it is a waste of time, taking energy
away from more useful occupations. Neither does it seem to have any
positive effect on public morality, Kant argues. Even people who are
convinced that there is an afterlife, as ontology claims there is, continue
to do wrong. Consequently, rather than waste our time on ontology, we
should focus our energies on doing things that may improve our lives on
earth. This point is dramatically expressed in the last lines of the text:
borrowing words from Voltaire’s Candide, Kant advises the reader to
leave all ontological speculations behind and seek his happiness working
in the garden:
78
Tonelli (1969).
79
Cf. e.g. Borowski’s testimony in Gross (1993), 69.
80
Nierhaus (1962), 116.
81
Shell (1996), 127ff.
43

44
THE EMBODIED MIND
Let us attend to our happiness, and go into the garden and work. 82
Even if Kant’s reference is here to Voltaire, he might have conveyed a
similar message with a reference to Rousseau. In Émile, a book that
deeply impressed Kant, the author praises practical work, as well as the
knowledge associated with the skills of the practical worker. A number of
scholars have suggested that Dreams of a spirit-seer was inspired by
Rousseau. 83 Pitte argues that Kant adopted from Rousseau the idea that
the attainment of knowledge is not an end in itself, but that all aspects of
philosophy must be directed toward the comprehension and fulfillment
of the moral nature of man; and that, in general, moral or practical
philosophy takes precedence over speculative. 84 In a later chapter I shall
argue that the influence of Rousseau gave rise to a strong pragmatic
strain in Kant’s philosophy, a strain that is also reflected in his theory of
knowledge, even in the Critique. If this is right, then we have found here
yet another idea that will underlie Kant’s intellectual development for a
long period of time and serve to establish continuity in his thinking.
1.11 Kant’s Inaugural dissertation
In 1770, at the age of 46, Kant composed a Latin dissertation for public
debate to inaugurate the professorship in logic and metaphysics to which
he had recently been appointed. This Inaugural dissertation is often seen
as a distinctive step in the development of the critical perspective which
found its mature form in the Critique eleven years later under the
heading of ‘transcendental philosophy’.
The Inaugural dissertation deserves its place in this chapter for
several reasons. First, in it Kant sets out a terminology that will thereafter
lie at the heart of what might be called his cognitive psychology, which I
prefer to call his cognitive theory, i.e., a theory that aims to describe the
capacities of human cognition, how they function, and how each of them
contributes to the constitution of human experience. Secondly, the
transcendental perspective introduced in the Inaugural dissertation opens
up a radically new way of discussing and evaluating the ontological
mind-body problem. Finally, the text belongs here because it also
discusses the mind-body problem in a way reminiscent of Kant’s earlier
82
Ak II: 373.
83
Cf. Vleeschauwer (1962), 41 and Pitte (1971), 46ff.
84
Pitte (1971), 46.

THE EMBODIED MIND
reflections on the topic as he claims that the mind has a virtual presence
in the body. I will return to all of these points later.
Let us first take a look at the cognitive theory of the Inaugural
dissertation. In § 3, Kant draws a distinction according to which all
cognitive functions are organized in a bipolar system, in which
‘sensibility’ belongs on one side and ‘intelligence’ on the other.
‘Sensibility’ is defined as the receptivity of a subject by which its
representational state is affected by the presence of an object.
45
Sensibility is the receptivity of a subject in virtue of which it is possible
for the subject’s own representative state to be affected in a definite
way by the presence of some object. 85
‘Intelligence’, on the other hand, is defined as the faculty by which a
subject may represent that which cannot enter its senses.
Intelligence (rationality) is the faculty of a subject in virtue of which it
has the power to represent things which cannot by their own quality
come before the senses of that subject. 86
Sensibility is described as a passive faculty. Intelligence is said to be
active. 87 With our intelligence we perform certain acts without which
cognition as we know it would never take place. It is by means of these
acts that intelligence adds to our sensible representations its own kind of
representations which cannot enter through the senses. Examples of such
representations are concepts like possibility, existence, necessity,
substance and cause, all required to make experience as we know it
possible. 88
In his Inaugural dissertation Kant also introduces the idea that our
sensible representations do not tell us how the things of the world are in
themselves, only how they appear to our sensibility. Along with this, he
introduces the distinction between the matter and form of a sensible
representation, i.e., intuition. The matter of such an intuition, Kant tells
us, comprises sensations produced by the passive affection of our
85
Ak II: 392.
86
Ak II: 392.
87
The idea that cognition involves activity as well as passivity in the cognitive
subject was, as we have seen, found as early as in Living forces. There, however,
this idea was not explicitly connected to a theory of sensibility and understanding.
88
Ak II: 395.

46
THE EMBODIED MIND
sensibility. Its forms are space and time, which are not objective
determinations pertaining to things as they exist in themselves, but
subjective or ideal forms of our intuition, by means of which the manifold
of our sensibility is organized. Time is the form of inner sense, whereas
space is the form of outer sense. 89 The organization of the sensible
manifold in time and space is made possible, he explains, by a law
implanted in our cognitive powers:
… and there is also something which may be called the form, namely
the aspect of sensible things that arises as the various things affecting
the senses are co-coordinated by a certain natural law of the mind. 90
In this process the mind also reveals itself as active. Where for instance
the organization in time is concerned, this is claimed in § 14 to be
performed by an ‘action of the mind in coordinating what it senses’. 91
Later, in the corollary to § 15, both time and space are said to be the
products of the activity of the mind.
But each of the concepts 92 has, without any doubt, been acquired, not
indeed by abstraction from the sensing of objects […], but from the
very action of the mind… 93
89 Ak II: 398ff.
90 Ak II: 392.
91 Ak II: 401.
92 The fact that Kant here talks about concepts may be taken to mean that he
does not speak about space and time as intuitions, however, in the next sentence
he adds that ‘each of the concepts is like an immutable image’ suggesting that
‘concept’ is here not used in the specific sense it typically has in the Kantian
terminology, as opposed to ‘intuition’, but in a sense that actually more or less
conforms to ‘intuition’.
93 Ak II: 406. Even if the Inaugural dissertation represents a milestone in Kant’s
development towards the mature philosophy of the Critique, the terminology and
perspectives which we have now taken a brief look at are not all Kant’s own
doing. Vleeschauwer (1962), 45ff., for instance, points out that Kant’s general
distinction between the matter and form of a representation is also found in the
writings of earlier philosophers, such as Lambert and Leibniz. As for Lambert, a
philosopher well known to Kant, he taught that in all knowledge it is necessary to
consider both the content or matter which is supplied by perception and the form
which is found in the laws of logic and mathematics. In the posthumously
published Noveaux essais of Leibniz, appearing in 1765, and studied with great
interest by Kant, Leibniz defended a model analogous to that of Lambert. The
concepts and principles by which we represent the material content of experience
are the consciousness of intellectual laws or functions. This material content is
represented by the sensible manifestations of things. The intellectual operations,

1.12 A new perspective on the body-mind problem
Now, let us look at how the transcendental perspective suggested by the
Inaugural dissertation opens up a radically new way of discussing and
evaluating the traditional ontological mind-body problem. Kant himself
makes this point when eleven years later he discusses the problem in the
Critique. Let us briefly examine his argument, found in the paralogism
chapter of the A-edition of the Critique.
The argument rests heavily on the distinction between appearances
and things in themselves. From the fact that physical objects appear to us
as extended, he argues, we cannot infer that they are also extended in
themselves. On the contrary, extension is nothing but the form of outer
sense. This insight, he now argues, may be used to show that the old
problem of the community of mind and body [der Möglichkeit der
Gemeinschaft der Seele mit einem organischen Körper] is built on
nothing but a fantasy. 94
THE EMBODIED MIND
47
This fantasy, which according to Kant has
haunted rational psychology for far too long, involves the idea that
extension pertains to objects as they exist independently of our sensibility.
At the same time, rational psychology defines the mind as an immaterial
substance without extension. So conceived it is impossible to explain how
mind and body can communicate.
We may escape this dilemma, Kant continues, once we make clear to
ourselves that what we perceive as extension in material objects,
including our own bodies, is nothing but the form of outer sense. How
does this help us to solve the ontological mind-body problem? His point,
as I understand it, is not that this insight solves the problem in itself, but
it sets us free from the problem by making us see that there is no need to
solve it. There is no need to explain how extended, material objects,
including our own bodies, can affect and communicate with immaterial
minds, because, whatever those objects or bodies are, we have no reason
to believe that they, considered in themselves, are extended, material
objects. 95 Here is a summary of his argument:
of which we become aware as they take place, pass into Leibniz’ doctrine of
cognitive forms. As for Kant’s cognitive theory, we have seen that parts of its
terminology were already present in Maladies of the mind from 1764. This
terminology also belongs to a longstanding tradition in philosophy.
94
A 384.
95
Whether Kant’s point is that the things in themselves have no temporal or
spatial determinations, or whether his point is more modest, that our knowledge
of the ultimate nature of the objects of our world is limited, has been much
discussed. I will say more about this in chapter 7.

48
THE EMBODIED MIND
Now I assert that all the difficulties one believes he [the dogmatic]
finds in these questions and with which, as dogmatic objections, one
seeks to give the appearance of having a deeper insight into the
nature of things than the common understanding can have, rest on a
mere semblance [Blendwerke], according to which one hypostatizes
what exists merely in thoughts, and — assuming it to be a real object
outside the thinking subject — takes the same quality, namely
extension, which is nothing but appearance, for a property of external
things subsisting even apart from our sensibility, and takes motion for
its effect, which really takes place in itself outside our senses. For
matter, whose community with the soul excites such great
reservations, is nothing other than a mere form, or a certain mode of
representation of an unknown object, through that intuition that one
calls outer sense. Thus there may very well be something outside us,
which we call matter, corresponding to this appearance; but in the
same quality as appearance it is not outside us, but is merely as a
thought in us, even though this thought, through the sense just
named, represents it as being found outside us. (A 384-385)
As we see, this argument leans heavily on the distinction between
appearances and things in themselves. In order to make this point as
clear as possible, the argument may be paraphrased as follows. When I
observe myself, I perceive nothing but appearances. Through my outer
sense, I appear to myself as a body, and as space is the form of outer
sense, this body is extended in space. Through my inner sense, I appear
to myself as a mind, and as time (only) is the form of inner sense, this
mind has no spatial extension. Now, as long as I stay on this level of
appearance, the community between my mind and my body is a mystery.
How can two phenomena that appear to be so different communicate?
However, reminding myself of the distinction between appearances and
things in themselves, and applying this distinction to the present case, I
realize that what I know as my body and mind are nothing but
appearances. They are appearances of an underlying and unknown
reality. And once we move to this level of reality, the above problem
dissolves. It does so, because on this level we have no reason to believe
that mind and body (or whatever corresponds to them at this level) are
different in the way they appear on the level of appearance.
By rephrasing Kant’s argument in this way, I do not mean to say that
Kant suggests that we should move to the level of things in themselves in
order to solve the traditional ontological mind-body problem there. That
would be quite contrary to the spirit of the Critique and its emphasis that
things in themselves lie beyond the reach of human knowledge. Kant’s
appeal to this deep level of reality in the above argument is merely
negative, reminding us that, as we know nothing about mind and body as

THE EMBODIED MIND
things in themselves, we also have no reason for believing that their
communion is a problem.
Another way of stating Kant’s point is that by critically examining
our sensibility we understand that the classical ontological mind-body
problem is based on a misinterpretation of the representations of
sensibility. Without noting, we translate cognitive categories (time and
space qua forms of sensibility) into ontological categories pertaining to
things in themselves. Once we give up this misinterpretation, the
traditional problem dissolves. Instead it reappears in another form, Kant
tells us. The problem is now to explain how the representations of the
inner and outer sense, in spite of their heterogeneity, are co-coordinated
so that they constitute one experience.
49
Now the question is no longer about the community of the soul with
other known but different substances outside us, but merely about the
conjunction of representations [Verknüpfung der Vorstellungen] in
inner sense with the modifications of our outer sensibility, and how
these may be conjoined with one another according to constant laws,
so that they are connected into one experience. (A 385-386)
In this passage, the body and its community with the mind is not
explicitly mentioned. However, along with the general problem of the coordination
of outer and inner sense, comes the more specific problem of
how to co-ordinate the two modes of self observation corresponding to
the outer and inner sense. When I observe myself through the outer sense
I perceive what I have learned to call ‘my body’. When I observe myself
through the inner sense I perceive what I have learned to call ‘my mind’.
What is the relation between what I here call my body and my mind?
From the context of the Critique we understand that this question cannot
be answered by means of traditional ontology. It cannot be so answered,
because this would require a knowledge of body and mind as things in
themselves that we can never have. So if it can be solved at all, it has to
be solved at another level, by considering how I co-ordinate the two
modes of self observation corresponding to my outer and inner sense. Let
us call this formulation of the mind-body problem ‘the critical version of
the mind-body problem’. Does Kant solve this specific problem? I cannot
see that he explicitly deals with it anywhere in the Critique. However, he
may have thought that it was solved as part of his general theory of the
unity of experience through transcendental apperception.
I have paid a lot of attention to the paralogism chapter of the Aedition
of the Critique here because I think it represents the position
towards which Kant was heading when he formulated his new theory of

50
THE EMBODIED MIND
inner and outer sense, with its corresponding distinction between
appearances and thing in themselves, in the Inaugural dissertation. As
such, it belongs exclusively within the transcendental context established
around 1770. However, in a more general way it also continues a trend
dating further back in Kant’s career. At a general level, there is a clear
link between the agnosticism expressed in Universal natural history, its
radical restatement in Dreams of a spirit-seer, and his analysis of the
ontological mind-body problem in the Critique. In all of these cases the
claim is put forward that there are aspects of ourselves that cannot be
known due to the limited resources of our cognitive capacities. Of course,
there are also differences. The agnosticism of Dreams of a spirit-seer, for
instance, is both more radical and more explicit than that of Universal
natural history, and the agnosticism of the Critique is more radical and
more explicit still, and also more sophisticated. Nevertheless, when we
consider Kant’s agnosticism in these three texts, I think a continuity may
be identified.
1.13 Holism in the Critique
Before returning to the Inaugural dissertation, I shall examine one more
line of argument that Kant brings to the mind-body relation in the
Critique. The argument is found in the A-version of the second
paralogism of this work. I believe this argument implies that in the
Critique Kant still supports a model like the one discussed above,
according to which a human being is one substance, of which mind and
body are nothing but two aspects or dimensions. Before we turn to the
argument, let me add that if my interpretation is correct, it counts against
those who assert that Kant’s theory of the mind in the Critique conforms
to traditional immaterialism. By traditional immaterialism I mean the
view that the mind is an immaterial substance in its own right, a
substance essentially different from the body, and that conscious thoughts
are ascribed to this kind of substance only.
Now let us turn to the A-version of the second paralogism. In an
argument starting at A 357, Kant begins by reminding the reader of the
now well-known idea that bodies [Körper], according to transcendental
philosophy, are nothing but appearances of the outer sense. From this we
may justly conclude that our thinking subject is not a body. However, he
then continues:
Now this is to say in effect that thinking beings, as such, can never
come before us among outer appearances, or: we cannot intuit their
thoughts, their consciousness, their desires, etc. externally; for all this
belongs before inner sense. (A 357)

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As I understand it, Kant is here making the simple and somewhat trivial
point that, if by a ‘thinking being’ we mean what comes before our inner
sense, then we may also conclude that such a being may never appear
before our outer sense. This does not mean, however, that the idea of a
thinking being should be associated only with what we inwardly intuit as
thoughts, desires, etc. It is possible, Kant argues, to think that the
unknown something that lies behind the outer appearances (that is, the
unknown something that affects our senses so that representations of
space, matter, shape etc. result) also has thoughts.
51
… yet that same Something that grounds outer appearances and
affects our sense so that it receives the representations of space,
matter, shape, etc. – this Something, considered as noumenon (or
better, as transcendental object) could also at the same time be the
subject of thoughts, even though we receive no intuition of
representations, volitions, etc., in the way we are affected through
outer sense, but rather receive merely intuitions of space and its
determinations. (A 358)
Kant here puts forwards the idea of a possible thinking being which, even
if it affects our outer sense so that we represent it as extended in space, is
still a thinking being. Kant further maintains that when we consider this
thinking being as a thing in itself, we cannot say that it is extended.
However, neither are we justified in ascribing the predicates of the
representational content of inner sense to this thing in itself. The most we
can say is that these predicates do not contradict the idea of such a thing
in itself.
Yet the predicates of inner sense, representation and thought, do not
contradict it. (A 359)
What are the predicates of inner sense? As I understand Kant, these are
the predicates we normally ascribe to the immaterial. So his point may
be summarized by saying that it involves no contradiction to think of a
thinking being qua thing in itself as immaterial.
Even if Kant has so far not explicitly stated that a thinking being qua
thing in itself is immaterial, there seems to be a bias in the argument
towards immaterialism. Kant seems to be arguing that while we cannot
ascribe to a thinking being, considered as a thing in itself, extension,
there is no contradiction involved in thinking it to be immaterial. We
may thus feel tempted to regard the argument as having come to its

52
conclusion. Immaterialism seems to be the more rational option after all.
However, let us see how the argument continues.
In returning to discuss the idea of a thinking being, which due to the
constitution of our sensibility appears to us as extended, Kant now says
again that this being (which is now given the status of a substance!) may
well be conceived of as having conscious thoughts, even if we cannot
observe them. This means, he argues, that the very same thing that from
one perspective may be called embodied [körperlich], may from another
be thought of as a thinking being, whose thoughts we cannot observe
even if we may observe the signs [Zeichen] of this thinking.
In such a way the very same thing that is called a body in one relation
would at the same time be a thinking being in another, whose
thoughts, of course, we could not intuit, but only their signs in
appearance. (A 359)
If this line of argument is accepted, Kant concludes, we would no longer
say that it is minds [Seelen], considered as a particular kind of substance,
that think. We would simply say that human beings think.
Thereby the expression that only souls (as a particular species of
substances) think would be dropped; and instead it would be said, as
usual, that human beings think, i.e., that the same being that as outer
appearance is extended is inwardly (in itself) a subject, which is not
composite, but is simple and thinks. (A 359-360)
Kant has now put forward an hypothesis about the ontological nature of
thinking beings, which, even if it is nothing but an hypothesis, 96 is claimed
to be consistent with transcendental philosophy. Exactly what this
hypothesis is, is, I think, not unambiguously clear. However, whatever it
is, it does not seem to point towards traditional immaterialism, i.e. the
idea that the mind is an immaterial substance in its own right, a
substance essentially different from the body, and that conscious thoughts
may be ascribed only to this kind of substance only. In fact, this idea is
explicitly rejected in the above passage. We are asked not to say that
minds [Seelen], considered as a particular sort of substance, think.
Instead he tells us to say simply that human beings [Menschen] think.
What exactly is meant here by the term ‘human being’? What theory
or hypothesis is implied by this term and the way it is used here? This is
still far from clear. What is clear, however, is that the theory implied
96
Cf. A 360.
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THE EMBODIED MIND
seems not to be a dualist theory. Rather, it appears remarkably similar to
the one I suggested was already present in 1747. It involves the idea that
a human is not two substances, but one substance. 97 We now learn that
this substance may appear in various forms depending on the perspective
established. From the perspective characteristic of the outer sense, for
instance, human beings appear as extended in space. From another
perspective, for instance the perspective established when we talk about a
human being as it exists in itself, extension is no longer an issue.
However, the different perspectives do not present different things or
substances to us. In each and every case there is only one substance
present. Only the way we see it, or conceive of it, changes. The same
point is maintained when man is considered as a thinking being. It is not
this or that part or aspect of man that thinks. It is man, considered as a
unity, i.e. as one substance, that thinks. Again, what we may observe
about this thinking being, or how we may conceive of it, changes
according to the perspective taken. From the perspective characteristic of
the outer sense, for instance, we cannot see thoughts as such. However,
we can see the signs of thoughts.
Due to the brief character of Kant’s remarks, it is difficult to elaborate
further the theory implied here. I would also stress that, whatever it is,
what he is putting forward is nothing more than an hypothesis. He does
not claim that it represents proper knowledge. The only explicit
argument given in its favor is that it does not contradict our experience
or transcendental philosophy. Still, there seems to be a strong underlying
message in the passages just examined that thinking is an activity
involving not only a certain hidden or even immaterial part of man. It
involves the whole human being, body and mind included. In the
second part of this work, I shall discuss how Kant further develops this
idea.
1.14 The virtual presence of the mind
Let us now return to the Inaugural dissertation and its claim that the
mind [Seele] is virtually present in the body. How are we to understand
this claim? The idea of the virtual presence of the mind in the body is
introduced in the Inaugural dissertation as part of a more general
discussion of the immaterial [Unstofflichen] and its relation to matter. All
97
Cf. A 359 where Kant says ‘and thus I can also assume that in the substance in
itself to which extension pertains in respect of our outer sense, thoughts may also
be present, which may be represented with consciousness through their own
inner sense.’ (My emphasis.)
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54
THE EMBODIED MIND
matter exists in time and space, Kant argues. When it comes to the
immaterial, however, this is not so. Its presence in the spatio-temporal
world is virtual. 98 In a footnote at the end of the text Kant then describes
the mind and its relation to the body as a special case of the relation
between the immaterial and the material generally understood. 99 In being
immaterial [unstofflich] the mind is not in itself spatial, he explains. That
is, having a spatial location is not part of its original nature. An embodied
mind may still be said to have a spatial location, however, through its
relation with a body.
… the soul is not in interaction with the body because it is detained in
a certain place in the body; a determinate place in the universe is
rather attributed to the soul because it is in reciprocal interaction with
a certain body; and when this interaction is interrupted any position
it has in space is destroyed. 100
What theory of the mind is implied here? As before, this is not easy to
decide. The fact that Kant includes in this passage a remark concerning
the dissolution of the community of mind and body, suggest that he is
taking it for granted that the mind survives the body, and even that it
may have an existence independent of it. The exact status of this idea is,
however, not specified. At present, I will simply draw attention to the
notion of virtual presence. Kant does not say exactly what he means by
saying that the mind’s presence in the body is virtual. The term ‘virtual’
has an equivalent in the German virkungsfähig. 101 Even if the textual
evidence is not unambiguous, I think this suggests that Kant, in the
above passage, puts forward the idea that the mind is present in the body
qua activity in a wide sense.
If this interpretation is right, it seems to point in two directions. First,
it points back to Dreams of a spirit-seer. Here we find the idea expressed
that the mind is present in the body qua activity, and that the mind is
therefore present in every part of the body. It also points forwards to the
Critique, and the argument of the A-version of the second paralogism
examined above. As we saw, Kant there suggests that a thinking being,
which due to the constitution of our sensibility appears to us as extended,
may well be conceived of as having conscious thoughts. Moreover, even
98
Ak II: 414.
99
Ak II: 419.
100
Ak II: 419.
101
Cf. Hofmeisters German dictionary (1955).

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if we cannot observe these thoughts, we may observe their signs. 102 What
kind of signs might these be? And what kind of theory is implied here?
My guess is that this theory is more or less the same as the one implied by
Kant’s theory of the virtual presence of the mind in Dreams of a spiritseer
and the Inaugural dissertation. While the mind as it exists in itself is
unknown to us, there are other aspects of the mind of a person that are
open to empirical investigation, i.e. facial expressions, gestures, acts, etc.
1.15 Anthropology
The Anthropology was first published in 1798 and a second edition
followed in 1800, but the text was based on lectures Kant had been
delivering since the 1770s. Some of the material in these lectures derived
from even earlier ones. 103 Kant was the first to introduce anthropology as
a branch of study into German universities, and he took pride in the fact
that these lectures were given at no other institution. 104
The Anthropology belongs to the group of Kantian texts generally
regarded as of little or no philosophical interest or significance. Reinhard
Brandt, one of the editors of volume 25 of the Academy edition
containing Kant’s lectures on anthropology, observes that no major
[namhafte] study has ever been dedicated to the Anthropology. Unlike
other Kantian texts, it has also led to no controversy between schools. 105
This does not mean, however, that the work has been totally ignored,
and some have even emphasized its interest. In his introduction to an
English translation of the Anthropology, Pitte argues that even if this text
is written in a popular style full of examples and humorous elements, this
should not cause us to conclude that it is not worthy of serious
attention. 106 The work supplies a rough outline of Kant’s entire system
and thus serves as an excellent introduction to his thought, Pitte argues.
Moreover, in this work we find clues of several kinds that may help us
understand both Kant and his system more completely. 107 This last point
is, I think, significant, and I will return to it later.
102
A 359.
103
Pitte (1971), 11 and 15.
104
Ibid., 3.
105
Brandt (1999), 7.
106
Others signalling a positive attitude towards Kant's Anthropology are Munzel
(1999), Gerhardt (1987) and Zammito (2002).
107
Pitte (1978), xix.
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56
The Anthropology, which is Kant’s only published work in this field,
is characterized as a pragmatic anthropology. In the preface of this work,
Kant explains that anthropology can be either a physiological or a
pragmatic discipline. In the first case the focus is on what nature has
made of man. In the second case attention is given to what man,
considered as a free being, can and should make out of himself. Kant
uses memory as an illustration, and in doing this, also suggests why he
values the pragmatic version of anthropology above the physiological.
The task of a physiological anthropology is to explore how our memory
depends on and corresponds to processes in the brain. As these processes
are unknown to us, however, we can only speculate about them and this,
he complains, is a waste of time. In pragmatic anthropology, on the other
hand, the task is to observe what either promotes or impedes memory.
This knowledge is directly useful in making it possible to control and
perfect memory. 108
According to Brandt, Kant arrived at his notion of a pragmatic
anthropology at the end of a process of development that had several
phases. Like Klemme, 109 Brandt sees its starting point in the empirical
psychology of the eighteenth century which appeared as a topic in Kant’s
lectures on metaphysics in the winter of 1765/6. 110 In his Announcement
of 1765, Kant says that the lectures will begin with an introduction to
empirical psychology, which he calls ‘the metaphysical science of man
based on experience’ [metaphysische Erfahrungswissenschaft vom
Menschen]. 111 Later, a distinction is drawn between empirical
psychology, which according to Kant deals only with the representations
of inner sense, and an anthropology dealing with the human being as a
unity of mind and body. 112
At about the same time, the notion of an
anthropology distinct from such an empirical psychology appears in
Kant’s reflections. However, at this point it is still considered as only an
empirical science, and not as a pragmatic one as well. 113
The transformation of anthropology into a pragmatic science,
according to Brandt, took place in about 1773, after Kant’s first lectures
on the topic, and was then explicitly contrasted with the former
108
Ak VII: 119.
109
Klemme (1996), 14.
110
Brandt (1999), 10.
111
Ak II: 309.
112
Cf. Ak II: 397.
113
Brandt (1999), 49.
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approach. 114 At the same time, the purportedly useful or pragmatic aspect
of anthropology was declared by Kant to be an ideal for university
studies in general as well. A university education should not only be
theoretical [für die Schule], but it should also be of use in the future
everyday life of the student. 115
Kant’s pragmatic anthropology is a science explicitly dealing with
man as an embodied being. Its object is not mind or body, but both. The
idea that the mind is embodied is one of the most fundamental ideas on
which the discipline is based. This makes the Anthropology a fascinating
source of information for those interested in Kant’s ideas in this field.
The work is divided into two parts. The first is called ‘anthropological
didactic’ and consists of two books, one about the cognitive faculties, and
the other about pleasure and displeasure. The second deals with the
character of a person, the character of the sexes, and so on.
The cognitive theory presented in the Anthropology is expressed in
more or less the same terminology as that used in the Inaugural
dissertation and the Critique. A fundamental distinction is drawn
between sensible and intellectual representations, the first derived from
effects passively received by the mind [Gemüt], the second produced by
the activity of the mind itself. 116 The faculty corresponding to the passive
side of the mind is called ‘sensibility’ [Sinnlichkeit], while the faculty
corresponding to the active side of the mind is called ‘understanding’
[Verstand]. 117 This term is again used in two ways, sometimes as a
general term covering the higher cognitive faculty in general, at other
times in a more limited sense, denoting only the lower part of this faculty,
along with the power of judgment [Urteilskraf] and reason [Vernunft]
which are then defined as superior members of the higher cognitive
faculty. 118
A highly interesting aspect of the Anthropology is that cognition is
here described using the same terminology as that of the Critique. Both
works describe the same cognitive apparatus. However, in the Critique
nothing is said explicitly about how this apparatus relates to the body. It
is otherwise in the Anthropology. Here cognition is explicitly described as
embodied. In the Critique sensation is being described as the affection of
the mind [Gemüt]. However, no mention is made of whether this mind
114
Ibid., 10.
115
Ibid., 10-11.
116
Ak VII: 140, cf. also Ak VII: 196.
117
Ak VII: 196.
118
Ak VII: 196-7.
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58
communicates with a body or not, or whether the affection of the mind
also involves the affection of the body. In the Anthropology, in the
chapter entitled ‘On the Five Senses’, Kant describes the outer sense as
the sense by which the body is affected by physical objects. 119 Kant also
offers a detailed theory of the various senses of the body that are involved
in human sensation. Where cognition of external objects is concerned,
there are five senses involved, he argues. These are touch, sight, hearing,
taste and smell. Each sense corresponds to a certain organ; sight to the
eyes, hearing to the ears, etc. In each organ a specific sort of sensation is
produced by the effect on the organ:
There are exactly five senses that have specific organs. Three of them
are more objective than subjective, that is, as empirical intuitions they
contribute to our knowledge of the external object rather than arouse
our consciousness of the organ affected. The other two are more
subjective than objective, that is, the idea they give us is more an idea
of our enjoyment of the object than knowledge of the external object.
[…] The more objective senses are 1) touch (tactus), 2) sight (visus), 3)
hearing (auditus). 120
It is also worth noting that, having defined the higher cognitive faculties
and described their functioning, as in Maladies of the mind of 1764,
Kant continues by discussing how they sometimes degenerate, and how
this degeneration may result in mental diseases. 121 Due to the limited
insight of contemporary physiology, he says, he will not venture to offer
physiological explanations of this degeneration. However, he does not
exclude the possibility that such explanations might one day be found. In
support of this idea he notes that a certain mental illness, Verrückung,
has been observed to be inherited, and often emerges at the time when a
youth reaches puberty. This clearly suggests a physiological explanation.
The fact that Kant describes cognition as radically embodied here is
not sufficient to justify the claim that he does the same thing in the
Critique. That requires a separate discussion that will come later.
Furthermore, the few passages that have been considered from the
Anthropology here cannot fully convey the significance of the work.
However, I will return to discuss the Anthropology in more detail in later
chapters. In the next chapter, I will discuss Kant’s theory of space, that is,
how, according to the Anthropology, our experience of space is
119
Ak VII: 153.
120
Ak VII: 154.
121
Ak VII: 202ff.
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constituted by embodied acts. In the third chapter I will deal with Kant’s
discussion of the higher cognitive faculties as it is found in the
Anthropology, and how this implies a theory of embodied rationality.
1.16 Conclusion
In this chapter I have explored Kant’s ideas about the mind-body
relation in works published over a period that covers most of his
intellectual career. We have seen that not only does he put forward in all
of them the idea that the mind, as we know it, is embodied, but he also
discusses, down to the minutest detail, how the workings of the mind
presuppose and are conditioned by the constitution and functioning of
the human body. We have also seen that in a variety of contexts he put
forward what might be called a holistic model of man, according to
which mind and body should not be conceived as two independent
entities, monads or substances, but rather as different sides, aspects or
dimensions of one being or substance. In human beings as we know
them, he seems to be saying, mind and body form a whole so complete
that the one cannot be understood in abstraction from the other.
Above I raised the question whether Kant conceived of this as an
ontological model that was meant to compete with the theories put
forward by the rational psychology of his time. To answer this question
decisively lies outside the scope of this study. My guess is, however, that
the answer is negative. In brief, my reason for saying so is twofold. First,
most of the time when he is addressing the questions of rational
psychology, he adopts an agnostic attitude. Instead of entering into a
discussion with the rational psychologists of his time on their own terms,
he emphasizes how limited our cognitive resources are. From early on,
his attitude seems to be that the questions of rational psychology must be
left unanswered.
Secondly, it is also worth noting that when he actually addresses the
mind-body relation, he does so within theoretical disciplines other than
rational psychology. The context is, for instance, cosmology, empirical
psychology or anthropology. In spite of their internal differences, all these
disciplines aim to describe the world as we know it, not to disclose some
hidden dimension of reality. They do not reach out to try and grasp the
essential nature of God or of the soul in its assumed afterlife. This also
applies to the eighteenth-century version of cosmology. While cosmology
in the Kantian sense is not an empirical science in the modern sense of
the term, nevertheless the world it aims to describe is still the physical
universe. And to the extent to which man appears as a topic for
consideration in the field of cosmology, it is as an inhabitant of this
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60
universe. The human being that Kant discusses within the context of the
three disciplines mentioned is man as we know him, man as a living,
biological being; in short, the embodied self.
It may be that the young Kant also held more substantial beliefs in
the field of ontology, such as when in Dreams of a spirit-seer and even in
the Inaugural dissertation 122
he echoes the rational psychology of his time
in suggesting that the mind as such is without extension and may have an
existence independent of the body. However, it is difficult to decide upon
this question due to the fact that he says so little about it. As also Laywine
remarks:
Kant was not especially interested in the nature of the soul as such –
so little interested that his rational psychology was very impoverished
indeed. 123
What remains beyond doubt, however, is that regardless of what
ontological ideas he may or may not have been committed to,
throughout his life Kant took it as a basic fact that man as we know him
is a unity of mind and body. Also, as we have seen and will see again, in
his cognitive theory this is one of the basic premises that he begins with,
such as when in Universal natural history he maintains as a fact that the
mind receives all its representations and concepts from the impressions
that the universe produces in it through the body. 124 In part two of this
work, my aim will be to demonstrate that the idea of the embodied mind
is also a basic premise of the Critique. Before that, however, come two
chapters that explore in greater detail how Kant saw our experience and
thinking to be conditioned by the constitution and functioning of the
human body.
122
Ak II: 419.
123
Laywine (1993), 7.
124
Ak I: 355.
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2. BODY AND SPACE
The sense of touch is located in the fingertips and
their nerve papillae, so that by touching the
surface of a solid body we can find out what
shape it has. Nature seems to have given this
organ only to man, so that by feeling all the sides
of a body he could form a concept of its shape.
[…]Touch is also the only sense in which our
external perception is immediate, and for this
reason it is the most important and the most
certain in what it teaches us.[…] Without this
sense organ we should be unable to form any
concept at all of the shape of a body.
From Kant’s Anthropology 1
In this passage from the Anthropology, Kant claims that the tactile sense
located in the tips of our fingers is essential for our capacity to explore the
spatial form of physical objects. Actually, he claims, without this sense we
would have no concept of such a form at all. The body, or, more
precisely, our capacity for embodied action together with the awareness
accompanying this action, is here given the status of an essential
condition without which our concept of the spatial form of an object
would not exist. The aim of this chapter is to explore this idea of the
body as a condition of spatial experience as it is found in some Kantian
texts.
As we have seen, this idea is suggested as early as 1747 in Living
forces. 2
Rather than staying with this early text, however, in this chapter I
shall explore three texts belonging to the more mature phase of Kant’s
intellectual development. They are Directions in space from 1768,
Orientation from 1786 and the Anthropology from 1798, the first
published thirteen years prior to the Critique, the second five years after
its first publication, while the third, as we have seen, is based on lectures
1
Ak VIII: 155.
2
Ak I: 22.

62
dating back to the 1770s. It is interesting to see that in all of these texts
covering this long period of time there is one aspect of Kant’s theory of
space that seems to remain unchanged; our representation of space
presupposes the body and our capacity for embodied action along with
the awareness accompanying this action. I will call this ‘Kant’s theory of
the embodied constitution of spatial representations’, or, more briefly,
‘Kant’s embodied theory of space’. The claim just made is not meant to
imply that Kant did not develop or revise his theory of space in other
ways, because he certainly did. However my main emphasis will be on
what I claim did not change, which is the basic idea that the body is a
condition of spatial experience. I believe that exploring this part of
Kant’s philosophy is valuable in its own right as it is not too often
discussed. However, I will also use the conclusions of this chapter in the
second part of my work where I argue that his theory of space in the
Critique may be seen as an abstract version of his embodied theory of
space.
If we look for the origins of Kant’s embodied theory of space, I think
that they may in part be found in his own philosophy in that it follows as
the logical consequence of some basic ideas he put forward. One such
idea is that the spatiality of the mind derives from its association with its
body, as he claims for instance in Dreams of a spirit-seer and in the
Inaugural dissertation. 3
BODY AND SPACE
From this it follows that there would be no
awareness of space, and consequently no representation of space, without
the body. Or at least this representation would then be hard to explain.
Moreover, if we maintain that the domain of the activity of the mind is
congruent with the space inhabited by its body, and that our immediate
awareness is therefore restricted to this domain, as is implied by Kant’s
embodied empiricism, it follows that experience or knowledge of the
spatial form of other objects can only be achieved by means of the body. 4
There is no way in which the mind can go outside its body to explore the
spatial properties of things. It has to take its body with it and use this
body as its tool, for instance by using its fingertips to explore the
3
Ak II: 325 and Ak II: 419.
4
Kaulbach (1960), 97 argues along a similar path when he contends that Kant’s
embodied empiricism, found for instance in Dreams of a spirit-seer, makes
embodied movement accompanied by self-awareness a condition of spatial
experience.

spatial form of a given object, or other such acts. I shall consider this
argument again later.
2.1 The European discussion of space in the 18 th century
Kant’s embodied theory of space should also be seen in the context of the
general discussion of space taking place in Europe in the eighteenth
century. Most frequently discussed today, perhaps, is the controversy
between Leibniz and Newton on the nature of space, discussed in the so
called Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, published in 1711, in which
Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) acted as a spokesman for Newton. Very
roughly, the Newtonian view holds that space is an absolutely real, selfsubsistent
‘container’ and would exist even if no physical objects were
contained in it. The opposite Leibnizian view maintains that space exists
as relations between objects. To say that objects exist in space is to say
that they stand in certain relations to one another. Statements about
space may therefore be reduced to statements about objects and their
relations. 5
The publication of the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence provoked a
lively discussion among European scholars, a discussion followed with
great interest by Kant when it re-emerged with some intensity in the
1760s and 1770s. 6
He also involved himself in the debate and his theory
of space and time as subjective forms of intuition in the Critique may be
seen as his alternative to both the Newtonian and the Leibnizian views.
Alongside this discussion concerning the Newtonian and the Leibnizian
conceptions of space, however, another kind of discussion relating to
space was going on, focusing more on the embodied aspect of spatial
cognition. Kant also took an interest in this discussion, which will be
considered in more detail later, and I shall argue that the historical
origins of his embodied theory of space are primarily to be found there.
Of course, the discussion of space in Directions in space and Orientation
also relates to the Leibniz-Clarke controversy. However, I will generally
ignore these connections as they do not relate to what is my main topic
5
BODY AND SPACE
For a more detailed discussion of the Leibniz-Clarke controversy, cf.
Vleeschauwer (1962), 47, Tonelli (1959), Kaulbach (1960), Martin (1969), Caygill
(1995), 367ff. and Allison (1983), 108ff.
6
Cf. Vleeschauwer (1962), 47.
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64
BODY AND SPACE
here which is Kant’s view on the embodied basis of spatial
experience. 7
A central problem for those interested in the embodied basis of spatial
experience was to explain the fact that we experience visual space as
three-dimensional. The seventeenth and eighteenth-century natural
philosophers understood the internal structure of the eye very well and
knew that visual images were produced by rays of light affecting the
retina. But as the retina is two-dimensional, how can rays of light
affecting it produce three-dimensional visual images? Berkeley presents a
version of this problem in his Essay towards a new theory of vision from
1709 thus:
It is, I think, agreed by all that Distance of it self, and immediately
cannot be seen. For Distance being a Line directed end-wise to the
Eye, it projects only one Point in the Fund of the Eye. Which Point
remains invariably the same, whether the Distance be longer or
shorter. 8
A ray of light will always hit the retina at one point only, Berkeley argues,
and whether the ray originates from near or far makes no difference.
How, then, do we see things to be either near or far away? How do we
visually perceive distance, and so three-dimensional space?
In suggesting solutions to this problem, most natural philosophers in
one way or another resorted to our capacity for moving our bodies. A
famous example is supplied by Étienne Bonnet de Condillac (1715-1780)
in his work Traité des sensations from 1754. Here he imagined a marble
statue internally constituted like a living human being, but having a mind
deprived of all ideas, and with all its senses closed, so that it would be
possible to open them one at a time and to analyze their relationship.
Condillac argued that hearing, taste, and sight would produce in the
statue no idea of exteriority. To show how the perception of
phenomenological exteriority arises, he therefore added to the statue the
sense of touch. The term le toucher used by Condillac includes a number
of elements, such as the awareness we have of processes internal to the
7 I do not intend to give anything like a complete account of the discussion taking
place between philosophers and scientists of the eighteenth century focusing on
the embodied aspect of spatial experience, but only enough to serve as a
background. A brief but still excellent survey of some main lines of this debate is
found in Kitcher, which also serves as a basis for the following exposition, cf.
Kitcher (1990), and also Herrnstein (1968).
8 Quoted from Herrnstein (1968), 118.

ody, as well as the experience we have when we connect with external
objects. By opening the sense of touch, he also permitted the statue to
move itself, emphasizing that in doing this, it was aware of the
contractions of its muscles. Through all of this, he argued, the statue
would finally arrive at consciousness of phenomenological exteriority,
and by way of attention, judgment, and reasoning it would also be
capable of transforming its findings into the notions of space and matter. 9
The significance of movement, touch and awareness of muscle
movements was also emphasized by other writers such as Descartes and
Berkeley. Even if these writers disagreed on a number of points, they
nevertheless agreed that the movements of the body and our awareness
of these movements are essential for producing ideas of spatial distance
and shape.
Even Descartes, despite his strong metaphysical dualism, explored
how embodied movements contribute to our representation of threedimensional
space. In La Dioptrique from 1638, he claims, for instance,
that there is no essential difference between perception through the eyes
and perception by means of the hands. 10 In both cases, parts of the body
are involved and impulses are produced in them that are then carried
through the nerves to the brain where they are processed.
In elaborating this point, Descartes asks the reader to imagine a blind
person holding a stick in each hand. Lacking sight, blind people may use
sticks to investigate distant objects, he argues. The case is meant to work
as an analogy in which the hands play the role of the eyes and the sticks
play the role of the rays of light connecting a distant object with
our eyes. Descartes points to the fact that even a small movement of one
of the arms of the blind person will produce an effect in the brain, telling
it not only the relative distance between the limbs of the body, but also,
when these limbs are artificially extended to external objects by means of
sticks or another physical medium, the position, size and shape of these
objects. As visual observation takes place, in principle, in the same way,
the same explanation may also account for the fact that we visually
perceive objects in space.
9
Hallie (1967), 180-182.
10
Cf. Herrnstein (1968), 113.
BODY AND SPACE
65

66
As to the way in which each part of an object is placed with respect to
our body, we perceive it no differently through our eyes than with our
hands. Moreover, our knowledge of it does not depend on an image
or on any action by the object, but only on the arrangement of the
small parts of the brain where the nerves originate – for this
arrangement, which changes so little with each shift in disposition of
the members reached by the nerves, is of such a nature as not only to
make known to the soul where each part of the body it animates is in
relation to the other parts but also to enable the soul to shift its
attention to the entire area that lies within such straight lines as we
might imagine drawn from the end of each of these parts and
extended to infinity. 11
Descartes also draws special attention to the movements of our muscles:
Likewise, when our eye or our head is turned toward one side, our
soul is alerted by the change that the nerves leading from the muscles
used for these movements cause in our brain. 12
In a parallel argument, in his Essay towards a new theory of vision
Berkeley draws attention to the sensations aroused by the movements of
the pupils as one of the many sensations from which we gain information
on the spatial distance between objects and ourselves.
It is certain by Experience, that when we look at a near Object with
both Eyes, according as it approaches, or recedes from us, we alter
the Disposition of our Eyes, by lessening or widening the Interval
between the Pupils. This Disposition or Turn of the Eyes is attended
with a Sensation, which seems to me, to be that which in this Case
brings the Idea of greater, or lesser Distance into the Mind. 13
The idea of spatial properties of objects in the first place, however,
according to Berkeley, is produced by touch. The idea that objects do not
change in size, contrary to what seems to be the fact from our visual
impressions of them as we either approach or recedes from them, is also
derived from touch, he argues:
11 Quoted from Herrnstein (1986), 113-14.
12 Ibid., 114.
13 Ibid., 120.
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67
The Magnitude of the Object which exists without the Mind, and is
at a Distance, continues always invariably the same. But the Visible
Object still changing as you approach to, or recede from the Tangible
Object, it hath no fixed and determinate Greatness. Whenever
therefore, we speak of the Magnitude of any thing, for Instance a
Tree or a House, we must mean the Tangible Magnitude, otherwise
there can be nothing steady, and free from Ambiguity spoken of it. 14
There is little doubt that Kant was acquainted with the discussion carried
out along the lines here suggested, at least in its main features. One of his
sources was Johann Nicolaus Tetens’ book Philosophishe Versuche über
die Menschliche Natur und ihre Entwickelung from 1777 where Tetens
promotes ideas similar to those of Condillac and the other authors
discussed above. According to Tetens, the idea of space cannot be
abstracted from the alterations and impressions that objects inflict on our
senses. Rather, it is abstracted from the act of seeing. When, for example,
I see that a tower is further from me than a tree, I move my eyes, and
that is felt as something present and absolute. Kant is reported to have
had Tetens book open on his desk as he worked with his Critique, that is,
in the 1770s. 15
2.2 Rousseau and space
Kant also found similar ideas in Rousseau's Émile, a book that, as we
know, deeply impressed him when he first read it in the early 1760s. 16
In
explaining how a child first acquires knowledge of space, Rousseau points
to the basic significance of the tactile sense and embodied action. The
tactile sense is important not only because it gives us immediate and first
hand knowledge of the objects of the world, he argues, but it is also
important because it accompanies the movements of the body. Through
these movements and the awareness it has of them the child acquires a
unique knowledge of space, a knowledge that cannot be acquired in any
other way. As part of this, it learns also for the first time to distinguish
between itself and that which is not itself.
14
Ibid., 124.
15
Kitcher (1990), 34 and 238, footnote.
16
Rousseau’s ideas are here most probably inspired by Condillac. In Émile
Rousseau tells about his personal acquaintance with this man, who, he said,
would one day be regarded among ‘the greatest thinkers and the profoundest
metaphysicians’ (Rousseau (1979), 71).

68
It is only by movement that we learn that there are things which are
not us … 17
Continuing this reflection, Rousseau tries to imagine what it would be
like to be an oyster. Without the capacity to move, he imagines, the
whole world must appear to the oyster as nothing but a point. Even if we
ascribed to the oyster a human mind, whatever this would mean, it
would not help. Neither would it help to give the oyster sight. In order to
acquire an idea of space, it needs to be able to move around in the world.
Without touch, without progressive movement, the most penetrating
eyes in the world would not be able to give us any idea of extension.
The entire universe must be only a point for an oyster. It would not
appear to it as anything more even if a human mind were to inform
this oyster. It is only by dint of walking, feeling, counting, of
measuring dimensions that one learns to estimate them. 18
Thus the capacity to receive impressions from without is but a first
requirement for spatial experience. Just as important, and absolutely
essential, is the capacity to move, originating in the spontaneity of the
subject. This is Rousseau’s point.
Of the various authors who may have inspired Kant in the
formulation of his embodied theory of space, I will put particular
emphasis on Rousseau, not only because we possess definite information
that Kant was acquainted with Rousseau’s ideas well before he published
Directions in space in 1768, but also because we know the deep impact
that Émile made on him. I will discuss this impact and what it meant to
Kant in more detail later. For now, I will try to set out the salient points
of the ideas examined above.
First, all those mentioned ascribed to the body a basic and
indispensable role in spatial cognition, and in the most detailed and
concrete way. Emphasis is placed on the way we sense the various parts
of our bodies, their positions relative to each other and the way we move
them, as well as how we experience the impact of physical influences on
the body from the outside. Attention is drawn, for instance, to the pupils
of the eyes and the muscles directing their movements, and the muscles
directing the movements of the head and shoulders as we turn to look in
a specific direction. All of these movements, along with the subtle
17
Rousseau (1979), 64.
18
Rousseau (1979), 143.
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BODY AND SPACE
awareness we have of them, contribute to the constitution of our spatial
representations.
Secondly, priority is ascribed to touch. It is by means of touch that
the first, basic ideas of space are formed in the observer, that is, by
touching, grasping and holding objects we form our first and most basic
ideas of their spatial form. Visual perception is claimed to work in a way
analogous to touch. When we look at a distant object, the light reflected
from the object exerts a felt influence on the pupil, just as when we feel
the resistance of an object when we touch it. And just as we become
aware of the size of an object, for instance, by holding our hands on
either side of it and noting the relative distance between our hands, so we
become aware of the size of a distant object by means of the subtle
awareness of the position of our pupils as we direct them towards the
object.
Finally, even if the above ideas seem to belong to the context of a
purely scientific investigation of man, they also imply a more
philosophical perspective. Most importantly, they presuppose the idea
that man is an embodied being, with an awareness that is also fully
embodied. We have seen that two years before he wrote Directions in
space, in Dreams of a spirit-seer Kant advanced a very similar kind of
embodied empiricism. On this matter, his views lie close to those of
Condillac, Tetens and Rousseau. It is scarcely surprising, then, if Kant
incorporated aspects of their ideas of the embodied constitution of spatial
representations into his own reflections on space.
2.3 Directions in space
This text, published 1768, two years after Dreams of a spirit-seer and two
years before the Inaugural dissertation, is often seen as signaling Kant’s
conversion to Newtonianism, after having earlier supported the
Leibnizian side of the Leibniz-Clarke controversy. 19 However,
commentators have also noticed how the text calls attention to the body
and its significance with regard to our capacity for spatial orientation. 20
Below I will argue that even if Kant appears to be a Newtonian in
Directions in space, in that he defends the idea of absolute space, I do not
think this is all there is to be said on the matter. Amongst other things,
the text may also be seen as his attempt to incorporate within his theory
of space ideas taken from Rousseau and others, as well as the
19
Cf. e.g. Vleeschauwer (1962), 48.
20
Cf. e.g. Caygill (1995), 367, Rossvær (1974), 41 and Kaulbach (1960).
69

70
implications of his own embodied empiricism. As I shall argue, the text
may also be seen as representing one of Kant’s first attempts to express
the position that has come to be called Copernican.
Like so many other Kantian texts, Directions in space is an intriguing
piece of work. He opens the discussion by announcing that his aim is to
prove that there is an absolute space, independent of all matter.
My purpose in this treatise is to see whether there is not to be found
[…] [a] clear proof that: Absolute space, independently of the
existence of all matter and as itself the ultimate foundation of the
possibility of the compound character of matter, has a reality of its
own. 21
This opening, no doubt, appears as a powerful argument for those
arguing that he sides with the Newtonian party of the Leibniz-Clarke
controversy here. After having introduced the idea of absolute space,
however, he continues, somewhat surprisingly, by arguing that without
our bodies we would not be able to orient in space.
He begins this new line of argument by imagining three planes
intersecting each other at right angles in space. He then imagines that
these planes stand in a certain relation to our body. This relation, now, is
the ground making it possible for us to produce [erzeugen] the concept of
locations [Gegenden] in space:
Because of its three dimensions, physical space [in dem körperlichen
Raume] can be thought of as having three planes, which all intersect
each other at right angles. Concerning the things which exist outside
ourselves: it is only in so far as they stand in relation to ourselves that
we have any cognition of them by means of the senses at all. It is,
therefore, not surprising that the ultimate ground, on the basis of
which we form [erzeugen] our concept of directions [Gegenden] in
space, derives from the relation of these intersecting planes to our
bodies. 22
Kant does not say that I produce [erzeuge] space as such, but what he
says is something not very far from this: I produce the concept of spatial
locations. And this concept-production, he argues, is directly dependent
on my body and the imaginary planes crossing it.
21
Ak II: 378.
22
Ak II: 379.
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One of the planes is placed so that the length of the body stands at a
right angle to it, he explains. This may be called the horizontal. By
means of this plane we distinguish between up and down. The two other
planes are placed in a position so that the line constituted by the upright
position of the body stands at their intersection. One of these divides the
body into two equal parts and is the ground for our distinction between
left and right. The other gives us the concept of in front of and behind. 23
Kant not only focuses on the body and its relation to an imaginary
system of co-ordinates when explaining how we produce the basic
concept (or concepts) of spatial locations, he also refers to our intuitive
capacity, based on immediate feeling, to distinguish between the location
of the different parts of our body, such as its left and right side.
71
And thus it is that the two sides of the body are, in spite of their great
external similarity, sufficiently distinguished from each other by a
clear feeling. 24
Without this awareness, Kant argues, we would not be able to distinguish
between spatial locations. So, the whole body participates in this essential
concept formation.
I think that it is particularly here, in the reference to our immediate
awareness of the various parts of our bodies, that a connection can be
seen with Rousseau and the other authors mentioned above who place
the body in the center of their theory of space. Like them Kant points to
the body in order to explain the origin of some very basic spatial
concepts. Like them he draws attention to the awareness we have of the
body and its parts. He will later add that embodied acts are also essential
for the constitution of spatial concepts.
Now, let us return to the spatial concepts originating in the
immediate awareness of the body, such as up and down, right and left, in
front of and behind. These concepts, Kant suggests, are also the ground
for other kinds of spatial determinations. When, for instance, we
distinguish between the front and back of a piece of paper, we use the
same concepts as those grounded in the immediate awareness of the
body. Even if he moves away from the body here, by discussing spatial
relations pertaining to objects outside us, the human body remains the
center of the theory. The concepts we use in order to determine the
23
Ak II: 379.
24
Ak II: 381.
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72
spatial locations of such objects and their parts derive from the intuitive
body-awareness examined above.
Let us now return to how Kant begins the essay. He states that his
aim is to prove the existence of absolute space, then he proceeds to
present a theory of the embodied grounding of some basic spatial
concepts. Is there any connection here? At first sight it is difficult to see
one. The introductory claim and the following theory seem to be
seriously mismatched. The first suggests the idea of a space totally
independent of human intervention while the other seems hardly to
extend beyond the limit of the human body.
But perhaps these two perspectives are not incongruent. Perhaps
Kant’s theory of the embodied basis of basic spatial concepts is in fact
also a theory of the constitution of the concept of what he calls absolute
space. It is worth noting that whatever ideas the notion of absolute space
leads us to consider, Kant emphasizes that absolute space is not an object
of the outer sense. It cannot be observed. Rather; it is a fundamental
concept.
… absolute space is not an object of outer sensation; it is rather a
fundamental concept … 25
How do we arrive at this fundamental concept? Does it have anything to
do with the basic concepts just discussed, i.e. those originating in the
body? Kant does not say but his silence allows us to suggest that it has.
More precisely, it is possible that the concept of absolute space is based in
some way or another on our primitive capacity to determine spatial
locations relative to our body, and that this is how Kant conceives of the
matter in Directions in space.
How does this conceptual movement from the body to the idea of
absolute space take place? As Kant does not supply the answer to this
question, we can only guess. We have seen that according to Kant the
basic spatial concepts of up and down, right and left, in front of and
behind originate in our immediate awareness of the body and its parts.
Later, he argues, these concepts are also used to decide the spatial
relations of external objects and their parts, for instance the front and
back of a piece of paper. Somehow he seems to think that these concepts,
with their subjective origin, may be used to decide the objective relations
between objects and their parts. Metaphorically, we may speak here of a
movement from a subjective origin towards a more objective use of the
25 Ak II: 383.
BODY AND SPACE

concepts, and perhaps the idea of absolute space lies at the end of this
movement. Whether or not this corresponds to Kant’s view is hard to say
but it is at least a possible interpretation. A version of this interpretation
is also put forward by Kaulbach. He argues that, contrary to how it may
seem, the term ‘absolute space’ as Kant uses it in Directions in space does
not refer to a Newtonian conception of space. The term ‘absolute’ refers,
Kaulbach argues, to the unconditional basis of spatial orientation in the
embodied reality of the cognitive self. 26
2.4 A Copernican position?
According to Viggo Rossvær, Directions in space is the first text in which
Kant operates with what may be called a Copernican perspective. 27 I
shall return to discuss the notion of this Copernican perspective in
chapter four. At present I will define this perspective in a very general
sense as involving the idea that all experience is conditioned by the
subjective position of the observer and/or the observer’s cognitive
resources. Most clearly, I think, such a perspective is expressed in the last
section of Directions in space. Our determinations [Bestimmungen] of
space are not the result of the spatial position of matter, it is the other
way around. The spatial position of matter is the result of our spatial
determinations. 28
73
Our considerations make it plain that the determinations of space are
not consequences of the positions of the parts of matter relative to
each other. On the contrary, the latter are the consequences of the
former. 29
Due to the brevity of the argument, we should be careful not to put too
much weight on it. However, I think that Rossvær is right to say that a
Copernican perspective is present here. In claiming that our judgments
[Bestimmungen] of space determine the spatial position of matter, Kant
ascribes to the cognitive subject a capacity going far beyond the passive
role of an observer. Actually, he seems here to be approaching the theory
promoted in the Inaugural dissertation, where space (and also time) is
said to be the product of the activity of the subject. 30 As the Inaugural
26
Kaulbach (1960), 95.
27
Rossvær (1974), 43.
28
Cf. also Kaulbach (1960), 95.
29
Ak II: 383.
30
Ak II: 405f.
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dissertation lies only two years ahead, this interpretation is, I think, not
improbable. If this is so, it may be worth noting that the first hint of a
Copernican perspective in the Kantian corpus is found in a theoretical
context in which the body has also a prominent position. Exactly what
this means is perhaps not fully evident at this stage but should become
clearer later.
2.5 Orientation
The small text Orientation was published in 1786, five years after the
publication of the first edition of the Critique in 1781, and a year before
the publication of its second edition. 31 Here Kant returns to the question
of space and again the body is said to have an essential significance in
much the same way as in Directions in space. In order to orient ourselves
in space, he argues, it is necessary to have a body and to be able to feel its
parts.
In the proper meaning of the word, to orient oneself means to use a
given direction (when we divide the horizon into four of them) in
order to find the others – literally, to find the sunrise. Now, if I see the
sun in the sky and know it is midday, then I know how to find south,
west, north, and east. For this, however, I also need the feeling of a
difference in my own subject, namely, the difference between my
right and left hands. 32
Even if the passage is brief, it seems to represent more or less the same
theory of space as the one put forward in Directions in space. My body
and its parts, along with my awareness of them, are claimed to be
necessary conditions of my capacity to orient myself in space. It is
interesting to see that in this text written after the Critique, Kant presents
roughly the same ideas about the embodied basis of spatial orientation as
he did in one written before it. It is as if this perspective has been with
him all the time.
The capacity to distinguish between different parts of the body is also
essential when I need to find my way through a dark room or a dark
street:
31 It belongs to the group of small texts published by Kant in the Berlinische
Monatschrift. In it he adresses the so-called pantheism controversy of the time.
However, in the first few pages he also addresses the question of spatial
orientation, and it is this first part to which I refer in the following.
32 Ak VIII: 134.

75
In the dark I orient myself in a room that is familiar to me if I can
take hold of even one single object whose position I remember. But it
is plain that nothing helps me here except the faculty for determining
position according to a subjective ground of differentiation: for I do
not see at all the objects whose place I am to find... [...] But I can
soon orient myself through the mere feeling of a difference between
my two sides, the right and the left. That is just what happens if I
need to walk and take the correct turns on streets otherwise familiar
to me when I cannot distinguish any of the houses. 33
The text also has more to offer. In the following passage the term a priori
(by this time a well-established one) is explicitly associated with the
movement of the body and the awareness of this movement.
If I did not have this faculty of distinguishing, without the need of any
difference in the objects, between moving from left to right and right
to left and moving in the opposite direction and thereby determining
a priori a difference in the position of the objects, then in describing a
circle I would not know whether west was right or left of the
southernmost point of the horizon, or whether I should complete the
circle by moving north and east and thus back to south. 34
Without the capacity to draw a circle, and in doing this to recognize
whether the direction is from left to right or the opposite, we would not
be able to determine a priori the different locations of objects in space,
Kant argues. The possibility of distinguishing a priori between locations
in space presupposes the body, the awareness of its parts, and the
movements of these parts. Given the standard interpretation of Kant’s
theory of the a priori, it may be difficult to see why the term ‘a priori’ is
introduced here. This will be considered in part two of this work.
2.6 Anthropology
In our examination of the theories of Condillac, Tetens, Rousseau and
others at the beginning of this chapter, we saw that embodied acts were
accorded an essential role in the formation of spatial concepts. Rousseau,
for instance, argued that only by moving around does a child acquire
knowledge of the spatial properties of the world. Special emphasis is
given to the sense of touch, i.e. various acts through which we explore the
shape of an object by touching and grasping it.
33 Ak VIII: 135.
34 Ak VIII: 135.
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76
From what has been seen so far, Kant did not emphasize such
embodied acts or movements very clearly. An exception is found in the
last part of Orientation. Here the capacity to determine a priori spatial
locations is said to presuppose the capacity to move the hands, and to be
aware of the direction of this movement. The movements of the hands
and the awareness we have of them are also emphasized in the
Anthropology:
The sense of touch is located in the fingertips and their nerve
papillae, so that by touching the surface of a solid body we can find
out what shape it has. – Nature seems to have given this organ only
to man, so that by feeling all the sides of a body he could form a
concept of its shape … […] Touch is also the only sense in which our
external perception is immediate, and for this reason it is the most
important and the most certain in what it teaches us… […] Without
this sense organ we should be unable to form any concept at all of the
shape of a body. 35
Without the capacity to grasp and feel an object, Kant argues, we would
never arrive at the concept of the shape of an object. Here, like
Rousseau, Condillac and others, he believes the sense of touch has an
essential function in the formation of the concept of spatial form.
The significance of the sense of touch is also testified elsewhere in the
Anthropology. Kant discusses how a person without sight can
compensate for this loss by using other senses. He could for instance use
the tactile sense, and explore the shape of an object with his hands:
If a man is born without one of the senses (sight, for example), he
cultivates another sense, as far as possible, to serve as a substitute for
it, and uses his productive imagination to a great extent. So he tries to
make the shapes of external bodies apprehensible by touch, and when
touch fails because the body is too large (a house), he tries to grasp
extension by still another sense – perhaps by listening to the echo of
voices in a room. 36
The passage just quoted also contains an interesting remark about the
sense of hearing. When an object is too large to be explored by holding
and grasping it, a blind person may explore its shape by listening to the
echo produced by his own or another persons voice.
35 Ak VIII: 155.
36 Ak VII: 172-3.
BODY AND SPACE

BODY AND SPACE
Above I argued that, according to the theory of Rousseau, Tetens
and the other authors examined at the beginning of this chapter, touch is
not only taken to be essential because it is the sense by which our first
and most basic concepts of space are formed but it is also taken to be
essential in being the sense on which the functioning of all the other
senses is modeled. I think that the last example examined may be used as
evidence that Kant’s thoughts on the matter followed the same lines, at
least where hearing is concerned. In hearing, we do not touch objects
directly, but in Kant’s analysis what happens is structurally similar to an
act of touching. When I touch an object with my hand, this is an active
movement. The resulting concept of the spatial form of the object is in
part caused by this movement. However, just as important as my own
movement is the resistance offered by the object. Without this resistance,
I should not be able to form a concept of its form.
The structure of this event, I think, is also present in the example of
the blind person. Standing in the room, not knowing where its walls are,
he uses his voice, and by noting how it is echoed by the room’s walls, he
understands where they are relative to himself. What is the structure of
this event? First the blind person acts by making a sound with his voice.
Secondly, due to the resistance of the walls, this sound is reflected back to
his ears. And once again the resulting concept of the spatial dimensions
of the room is the result of both. Both the initial act and the resistance of
the object, in this case the walls, are required.
Metaphorically speaking, we might say that the sound in the above
example is like a hand. By means of the sound, the observer reaches out
for an object. When the sound hits the object, it is like the moment of
touch, and the resistance causing the reflection of the sound is like the
resistance felt when he literally touches an object, only now it is
experienced indirectly, mediated by the sounds reflected back to his ear. I
have found no evidence to suggest that Kant conceived of the act of
seeing in an analogous way, but by arguing along the same lines as
Descartes did in his example of the man with the sticks, he could well
have extended the above model to include this sense as well.
2.7 Summary
In this chapter I have given a brief outline of what I have called Kant’s
embodied theory of space and I have argued that this theory, at least in
part, may be seen as inspired by authors such as Condillac, Tetens and
Rousseau. However, I have also argued that it may be seen as the logical
consequence of some basic Kantian ideas. If, for instance, we start out
from the idea expressed explicitly both in Dreams of a spirit-seer and the
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Inaugural dissertation that the mind in itself has no extension and that its
spatiality is only derived (caused by its association with the body), then it
follows that we would have no awareness of space, and consequently no
representation of space, without the body. Moreover, when we
remember that in these texts Kant suggests that the mind is present in the
body both as immediate awareness and as its activity, it is no wonder that
he locates the first origin of our spatial concepts in the body, i.e. in our
immediate awareness of its different parts.
If Kant is to remain faithful to this perspective, however, he also has
to contend that the body is indispensable when we wish to explore the
spatiality of the world. It is not possible for the mind to go outside its
body in order to explore the spatial properties of things. It has to take its
body with it and use this body as its tool of investigation. As we have
seen, this is exactly what Kant says. Without the sense of touch, he
argues, that is, without our capacity for grasping, holding and feeling
objects, we would never acquire knowledge of their spatial form.
However, other senses (such as our sense of hearing) may be used in an
analogous way with the same results.
So far, I think, Kant is roughly in line with Condillac, Rousseau and
the others mentioned above. In Directions in space and in Orientation,
however, he goes beyond them. In Directions in space he does so by
approaching what will later be known as his Copernican perspective,
arguing that the spatial locations in which we perceive objects are the
product of our determinations [Bestimmungen] concerning these
locations. 37 In Orientation 38 he does so by suggesting that our capacity to
draw a circle, and by doing so to recognize whether the direction is from
left to right or the other way around, is a necessary condition of our
capacity to determine a priori the different locations of objects in space.
I think it is extremely interesting to see how this Copernican
perspective and the notion of the a priori are associated here with a
theory of the embodied origin of spatial awareness and spatial concepts.
Kant’s Copernican perspective and his notion of the a priori are
normally seen as constitutive of his transcendental philosophy, which is
typically thought to have no connection with reflections such as the one
explored in this chapter. In part two I shall claim, however, that there is
such a connection after all and that the body is central to Kant’s mature
transcendental philosophy and its corresponding theory of space.
37
Ak II: 383.
38
Ak VIII: 135.
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3. RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE
A spirit is a being endowed with reason. No
miraculous powers are needed, therefore, to see
spirits; for, whoever sees human beings sees
beings endowed with reason.
From Dreams of a spirit-seer 1
With these words Kant mocks those rational psychologists who invoke
the existence of invisible spirits to explain human rationality. Human
beings are rational beings, he reminds us. So, if by ‘spirit’ we mean
simply ‘rational being’, then no supernatural endowment is required for a
person who wants to see a spirit. He can just look at a human being.
Kant’s criticism of rational psychology should come as no surprise by
now. We have seen how in texts published both before and after the
Critique he generally avoids entering into the traditional ontological
discourse about the mind. Instead, we have seen how he embraces a
more empirical or pragmatic perspective in these texts, and how, within
this perspective, he advances a theory of an intimate integration of mind
and body, an integration that also includes the higher cognitive faculties.
In Universal natural history, for instance, he claims that the capacity to
connect and compare concepts is influenced by the physical constitution
of the body of the thinking subject. Consequently, the reason why human
rationality in general is so imperfectly developed is to be sought in the
crudeness of the matter of which our bodies are composed.
It may be worth noting, however, that while in Universal natural
history he stresses a causal connection between the internal constitution
of our bodies and our rational capacities, 2
later he downplays this part of
his theory. He never seems to have given up completely the idea that
insight into the nervous system or other organs may disclose important
knowledge about human rationality, but alongside this he develops
another perspective that increasingly dominates his theory of rationality.
The entire human being as a totality of mind and body, that is as an
embodied agent, is now the main focus, and human rationality is
1
Ak II: 319.
2 Ak I: 356.

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analyzed at the level of the behavior of this agent. The new theory of
rationality resulting from this change in perspective is found in texts such
as On the common saying from 1793, Anthropology from 1798, Logic
from 1800 and On pedagogy from 1803. I will refer to these texts as
Kant’s writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic. This way of
referring to them is also meant to indicate that each text covers more
than its title suggests and that they overlap thematically. For instance, he
approaches pedagogical topics not only in On pedagogy, but also in
Anthropology, and his published writings on both pedagogy and logic
include passages relevant to our understanding of his anthropology.
In Kant’s writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic, human
rationality is discussed with reference to human acts and behavior, or
more specifically, to the human capacity for handling rules and to act
according to rules. Acts that take place according to rules, or sets of rules,
he calls ‘practice’. So if we are going to give a rough initial
characterization of Kant’s new theoretical outlook, we may say that it
associates the concept of rationality with that of practice. In the above
mentioned texts he gives a number of examples of practices associated
with rationality. In all of these practices, the human agent is evidently an
embodied agent, and the practices may consequently be qualified as
embodied practices. So we can also say that Kant now promotes the idea
of an association between the concepts of embodied practice and human
rationality. Embodied practices, moreover, are not seen merely as
expressions of underlying rational processes taking place, for instance, in
the brain or on a mental level. They are seen as the medium in which
human beings realize themselves in a very basic sense as rational beings.
The term ‘rationality’ is here used in a broad sense and includes all the
skills and capacities through which man appears as a rational animal in
the Aristotelian sense of the term. I will say more about this later.
Kant takes a practice to be a set of acts having a goal. When we
participate in a practice, we do it for a purpose, because we want to
achieve something. This means there is also a pragmatic aspect to Kant’s
definition of a practice. This pragmatic aspect is also transferred to his
theory of rationality, or so I shall argue. I will refer to this theory as
Kant’s ‘pragmatic theory of embodied rationality’. I do not claim that
this pragmatic theory of embodied rationality exhausts all Kant has to
say about human rationality but I think that it occupies a central position
within his general theory of rationality. I shall return to this in due
course.
Exactly when Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality
emerged is hard to say. Even if the above-mentioned texts were
published towards the end of his life, they are based for the most part on

RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE
lectures given over a long period of time. On pedagogy, for instance, was
based on lectures he began to give in 1776, while the lectures on which
Anthropology was based date back to 1772 or even earlier. He gave his
first lectures on logic in the early 1760s. 3 My guess is that Kant’s new
ideas on rationality emerged during the 1760s, inspired by his reading of
Rousseau's Émile, amongst other things. I will return to this point again
and in a later chapter I shall argue that Kant espoused this pragmatic
theory of embodied rationality in 1781 when he published his first
Critique, and that it influenced both the cognitive theory and the
epistemology of the work.
That Kant puts forward a pragmatic theory of embodied rationality
in his writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic is, as far as I know, a
fact that has been almost completely ignored. 4 I think this overwhelming
lack of recognition may be due to a number of reasons. One possible
explanation is that what I call Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied
rationality is found in passages scattered throughout a number of texts
none of which contains an explicit and comprehensive formulation of it.
Secondly, the texts in which these passages are found belong to a group
of texts, such as his writings on anthropology and pedagogy, that are
typically not very highly valued in the Kant research. A third, and by no
means trivial reason, may be that the theory is overlooked either because
it does not fit into what the interpreters regard as philosophy proper, or
simply that it does not correspond to what they expect to find in an
eighteenth-century philosopher. I will return to this point later.
Earlier I mentioned how Kant’s anthropological writings were
generally regarded as having little or no philosophical relevance. This, I
think, is even more the case where his pedagogical writings are
concerned. They have typically been regarded as little more than a
collection of practical and didactic bits of advice containing little of any
originality. Weisskopf even claims that On pedagogy cannot be regarded
as an authentic work by Kant at all and should therefore be removed
from the corpus. 5 Even if it may very well be the case that not all parts of
On pedagogy (which was compiled by Brink, a contemporary of Kant)
are authentic, 6
the general estimation of Kant’s writings on pedagogy
3
Cf. Oberhausen (1997), 108.
4
The only exception I am aware of is Svendsen (1999). As for the Critique,
however, a number of authors have commented upon the pragmatic strains of
this text, e.g. Bennett (1966).
5
Weisskopf (1970).
6
Cf. e.g. Beck (1979).
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seems to be about to change. For instance Munzel argues, in terms
similar to those I have used concerning Kant’s anthropology, that Kant’s
pedagogical theory contains important philosophical insights, moreover,
it may also help us achieve a better understanding of other parts of his
philosophy, such as his ethics. 7
Before I say more about Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied
rationality and how it developed, let me present some general remarks
concerning the terms ‘practice’, ‘embodied practice’ and ‘pragmatic’.
3.1 Practice
In contemporary philosophy the term ‘practice’ is central to the tradition
following the late Wittgenstein, who in his Philosophical investigations
ascribes a basic significance to human practices. 8 He argues that the
meaning of a term is defined by its use, and that this use is not arbitrary,
but directed by the language games in which it appears. A language
game, in turn, is typically seen as embedded in a more comprehensive,
practical enterprise. One of Wittgenstein’s well known examples is a
group of carpenters building a house. Their language game is in this case
embedded in their project of building the house. If we define ‘practice’ in
a preliminary way, as a set of acts serving to realize a goal, then building
a house may be characterized as a practice, and what Wittgenstein calls a
language game may be seen as a part or aspect of such a practice. The
notion of a game also implies the presence of rules, so a Wittgensteinian
practice may be seen as a set of acts taking place according to rules and
aiming at the realization of a goal.
This, I think, is also more or less the notion implied by Rawls when in
his Theory of justice he defines a practice as an activity taking place
according to rules.
I use the word ‘practice’ throughout as a sort of technical term
meaning any form of activity specified by a system of rules [...] and
which gives the activity its structure. 9
MacIntyre also adheres to a conception close to the Wittgensteinian one,
defining ‘practice’ as:
7
RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE
For a further discussion of Kant’s On pedagogy and its reception, see Munzel
(1999), 258. Cf. also Pleines (1985), Hufnagel (1988) and Stark (2000).
8
Wittgenstein (1984).
9
John Rawls (1955), 3, footnote.

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83
… a coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative
human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity
are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of
excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that
form of activity. 10
MacIntyre’s definition seems to rest on a distinction between a set of acts
on the one hand, and these acts when they are embedded in a more
comprehensive cultural and social structure on the other. Moreover, he
seems to want to restrict the meaning of ‘practice’ to the latter case. Tictac-toe,
for instance, is not a practice according to MacIntyre, nor is
throwing a football with skill; but the game of football is, and so is chess.
And whereas bricklaying and planting turnips are not practices,
architecture and farming are. So also are the enquiries of physics,
chemistry and biology, and the creation and sustaining of human
communities in the Aristotelian sense. A practice, he concludes, involves
standards of excellence and obedience to rules as well as the achievement
of goods (also in the Aristotelian sense).
MacIntyre’s reference to Aristotle suggests that his notion of practice
has a Greek equivalent and if we look at Aristotle, I think we may find
two concepts more or less closely related to the modern notion of a
practice; praxis and poiesis. In his Metaphysics Aristotle introduces his
well known division of the human sciences into three classes; the
theoretical, the practical and the productive. 11 The theoretical sciences
give us knowledge that is true and necessary, i.e. episteme. Praxis is the
Aristotelian term associated with the second class of sciences; ethics and
politics. These both have their goals in themselves, Aristotle explains.
Their goal is the good life or eupraxia, i.e. ‘good praxis’. 12
Poiesis is the
Aristotelian term associated with the third class of sciences. These
sciences have their goals outside themselves, i.e. in their products. 13
Central to the last class of sciences is also the concept of techné. Techné
is a Greek term not easily translated, however, it refers to a system of
practical knowledge, or skills. In English the term is often translated by
‘art’.
In the Aristotelian model, both praxis and poiesis refer to sets of acts
having a goal, whether this goal is seen as internal to the activity or not.
10
MacIntyre (1984), 180-203.
11
1025b25ff.
12
1098b22
13
Cf. e.g. 980b25ff., and also 1140a1ff.

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Moreover, there are specific standards according to which these acts are
to be performed, which according to Aristotle typically exist as a sort of
tacit knowledge in the community of agents performing them. Thus, I
think that the activities corresponding to the Aristotelian terms praxis
and poiesis may both be seen as falling under the concept of a practice
suggested above.
In what follows I shall mainly be using the definition of ‘practice’
found in Kant’s short work On the common saying from 1793. This is
how he defines it there.
A sum of rules, even of practical rules, is called theory if those rules
are thought as principles having a certain generality, so that
abstraction is made from a multitude of conditions that yet have a
necessary influence on their application. Conversely, not every doing
is called practice, but only that effecting of an end which is thought as
the observance of certain principles of procedure represented in their
generality. 14
Not just any kind of activity [Hantierung] deserves to be called ‘practice’,
Kant argues, but only acts following some sort of general rules or
principles for behavior. Even if he does not say so explicitly here, his
examples also imply that people involved in a practice do it in order to
attain an end. Hence it may be defined as a set of actions performed
according to a set of rules to attain an end. In what follows this is the
definition I shall use.
In his examples of practices, which will be considered again later,
Kant often refers to medicine, law and agriculture, i.e. the practices
corresponding to these sciences. This may suggest that his notion of
practice lies close to the MacIntyrian conception. However, I cannot see
that the text as a whole supports this conclusion. Accordingly, I will take
the Kantian concept of practice to refer to any set of acts taking place
according to rules or principles 15 and aiming at some goal. This means
that contrary to MacIntyre, I will count bricklaying, for example, as a
practice in a Kantian sense, as well as activities like walking, swimming
or riding a bicycle.
As a general rule, I shall let any activity associated with the notion of
a skill count as a practice in the Kantian sense. The concept of skill
signals that the activity in question may be judged according to explicit
14
Ak VIII: 275.
15
As we shall soon see, these rules do not have to be made explicit. They may be
present simply as tacit knowledge.

RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE
or tacit standards or rules. Moreover, if we examine these standards or
rules, they typically relate to the achievement of an end. Walking is a
practice, according to this, as walking is typically done for a purpose (in a
minimal sense the purpose is to move from one place to another) and as
there are tacit rules or standards by which we may evaluate the quality of
the walking taking place. When we do not generally make these rules
explicit, it may be because we (or most of us) are skilled walkers for whom
these rules are tacitly understood. This does not exclude the fact that we
may sometimes make them explicit, for instance when comparing and
evaluating the walking of two children who are learning to walk for the
first time.
Let me now specify what I mean by an ‘embodied practice’. In using
this expression I do not mean to imply that the participants of an
embodied practice participate only with their bodies. They participate
with the whole of themselves, body and mind. It is the fact that both are
involved that gives the practice status as embodied. The examples given
by MacIntyre are all examples of what I shall call embodied practices. So
are Kant’s examples, which will be further considered below. In some
cases, an embodied practice may also involve various instruments. The
doctor, for instance, in his medical practice, which, according to my
definition is embodied, uses a number of instruments.
It may be objected that all practices are embodied, and thus, that the
term ‘embodied practice’ is a pleonasm. The response to such a criticism
may depend on the philosophical outlook of the respondent. One might,
for instance, claim that there are acts that are purely mental, and that
such acts may be performed according to a set of rules in order to attain
some end. Following our definition, these acts would then count as a
practice. According to some interpretations of Kant, this is how his
theory of the human employment of the categories is to be understood.
The categories are then conceived as rules directing our mental
operations so that objective knowledge is produced. According to this
model, and our definition of practice, our employment of the categories
is then a practice taking place solely at the mental level. Other such
practices may also be imagined. The term ‘embodied practice’ signals
that such practices, if we accept that they exist, are not to be included
within the extension of the term.
3.2 Pragmatism
In contemporary philosophy the term ‘pragmatism’ is often associated
with what was around the beginning of the twentieth century the most
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86
influential school in American philosophy, represented by such as
Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910) and John
Dewey (1859-1952). In this school, a pragmatic theory of truth evolved
according to which the truth of a theory does not lie in its structural
similarity with the world, or in its correspondence with the world in some
other way, but in its use or instrumental value. According to the
pragmatist, if it is useful or satisfying to the person having it, then it is
true.
In the following I will be using the term ‘pragmatic’, if not exactly in
this sense, then in a related one. I will use the term to qualify a certain
view of rationality according to which a person is said to be rational not
on account of the possession of abstract concepts, principles or theories,
but because of the capacity to perform certain practices. We shall soon
see how this fits in with Kant’s theory of rationality, even if he does not
use the term ‘pragmatic’ to describe it. In addition to this, I shall also be
using the term in a somewhat looser sense. The term will then be used to
qualify those who evaluate theories, things or activities by their
usefulness, which is close to Kant’s explicit use of it. 16
Before looking more closely at the details of what I have called Kant’s
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality and how it is expressed in
various texts, I shall make some observations concerning its origin and
development. Just as was the case with his theory of the embodied
constitution of spatial representations, I think its origin is twofold. It may
in part be viewed as the logical outcome of some basic ideas and
assumptions he espoused, but in working out these consequences, he may
also have been influenced by other philosophers and scholars, as well as
by the general cultural climate of the eighteenth century.
If we start by looking at the internal logic present in the development
leading to Kant’s new conception of rationality, one central starting point
is his growing discontent with the approach that he himself pursued in his
younger years when, for instance in Universal natural history, he
suggested that the key to understanding human rationality was to gain
insight into the internal constitution of the human body, especially the
nervous system. Even if he probably did not altogether give up hope that
insight into the nervous system or other organs might one day disclose
16
Cf. e.g. Zammito (2002), 297.
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3.3 The historical origin of Kant’s pragmatism

important knowledge about human rationality, he realized that given the
actual state of eighteenth-century physiology, the prospects of success in
this field were poor. Another approach was needed.
In the Anthropology there are two passages confirming that the lines
of thought here suggested were actually entertained by Kant. A first
example is found in the first part of the book, where as we have seen he
discusses the difference between what he calls a physiological and a
pragmatic anthropology. Kant’s example is memory. The task of a
physiological anthropology is to explore how our memory depends on
and corresponds to processes in the brain. As these processes are
unknown to us, however, we can only speculate about their character,
which, he complains, is a waste of time. In pragmatic anthropology, on
the other hand, the task is to observe what either promotes or impedes
memory. This knowledge is directly useful in making it possible to
control and perfect memory. 17
Where are we to direct our attention if we are to pursue this project?
One answer is that we have to study human behavior in context.
Exploring what either promotes or impedes memory, we have to look at
the practices entertained by people trying to learn, for instance, a certain
method or technique. Or we may look at the pedagogical institutions
where the art of making students remember what is being taught is
cultivated in the form of didactic practices.
Even if Kant does not explicitly draw this last connection there are
arguments in support of the idea that he did so implicitly. This, further,
puts us in a position to understand his strong interest in pedagogy.
Pedagogy is important because within this discipline didactic measures
are developed that make it possible to influence the skills of the students
so that they become more qualified participants in practices that are
useful. Furthermore, through the mastery of these practices the students
also become more rational.
A second passage conveying a similar message is found in the
Anthropology where Kant discusses the human capacity for making
associations between ideas. A physiological explanation of this capacity
will never be found, he claims, and the hypotheses that do exist in this
field do not qualify as pragmatic because they do not help us improve the
art of association:
17
Ak VII : 119.
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To try to explain this in physiological terms is futile; we are free to use
some principle that will always remain a hypothesis (which is itself,
again, a construction), such as Descartes’ so-called material ideas in
the brain. But in any case, no explanation of this kind is pragmatic:
that is, we cannot use it in practicing the art of association, because
we have no knowledge of the brain and of the places in it where the
traces of impressions made by ideas might enter into sympathetic
harmony with one another, insofar as they touch one another (at least
mediately), so to speak. 18
The impotence of the physiological sciences is here contrasted with the
art of association. Kant does not specify what is here meant by ‘art’, but I
think we may safely assume that this art is somehow connected to what
he elsewhere defines as practice. 19
Another part of the internal logic leading Kant to form a new
conception of rationality may be found by focusing on the idea that the
mind is virtually present in the body, combined with the widespread idea,
shared by most philosophers at the time, that human rationality is a skill
or capacity that may be ascribed to a certain part of the mind. In Kant’s
own terminology, human rationality is associated with the three higher
cognitive faculties; reason, power of judgment and understanding.
Typically, these faculties are perceived to be inner, mental faculties, for
instance of a Cartesian mind, hidden and not subject to external
18 Ak VII: 176.
19 According to Sturm (2001), 175ff., Kant’s emphasis on practice, i.e. behavior,
in his Anthropology may be seen as constituting a third way between the
physiological approach of some natural philosophers, and the introspectionist
approach of empirical psychology. In the second part of the eighteenth century,
he says, the empirical psychology of Wolff and Baumgarten was challenged by
scholars like Charles Bonnet, David Hartley and Ernst Platner, all promoting the
idea that the human mind should be explored by investigating the human brain.
This physiological approach, however, soon came under attack, resulting in a
strengthened position of introspectionist psychology, represented by, among
others, Johann Nicolas Tetens, whose work Kant knew well. Against both of
these trends, Kant promoted a behavior-oriented approach arguing that the state
of a person’s mind may be explored through attention to their externally
observable activity. He advised Johann Caspar Lavater that if his aim was to
know his own soul or state of mind, he ought to look at what he was doing rather
than observe his inner states. According to Kant, so Sturm’s argument goes, our

RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE
observation. However, if we replace the notion of a Cartesian, mental or
hidden mind with the notion of a mind present as the general activity of
an embodied self, then the image changes. Even the simplest movement
of the body may then also be seen as a movement of the mind. The mind
is not positioned somewhere else, directing the movement from afar. The
mind is the origin of the movement, it is true, but it is also in the
movement. This again opens up for the idea that acts ascribed to the
higher cognitive faculties of the mind, which within a Cartesian or
mentalist context will be interpreted as mental acts, need no longer be
perceived in that way. Acts of reason, power of judgment and
understanding may just as well be identified with external acts and
practices. I would not go so far as to claim that Kant’s thinking actually
did develop along these lines, but the possibility certainly lay open to
him. And whether he did so or not, there is evidence to support the claim
that he ended up with an idea of rationality like the one suggested here.
However, before we go further into this, let us examine also some
historical influences that may have been significant in the development of
his new conception of rationality.
3.4 Rousseau’s influence
Among these influences, Rousseau’s central position is unassailable. In
Émile, published in 1762, he combines a vigorous pragmatism with a
thoroughly embodied perspective. In the previous chapter I argued that
Kant’s theory of space may have been inspired by Émile. I think the
same applies to Kant’s general theory of rationality.
Written as the story of the growth and development of Émile, the
work gives a genetic account of human rationality; that is, it describes
how the rational skills and capacities of the child develop over time.
According to Rousseau, this development involves the whole body and
consists in the development of embodied skills:
vocabulary of representations, thoughts, feelings, passions, traits of personal
character, and so on, is intimately connected to a careful observation of human
practices and human life as it occurs and can be observed, especially in society.
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To exercise an art one must begin by procuring for oneself the
instruments for it; and, to be able to employ these instruments
usefully, one has to make them solid enough to resist wear. To learn
to think, therefore, it is necessary to exercise our limbs, our senses,
our organs, which are the instruments of our intelligence. And, to get
the greatest possible advantage from these instruments, the body
which provides them must be robust and healthy. Thus, far from
man’s true reason being formed independently of the body, it is the
body’s good constitution which makes the mind’s operations easy and
sure. 20
In order to learn to think we must exercise our limbs, Rousseau argues.
Our limbs, our senses and other organs are the tools of the intellect.
As for cognition and rationality in general, he defends the radical idea
that every aspect of it has to be learned. The newborn baby has
sensations in a primitive sense, but it neither sees nor hears. Actually, it
recognizes nothing outside itself, Rousseau maintains. It does not even
know that it has a body. The only primitive idea the child has at this
point is the idea of itself, to which it also ascribes all its sensations. 21
Thus,
cognition has to be learned. The child has to learn both to see and to
hear. 22 That is, it has to learn to apply its senses so that they may be used
to perceive objects in the external world. This learning process starts long
before the child has anything like language or understanding, Rousseau
argues; that is, it begins on a pre-linguistic and pre-reflexive level. Still,
the learning taking place at this level is most significant. Here the
foundations are laid for every skill that is to be developed later:
The education of man begins at his birth; before speaking, before
understanding, he is already learning. 23
In this original learning process, each and every sense is important. A
special significance, nevertheless, is ascribed to touch and the direct
physical manipulation of objects. The child wants to touch and handle
everything, and thus it learns to know the basic properties of the physical
world; that is, heat, cold, hardness, softness, etc. It learns to know the
weight or lightness of bodies, and to judge their size and shape.
20 Rousseau (1979), 125.
21 Rousseau (1979), 143. The same point was promoted by Condillac in his Traité
des sensations, cf. Copleston (1985), vol. IV, 32.
22
Rousseau (1979), 62ff.
23 Ibid., 62.

According to Rousseau, embodied activity is also essential to the
further development of the cognitive and rational abilities of the child.
Thus, rather than giving the child books to read, or make it listen to
lectures, he promotes the principle of learning by doing. More
specifically, he advises that the child partakes in certain embodied
practices by which basic skills are acquired. These skills have a double
significance. In addition to being useful, they further develop and refine
the cognitive and intellectual capacities of the child. Thus, for instance,
Rousseau advises that the child is encouraged to make drawings of the
objects of its environment. By doing this, it learns to estimate the shape
and size of these objects, and also develops a deeper understanding for
the laws of perspective.
91
One could not learn to judge the extension and the size of bodies well
without also getting to know their shapes and even learning to imitate
them; for, at bottom this imitation depends absolutely only on the
laws of perspective, and one can estimate extension by its
appearances only if one has some feeling for these laws. Children,
who are great imitators, all try to draw. I would want my child to
cultivate this art, not precisely for the art itself but for making his eye
exact and his hand flexible. 24
If the child is normally talented, it may also acquire the principles of
geometry in this way, that is, by drawing figures, combining them, and
comparing them, Rousseau argues.
I have said that geometry is not within the reach of children. But it is
our fault. We are not aware that their method is not ours, and that
what becomes for us the art of reasoning, for them ought to be only
the art of seeing... […] Make exact figures, combine them, place
them on one another, examine their relations. You will find the whole
of elementary geometry in moving from observation to observation,
without there being any question of definitions or problems or any
form of demonstration other than simple superimposition. 25
The principle of learning by doing may also be illustrated by what
Rousseau says about language. The best way to teach a child the proper
use of language is simply to speak correctly before it. In this way, without
any further instruction, it will soon have acquired a grammar. The same
24 Ibid., 143.
25 Ibid., 145.
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92
principle holds concerning map-making. By letting the child make simple
maps of well-known places, it not only learns to understand what a map
is, it also learns to find its way from one position to another better.
When the child is to have its first lessons in experimental physics,
embodied action is also emphasized. The child should be encouraged to
partake in the construction of the apparatus involved in the experiments.
Not only does it then learn to use its hands skillfully, which may be useful
later in life, but this way of learning also gives the child the chance to
further perfect its senses.
The most palpable advantage of these slow and laborious researches
is that they keep the body active and the limbs supple during
speculative studies and continuously form the hands for the work and
the practices useful to man. All the instruments invented to guide us
in our experiments and to take the place of accuracy of the senses
cause the senses to be neglected. 26
I introduced this paragraph by claiming that in Émile Rousseau puts
forward an embodied pragmatism, but what exactly is this embodied
pragmatism? The pragmatic aspect of Rousseau’s theory is most easily
seen, perhaps, by the fact that in all his learning, Émile is encouraged to
become master of practical skills useful in his daily life. Also, Rousseau
vehemently attacks the traditional knowledge of the schools and the
abstract knowledge of books. This knowledge is, in the end, next to
useless.
Even if he does not coin a separate term for it, I think Rousseau, in
his emphasis on practical skills, may be said to promote a pragmatic
theory of rationality. In this theory, not only do the practical skills of
everyday life count as forms of knowledge, but this knowledge is
conceived of as a form of knowledge superior to the theoretical
knowledge of the schools. If we are to express the same point in
Aristotelian terms, we may say that Rousseau turns the Aristotelian
hierarchy of the sciences upside down. The episteme of the theoretical
sciences is no longer regarded as a superior form of knowledge. Its
superior position is now taken by the techné of the productive sciences.
As for Rousseau’s embodied perspective, it is present not only as the
trivial idea that education should include the cultivation of the body, but
I think Rousseau’s idea of embodiment goes much deeper, signaled by
his tendency to equate embodied and rational development. The child’s
26 Ibid., 176.
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ational powers are not developed in silent reflection, they are developed
in practice. Its whole body appears as an organ of rationality, a
rationality exercised in and through the acts corresponding to the
practices constituting its education.
A number of authors have commented upon Rousseau’s influence on
Kant. It is well known that Kant was so fascinated by Émile when he first
read it in 1764 that he abandoned his daily walks in order to continue
reading it. Kant was also familiar with Rousseau’s other works, as one of
his first biographers, Ludwig Ernst Borowski, testifies. 27 A possible sign of
Kant’s admiration is also the fact that the only work of art in his home
was a portrait of the French philosopher. 28
Even more conspicuous are a number of statements in which Kant
declares his admiration for Rousseau. One example may be found in his
Announcement written just after he had read Émile. Kant announces
that in his next lectures on ethics he will proceed according to the
method by which man is studied, not in the varying forms in which his
accidental circumstances have molded him, nor in the distorted form in
which even philosophers have almost always misconstrued him, but by
focusing on that which is enduring in human nature. Kant speaks of this
new approach as a ‘brilliant discovery of our time, which, when
considered in its full scheme, was completely unknown to the ancients’. 29
Even if Rousseau is not explicitly mentioned here, I agree with Pitte 30
that he is the originator of the brilliant discovery that Kant celebrates.
This is clear when we turn to comments made in Kant’s notes. There he
explicitly mentions that just as the theories of Newton had brought order,
regularity, and great simplicity into our conception of the universe, so
Rousseau had provided the key that would permit a neat and orderly
philosophy of man. 31 In a recent publication, Zammito characterizes the
intensity in Kant’s admiration for Rousseau by claiming that he was
never so enthusiastic in his reading of any other thinker. 32
If Kant’s admiration of Rousseau is a well-established fact, the nature
of Rousseau’s influence is more debated. Most authors emphasize the
ethical aspect of this influence. They see Rousseau as responsible for
what is often characterized as Kant’s ethical turn. According to Cassirer,
27
Cf. Gross (1993), 69.
28
Cf. e.g. Cassirer (1991), 3.
29
Cf. Pitte (1978), xiv.
30
Op. cit.
31
Cf. Cassirer (1991), 20.
32
Zammito (2002), 93.
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94
Kant saw in Rousseau’s philosophy a model of character building, and in
the author of this philosophy a proponent of human rights and dignity,
ideas that later came to fruition in his ethics. 33 The philosophy of religion
is also singled out as a field in which the influence on Kant of Rousseau
was decisive. 34 However, even if this is accepted, I do not think it by any
means exhausts what there is to say about the influence of Rousseau on
Kant. For my own part I want to stress Kant’s interest in pedagogy, and
the strong Rousseauan tone of his own pedagogical works, documented
for instance by Niethammer. 35 I want to call attention to Rousseau’s
disparagement of scholarly knowledge and the high esteem he accords
the practical skills of ordinary people, adopted, at least in part, by Kant,
enhancing the pragmatic and empiricist tendencies of his philosophy, as
commented upon by e.g. Vleeschauwer and others. 36 First and foremost,
however, I want to emphasize how all these ideas and ideals are founded
in a unified conception of man, a conception recognized and adopted by
Kant. It is a conception according to which man is basically an embodied
being whose first development is mediated by his free interaction with his
physical environment. Here human rationality has its basis, Rousseau
argues, a rationality that is later developed through the embodied
practices the child learns to master.
When Kant, like Rousseau, denounces Dressieren in the education of
children, and advises instead that the educational process should be
characterized by freedom, including freedom of movement, fiercely
attacking artificial inventions inhibiting such movement, the reason is not
only that it impedes the physical development of the child. It also
negatively affects the healthy development of man considered as a
rational being. 37
I think that when Kant ascribes to Rousseau the brilliant
discovery of how man must be studied with an eye for that which is
enduring in human nature, he also has in mind the idea that human
rationality is embodied, and that reflection on human rationality has to
33
Cf. Cassirer (1991), 12ff. Similar ideas have been promoted by e.g. Pitte (1971
and 1978), Dieterich (1878) and most recently by Zammito (2002). According to
Zammito, however, Kant’s enthusiasm for Rousseau lasted only for a while.
From around 1770 Kant began to distance himself from Rousseau. Dieterich also
emphasises Rousseau’s influence in the fields of social theory and the philosophy
of history.
34
Cf. e.g. Cassirer (1991), 44 and Klemme (1996), 56.
35
Niethammer (1980), 129.
36
Cf. Vleeschauwer (1962), 41, Makkreel (2001), 187 and Zammito (2002), 113ff.
37
Cf. Ak IX: 463.
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e based on this idea, i.e. it requires that we direct our attention to the
embodied aspects of man and to his embodied acts and practices. 38
3.5 Basedow and Crusius
Similar influences to those just mentioned may also have come through
the writings of Johann Bernhard Basedow, whose pedagogical ideas Kant
eagerly supported. In 1774 Basedow opened a radical educational
institution in Germany, an initiative backed by Kant. In the same year,
pedagogy was introduced as a subject at the University at Königsberg,
and in the following year pedagogy was added to the topics on which
Kant lectured. 39
Less radical, and theoretically not as interesting as Rousseau's Émile,
Basedow nevertheless ascribes a basic significance to practice.
Concerning the education of the young gentleman, he suggests in his
Elementarwerk that he should spend time with experienced artisans and
craftsmen in order to learn to use their tools to perform simple
operations. 40 He also recommends regular studies in practice on a wellrun
farm. 41 By being part of such practical contexts, the student acquires
his first concepts of the relevant arts and of agriculture. Basedow, like
Rousseau, ascribes to embodied participation a highly significant role in
the education of practical skills, skills, moreover, valued more highly than
mere theoretical reflections.
A third source of influence may have been Christian August Crusius
who in his Anweisung vernünftig zu leben promoted a cognitive theory
with pragmatic strains, based on an anthropology in which the human
mind was seen as radically embodied. 42 As Tonelli points out, Crusius
was an eclectic whose position was not always consistent. 43
95
Thus, his
pragmatism is perhaps not as clear cut as the pragmatism of e.g.
Rousseau. I still, however, see him as a possible influence on Kant. He
introduces his Anweisung vernunftig zu leben with a chapter on
Thelematologie, or a theory of the will. ‘Will’ is here defined as the
38
That Kant saw Rousseau as an inspiration within the field of rational theory is
suggested also by a remark found in the Blomberg Logic of 1771. Here Rousseau
is heralded as supplying a ‘grammar of the understanding’. Cf. Ak XXIV: 300.
Cf. also Ak XXIV: 495 and Zammito (2002), 260-261.
39
Cf. Munzel (1999), 266ff.
40
Basedow (1965), 192.
41
Ibid., 192.
42
For Crusius’ influence on Kant, cf. also Heimsoeth (1971), 127ff.
43
Tonelli (1969).
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96
power of a spirit to act according to its representations. 44 A spirit [Geist]
is defined as a living substance which has ideas, or which thinks. 45
The fact that Crusius introduces his work with a chapter on the will is
no coincidence. He ascribes to the will a basic role in human life. This
may not be evident at first sight. He operates with a rather traditional
distinction between understanding [Verstand], defined as the power that
makes it possible for us to find the truth, and will, defined as the capacity
to act, and he argues that they are different Grundkräfte. 46 However, he
immediately undermines this distinction by claiming the will to be an allpervasive
power, permeating the understanding as well as the body. It
affects the understanding, for instance, by making it possible for it to
direct its attention towards a certain topic over time. Also, in order to
develop a proper understanding, we have to use it, which requires
practice, which again presupposes an enduring will, he argues. 47 Finally,
he explains the existence of certain basic concepts by referring to what he
calls ‘basic desires’ [Grundbegierden], which are also expressions of the
will. Thus, for instance, the concept of an object [der deutliche Begriff
des Objectes] is based on such a desire. 48 How far this undermines his
distinction between the understanding and the will, I shall not say.
However, it certainly gives the will an essential function in the cognitive
process.
The will, Crusius suggests, also permeates all parts of the body and its
functions. He distinguishes between various classes of embodied acts;
actiones animales, which are embodied acts driven by desires of which
we are conscious; and action vitales and action naturales which are
unconscious. An example of the latter is the process of digestion. These
acts, he argues, probably have their origin in the will, even if we are not
aware of doing them, and even if they do not require a deliberate
decision. 49
In addition to this the will is, of course, also involved in
embodied acts deliberately performed.
The ideas investigated so far do not in themselves constitute a
pragmatic theory of rationality. However, by making the will an allpervasive
power, a theoretical basis is laid on which such a theory may be
constructed. If we look at the will as the active principle in man, and if
44
Crusius (1969), 5.
45
Ibid., 5.
46
Ibid., 9.
47
Ibid., 33.
48
Ibid., 116-117.
49
Ibid., 39.
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we accept that this will exists as an omnipresent force, directing even our
rational capacities, it is not far from this to the idea that our rationality
realizes itself through acts initiated by this will. If, further we assume that
these acts have a goal, and that their rational status is decided on the
basis of whether they reach this goal or not, then we are close to a
pragmatism of a Kantian sort.
I think there are passages in Crusius’ work suggesting that he may
have approached such a position. One is found in the first part of the
Thelematologie, where he announces that he regards thinking as
involving more than just the possession of abstract concepts. 50 In § 73 he
continues by discussing various practices such as writing, composing
verses and chopping wood. 51 These practices, he explains, come into
existence through the regular repetition of certain acts. In this process,
the will acquires gradually a better control of the practice. And the
concepts required for the practice come ever more easily to the soul, as it
remembers how it has proceeded in the same situation earlier. Finally,
along with this, the body becomes a proper instrument of the soul. 52
Rather than being seen as isolated opposites, concept and action,
mind and body are here all viewed as part of an integral whole. Man is
not a being who first calculates the steps of future actions which are then
implemented. The concepts directing the practice are formed and
reinforced through the practice itself. This implies a pragmatic
conception of conceptual knowledge, or so I will argue. The person
exercising the art of writing, composing verses and chopping wood,
moreover, also does so in order to become good at making use of these
arts. Thus, the context in which his concepts evolve is also the context in
which certain practical ends are realized.
I will not claim that Crusius’ work had a decisive impact on Kant’s
thought. However, together with Rousseau, Basedow and perhaps other
like-minded philosophers, he helped to form a background of pragmatic
or quasi-pragmatic ideas that may well have influenced Kant’s thinking.
A final source of inspiration may have been an idea shared by both
the empiricists and the rationalists of his time, namely that thinking
involves certain mental operations like comparison and judging. 53
An
50
Ibid., 5.
51
Crusius uses here the Latin term habitus, cf. Crusius (1969), 92.
52
Ibid., 92-93.
53
For a discussion of the Aristotelian roots of this idea, see Forschner (1986), 82ff.
Forschner also more specifically compares the notions of synthesis and action in
Aristotle and Kant.
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expression of this idea is found in the Port-Royal Logic first published in
1662, which was well known to Kant. 54 Here the mind is ascribed four
basic operations; conceiving, judging, reasoning, and ordering. The last
of these functions is described as follows:
Here we call ordering the mental action in which different ideas,
judgements, and reasonings are arranged on the same subject, such as
the human body, in the manner best suited for knowing the subject.
This is also called method. All this is done naturally and sometimes
better by those who have never studied any rules of logic than by
those who have. 55
Notice, first, how in the first part of this passage, the mental operation of
ordering is called ‘method’. If by ‘method’ we mean acts performed in a
regular way in order to achieve a goal, then ‘method’ is here equivalent
in meaning to ‘practice’ as defined by Kant. 56 Notice, secondly, how, in
the last part of the above passage, this method or practice is associated
with the rules of logic, and finally, how it is said to be sometimes better
performed by a person who has never studied these rules than by a
person who has done so.
Here two things are implied. First, we find implied the idea that what
logic studies, i.e. the rules of human rationality, exist originally as
something people do. That is, these rules exist at a pre-reflective level in
the practices of ordinary people. Secondly, the text implies that what we
set up as the rules of logic are nothing but abstractions derived from this
practice. Shortly thereafter this point is also explicitly stated: logic does
not invent its rules, we are told, its task is merely to reflect on what nature
makes us do. 57
Due to the rationalist outlook of the Port-Royal Logic, there is no
suggestion there that the practices described are embodied practices.
Rather they seem to be conceived of as practices taking place only in
some inner mental realm. Still, there is a sort of pragmatism implied by
this theory that is worth noting, a pragmatism locating the origin of
rationality more in the successful performance of practices than in the
abstract principles of books. Along with the more embodied pragmatism
of Rousseau, Basedow and Crusius, this pragmatism may well have
54
Cf. Caygill (1995), 280.
55
Arnauld (1996), 23.
56
Cf. Ak VIII: 275.
57
Arnauld (1996), 23.
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served as a further inspiration for what I have called Kant’s pragmatic
theory of embodied rationality.
3.6 Kant’s theory of the understanding
It is time to return to Kant’s theory of rationality. I will first give a brief
recapitulation of what I have called his cognitive theory, that is, his
theory of the cognitive faculties and processes of man as it is found in his
writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic. Special emphasis will be
given to two of the higher cognitive faculties; the understanding and the
power of judgment. I shall then explore some passages in which these
faculties are discussed in a context suggesting that their domain of
activity is not restricted to the inner mental realm only, but that they are
also present in embodied practices. These practices are not merely
expressions of underlying rational processes taking place elsewhere,
directed by the understanding and the power of judgment. They are a
medium in which these faculties have an immediate and direct presence
in and through the practices themselves. Finally, we shall see how this
interpretation leads us to what I call Kant’s pragmatic theory of
embodied rationality, and we shall examine the basic principles of this
theory.
In the tradition of eighteenth-century philosophy it was usual,
whenever a certain part or aspect of the cognitive process was identified,
to regard it as corresponding to a specific cognitive power or faculty of
the mind. Kant conforms to this tradition when, as part of his cognitive
theory, he introduces a comprehensive theory of cognitive powers and
capacities. As we have seen, in this cognitive theory a fundamental
distinction is drawn between sensibility and understanding; sensibility
belonging to the passive and receptive side of human cognition,
understanding to its active side. Let us take a closer look at what Kant
has to say about the understanding.
Of the texts examined in this chapter, his cognitive theory is
presented most comprehensively in the Anthropology. In the section
entitled ‘On sensibility as contrasted with understanding’, Kant describes
the faculty of understanding, or the intellectual faculty as it is also called,
as follows:
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100
When our mind conducts itself passively toward ideas [Vorstellungen,
in Ansehung deren sich das Gemüt leidend verhalt], so that we are
affected by them (whether we affect ourselves or are affected by an
object), these ideas belong to our sensuous cognitive power. But ideas
that consist in a mere activity (thinking) belong to our intellectual
cognitive power. Accordingly, the sensuous cognitive power is called
the inferior cognitive power, and the intellectual, the superior
cognitive power. 58
Not only is the understanding here described as an active faculty, but
Kant also suggests that what we refer to by the term ‘thinking’ is the acts
performed by this faculty. The understanding then reappears as a topic
in the section entitled ‘On the cognitive power insofar as it is based on
understanding’. It is here defined as ‘the capacity of thinking’. 59 Thinking,
Kant further explains, is the capacity to represent something through
concepts. His way of making the point may suggest that he takes thinking
to involve merely the possession of mental representations, perhaps even
mental images of some kind. However, we must bear in mind that he has
just defined thinking to be an activity. What kind of activity is it? In
language highly reminiscent of the Critique, he now tells us that the
understanding has the function of producing unity in the manifold of our
empirical representations so that the cognition of objects is made
possible. Moreover, the understanding is associated with rules, which are
said to inhere in the concepts with which the understanding works:
Understanding, taken as the power of thinking (representing things to
ourselves by concepts), is also called the higher cognitive power (as
distinguished from sensibility, the lower); for the power of intuition
(pure or empirical) is limited to objects in their singularity, whereas
the power of concepts contains the universal element of ideas.
Understanding contains, in other words, the rule to which the
manifold of sensuous intuitions must be submitted in order to
produce the unity essential to knowledge of objects. 60
So far Kant has used the term ‘understanding’ in a general sense,
referring to the higher cognitive faculty in general. At this point,
however, he introduces a model according to which this higher cognitive
faculty has three parts, forming a hierarchy of levels. In the terminology
58 Ak VII: 140.
59 Ak VII: 196.
60 Ak VII: 196.
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101
corresponding to this new model, ‘understanding’ is used in a more
limited sense than before, referring to the lowest level of the threefold
hierarchy only. Reason [Vernunft] is the term associated with the highest
level, while at the intermediate level we find what he calls the power of
judgment [Urteilskraft].
But we also take the word ‘understanding’ in a particular sense,
namely, when we subordinate it to understanding in the general
sense, as one member of a division that has two other members. In
this case the higher cognitive power (considered materially - that is,
not merely in itself but with respect to knowledge of objects) consists
in understanding, judgment [Urteilskraft] and reason [Vernunft]. 61
Now, how are we to characterize the understanding, considered in this
new and more limited sense? In an explanatory passage Kant defines this
understanding as ‘the faculty of rules’ [Vermögen der Regeln]. 62 The
power of judgment is defined as the capacity to identify the particular
insofar as it falls under a rule. Reason, finally, is defined as the capacity
to deduce the particular from the general so that it is seen as conforming
to a principle, and necessarily so.
Now if understanding is the power of rules [Vermögen der Regeln],
and judgment the power of discovering the particular insofar as it is
an instance of these rules, reason is the power of deriving the
particular from the universal and so representing it according to
principles and as necessary. 63
This passage may be criticized for not being too clear in explaining what
distinguishes the three higher cognitive faculties. To say that the
understanding is a capacity for rules may not seem very illuminating.
What is meant here by rules, and in what way is the understanding their
capacity? And what is the distinction between the power of judgment and
reason? Here they are both associated with a movement from the general
to the particular. So what is the difference between them? We need,
obviously, to inquire further into the text.
61
Ak VII: 196-7.
62
Ak VII: 199.
63
Ak VII: 199.
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102
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3.7 Concepts and rules
In what follows I shall generally be using ‘understanding’ in the more
limited sense indicated above, that is, as a term referring to the lower
part of the higher cognitive faculty in general. And I will be focusing on
Kant’s proposition that the understanding is a capacity for rules. How
are we to understand this proposition? What are these rules? And what
may these rules tell us about the understanding?
First, we may note that in a number of his writings Kant treats
‘concept’ and ‘rule’ as closely related or even interchangeable terms. The
following passage from On the common saying from 1793, may serve to
illustrate this. As we have seen, the text starts by defining a theory as
something based on rules. Even practical rules, Kant points out, may
combine to form a theory.
A sum of rules, even of practical rules, is called theory if those rules
are thought as principles having a certain generality, so that
abstraction is made from a multitude of conditions that yet have a
necessary influence on their application. 64
So far, Kant has not equated rules and concepts, but he has taken a step
in this direction by saying that a theory is a systematic collection of rules.
Ordinarily theories are thought to consist of concepts, and he often says
this. In fact, he does so only a few lines after the passage just quoted.
Here, also, an explicit link is made between concepts and rules by the
claim that concepts contain rules.
It is obvious that between theory and practice there is required,
besides, a middle term connecting them and providing a transition
from one to the other, no matter how complete a theory may be; for,
to a concept of the understanding, which contains a rule, must be
added an act of judgment… 65
By saying that concepts contain rules, Kant may seem to be making a
conceptual distinction between concepts and rules. I would not put too
much emphasis on this, however. Rather I take this passage as
confirming that the meaning of these terms converge in his terminology. 66
64
Ak VIII: 275.
65
Ak VIII: 275, my emphasis.
66
This is most evident in the Critique where e.g. the categories are described
both as transcendental concepts, and as rules.

103
The basic question still remains, however. What are the
concepts/rules of the understanding? And what is the understanding
itself? In pursuing these questions further, I shall now turn to some
passages in which Kant discusses the understanding and its rules in the
context of the human life-world. The term ‘life-world’ is here used to
characterize everything in our lives as human beings that belongs to our
everyday existence as embodied agents taking part in the standard
practices of everyday life as well as the more specialized procedures of
various professions. The term will also be used to characterize a certain
perspective under which the world is observed when these aspects are
included. This life-world perspective may be contrasted with the more
abstract perspective of scientific and philosophical theories, in which
what is irrelevant to the theories has been abstracted away.
Characteristic of (parts of) the Anthropology, and also of the other texts
examined in this chapter, is the discussion of human rationality from
what I have here called the life-world perspective.
A somewhat exotic, but still, I think, illustrative example, is the
following, in which the three higher cognitive faculties are associated
with three social roles of a hierarchical society; reason with a general, the
power of judgment with an officer, and finally, the understanding with a
servant.
A domestic or civil servant who is under express orders needs only
understanding. An officer, who is given only the general rule for
discharging his duties and left to decide for himself what to do in
cases that come up, needs judgment. A general, who has to evaluate
all contingencies and think up the rule for them, must have reason. 67
It may be objected that this is simply an illustration and that the passage
does not contain any genuine theory. This is true, but I think the passage
can still be seen to contain some interesting suggestions on how to
understand Kant’s theory of the higher cognitive faculties. First, let us
note that the understanding is associated with the bottom of the social
hierarchy. It is placed at the ground level, where the manual labor is
done, labor carried out with the body, involving simple, but basic
practices essential to human life. Here, in the performance of these
embodied practices, is the place to look, so the passage suggests, if we are
to identify the defining characteristics of the understanding.
67 Ak VII: 198.
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No space for individual judgment is left for the servant. This is a
privilege allowed only to the inhabitants of the two higher levels. As for
the first of these, the level corresponding to the power of judgment, we
find rules prescribed, but individual judgment is needed in order to
decide how the rules are to be applied in particular cases. At the highest
level, the level of reason, there is also a certain creativity at play. Here,
new rules are designed. Thus, one of the functions of reason, the passage
suggests, is to be a producer of rules.
We should take care not to draw premature conclusions based on a
passage that is perhaps only meant as a metaphorical illustration. For
instance, Kant defines reason in various ways in different places, and it is
not always easy to see how these descriptions match the image just
sketched. As for the understanding, however, the above passage contains
a recurring motif in Kant’s writings on anthropology, pedagogy and
logic. As we shall soon see, these texts contain a number of passages in
which the understanding is associated with the performance of embodied
practices. Moreover, as in the above passage, these practices are
conceived of as rule-governed activities. What does this tell us about the
understanding and its rules/concepts? Before we attempt to answer this
question, let us examine another passage discussing the relation between
rules/concepts and practices.
3.8 Rules and practices
This passage is found in Kant’s Logic published in 1800. The notion of
rule here has a very central role to play with regard not only to logic but
also to Kant’s idea of a world at large. He introduces the entire work by
stating that everything in nature changes according to rules. The exercise
of human powers also takes place according to rules, he maintains, but in
the beginning this regular exercise of powers takes place without
consciousness. Only gradually, through a process of hard labor, do we
start to think more abstractly about the rules according to which we act.
Here is the passage:

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105
The exercise of our own powers also takes place according to certain
rules which we first follow without being conscious of them, until we
gradually come to cognize them through experiments and long use of
our powers, and finally make them so familiar to us that it costs us
great effort to think them in abstraction Thus, for example, general
grammar is the form of a language as such. One also speaks,
however, without knowing grammar, and he who speaks without
knowing it actually does have a grammar and speaks according to
rules, even though he is not conscious of them. 68
Let us take a closer look at the passage and what it implies. The example
chosen is grammar [allgemeine Grammatik] which is, according to Kant,
the set of rules according to which we speak when we master a language.
Now, he stresses, a person may very well master a language without
being conscious of the rules according to which he speaks. However, he
still has a grammar. As a grammar is a set of rules, this is equivalent to
saying that the person possesses a set of rules even if not conscious of
having them.
What general theory may be derived from this example? First, we
may notice that speaking a language is an activity taking place according
to a set of rules, i.e. the rules of grammar. Thus, it counts as an example
of what Kant defines as a practice. 69
As speaking a language is something
we perform as embodied agents, it may also be used as an example of an
embodied practice. The general theory derived from this example may
therefore be stated like this: a person may possess a rule solely through
the successful performance of a certain embodied practice. The person
does not have to be conscious of the fact that she acts according to a rule.
She still possesses it. Above I argued that ‘rule’ and ‘concept’ are
convergent or even equivalent terms in Kant’s terminology. Thus, the
point just made may also be expressed by saying that a person may
possess a concept solely through the successful performance of an
embodied practice.
We may also notice that in the above passage Kant seems to be
operating at two levels. First we have the level where a person possesses a
rule/concept solely through the performance of a certain embodied
practice. Then we have the second level where the person has also
learned to think of these rules/concepts abstractly [in abstracto zu
denken]. Kant does not specify the process taking us from the first to the
second level, except that it requires experiments [Versuche] and hard
68
Ak IX: 503.
69
It also has an end, i.e. communication.

106
labor. What he does suggest, or more than suggest, however, is that the
first level is ontologically prior to the second. It is ontologically prior due
to the fact that the second level in a basic way depends on the first. If
there were no embodied practices, there would be nothing from which to
abstract the rules present on the second level. 70
Is this a general principle for Kant? It is perhaps premature to draw
this conclusion after having examined only one passage. Let us,
therefore, continue by examining other passages relevant to his ideas
about the relation between rules/concepts and practices. In doing this I
will take ‘rule’ and ‘concept’ to be equivalent terms. Thus, when the
German term Regel appears in the text, I will take it to mean both rule
and concept and I will usually translate it as ‘concept’.
3.9 Learning by doing
In a passage in On pedagogy, Kant discusses the role of abstract concepts
in education. To what extent should students be confronted with such
abstract concepts? And to what extent may such concepts be useful in the
educational process? He begins the discussion by stressing that concepts
are necessary in order to cultivate the understanding of young people. He
also advises that the concepts in question should be made abstract as part
of the educational process. This is to prevent the students from
performing their skills mechanically, or without consciousness, and to
help them better remember what they have learned.
Rules must be present in all that which is to cultivate the soul. It is
very useful also to make these rules abstract, so that the
understanding proceeds not only mechanically, but with
consciousness of a rule. 71
Even if the text here points to the virtue of abstract knowledge, it also
contains an implicit gesture pointing beyond such knowledge. It is useful,
Kant tells us, also to abstract the concept involved in the educational
process. The little term ‘also’ here discloses that there is more to this
process than just the abstract concepts. What is more, we learn, is
practice.
70
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This does not mean that each and every individual must first establish a
practice from which a concept is then abstracted, only that on a general level the
practice is fundamental.
71 Ak IX: 474, a.t.

107
This is made explicit in what follows immediately after the above
passage when Kant discusses whether it is better to have students first
learn concepts abstractly, and then later have them learn the practice
[Gebrauch] corresponding to these concepts, or whether it is better to
combine the two. According to Kant, the latter is better.
The question is: should the abstract rules come first... […] or should
the rule and its application go along with each other? Only the latter
is advisable. 72
So far, nothing has been said about the actual practices to which the text
is referring. What kind of practices are they? A few pages later, Kant
discloses that the practices he has in mind involve, for instance, the
practice of speaking a language or making a map. The capacities of the
mind [Gemütskräfte] are best cultivated when the student does for
himself what is to be learned, he advises. For instance, when he learns a
rule of grammar, he should immediately also use it in speaking. And for a
student to understand what a map is, it is best for him to learn how to
make one.
The capacities of the mind are better cultivated when one does for
oneself what one wants to achieve, for instance, when one
immediately applies the rules of grammar that have been taught. One
understands a map better when one is capable of producing it oneself.
Production is the best aid of the understanding. One learns most
thoroughly and remembers best that which one learns by oneself. 73
At first sight it may, perhaps, not be evident that these passages are
relevant to Kant’s theory of rationality. However, if we try to identify
some of the assumptions on which the above didactic advice is founded,
we arrive, I think, at ideas similar to the one we found to be implied by
the passage from Logic considered earlier.
First, let us notice that in the above text, as in the Logic, Kant seems
to be giving a sort of priority to practice. However, while he gives a
number of reasons why it is profitable for students to learn to know
concepts in abstracto he also more than suggests that a topic cannot
really be learned if the students do not learn to master the practices
corresponding to the concepts. The capacities of the mind are best
cultivated when the student does for himself what is to be learned, he
72
Ak IX: 475, a.t.
73
Ak IX: 477, a.t.
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insists, reminding us here of Rousseau’s didactic in Émile. If the topic, for
instance, is map-making, then an optimal learning situation is not
established just by letting the students learn the principles of map-making
in abstracto, but also by letting the students partake in the practice of
map-making.
Secondly, Kant uses the notion of Regeln in abstracto. The very
notion of abstraction implies that the concepts here referred to, before
they are abstracted, exist as part of a richer and more comprehensive
context. This context, obviously, is a practice.
Finally, let us recall that when Kant advises that the rules or concepts
corresponding to a certain practice are presented to the students in
abstracto, it is to prevent, their understanding from proceeding
‘mechanically’. Even if he explicitly advises against it, he also implies that
a mechanical employment of the understanding is actually possible.
What does it mean for the understanding to proceed mechanically? I
suggest that Kant has in mind the same unconscious mastering of a
practice as the one described in Logic. 74
If my interpretation is on the right track, then we may conclude that
the passage just examined implies or presupposes the same basic ideas as
those in Logic. Very briefly, these are:
1) A person may possess a concept solely through the successful
performance of an embodied practice.
2) Such a concept may also be possessed in abstracto, that is, in
abstraction from its corresponding practice.
3) In such a case the practice has ontological priority over the
abstract concept. 75
As suggested at the beginning of this chapter, I do not claim that these
three points exhaust all Kant has to say about concepts. I do not claim,
for instance, that he held all concepts to be abstracted from practices. I
will claim, however, that the three points just stated represent more than
just a passing fancy on his behalf. They represent a lasting theory,
presupposed or implied by a number of passages in his writings on
anthropology, pedagogy and logic, some of which will be examined
below. These three points, I maintain, are also central to what I have
called Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.
Before continuing, however, let us turn briefly to the second question
asked above. If concepts are rules that may be possessed solely through
the successful performance of an embodied practice, what does this tell us
74
Cf. Ak IX: 503
75
Below I will slightly modify this third point.

109
about the understanding as a human capacity? Let me suggest the
following answer. If concepts are rules that may be possessed solely
through the successful performance of an embodied practice, and if the
understanding is our capacity for rules, as Kant states for instance in the
Anthropology, 76 then the understanding may be considered as a human
capacity both more basic and more omnipotent than is commonly
allowed. Whenever a person partakes in a practice, the understanding is
active. The understanding is that in us, whatever it is, that makes it
possible for us to partake in such practices. From the very first moment
when a child starts to acquire the practices necessary for mastering the
world, the understanding is active and develops along with the
development of these practices.
As far as I know, Kant never says this explicitly. However, I see it as
implied by his more general ideas about concepts and practices. In what
follows I shall assume this more comprehensive account of the
understanding to be part of Kant’s rational theory. This interpretation
may also be seen as supported, I think, by the passage from the
Anthropology examined above, where the understanding is associated
with the role of a servant. 77 This servant, Kant tells us, makes no
individual judgments but simply carries out the duties assigned to him.
He lives his life at the ground level where manual labor is done, involving
simple but basic practices essential to human life. The fact that Kant uses
this servant to illustrate what characterizes the understanding, as
contrasted with the higher cognitive faculties, strongly suggests, I think, a
conception of the understanding like the one I have suggested: the
understanding is that in us that makes it possible for us to partake in
embodied practices.
3.10 The unconscious employment of the understanding
We have seen that Kant espouses the idea that a person may possess a
concept solely through the successful performance of an embodied
practice, sometimes even without being aware of possessing these
concepts. I have also contended that Kant holds the understanding to be
that in us that makes it possible for us to partake in such practices. From
this we may infer that, according to Kant, there is a mode in which the
understanding proceeds unconsciously.
76
Ak VII: 199.
77
Ak VII: 198.
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110
The idea of an understanding proceeding without awareness or
consciousness may seem strange. However, it conforms well to the
general idea of the mind found in Kant’s writings on anthropology,
pedagogy and logic. In the following passage from the Anthropology, for
instance, he states that he does not take everything existing in the mind
to be conscious. On the contrary, consciousness pertains only to a few
and limited parts of the mind:
And he continues:
In man (and in beasts too) there is an immense field of sensuous
intuitions and sensations we are not conscious of, though we can
conclude with certainty that we have them. In other words, the field
of our obscure [dunkeler] ideas is immeasurable, while our clear ideas
are only the infinitesimally few points on this map that lie open to
consciousness: our mind is like an immense map with only a few
places illuminated. This fact can inspire us with admiration for our
own being; for a higher power need only say ‘let there be light’ and,
without the least co-operation on our part, set half a world before our
eyes, so to speak. 78
So the field of obscure ideas is the largest in man. 79
Also where the activities of the mind are concerned, most of it escapes
our conscious attention. This is argued, for instance, in Negative
Magnitudes from 1763:
78
Ak VII: 135.
79
Ak VII: 136.
80
Ak II: 191.
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But what an admirably busy activity is concealed within the depths of
our minds which goes unnoticed even while it is being exercised. And
it goes unnoticed because the actions in question are very numerous
and each of them is represented only very obscurely. Everybody is
familiar with the facts which prove that this is the case. One need
only consider, for example, the actions which take place unnoticed
within us when we read. 80

111
Thus, the idea of an understanding proceeding without consciousness is
not in conflict with Kant’s general ideas of the mind as put forward
before or after the Critique. 81
3.11 Judgments cannot be learned
Now, let us return to Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.
So far this theory of rationality has been discussed primarily in
connection with his theory of the understanding, but he also discusses
practice in relation to another higher cognitive faculty, that is, the power
of judgment [Urteilskraft]. Let us take a look at some of these passages in
which this is done and try to find out whether these passages add
something new to Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality, or
whether they only express the theory in a somewhat different form.
Let us start our examination with a passage from the Anthropology.
Instruction can enrich natural understanding [Der natürliche
Verstand] with many concepts and equip it with rules. But the second
intellectual power, judgment (judicium) – the power of deciding
whether or not something is an instance of the rule – cannot be
instructed; it can only be exercised [geübt]. This is why we speak of a
growth in judgment as maturity, and call judgment the kind of
understanding that comes only with years. 82
Kant opens this passage by arguing that what he calls the natural
understanding may be enriched by a multitude of concepts and rules.
However, where the second intellectual capacity is concerned, the power
of judgment, the task of which it is to decide whether something is an
instance of a concept or not, this cannot be taught but can only be
developed through practice. This is why we refer to its development as a
process of maturation, and why this maturation is not normally found in
people below a certain age.
He then proceeds to explain why proper judgments cannot be taught,
but only learned through practice.
81 We shall see later that Kant promotes similar ideas in the Critique.
82 Ak VII: 199.
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112
We readily see that it could not be otherwise: to instruct [Belehrung]
is to impart rules, and if judgment could be taught there would have
to be general rules by which we could decide whether or not
something is an instance of the rule; and this would involve a further
inquiry to infinity. So judgment is, as we say, the understanding that
comes only with age, that is based on our own long experience; it is
the understanding whose judgment the French Republic seeks in the
assembly of the so-called Anciens. 83
To teach a person a rule [Belehrung], Kant argues, involves making the
rule explicit to him [Mitteilung]. Now, suppose that it was also possible to
teach the person to apply this rule in the same way. This would require a
second rule saying how the first rule was to be applied. This, however,
would require a third rule saying how the second rule was to be applied,
and so for every rule we would need a new one, ad infinitum. This is
clearly impossible so something else is required and this is practice
[Übung].
What does Kant mean when he describes the function of the power of
judgment as deciding whether something is an instance of a concept or
not? I think he has two related cases in mind. The first might be
exemplified by a student in an educational setting being asked by her
teacher to give examples of objects falling under a certain concept. The
student may answer by pointing at objects in the room, or by verbally
referring to such objects. The second case might be exemplified by a
professional, for instance a doctor, examining a patient and deciding on
the basis of the symptoms exhibited and her knowledge of diseases what
illness this particular patient suffers from and what treatment to give.
Both cases exemplify what I would call embodied practices. Kant’s point
then, is that both these kinds of activity require a well developed power of
judgment, and also that this require practice [Übung].
What then does Kant mean when he talks about an understanding
enriched by a multitude of concepts and rules? Such a superficial
enrichment is brought about through Belehrung, that is, by making the
concepts explicit to the students. I take Kant here to be referring to the
didactic practice of making students memorize abstract concepts and/or
theories without learning what these concepts/theories mean or how to
apply them. When asked to give examples falling under a concept a
student with this kind of knowledge would not be able to give an answer
either by pointing at objects in the room or verbally referring to such
objects. Neither would she be able to use a theory to successfully deal
83
Ak VII: 199.
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113
with actual problems. Even if the theory prescribed ways of handling the
problem, she would not be able to use these prescriptions in practice
If this is so, then the above passages may be seen as expressing views
very similar to the ones identified above, for instance in the didactic
advice given in On pedagogy, that there is no use in teaching students
abstract concepts if they do not also learn how to apply them; i.e.
students should do for themselves in practice what is to be learned. The
above passages may also be seen as implying the two-level model
suggested there, according to which conceptual knowledge may be
present in two ways. First we have the level where a person knows how to
apply a concept in practice, then we have the second level where the
person possesses the concept in abstracto. Finally, Kant may in the above
passages, as in On pedagogy, be seen to express the idea that the second
kind of concept possession is of no use if it is not also converted into
practice.
Seen in the context of this interpretation, however, there is one way
in which these passages are confusing. Above we identified the
understanding as the human capacity that makes it possible to partake in
embodied practices. Now, the understanding seems to be ascribed a
much more limited function. The understanding, so Kant suggests, is a
faculty that is only able to deal with concepts in a superficial way through
memorizing them. The capacity involved in the practical employment of
these concepts is the power of judgment. If this is so, then our previous
interpretation is challenged. How are we to meet this challenge?
The best way, I think, is by noting that Kant’s use of ‘understanding’
and ‘power of judgment’ is far from unambiguous. One possible source
of ambiguity is found in the fact that ‘understanding’ is used in two
senses. Sometimes it is used to denote the higher cognitive faculty in
general, but at other times it is used to denote only the lower member of
this faculty. 84 This, again, opens up an ambiguity in our description of the
relation between the understanding and the power of judgment. In one
respect they are distinct members of the general intellectual faculty, but
when ‘understanding’ is used in its general sense, then the power of
judgment is more properly described as a part or modus of the
understanding. If this lays the ground for a certain interpretative
confusion, then this is further increased by passages in which the two
terms seems to converge in meaning.
84
Ak VII: 196-7.
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114
A brief digression via the Critique provides us with one such example.
Here Kant defines the understanding as the capacity for judging. 85
However, if the understanding is our capacity for judging, then the
distinction between the two capacities is no longer easy to see. On the
contrary, the meanings of the two terms converge here. Such a
convergence is also suggested by the passage quoted above where Kant,
after having presented his idea of a properly developed power of
judgment, says that a person with such a judgment is often referred to as
a person with a mature understanding. And then, finally, we have all the
passages examined above in which the understanding is not equated with
the superficial possession of abstract concepts, but with the successful
performance of practices. In addition to the passages explored in the first
part of this chapter, we have another such passage in the Anthropology,
for example. Here Kant discusses the notion of a ‘proper understanding’.
To have a proper understanding requires more than just having a wide
repertoire of concepts, he argues. A proper understanding also has to be
functional, that is, it has to direct our cognition of objects in a proper
way.
A right understanding is not the same as one that glitters by the
multitude of its concepts. It is, rather, one that, by the adequacy of its
concepts for knowledge of an object, is able and ready to apprehend
truth. 86
There are many people, he continues, whose heads are full of concepts,
but who still lack a proper understanding of the world. A proper
understanding is the one that ‘suffices for the house’, i.e. for the practical
tasks that have to be carried out in a household. 87 Among the intellectual
capacities, it is the first and most eminent. 88 The understanding, or the
proper understanding, is here described not as a capacity to memorize
and reproduce abstract concepts, but as a capacity with a function highly
reminiscent of the one accorded to the power of judgment in passages
considered above. In both cases the practical abilities of the performer is
emphasized, in contrast to the person who only possesses abstract
concepts in a superficial manner.
85
B 94/A 69.
86
Ak VII: 197.
87
Ak VII: 197.
88
Ak VII: 198.
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115
The outcome of all this, I think, is that we should not lay too much
weight on Kant’s use of terminology where the distinction between
understanding and power of judgment is concerned. More importantly,
the passages examined all point to the devaluation of a merely theoretical
or abstract knowledge, and the demand that such knowledge has to be
accompanied by practical skills and abilities in order to count as useful.
3.12 Pragmatic priority
I have argued that, according to Kant’s embodied pragmatic theory of
rationality, a person may possess a concept solely through the successful
performance of an embodied practice. Such a concept may also be
possessed in abstracto, that is, in abstraction from its corresponding
practice. However, in that case the practice has ontological priority over
the abstract concept. In a number of the passages that have been
examined, I think that a second sort of priority is also suggested, which I
will call ‘pragmatic’. As the term suggests, pragmatic priority has to do
with usefulness. When I say that Kant ascribes pragmatic priority to
practice, I do not mean that he promotes a one-sided recognition of
practice only; ideally, theory and practice should go hand in hand.
However, when theory and practice are isolated and opposed to each
other, Kant’s preferences are clear. Abstract knowledge that stands in no
connection with practice is utterly useless, whereas the opposite is not the
case. In this respect, practice is superior to abstract knowledge. Let us
take a look at a passage in which this idea is explicitly expressed. It is
found in On the common saying from 1793. Kant starts by presenting his
by now well-known definition of a theory as a system of concepts (i.e.
rules). He then discusses how a theory may be used to guide the
professional [Praktiker] in his daily work. In addition to knowing the
theory qua theory, the professional needs to have good judgment, that is,
he needs to be able to decide when a concept is to be applied to a specific
situation and when not. This capacity for judgment is irreplaceable, he
stresses. The theory may be complete but if the professional is unable to
judge properly, it is of no use. This is why there are doctors and lawyers
who, even if they have passed their exams, do not know how to behave in
a practical setting.

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… there can be theoreticians who can never in their lives become
practical because they are lacking in judgment, for example,
physicians or jurists who did well during their schooling but who are
at a loss when they have to give an expert opinion. 89
Kant draws a dark picture of the person who lacks a proper capacity for
judgment. All the theoretical knowledge of the world is of no help to such
a person. The opposite is the case when a person has a normally
developed capacity for judgment. Such a person may approach a
situation with an incomplete theory, and still be of use. 90 And not only
this, he is also able to make the theory more complete. From his
experiences in the field, he will abstract new rules, thereby extending and
developing the theory by which he works.
But even where this natural talent is present there can still be a
deficiency in premises, that is, a theory can be incomplete and can,
perhaps, be supplemented only by engaging in further experiments
and experiences, from which the recently schooled physician,
agriculturalist, or economist can and should abstract new rules for
himself and make his theory complete. In such cases it was not the
fault of theory if it was of little use in practice, but rather of there
having been not enough theory, which the man in question should
have learned from experience and which is true theory even if he is
not in a position to state it himself and, as a teacher, set it forth
systematically in general propositions … 91
What exactly is the point here? Even if it is not explicitly stated, I take
Kant’s argument to imply again what I have called his pragmatic theory
of embodied rationality. First, even if the term ‘practice’ is not used, the
passages may be read as yet another expression of the point formerly
stated that concepts are abstracted from practices. The examples of
practices given are the practical field work of the agriculturist, the doctor
and the civil servant. These are all what I have called embodied
practices. Thus, the concepts abstracted all have their origin in embodied
practices. If, further, we assume that the practices represent a sort of
conceptual knowledge before the abstraction process takes place, then by
89
Ak VIII: 275.
90
This idea is found in a number of Kantian texts, also in the Critique, which will
be discussed below.
91
Ak VIII: 275.

117
implication we end up with the three principles defining Kant’s
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality:
1) A person may possess a concept solely through the successful
performance of an embodied practice.
2) Such a concept may also be possessed in abstracto, that is, in
abstraction from its corresponding practice.
3) In such a case the practice has ontological and pragmatic
priority over the abstract concept.
The third point has now been extended, as pragmatic priority has been
added to ontological priority. Together with my above definitions of
‘practice’ and ‘pragmatic’, we have now reached what I consider to be
the final formulation of Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.
Before we leave these passages, we may notice that Kant, echoing the
advice from On pedagogy, also demands that we make explicit the
concepts corresponding to our practices. No one can claim to be a real
professional without knowing in abstracto the concepts according to
which his practice takes place. For one thing, only a person capable of
presenting his knowledge systematically in general propositions would be
able to function as a teacher. Also, only on the basis of such knowledge
may the professional carry out effective new experiments and thereby
expand his theory. Here is the relevant passage:
Thus no one can pretend to be practically proficient in a science and
yet scorn theory without declaring that he is an ignoramus in his field,
inasmuch as he believes that by groping about in experiments and
experiences, without putting together certain principles (which really
constitute what is called theory) and without having thought out some
whole relevant to his business (which, if one proceeds methodically in
it, is called a system), he can get further than theory could take him. 92
Far from inviting a hostile attitude towards theoretical knowledge, Kant
advises the professional to reflect consciously on his practice, or, to use
Kant’s own expression, abstract from his practice the concepts according
to which this practice is performed.
3.13 Some modern parallels
Earlier I mentioned some possible explanations as to why Kant’s
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality has been so little noticed. The
above discussion may perhaps serve as an illustration of one of the
92
Ak VIII: 275-6.
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explanations suggested. The theory is never explicitly stated. It is only
implied by passages; passages, moreover, that can be easily overlooked.
Another explanation suggested was that the theory is overlooked because
either it does not fit with what scholars regard as philosophy proper, or, it
does not fit in with what they expect to find in the text. I will now
consider this and present some more recent approaches to rationality,
practice and embodiment that may serve as a useful background to our
interpretation of Kant.
It is a well-known fact in the theory of interpretation that what an
interpreter finds in a text to some extent at least depends on her general
presuppositions as well as her more specific expectations concerning what
the text has to offer. An interpreter primarily interested in the philosophy
of language, for instance, is likely to give more emphasis to those aspects
of Kant’s philosophy that may be interpreted in the context of such a
philosophy than those that may not. An interpreter interested primarily
in phenomenology is likely to see Kant more as a phenomenologist. The
growing recognition that Kant’s philosophy includes reflections on the
embodied aspects of human life is no doubt enhanced by the general
trend in modern philosophy towards giving more attention to the body
and including embodiment on the list of topics on which a philosopher
may reflect without jeopardizing her professional status.
I do not think that a general predisposition to pragmatism or a
general interest in embodiment is an absolute prerequisite for
acknowledging Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality. I do
think, however, that a certain familiarity with modern parallels to this
theory, or aspects of this theory, may make it easier for us to identify his
excursions into these fields of philosophy when they occur, and also
supply us with some concepts and models that may, perhaps, be
applicable to Kant if we want to rephrase aspects of his philosophy in
more modern language. There are several possible relevant philosophies
and philosophers. One of my starting points below is the philosophy of
Wittgenstein. Also relevant are scholars who include embodied practices
in their analysis of human rationality, such as Jean Piaget, Mark Johnson
and John Campbell. I will discuss Piaget’s theory of embodied rationality
in a later chapter. In this chapter I will take a brief look at John
Campbell and his theory of working concepts. However, let me first
introduce some Wittgensteinian perspectives.
Wittgenstein is relevant to the present discussion, I think, due to his
reflections on the relation between rules and practices and also for his
general theory of conceptual knowledge. Rather than seeing conceptual
knowledge as belonging to an inner, hidden, mental realm, he claims it to
be present on the level of what we have defined as embodied practice. As

119
for the rules governing our practices, he argues that they exist in and
through these practices.
Let us start by examining the last point. Wittgenstein discusses the
relation between rules and practices in §§143-242 of his Philosophical
investigations. According to Baker’s summary of this discussion,
Wittgenstein’s aim is to help us free ourselves from a false mythology of
normativity that has prevailed for a long time in philosophy. 93 In order to
illustrate Wittgenstein’s criticism, we may take as an example a
mathematical calculation. Assume that an agent is asked to calculate the
outcome of the following formula when x is replaced by the series of
natural numbers.
1 + x =
Such a calculation, according to Wittgenstein, may well be carried out
silently, or as we say, ’in the head’. And referring to such an event, the
agent may well tell us that she has a feeling of being inwardly guided by
some rule directing the calculation. Such an observation may easily lend
support to the idea that calculating is essentially a mental activity, and
that the guidance taking place in such a case is basically carried out on a
mental level.
In our culture, Baker argues, this way of thinking is typically
embedded in our propensity to draw a distinction between the mind,
understood as something inner mental, and overt behavior. We consider
what is inner as inaccessible and hidden from all but its owner, whose
access to it, through introspection, is direct and infallible. From this we
infer that only I can know whether I am doing a particular calculation or
following a given rule, or whether what I am doing only looks like it.
Others, it seems, can only speculate on what I am doing based on
observation of my behavior. 94 A proponent of this view may argue that
calculating a term in a series does not consist in merely writing down a
number after contemplating an algebraic formula. For a person to
calculate, she must produce a particular number because of the formula
generating the number series. This launches a search for some special
connecting experience or mental mechanism that will serve to distinguish
coincidental conformity with a calculation-rule from genuine calculation.
93
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See Baker (1981) for an extended and illuminating interpretation of the
relevant paragraphs of Philosophical investigations.
94 Cf. Baker (1981), 51.

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Something must make this difference, and so we postulate an
intermediate explanatory link. 95
Against this Wittgenstein reminds us that the criteria we actually use
in order to decide whether a person follows a rule or not are not found
by looking into the inner, mental world of this person, which is of course
impossible, but at her overt acts, including her citing of rules as a
justification for what she has done. Also, rather than ascribe to our inner,
mental powers the capacity to direct our calculations, Wittgenstein asks
us to view them as inner experiences accompanying these overt acts. 96
What is it then that guides us in the calculation? Rather than pointing at
inner, mental mechanisms, Wittgenstein refers to socialization and
practice.
Wittgenstein, according to Baker, also critically examines another
myth of rationality, a myth based on the metaphorical distinction
between the ‘rule of law’ and the ‘rule of man’, where the first is held up
as an ideal of impartiality. Wittgenstein’s point is that we are easily
seduced by this metaphor into canceling out mankind altogether. The
idea of the ‘rule of law’ seems to be grounded in the belief that rules, if
properly drafted, determine their own applications quite independently
of how we apply them, as if verdicts in particular cases were already
foreshadowed in the rules. In the resulting mythology, rules are viewed as
absolutely rigid bodies, and systems of rules as peculiarly adamantine
machines. In the context of this mythology, performing a calculation is
like constructing and activating a machine which inexorably grinds out
the correct answers without any further intervention from us. 97
As an alternative to this metaphor, Wittgenstein suggests the
metaphor of the signpost. 98
A signpost may serve to guide a walker along
a footpath, but not by dragging him along an invisible set of tracks. Its
power to guide is parasitic on the existence of a practice, he argues.
Erecting a signpost would be pointless unless there were in the
community at large a general disposition to respond to its presence in a
particular way. 99 By this metaphor he suggests that the application of
rules presupposes a practice. For a person to be able to correctly follow a
95
Ibid., 51.
96
Philosophical investigations, § 152, cf. Baker (1981), 51-52.
97
Philosophical investigations, §§ 189-194, cf. Baker (1981), 52.
98
Philosophical investigations, § 85.
99
Ibid., § 87.

121
rule presupposes this person is first socialized into the practice directing
its application. 100
As far as I can see, there are striking parallels between Wittgenstein’s
theory of rules and practices as sketched here and Kant’s pragmatic
theory of embodied rationality. For instance, both theories explore
rationality at the level of what we have defined as embodied practice. In
the example above the focus was on mathematical calculation; however,
it is consistent with Wittgenstein’s perspective to generalize this point out
into a general theory of rationality. This means that conceptual
knowledge and conceptual skills should always, according to
Wittgenstein, be examined at the level of embodied practice. Also, both
theories tend to see rules as something inherent in embodied practices.
Not only does the correct application of a rule presuppose that the agent
is first socialized into the relevant practice of application, but the rule
itself exists in and through this practice.
The parallels between the two philosophers are perhaps most evident
if we re-examine Kant’s example of grammar. The rules of grammar, he
suggests, are present in the practice of a person speaking the language
corresponding to this grammar, even before they are abstracted from this
practice and formulated. From this we may infer that he sees rules as
existing in and through practices. Kant also promotes as a general
principle that practices are best learned by doing them, reminding us of
Wittgenstein’s theory that the proper employment of a rule presupposes
the larger context of a practice into which the agent is socialized.
It may be objected that comparing Kant and Wittgenstein in this way
may easily lead us to see more of Wittgenstein in Kant than the text may
justify. What may happen is that we project a Wittgensteinian
perspective back in time, creating a sort of optical illusion, making us
misinterpret the Kantian text. However, I do not think that the above
parallel is based on such a projection. What we are doing is simply
comparing two theoretical perspectives. I do not claim that they are
similar in all respects. I do think, however, that a certain familiarity with
Wittgenstein may help us recognize in Kant what might otherwise easily
be overlooked. Taking into account Wittgenstein’s reflections on the
relation between rules and practices, for instance, and seeing how,
through this, such reflections achieve the status of philosophy proper,
100
Baker (1981), 55.
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122
may without doubt help us recognize and positively evaluate passages in
which Kant approaches the same sort of reflections. 101
Beyond Wittgenstein, the broader Wittgensteinian tradition forms a
context in which concepts and practices are discussed in ways that may
also help us in our interpretation of Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied
rationality. Here I will focus on John Campbell and the notion of
working concepts introduced in his book Past, space, and self. 102 Here he
reflects on our most primitive physical thinking, that is, our
understanding of the physics of our environment. This physics is first and
foremost a practical knowledge, he argues, a knowledge that we exercise
in our everyday interaction with the physical world, such as in lighting a
fire, throwing a rock, or putting up an umbrella. 103 Central to the idea of
this physics, qua practical knowledge, is the notion of working concepts.
A working concept is a concept typically present at a pre-linguistic level,
more specifically, it is present as a certain skill performed in our physical
interaction with the world. As such skills are found not only in human
beings, working concepts may be ascribed even to animals. 104
One of Campbell’s examples is causality. One way to think of this
concept is that it makes possible our ability to make explicit causal
judgments of the form ‘x caused y’. But there are cases in which one's
grasp of causality does not have to do with such explicit judgments but
rather consists in one’s practical grasp of its implications for one’s actions,
he argues. Here causality appears as a working concept. According to
Campbell, Aristotle gives some early examples of working concepts in the
Physics. We can contrast the theoretical understanding of the causal
properties of particular types of wood, for example, or different metals,
such as iron or silver, with the understanding possessed by the carpenter
or metalworker. The artisan’s grasp of causal properties is not a matter of
having a detached picture of them. It has to do rather with the structure
101 Let me also add, however, that I see the similarities between Kant and
Wittgenstein just indicated to be so explicit, that some sort of historical influence
may legitimately be hypothesized from Kant to Wittgenstein. On a general level,
Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin (1973) have contended that Wittgenstein’s
philosophical project belongs within a Kantian tradition as both philosophers are
critical towards metaphysics. For a more detailed discussion of the relation
between Kant and Wittgenstein, cf. Engel (1970). Engel here argues convincingly
that Wittgenstein must have been well acquainted with Kant's Logic, cf.
especially Engel (1970), 494ff.
102
Campbell (1994).
103
Ibid., 41.
104 Ibid., 46ff.
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123
of his practical skills, the particular way in which he deals with various
types of wood or how he uses different metals. 105
I find Campbell’s theory of working concepts interesting because he
uses the term ‘concept’ to account for the practical skill of a craftsman, or
even an animal, to interact successfully with the physical environment.
Even if this idea has no explicit parallel in Kant, I think that Campbell’s
term may be used to paraphrase a basic Kantian point. What I have in
mind is the idea, which I take to be central to his pragmatic theory of
embodied rationality, that a person may possess a concept solely by
means of the successful performance of an embodied practice. So far, we
have had no term to signify the possession of concepts on this level.
Inspired by Campbell, I think we may say that a person with this kind of
knowledge possesses this knowledge in the form of working concepts.
3.14 More about Kant’s theory of concepts
As I have said more than once, I do not think that Kant’s pragmatic
theory of embodied rationality exhausts all he has to say about concepts.
Nor do I claim that whenever he uses the term ‘concept’ it should always
be understood in the context of this theory. In a number of places he
discusses concepts using a terminology suggesting a perspective that is
rather different from the one examined in this chapter. A typical idea
promoted by Kant, for instance, is that a concept is defined by its marks
[Merkmale], and that the number and quality of these marks may be
explored or analyzed through an act of introspection. 106 The idea that
concepts are defined by their marks, may also be seen as implied by
Kant’s theory of the constitution [Erzeugung] of concepts as found in
Logic. The constitution of concepts, he tells us, takes place in a process of
comparison, reflection and abstraction. 107 To explain this he gives the
example of the constitution of the empirical concept of a tree. I see a
pine, a willow and a lime. When I compare them I notice that they have
different trunks, branches and leaves, etc. Then I reflect upon only what
they have in common, that is they all have trunks, branches, and leaves.
Finally, I abstract from their size, figure etc. The result is the concept of a
tree. 108
Kant seems to present here a rather traditional theory of concepts,
105
Ibid., 47.
106
For a discussion of this point, see for instance Bennett (1966), 54 and
Stuhlmann-Laeisz (1976).
107
Ak IX: 94.
108
Ak IX: 95.

124
according to which a concept is defined by its marks. These marks,
moreover, may be understood as referring to the common properties of a
class of objects.
This notion of a concept, along with Kant’s suggestions that concepts
may be analyzed through acts of introspection, seems to point to a
mentalist conception of concepts according to which concepts exist and
are handled on the mental level. And perhaps Kant at some point or at
some level does espouse such a conception. However, the idea that this is
his general theory of concepts is challenged not only by the passages
discussed earlier in this chapter, but also by a number of passages in
which conceptual thinking is claimed to presuppose linguistic behavior.
In the Anthropology, he contends that spoken language is the best
medium for communicating thoughts:
Hearing is one of the senses of merely mediate perception. Through
and by means of the air that surrounds us, we can know far distant
objects. And it is by this medium, when it is put in motion by the
vocal organ, the mouth, that we can most readily and fully share in
one another’s thoughts and sensations, especially when the sounds we
make to others are articulated and, being combined by understanding
according to laws, form a language. 109
He then continues by claiming that a person who is born deaf and unable
to learn to speak will arrive at something only imperfectly similar to
reason [Vernunft].
So a man who, because he was deaf from birth, must also remain
dumb (without speech) can never achieve more than an analogue of
reason. 110
Later in the same text, this idea is expressed even more pointedly:
109 Ak VII: 155.
110 Ak VII: 155.
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125
Language signifies [the presence of] thought and, on the other hand
the means par excellence of intellectual signification is language, the
most important way we have of understanding ourselves and others. –
Thinking is talking with ourselves (the Indians of Otahiti call thought
‘speech in the belly’); so it is also listening to ourselves inwardly (by
reproductive imagination). For a man born deaf, his own speaking is
the feeling of his lip, tongue, and jaw movements; and we can hardly
conceive that in talking he does anything more than carry on a play
of these feelings, without really having and thinking concepts. 111
A person born deaf and who is unable to learn to speak will never attain
concepts in the proper sense of the term, Kant claims.
Not only does Kant claim that conceptual thinking presupposes
language, he also seems to promote the stronger thesis that conceptual
thinking is embedded in the verbal speech acts constituting human
communication. If this is so, then it undermines the idea suggested above
that Kant took concepts to exist and to be handled on a mental level
only. His emphasis on linguistic behavior rather seems to imply the idea
that possession of concepts presupposes practice, i.e. linguistic practice
understood as embodied behavior.
Are the various ways in which Kant talks about concepts founded on
a unified theory of concepts, or do they represent diverging theories? As
Kant does not discuss this question, it is not easily answered. For my own
part, I think that it is possible to interpret what he says about concepts as
representing a unified conception. According to this conception, a
concept is a rule, which, moreover, exists as an aspect of an embodied
practice in the way suggested above. Conceptual knowledge is present
whenever a person successfully performs a practice according to this rule.
Within this perspective, Kant’s theory of conceptual marks may be
understood as referring to the idea that concepts are rules defining what
we may legitimately say about a phenomenon. To be more specific,
within this perspective, what we refer to as the marks of the concept are
the terms by which we produce statements by which we describe what we
take to be the essential features of the phenomenon referred to by the
concept, and the concept as such is the rule regulating this statement
production, present in and through the practice of the members of the
language community.
Kant’s emphasis on linguistic behavior may seem to jeopardize my
claim that concepts may also be present on a pre-linguistic level, i.e. as
working concepts, and that this idea is part of Kant’s general theory of
111 Ak VII: 192.
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126
rationality. For instance, in the Anthropology he states that a person
without linguistic behavior will never attain concepts in the proper sense
of the term [eigentliche Begriffe]. 112 However, this is not incompatible
with the idea that something analogous to these concepts may also exist
on a pre-linguistic level. It may even be that Kant would have agreed to
call them concepts, but concepts of a different kind from those referred to
by the German term eigentliche Begriffe.
Whether this attempt to harmonize the various claims made by Kant
on the topic of concepts really works, I leave open for further
investigation. In the present context the issue does not need be decided.
All that is required is acceptance of the idea that among Kant’s various
approaches there is one conforming to what I have called Kant’s
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.
3.15 Summary
In this chapter I have explored how Kant’s idea of the embodied mind
affects his theory of rationality in texts published both before and after
1781. From early on he puts forward the idea that our rational capacities
depend on the body. In Universal natural history, for instance, he claims
that the capacity to connect and compare concepts is influenced by the
constitution of the body of the thinking subject. Later he downplays this
part of his theory. The mature Kant emphasizes instead the entire
human being as a totality of mind and body, that is as an embodied
agent, as the rational subject. Human rationality is now analyzed at the
level of the behavior of this agent. This new perspective is found in texts
such as On the common saying from 1793, Anthropology from 1798,
Logic from 1800 and On pedagogy from 1803, and may be summarized
as follows:
1) A person may possess a concept solely through the successful
performance of an embodied practice.
2) Such a concept may also be possessed in abstracto, that is, in
abstraction from its corresponding practice.
3) In such a case the practice has ontological and pragmatic
priority over the abstract concept.
This theory I have called Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied
rationality. As for its historical roots, I have argued that it may in part be
viewed as the logical outcome of some basic ideas and assumptions held
by Kant. However, in working out their consequences, he may also have
112
Ak VII: 192.
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127
been influenced by other philosophers and scholars, such as Rousseau,
and the new pedagogical movement in Germany, represented, for
instance, by Basedow.
3.16 A short summary of the first part of the book
In this first part, I have examined some aspects of Kant’s intellectual
development as it finds its expression in some of his published works from
Living forces in 1747 up to near the end of his life. The account given
does not intend to be exhaustive but I have drawn attention to some
trends that I believe to be significant. Among these are Kant’s growing
empiricism and pragmatism, associated with his orientation towards the
new science of anthropology with its study of man as a unity of mind and
body. And even if he was influenced by a wide range of philosophers, I
have especially stressed the importance of Rousseau and his idea that
man learns to know and master the world only through embodied acts
and practices. All this led Kant to accord an increasing significance to
human behavior as a domain of human rationality, or so I claim. Not
only does he claim that a basic part of our concept-formation (i.e., the
part having to do with the concept of shape) originates in our capacity to
use our hands to grasp and hold objects but he also promotes the idea
that concepts exist originally as the rules according to which practices are
performed. As a result these practices are essential to human rationality.
I have underlined these aspects of Kant’s philosophy not only because
they deserve attention in themselves but also because they form the
context in which Kant’s critical philosophy developed. In the second part
I shall put forward my ideas on how this context influenced the
philosophical reflections of the Critique.

4. THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
The field of philosophy in this cosmopolitan
meaning may be summed up in the following
questions:
l) What can I know?
2) What ought I to do?
3) What may I hope?
4) What is man?
The first question is answered by metaphysics, the
second by morality, the third by religion, and the
fourth by anthropology. At bottom all this could
be reckoned to be anthropology, because the first
three questions are related to the last.
From Kant’s Logic 1
In this passage Kant defines the task of what he calls a cosmopolitan
[weltbürgerlichen] philosophy through four questions. What can I know?
What ought I to do? What may I hope? What is man? These questions
are said to define metaphysics, ethics, religion and anthropology.
However, the last question stands in a particular position relative to the
others, he claims, because it is more basic than all the rest. Before we can
answer the others, we have to know what man is.
In this second part, I will look at passages from the Critique. More
than any other of his texts, this work relates to the first of the four
questions: ‘What can I know?’ But Kant says that answering this question
presupposes a thorough reflection upon the anthropological question of
what a human being is. The passage also suggests that Kant based his
epistemological enquiries on such reflections, i.e. reflections in the field of
anthropology. Is that really so? And what happens if we take this idea of
the primacy of anthropology seriously? How does it affect our
interpretation of the Critique? In what follows I will attempt to give the
beginning of an answer to this question. That is, my interpretation will be
based on the assumption that Kant’s anthropology is part of the context
1 Ak IX: 25

130
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
in which the reflections of the Critique proceed. As suggested by authors
such as Munzel and Pitte, 2 I will take this anthropology to be present not
only in the Anthropology and in Kant’s unpublished lectures in this field,
but also in passages found in his writings on pedagogy and logic, and
even in some other texts discussing man and his position in the world,
such as On the common saying, Directions in space and Orientation. A
basic idea of this interpretative approach is that parts of the Critique may
be read as a series of reflections based on the idea that the mind is
embodied in the sense suggested in the first part of this work.
First, however, I will discuss some preliminary questions concerning
Kant’s intellectual development and the perspective under which his
critical reflections took place. I will also briefly discuss some of the main
trends in the interpretation of the Critique and locate my own position
relative to them. As a rule, decisive arguments in favor of my position will
be left for the following chapters.
4.1 The Critique – a brief presentation
The Critique is a notoriously difficult book, and today, more than two
hundred years after its first publication, we are still far from reaching an
agreement on how best to interpret it. As numerous commentators have
pointed out, in content as well as in style, the text represents a
tremendous challenge to the philosophical scholar.
First a brief outline of the book itself. Even if Kant is not
unambiguously clear about the main purpose of the book, 3 he more than
once announces that its aim is to answer the question ‘How is synthetic a
priori knowledge possible?’ The Kantian notion of synthetic a priori
knowledge refers to a knowledge that is necessarily true and universal
and which is concerned not with conceptual or analytic knowledge but
the basic structure of experience. Examples of synthetic a priori
knowledge are, according to Kant, found in Euclidean geometry and
Newtonian physics. Thus, one way to paraphrase the basic question of
the Critique is ‘How is the knowledge represented by these sciences
possible?’
‘Knowledge’ in these questions means objective knowledge, so as
Kant also explicitly stresses, the main task of the Critique is not to
2
Cf. Munzel (1999) and Pitte (1971 and 1978). Cf. also Mengüsoglu (1966), 109.
3
Noting how Kant’s statements in this field often diverge Pippin (1992), 286
complains that this text suffers perhaps more than any other of Kant’s texts from
numerous, varied, and not always consistent characterizations of its central
purpose, or fundamental problem.

THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
131
explore the origin of knowledge, but its objectivity or validity. According
to the definition given in chapter one above, its project is epistemic.
Another explicitly stated purpose of the Critique, which also concerns the
validity of knowledge, is to offer a basic critique of traditional
metaphysics.
Kant uses the term ‘transcendental philosophy’ to characterize the
general project of the Critique. The term refers, among other things, to
the project of answering how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. In
answering this question he develops a number of so-called transcendental
arguments, most famous of which are the transcendental deductions of
the categories. An integral part of Kant’s transcendental philosophy is
also his transcendental idealism, involving the idea that all our
experience is representational, that space and time are nothing but forms
of our experience, and that we have to distinguish between the objects of
the world as we experience them, and those objects as they are in
themselves, which lie beyond the reach of human knowledge.
Even if Kant underlines the epistemic perspective of the Critique, the
work also contains an elaborate cognitive theory explaining the origin or
genesis of experience. Very briefly, this is the theory of a self endowed
with a mind [Gemüt]. This self is typically referred to by means of the
term ‘subject’ or by first person pronouns such as ‘I’, ‘we’ and equivalent
terms. Further it is a theory of how this subject is affected by objects
outside it, and also how, along with such effects, it performs various
cognitive acts, resulting in what Kant calls experience [Erfahrung] or
knowledge [Erkenntnis]. In the Critique these are typically used as
equivalent terms (cf. e.g. B1), and in the following I shall normally use the
term ‘experience’ to cover both.
4.2 Phases, perspectives and continuities
The interpretative approach to be followed in the following chapters is
based on the assumption that there is a continuity between the Critique
and some of the texts examined in the previous chapters. More
specifically, I argue that some of the reflections in the Critique
presuppose or imply ideas developed and held in these other texts, ideas
that may be associated with Kant’s anthropology understood in a wide
sense.
A possible objection to such a claim is that it is inconsistent with the
often expressed idea that Kant’s intellectual development may be divided
into distinct phases, and that the Critique belongs to a phase essentially
different from the others. Perhaps a more sophisticated version of this
argument is that the Critique represents a critical and/or transcendental

132
perspective that has to be kept separate from the perspectives
characterizing the writings published prior to the Critique, as well as
later publications such as the Anthropology or On pedagogy. A
proponent of this kind of criticism may, for instance, claim that the
critical perspective is to be contrasted with the dogmatic perspective of
Kant’s pre-critical period, as well as the empirical perspective of, for
instance, his writings on anthropology and pedagogy. Moreover, she may
claim that texts written under such different perspectives have little or no
reciprocal relevance.
Kant may himself be seen as fuelling such claims through his frequent
denunciations of his early writings. He publicly claimed his early
investigations to be metaphysical and thus untenable, and he discouraged
his students from reading them. He also urged his publisher to exclude
them from a collection of his works. 4 By doing so he himself contributed
to the idea that among his publications the Critique is vital for every
student of philosophy and may be understood on its own terms, but the
works preceding it are relevant for antiquarians at best.
It is well known that an author is not always the best guide for an
interpreter and even if the superior status of the Critique is unchallenged,
many scholars have maintained that, contrary to what Kant suggests, it
may well be interpreted in the light of his earlier works. As for his
intellectual development, there is a growing awareness that ideas and
perspectives central to the Critique are also present in texts published
much earlier, even prior to the Inaugural dissertation of 1770. This has
typically been claimed to be the year of Kant’s critical turn, leading
eventually towards the fully developed critical position of the Critique. 5
Even if the Inaugural dissertation represents a decisive step in his
intellectual development, its significance should not be over-emphasized.
Schmucker argues, for instance, that in texts published as early as in the
1760s Kant was developing ideas that to some extent corresponded to
the critical position of the 1780s. 6 Schmucker refers to his skepticism
regarding metaphysical proofs of the immateriality of the human mind,
4
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In a letter to Tieftrunk he recommended that nothing before the Inaugural
dissertation should be included, cf. Zammito (2002), 257 and also Schönfeld
(2000), 6.
5
The turning point is then typically associated with Kant’s denouncement of the
doctrine that time and space are objective things or features of things, arguing
instead that time and space are subjective forms of intuition, cf. e.g. Falkenburg
(2000), 134.
6
Schmucker (1981), 1ff.

133
and his refutation of the three traditional proofs of God. There is a
similarity in structure between the arguments raised against these ideas in
those early texts and the ones found in the Transcendental Dialectic of
the Critique, he argues. He also notes that at an early stage Kant was
putting forward the idea that mathematics is a synthetic discipline.
Hartmut und Gernot Böhme, pointing at the fact that Kant’s critical
perspective involves a reflection on the relation between our cognitive
powers and the objects of our experience, maintain that such a
perspective is present already in 1766 in Dreams of a spirit-seer. 7
Kaulbach recognizes a critical attitude as early as 1747 in Kant’s first
publication. Kant here critically distinguishes between Erkenntniszielen,
Kaulbach claims, and by doing this anticipates the critical examinations
of the Critique. 8 As we have seen in an earlier chapter, Rossvær also
contends that Kant’s Copernican perspective is first advanced in
Directions in space from 1768. 9
Such examples all serve to undermine the idea of an absolute dividing
line between the critical project of the 1770s and 1780s and the
preceding period. On a general level this point has also been put forward
by Schönfeld who contends that there is more continuity in Kant’s
philosophizing than appears at first sight. Contrary to what Kant himself
claims in the Critique, 10 Schönfeld argues, the inception of the critical
philosophy was not an abrupt conceptual breakthrough, but rather a
series of incremental steps that began with Kant’s growing
disenchantment with the pre-critical project in the 1760s. 11 Scott-Taggart
denounces the contrast between Kant’s pre-critical and critical views as
‘an exegetical fiction’. 12
Even if I shall not evaluate these various claims about continuity in
detail here, I am generally sympathetic towards the idea that there is a
continuity in Kant’s intellectual development in the way that ideas and
perspectives central to the Critique are found in texts published both
before and after it. I am also sympathetic towards those who argue that
our understanding of the Critique is enhanced by interpreting it in the
context of these other writings. Trying to understand a text in its context
is, I think, always a profitable interpretative strategy, and where the
7
Böhme and Böhme (1983), 253.
8
Kaulbach (1960), 68.
9
Rossvær (1974), 43.
10 Cf. B xvi and B xxii.
11
Schönfeld (2000), 7.
12
Scott-Taggart (1969), 3.
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134
Critique is concerned, I maintain that this context should especially
include Kant’s writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic with their
broad anthropological approach. These texts are relevant, I think, not
only for representing ideas and perspectives that will find a more mature
elaboration in the Critique, but also because in these texts he develops
and defines ideas that are later present as a tacit background to, or
horizon of, the Critique. As such they may give us hints and suggestions
regarding how the text at large may or should be interpreted.
The idea that the reflections taking place in the Critique proceed
within a horizon of ideas that are explicitly discussed in other texts, but
which in the Critique are merely presupposed, has been proposed by
more than one commentator. As for Kant’s metaphysics of the mind in
the Critique, Ameriks argues that unless interpreters properly appreciate
what Kant left unsaid in this work but discussed elsewhere, they will not
be able to see how much of it frames what is said in the Critique. 13
Extending the perspective even further, Oberhausen suggests that Kant’s
doctrine of the acquisitio originaria of a priori representations refers to a
tacit background of ideas Kant shared with other philosophers of the
Enlightenment, but which he did not deal with systematically in the
Critique because he assumed them to be generally known. They are
present as a tacit background to his philosophy, or as what Oberhausen
calls Hintergrundstheorien. 14
My idea is that some of Kant’s basic ideas of man promoted within or
implied by his anthropology may also be seen as part of the horizon of
mostly tacit ideas forming the background against which the Critique was
written, ideas Kant knew and acknowledged but did not care, for reasons
to be discussed below, to make explicit. As interpreters, it is our task to
bring these tacit ideas into light and take them into account when trying
to understand the Critique.
As for Kant’s anthropology (the term ‘anthropology’ is here still to be
understood in the wide sense suggested above), it may be claimed that it
is basically an empirical science, and as such irrelevant to the
transcendental perspective of the Critique. I will discuss the relation
between Kant’s empirical and transcendental perspectives below. At this
point, let me remind the reader that even if Kant’s anthropology may in
part be characterized as an empirical science, it is not merely so.
According to Kant, it is also characterized by its pragmatic perspective.
Also, as we have seen, from the early 1770s Kant declares that the
13
Ameriks (2000), xxx.
14
Oberhausen (1997), 247.
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135
pragmatic perspective of his anthropology is from now on to form a
superior perspective under which he wants to subordinate his whole
academic enterprise. Exactly what this says about the relation between
his anthropology and his transcendental philosophy is not evident.
Brandt argues that there are no systematic relations between these two
branches of his philosophy, 15
while Pitte, Munzel and others insist that
there are, citing as evidence, for instance, the passage from the Logic
quoted at the beginning of this chapter. 16 Munzel argues specifically that
there is a connection between Kant’s anthropology and pedagogy and his
critical ethics as found in the Critique of practical reason. In his
anthropology and pedagogy Kant discusses the means and strategies by
which man realizes his true vocation as a citizen of the moral world
order. The second Critique, she maintains, cannot be properly
understood in abstraction from these means and strategies. 17
I will argue that a parallel argument may also be advanced where the
first Critique is concerned, i.e., its cognitive theory, epistemology and
transcendental idealism. This I also take to be the basic intuition
underlying Pitte’s attempt at a positive re-evaluation of Kant’s
anthropology. 18 However, like Munzel he ends up emphasizing the
connection between Kant’s anthropology and his critical ethics, and does
not quite succeed in integrating other parts of Kant’s transcendental
philosophy into his interpretative approach. 19
His position may at best be
described as ambiguous. For instance, at one point he claims that Kant’s
critical analysis of cognition provides little occasion for the introduction
of anthropological elements. 20 In his introduction to an English
translation of Kant’s Anthropology, however, he argues that Kant’s
theory of cognition, as we find it in this work, may also help us to better
15
Brandt (1999), 50.
16
Pitte (1971 and 1978), Munzel (1999).
17
Cf. Munzel (1999), 8ff. Recently other scholars have also developed a similar
perspective. For a brief survey, cf. Zammito (2002), 347ff. Zammito himself
seems also to be sympathetic towards this view.
18
Cf. Pitte (1971), 32.
19
Referring to the last part of the Critique, and interpreting the text as a whole in
the light of this part, Pitte argues that its orientation is basically practical (Pitte
(1971), 33). From this Pitte further concludes that Kant intended the Critique to
be a part of a comprehensive philosophy, the aim of which was to help realize the
good life for the human race (Pitte 1971), 36. Within this system, Pitte argues,
Kant considered his ethics to be the highest discipline.
20
Pitte (1971), 32.

136
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understand the corresponding theory of the Critique. 21 However, this is
not followed up by a more comprehensive analysis.
4.3 Some trends and positions in the interpretation of the Critique
The aim of this section is to give a brief outline of where I locate myself
relative to some existing interpretations of the Critique. As has been
pointed out, in content as well as in style, the Critique represents a
tremendous challenge to the philosophical scholar. 22 This may account
for the exuberant manifold of interpretations produced in its aftermath.
The following is intended not as a comprehensive presentation of the
various interpretations offered, but only as a rough outline of some
representative trends. 23
The disagreement surrounding the Critique concerns a number of
questions. An initial question is whether the text constitutes a coherent
piece of philosophy, or whether it is more like a patchwork of fragments
loosely combined. A well-known representative of the last position is
Norman Kemp Smith who argues that the Critique is a collection of
argumentative fragments belonging to different phases of Kant’s
intellectual development, more or less loosely connected. 24 Paul Guyer is
often presented as a modern representative of this view. 25 Numerous
interpreters have also complained that the Critique contains serious
inconsistencies, thereby questioning the coherence and unity of the work
from a somewhat different angle. 26
I belong to those who see the Critique as a fundamentally coherent
and unified work. However, I also believe it to be a text extremely rich in
21
Pitte (1978), xx.
22
As a curiosity, it may be noted that in the Anthropology (Ak VII: 137) Kant
espouses the idea that a certain level of obscurity [ein gewisser Grad des
Rätselhaften] in a text may have a positive effect on the reader. It allows him to
become aware of his own skills in bringing to light the hidden message of the text.
If Kant is right, then the obscurity of the Critique may perhaps explain some of
the fascination exerted by it upon the philosophic community since its
publication.
23
Some general aspects of the history of the interpretation of the Critique are
found in e.g. Kitcher (1990), 3ff and Gardner (1999), 30. Zoeller (1993) discusses
more recent developments.
24
Kemp Smith (1918).
25
Cf. Guyer (1987).
26
Cf. e.g. Bennett (1966), 4, 29 and 142; Strawson (1973), 16 and Neujahr
(1995), 2.

137
perspectives, and I hold its theoretical reflections to operate at more than
one level. I think it is also obvious that Kant struggled to give his
transcendental philosophy form, evidenced among other things by the
famous ‘silence’ prior to its publication in 1781 27 and the revisions
undertaken in its second edition, the so called B-edition. 28 Due to the
complexity of the work, I also think that there are ideas and arguments in
the text that are not completely worked through, in part perhaps
intentionally so, because Kant chose to give priority to other parts or
aspects of the work.
Another central question among Kant’s interpreters concerns what is
meant by the term ‘experience’ in the Critique. Kant announces that he
uses the term in the same sense as ‘knowledge’ [Erkenntnis], but that
does not solve the problem. An idea vigorously promoted by some
German neo-Kantians is that the term refers to scientific knowledge only,
and, consequently that the Critique in its essence is a theory of science
the task of which is to supply a philosophical foundation for the exact
sciences. 29 On the other hand we have those who argue that the Critique
may be read as a theory of human experience in a more general sense,
what Hoppe refers to as the Haben von einem Welt. 30 For my own part, I
think that both sides are on the right track. In the present work, however,
I will emphasize the perspective of the second position.
A major disagreement in the interpretation of the Critique concerns
the status of its cognitive theory, often referred to as its transcendental
psychology. Kitcher distinguishes between those who accept the
psychology of the Critique as part of a tenable transcendental philosophy
and those who do not. 31 Although Kant’s transcendental psychology early
became a target of criticism, interpretations accepting it as a legitimate
part of transcendental philosophy were not uncommon in nineteenth-
century Germany, according to Kitcher. 32
However, a turning point
came with Frege and his claim that the psychological should be sharply
separated from logic, and, moreover, that psychology had nothing to
27
Cf. Carl (1989).
28
According to Reinhold Bernhard Jachmann, a student and friend of his, Kant’s
talent lay primarily in the analysis of concepts. To combine concepts into systems
was more difficult for him, cf. Gross (1993), 114.
29
Cf. e.g. Falkenburg (2000), 310. For a general discussion of the neo-Kantians,
cf. also Köhnke (1991).
30
Hoppe (1983), 5.
31
Kitcher (1990), 3ff.
32
Ibid, 6.
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138
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contribute to the field of arithmetic. With the help of Russell, Carnap
and the early Wittgenstein, logic, philosophy of mathematics and a
Fregean philosophy of language were then established as paradigms for
the philosophical enterprise. This enterprise was carried on by the
analytic tradition in philosophy, dominating most of the twentieth
century, also giving birth to an analytic school of Kant interpreters.
Within this analytic school, Kant’s transcendental psychology had no
room. Those analytically-oriented interpreters who still saw in the
Critique a text worth defending therefore had to try to find a way of
defining the transcendental project without including what they were
now convinced was a mistaken psychologism.
In the Anglo-American tradition, Strawson stands out as a major
representative of this analytic school when in The bounds of sense, he
argues:
... there is no doubt that this doctrine [about our cognitive faculties] is
incoherent in itself and masks, rather than explains, the real character
of [Kant’s] inquiry.... 33
Instead of reading the Critique as a book on human powers and
capacities, it should be read as an analytical argument, Strawson
contends.
A major characteristic of the analytic Kant interpretation is the
distinction that it draws between what it takes to be a legitimate core of
Kant’s transcendental philosophy and its illegitimate or ‘bad’
metaphysics. 34 As the legitimate core it sees the transcendental arguments
of the text. Transcendental psychology, on the other hand, is seen as
belonging to the ‘bad’ metaphysics of the text which has to be
disentangled from the legitimate part and then dismissed. 35
For those who accept that the cognitive psychology of the Critique is
legitimate, other questions emerge. Who or what is the cognitive subject
or the ‘I’ of this psychology? Also, when Kant as part of this cognitive
psychology describes events in which this subject is involved and activities
33
Strawson (1973), 16.
34
Cf. e.g. Zoeller (1993), 450.
35
Despite internal differences, both Henry Allison, Paul Guyer and Dieter
Henrich may be seen as operating within the context. As for Allison, however, as
Zoeller points out, he may also be seen as representing a trend within the analytic
tradition to give an increasing amount of attention to the structure and activities
of the cognitive subject, cf. Zoeller (1993), 451. Also a more historically oriented
study of Henrich (1989) goes beyond a mere analytical approach.

139
performed by the subject, what kind of activities and events does the
theory refer to? Here I think three positions may be distinguished. 36 The
first claims that the cognitive subject is an ordinary embodied human
being and that the events and activities associated with this subject are
open to empirical investigation. A scholar approaching such a view in the
nineteenth century was Hermann von Helmholz. 37
According to the
second position, the cognitive subject is a transcendental subject, to
which no empirical knowledge applies. Strawson claimed that this was
Kant’s position, and argued that this made Kant’s transcendental
psychology untenable. 38 Not all representatives of the second position
draw this negative conclusion, however. The second position is also
represented by scholars contending that Kant’s transcendental
psychology is a valuable piece of philosophy, but claiming too that the
events and activities associated with the subject of this psychology belong
to an inner mental domain or some non-empirical, transcendental
domain only accessible by a certain kind of philosophical reflection. 39 The
third position involves the idea that the cognitive subject of Kant’s
transcendental psychology is not a subject at all, at least, not in the usual
sense of the term. Instead the term ‘subject’ is seen as referring to some
transpersonal entity, such as the human species, or even some sort of
Hegelian World-Spirit. A modern version of the trans-personal view is
found in Gerhardt. He claims that Kant’s so called Copernican
revolution should be interpreted as a radical anthropological turn [eine
universelle Hinwendung zum Menschen]. More specifically, it represents
a philosophical reflection evolving from the idea that human existence is
limited in time and space. Gerhardt’s claim focuses not on the finite
existence of the individual, however, but on humanity at large. 40
36
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These are also discussed in Martin (1969), 207, cf. also Kitcher (1990), 3ff. A
closely related discussion concerns how to understand Kant’s distinction between
the empirical and the transcendental subject. This will be discussed below.
37
Cf. Martin (1969), 207. Typical of this position is that the distinction between
the empirical and transcendental subject is challenged.
38
I will return to discuss this in chapter 7.
39
Cf. e.g. Brook (1994), 19.
40
Gerhardt (1987), 140ff. Gerhardt emphasizes the fact that human life is limited
to the planet on which we live: ‘Was immer der Mensch über die Welt und über
sich selbst in Erfahrung bringen kann, verdankt er den Lebensbedingungen auf
diesem kleinen Planeten, der ihm, selbst wenn es gelingen sollte, perfekte
Erkenntnisinstrumente zu entwickeln, stets nur einen Begrenzten Weltausschnitt
eröffnet.’ (Gerhardt (1987), 142).

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Following a somewhat different line of argument, Neujahr contends that
the cognitive subject of the Critique is transpersonal. 41
Identifying which of these positions Kant interpreters belong to is not
always easy. Falkenstein, 42 for instance, conforms to the second position
relative to Kant’s theory of the intellectual synthesis. However, where
Kant’s theory of sensibility is concerned, he claims that this theory
contains references to man as an embodied being, and in that respect his
position is closer to the first of the three. Even Allison argues that in
Kant’s theory of sensibility the term ‘affection’ refers to the affection of
the body. 43
My own position lies near the first one. I think the subject of Kant’s
transcendental psychology is man as we know him as an embodied being
and I also accept transcendental psychology as a legitimate part of
transcendental philosophy. Contrary to those who claim that the events
and activities associated with this subject belong to an inner or even nonempirical
domain, however, I think that the events are embodied events
and that the acts are embodied acts or practices. So Kant’s
transcendental psychology is not a psychology in the usual sense of the
term, referring to inner mental or otherwise hidden processes. It is the
psychology of a philosopher who was as critical of introspection as he was
of neurology, a philosopher who emphasized that the human mind was
radically embodied and present in and through the embodied selfawareness
and the embodied activity of the subject. This is also why I
prefer not to use the term ‘transcendental psychology’, with its
connotations of inner mental or hidden processes, but the more neutral
term ‘cognitive theory’.
That Kant’s cognitive theory in the Critique, or that his
transcendental philosophy in a more general sense, refers in some way or
41 Neujahr contends that in the Critique Kant was committed not to one but two
views of the subject. He started by seeing the subject as an individual entity.
Then, in order to escape solipsism, he was forced to introduce a new theory
according to which the subject is a transpersonal mind, cf. Neujahr (1995), 98ff.
Neujahr sees these two views as incompatible and an example of the general
inconsistency of the Critique.
42 Falkenstein (1995).
43 This, at least is how I interpret the following remark: ‘Kant not only can but
does speak about the mind as affected by empirical objects. For example, he
speaks unproblematically of colors as ‘modifications of the sense of sight which is
affected in a certain way by light’ (A28). [...] Kant can perfectly well characterize
human sensibility in this way because, on the empirical level, the human mind is
itself considered as part of nature.’ Allison (1983), 249.

141
another to human behavior is also maintained by Kaulbach, Kambartel,
Melnick and Saugstad. Kaulbach suggests that Kant’s transcendental
philosophy may be interpreted as a theory referring to the self-conscious
movements of an embodied subject. These movements have a
transcendental function and are thus a legitimate part of transcendental
philosophy. 44
Kambartel argues that Kant’s theory of the categories may
be seen as referring to embodied practices. 45 Melnick defends the idea
both that the Kantian notions of space and time refer to embodied acts,
and that the categories are forms of embodied behavior. 46 Saugstad has
argued in a series of papers that the notion of embodied practices has a
central place in Kant’s transcendental philosophy, and defends what he
calls an ‘externalist’ interpretation of Kant. 47 This interpretation is
contrasted with what he calls an ‘internalist’ interpretation, which he says
has been the dominant trend in traditional Kant interpretation. He
describes his externalist view as follows:
On this reading, Kant’s position is that human knowledge depends,
ultimately, upon our ability to perform a fixed set of overt actions
essentially involving the movement of the human body. 48
Saugstad emphasizes that he does not intend to transform Kant into
some kind of behaviorist and so admits a place for inner mental
experiences in Kant’s theory. However, these are not given any
privileged significance. I will return to Saugstad’s interpretation later.
That the notion of embodied acts or practices is implied by certain
passages of the Critique, whether Kant was aware of it or not, is also
suggested by Aquila, 49 Caygill, 50 Rossvær, 51 and Gibbons. 52 Brook and
44
Cf. e.g. Kaulbach (1968), 258 and 285, and also Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and
1968).
45
Cf e.g. Kambartel (1976), 117.
46
Melnick (1989).
47
Saugstad (1982, 1986, 1992, 1993a, 1993b, 2000 and 2002).
48
Saugstad (1992), 381.
49
Cf. e.g. Aquila (1992), 162ff.
50
In his Kant Dictionary Caygill claims that the idea of embodied experience is
presupposed in the more abstract analyses of the Critique. He writes: ‘Thus the
analysis of the experience of the human body is implied through the more
technical theoretical analyses of CPR.’ Cf. Caygill (1995), 96.
51
Rossvær (1974).
52
Gibbons (1994).
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142
Hoppe may also be mentioned here, as both point out how easily Kant’s
transcendental theory may be read as a theory of human behavior. 53
Both, however, deny that Kant himself meant his theory to be
interpreted in this way.
4.4 Transcendental philosophy
Commenting upon his philosophical project in the Critique, Kant is
quite explicit in seeing it as representing a new kind of philosophy, which
he terms ‘transcendental’. In the Critique he gives his first definition of
transcendental philosophy at A 14/B 25. Transcendental philosophy is a
system of transcendental knowledge [Erkenntnis] that deals with the
specific manner in which we achieve knowledge of objects [Erkenntnisart
von Gegenständen] as far as this is possible a priori.
I call all cognition transcendental that is occupied not so much with
objects but rather with our mode of cognition of objects insofar as this
is to be possible a priori. A system of such concepts would be called
transcendental philosophy. (A 11/B 25)
At B 19 Kant also states what he takes to be the main question of
transcendental philosophy. How are synthetic a priori judgments
possible? A further characteristic of transcendental philosophy is that all
its concepts are pure a priori concepts (B 28). And finally, while most
cognitive theories deal only with the origin and history of knowledge, the
main question of transcendental philosophy is not the origin, but the
validity of knowledge (A 84/B 116). Thus, according to the distinction
drawn in chapter one above, Kant’s main project in the Critique belongs
to the discipline of epistemology and not cognitive theory.
Part of the discussion revolving around the Critique concerns what
kind of project Kant’s transcendental philosophy is. We have already
touched upon some aspects of this question above. Here I want to focus
on his own presentation of his project as we have just encountered it.
The claim that all the concepts of transcendental philosophy are pure
a priori concepts has induced interpreters to argue that Kant’s
transcendental philosophy cannot contain any concepts referring to
empirical objects or phenomena or concepts with an empirical origin. If
so, however, where do these transcendental concepts come from? One
possible answer is to see them as concepts similar to what the rationalist
tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries called innate ideas.
53 Brook (1994), 18 and Hoppe (1969), 19.
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143
Even if Kant himself distanced himself from the metaphysics of the
rationalist tradition, some scholars still see the Kantian notion of pure a
priori concepts as belonging within this tradition. A paradigmatic
example of this position is found in Bonevac. He sees Kant as a
rationalist working within what is ultimately a Platonist tradition.
According to Bonevac, Kant maintained that ‘we can deduce pure
concepts from the understanding a priori, independently of experience,
and moreover that there are synthetic a priori truths that we can know
independently of experience.’ 54 Bonevac may here be seen as a radical
representative of a view that is quite common in a more moderate form.
It sees Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a reflection taking place
within some sort of pure conceptual space involving nothing but pure
concepts.
Against this I will maintain what I will call a life-world approach to
Kant’s transcendental philosophy. According to this approach, his
transcendental philosophy is a philosophical reflection taking place
within the human life-world as we know it. It is a reflection taking as its
starting point man as an embodied being living in a physical and social
world. Within this context, it reflects upon questions having to do with
human experience and the origin, status and validity of this experience. I
see Kaulbach, Kambartel and Saugstad as representing various versions
of such a life-world perspective. In his Philosophie als Wissenschaft, for
instance, Kaulbach emphasizes that the transcendental theory of the
Critique should not be seen as a foundationalist theory trying to deduce
its doctrines from a single principle. It is a theory of man as an embodied
being totally immersed in his world. It is here, within this world,
reflecting upon worldly human activities, in particular the scientific
enterprise, that the transcendental discourse emerges, he argues. 55
Also relevant in this context is Hartmut and Gernot Böhme’s work
Das Andere der Vernunft. 56 The authors claim that aspects of Kant’s
transcendental philosophy are derived from observations and reflections
entertained by him upon the methods and practices of the scientists of his
54
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Bonevac 1998), 42.
55
He writes: ‘Daher geht Kant in Wahrheit nicht von der künstlichen und
fingierten Situation aus, in der das Subjekt angeblich zunächst von der Welt
abgeschnitten ist und erst die Werkzeuge seines Erkennens prüft, bevor es aufs
neue darangeht ... […] sondern [er] läßt es inmitten der Geschichte seiner
Auseinandersetzung mit der Welt zum Selbstbewußtsein und zur
erkenntniskritischen Selbstnormierung kommen.’ (Kaulbach (1981), 70.)
56 Böhme and Böhme (1983).

144
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time. Since the Renaissance, profiting from the technical advances of
artisans, scientists had gradually developed more sophisticated and more
complex instruments for the investigation of nature. These instruments,
they argue, significantly changed the production of knowledge inside the
new sciences. 57 From observing the work of artisans and scientists, Kant
learned that knowledge of nature is produced by active intervention, that
is, by actively using specific instruments, methods and procedures, and
also that the product of this, scientific knowledge, is constituted by such
methods and procedures. His theory of knowledge in the Critique, they
conclude, reflects this insight. 58
Even though I think Hartmut and Gernot Böhme are basically right
on these points, I am less sympathetic towards their claim that Kant’s
transcendental philosophy should be seen as a theory of scientific
knowledge only. 59 As will be further argued below, I read his
transcendental philosophy first and foremost as a theory of human
experience in general. I also think that the two authors are fundamentally
mistaken in their claim that Kant was alienated from his body and that
embodied experience is disparaged in his transcendental philosophy. 60 As
I will argue, I see the notion of the body as central in Kant’s
transcendental philosophy. A basic insight of this philosophy, and a basic
premise from which its reflections proceed, is that we are radically
dependent on our bodies in our everyday exploration of the world, and
that all experience and all knowledge is in an ultimate sense based on our
immediate awareness of our embodied interaction with this world.
Further, I will argue that Kant’s transcendental philosophy involves an
attempt to identify the basic structure of this interaction, i.e. the
interaction that makes experience possible. This is the idea that I see
abstractly expressed at A 11/B 25 when Kant states that transcendental
philosophy deals with our way of attaining knowledge of objects, as far as
this is a priori possible.
57
Ibid., 284.
58
This idea may also have been conveyed to him by Francis Bacon, to whom
Kant respectfully refers in the preface to the second edition of the Critique (B
XII). Kambartel (1976), 93 suggests strong parallels between Kant and Bacon in
the preface to the second edition of the Critique, even that Kant may have
copied some of Bacon’s expressions.
59
Böhme and Böhme (1983), 289.
60
According to the two authors, Kant reduces the body to a mere instrument,
which involves a radical disparagement of our immediate embodied awareness
(Böhme and Böhme (1983), 17).

145
Even if Kant does not make this distinction himself, I will distinguish
between a general and a specific aspect of Kant’s transcendental
philosophy in the way it is defined here. According to the first,
transcendental philosophy deals with our way of attaining knowledge of
objects in general. According to the second, transcendental philosophy
deals with our way of attaining knowledge of objects in so far as it
supplies a priori synthetic knowledge of these objects. Common to both
these aspects is the fact that they direct our attention not at human
experience as such, but towards our way of attaining this experience, as
well as the epistemic status of this experience. I will return to discuss the
epistemic question below. At present, I want to emphasize the first point,
that Kant’s transcendental philosophy in general directs our attention not
at the world, but at the subject exploring it. One of my basic theses is that
Kant saw this subject as an embodied being, and that he saw its ways of
attaining experience as consisting in the embodied acts and practices of
this subject. This is also how I suggest we understand the notion of a
Copernican turn or a Copernican perspective in the Critique.
4.5 Kant’s Copernican perspective
As a number of scholars have commented, the notion of a Copernican
perspective in philosophy is never explicitly formulated by Kant himself. 61
It is, however, suggested when in the first Critique he suggests that a
proper philosophical position may be found by following the example of
Copernicus:
61 E.g. Hanson (1992).
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Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition [Erkenntnis]
must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something
about them a priori through concepts that would extend our
cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us
once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of
metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our
cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of
an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about
objects before they are given to us. This would be just like the first
thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in
the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire
celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not
have greater success if he made the observer revolve and left the stars
at rest. (B XVI)

146
Gerhardt dates the tradition among Kant interpreters comparing Kant’s
critical perspective with the astronomical accomplishment of Copernicus
back to Kuno Fisher in the 1880s. 62 From the beginning, however, there
was confusion about how this comparison should best be understood.
Fisher himself saw the comparison as constituting a rather loose analogy.
Just as the Copernican transition from a geocentric to a heliocentric
perspective involved a transition to a more advanced scientific stance, so
Kant’s transcendental perspective is more advanced than the position he
superseded. 63 Gerhardt himself denies that Kant’s Copernican
perspective has anything to do with Copernicus’ transition from a
geocentric to a heliocentric perspective as such. The analogy concerns
rather the relation between the moving objects of the skies to the
observer, he claims. Instead of assuming these objects to be revolving
around an unmoving observer, Copernicus based his theory on the
assumption that it was the observer who was moving. 64
The point of the moving observer is also emphasized by Hanson. 65
When we observe the universe, we constantly move in this universe along
with the earth we inhabit, and we have to take into account this
movement in our interpretation of what we observe. In presenting his
new theory of the universe, Copernicus emphasized the novelty of this
idea and explained how essential it was to the development of his theory.
The idea of the moving observer is also essential to what we may call
Kant’s Copernican perspective in philosophy, Hanson argues. Like
Copernicus, Kant sought to explain the properties of observed
phenomena by postulating activity in the subject.
I agree with this. So far, however, the question of what or who this
observer is, and in what way she moves or is active, has not been raised.
Some possible answers to this have already been discussed in connection
with Kant’s transcendental psychology. My position is clear. The
observer is an embodied human being, and her movements or acts are
likewise embodied. Kant’s Copernican perspective thus involves the idea
that attention should be directed away from the world and its objects to
the embodied observer and her way of exploring these objects, and that
this way of exploring has to be taken into account when we reflect upon
the epistemic status and validity of our experience. As I have argued
62
Gerhardt (1987).
63
For a further discussion of the meaning ascribed to the notion of a Copernican
perspective in Kant, see Gerhardt (1987).
64
Ibid., 135.
65 Hanson (1992), 36ff.
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147
above, this is also what I see as the basic move constituting Kant’s
transcendental perspective.
That this move also involves a critical reflection is a point aptly
expressed by Kaulbach. By redirecting attention from the world to the
observer, it becomes possible for us to critically distinguish between the
elements of our experience that originate in the objects and those that
originate in our specific subjective way of approaching these objects.
This, again, makes it possible for us to free ourselves from some illusions
that threaten to cloud our understanding when this subjective aspect of
our experience is not taken into account. Kaulbach, moreover, also
contends that the subject of this reflection is embodied. 66
4.6 Some further remarks on the transcendental and the empirical
I have argued that Kant’s transcendental philosophy is a philosophical
reflection taking place within the human life-world as we know it, what
might also be called the empirical world. An argument in favor of this
idea is that there is no need to leave this world in order to solve the task
defined at A 11/B 25, i.e. to explain how synthetic a priori knowledge is
possible, or at least that is what I shall argue. By examining the embodied
practices developed by man in his physical interaction with the world,
and by examining how such practices make possible certain aspects of
our knowledge of this world, we discover that such practices may be seen
as a priori conditions of knowledge, i.e., a priori and synthetic in the way
defined at A 11/B 25ff. 67 A first suggestion that this idea is recognized by
Kant is found in Orientation when Kant tells us that without the capacity
to draw a circle, and by doing this to recognize whether the direction is
from left to right or the other way around, we would not be able to
determine a priori the different locations of objects in space. 68 The body,
i.e. our way of using it and our awareness of this, is here declared to be a
condition of a priori knowledge. Below I shall argue that the same is the
case with other embodied acts and practices.
What has been said so far is intended to be understood only as brief
suggestions. All the topics touched upon above will be discussed more
extensively in the following chapters. At this point I will maintain only
that I do not take Kant’s transcendental philosophy to involve reflections
that, metaphorically speaking, take us out of the world as we know it.
66
Kaulbach (1968), 251.
67
This claim will be developed more fully in the following chapters.
68
Ak VIII: 135.
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148
They do not, as the term ‘transcendental’ might suggest, transcend this
world. They all take place within this world, i.e. within the world as we
know it through empirical observation. This does not mean, however,
that the perspective is empirical. According to Kant, the empirical
perspective is the one established when, for instance, we ask what the
world is like, and we ask for a causal explanation of events in it. In his
transcendental philosophy he does not ask how the world is or how we
may explain its events. He asks how our experience of this world is
constituted. He asks on what grounds we may claim that this experience
represents objective knowledge of the world. And, in the specific
terminology that he employs, he asks how it is possible for us to have
synthetic a priori knowledge of it. Through these questions a new
perspective is established which is no longer empirical but transcendental
in the sense defined above. This perspective, however, does not make
invalid or irrelevant the empirical knowledge we have of the world and
ourselves. On the contrary, I think Kant both needs and presupposes this
knowledge in order to solve his transcendental problem. This is why, for
instance, the cognitive theory defined in the anthropology is, roughly, the
same as the one we find in the Critique. It is in part empirical; 69 however
Kant still needs it and uses it in his transcendental project. Actually, I
take this cognitive theory to be a strong sign of the continuity that exists
between the empirical and pragmatic perspective of the Anthropology
and the transcendental perspective of the Critique. This does not mean
that everything Kant says in the published Anthropology is relevant to
our understanding of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. At this point I
agree with Brandt: with its somewhat chaotic collection of ideas and
anecdotes, this text contains a lot that today has only historical interest. 70
What I do take to be relevant in Kant’s anthropology (the term is still to
be understood in a wide sense here) is his theory of sensibility, his theory
of the embodied constitution of spatial experiences, and his pragmatic
theory of embodied rationality. All these theories, I shall argue, are
implicitly present also in the Critique.
4.7 Transcendental idealism
Kant’s transcendental idealism is an integral part of his transcendental
philosophy which has so far not been discussed. His transcendental
69
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
The ‘in part’ is here meant to express that the cognitive theory of the
Anthropology is also discussed under a pragmatic perspective.
70 Brandt (1999), 50.

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149
idealism involves the idea that all our experience is representational, that
space and time are nothing but forms of our experience, and that we
have to distinguish between the objects of the world as we experience
them and these objects as they are in themselves, which lie beyond the
reach of human knowledge.
Among Kant’s doctrines, his transcendental idealism has represented
a major interpretative challenge, having given rise to a number of
ingenious hypotheses and corresponding criticisms. The idea that space
and time are nothing but forms of human experience, having their origin
in the subject and not in the world an sich, have led some interpreters to
see in Kant’s idealism the doctrine that the world of our experience is de
facto ‘the artwork of the mind’. 71 Ultimately Kant’s idealism therefore
ends in subjective relativism, they claim. 72 Underlying this kind of
criticism is the idea that his transcendental idealism involves a two-world
theory, on the one hand there is the real world of things in themselves
and then there is the world as it appears to us. These are two worlds,
different in nature and quality, and as Kant continuously maintains that
we have no knowledge of the first, one might ask why we should talk
about it at all. His doctrine of things in themselves seems to sit within his
system as an outdated piece of mysticism. No wonder, then, that within
the analytic tradition his transcendental idealism has come under heavy
attack.
In recent years, however, the trend has been towards demystifying
Kant’s transcendental idealism. Gerold Prauss’s 1974 Kant und das
Problem der Dinge an sich was significant in this development. Prauss
remarks that Kant does not normally use the expression ‘thing in itself’
[Ding an sich] but the adverbial expression ‘things considered in
themselves’ [Ding an sich selbst betrachtet] or something similar. 73 Prauss
deplores the fact that commentators have failed to acknowledge this
properly, and that instead the term Ding an sich has come to occupy a
central role in the discussion. Having the form of a quasi-noun [Quasi-
71
Cf. e.g. Neujahr (1995), 96-98. He concludes: ‘The critical position is not
merely idealist, but solipsist.’
72
Cf. e.g. Quinton (1997), 5 who writes: ‘It is the account he gives of the way the
common world of experience is constructed or synthesized by applying some
piece of mental apparatus – the forms of intuition or categories – to what he calls
the manifold of sensation. The rather elementary question I want to raise about
this theory is that of how the claim can be made good that the outcome of this
process is just one, single world?’
73
Prauss (1974), 13ff.

150
Eigennahme] it suggests that there exists a separate class of unknown
things in addition to the things we perceive. 74 Instead of this metaphysical
interpretation (or misinterpretation) Kant’s point is purely epistemic
according to Prauss. When Kant talks about a thing considered in itself,
‘thing’ is used in its everyday sense, referring to an object in the empirical
world, the German adverbial an sich selbst betrachtet means only that
this thing is now conceived as it is when we abstract away the forms of
human cognition, such as time and space. 75
Prauss concludes that it is the things of our experience that are basic
within Kant’s theory. The notion of a thing in itself has only a secondary
or derived significance, it is what we arrive at when we perform the
suggested abstraction, or transcendental reflection. 76 I see Allison
approaching a similar point of view in stressing that Kant’s idealism is
formal in the sense that it is not a theory about two incompatible worlds
but an epistemic theory of the nature and the scope of the conditions
under which objects can be experienced or known by the human mind. 77
The term ‘representation’ as used by Kant means only that an object for
us is by its very nature something represented, and in that sense a
reference to the mind and its cognitive apparatus is built into the
definition of the term. 78
This trend in the interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism
underlines a point already made, that his transcendental idealism should
be seen as a reflection taking place within the empirical domain. Prauss’
point that the things of our experience are basic within Kant’s theory
while the notion of a thing in itself has only a secondary or derived
significance is especially relevant here. Kant’s transcendental idealism
does not establish a perspective according to which the empirical world is
examined from a position lying outside this world, a position somehow
claimed to be more real or Eigentlich than the world we live in. I shall
say more about this in chapter 7.
74
Ibid., 24.
75
Ibid., 38. Prauss does not, however, draw the same conclusion where the
cognitive subject is concerned. This subject, he contends, is not empirical. It is
‘etwas Nichtempirische’, cf. Prauss (1974), 220.
76
Ibid., (1974), 38.
77
Allison (1983), 26.
78
Ibid., 30.
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4.8 What did Kant mean?
151
If I am right that the human subject referred to in the transcendental
theory of the Critique should be understood as an embodied human
being and if I am right that this has the interpretative consequences
suggested above, why then does Kant not discuss the body and its place
in his transcendental theory more explicitly? And is the fact that he does
not prima facie evidence that my interpretation is wrong?
First, it is not the case that Kant never explicitly deals with the
human subject as embodied in the Critique. In fact, in a number of
passages where he puts forward central aspects of his transcendental
theory, he includes explicit references to the body and/or to embodied
acts and practices. 79 Nevertheless although such passages occur, they are
infrequent. Why is that? Several explanations are possible. One is that
the embodied aspect of human life was so obvious that he did not bother
to include it as an explicit topic of reflection in the Critique to any extent.
This means, for instance, that when the term ‘subject’ appears in the
Critique, in the sense of human subject, he takes it for granted that this is
an embodied human being, and that it should be understood as such.
The same applies when he describes the acts of this subject, for instance
when in his cognitive theory he describes the human subject as ‘active’.
Even if this is not made explicit in the Critique, these acts are to be
understood as embodied acts, and to Kant this was so obvious that he did
not feel the need to say it. After all, he had promoted such ideas before.
He had explicitly maintained that the mind and its cognitive operations
presupposed the body. He had also emphasized the cognitive and
rational aspects of certain embodied acts and practices. So why waste
energy on making explicit all these points again?
Sometimes, when reading the Critique, I get the impression that this
explanation works. This is the case whenever Kant, in the middle of an
abstract line of argument, suddenly introduces an explicit reference to
embodied human life, as if the idea of such a life had been tacitly
presupposed all the time as the obvious context in which the reflection
took place. Such an example is found e.g. in the third analogy of the
Transcendental analytic (A 213/B 260). The task of the analogy is to
prove the sentence that all substances, insofar as they can be perceived to
coexist in space, stand in thoroughgoing reciprocity. As in the rest of the
79
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
Cf. e.g. B 15-16 and A 240/B 299. The first passage refers to the practice of
counting on the fingers, the second to the construction of geometrical figures by
means of embodied acts.

152
Critique, most of the proof is presented in a highly abstract language. He
starts by stating that our experience presupposes that we think of
substances as standing in dynamic, reciprocal relations. This is easily
confirmed by experience, he claims. Had it not been for the dynamic
relations of our world, we would never have been able to direct our
senses from one object to another. So far, the style of the passage is
abstract. The dynamic reciprocal relations under consideration are
described as involving substances and our senses, but without specifying
what these objects or senses are.
Then it is as if the text moves to a completely different level. In the
middle of a sentence, as if what follows is the most natural way of
continuing, Kant starts to talk about eyes and light, and how the light
plays between our eyes and the heavenly bodies. 80
From our experiences it is easy to notice that only continuous
influence in all places in space can lead our sense from one object to
another, that the light that plays between our eyes and the heavenly
bodies effects a mediate community between us and the latter and
thereby proves the simultaneity of the latter, and that we cannot
empirically alter any place (perceive this alteration) without matter
everywhere making the perception of our position possible; and only
by means of its reciprocal influence can it establish their simultaneity
and thereby the coexistence of even the most distant objects (though
only mediately). (A 213/B 260)
What is remarkable in this passage is the ease with which it passes from
the abstract level of transcendental discourse to the level of physical
objects, and even more than this, how the subject or self who is all along
abstractly present is suddenly disclosed as an embodied self with eyes and
other organs. This ease more than suggests, I think, that this domain of
physical objects and embodied selves is tacitly presupposed all the time as
the obvious context in which the reflection proceeds.
Another possible explanation, compatible with the first, of why the
embodied aspect of human existence is not dealt with more explicitly in
the Critique, is that Kant deliberately chose to keep this aspect in the
background. Perhaps his conception of the ideal form of a philosophical
work induced him to formulate his reflections in an abstract language in
80
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
The heavenly bodies, i.e the moon and the earth, were also mentioned some
pages earlier at A 211/B 257.

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153
which explicit references to the body had no place. 81 Perhaps he excluded
such references because he wanted to stress the logical structure of his
transcendental arguments and feared that too many and explicit
references to the body would distract attention from this structure. Or
perhaps he omitted them simply in order to prevent the text from
becoming too voluminous.
A further possibility is that Kant’s transcendental philosophy derives
its structure, or parts of it, from reflections centered on the body and
embodied acts and practices, but that he was not fully aware of this.
Sometimes, when examining certain passages in the Critique, I also feel
this to be the case; I read passages that seem to demand an interpretation
referring to embodied acts or practices but Kant’s way of expressing
himself seems to resist this reading. In such cases, it is as if the text reflects
a struggle between two perspectives, one based on the insight that
embodied acts and practices are indispensable to our experience of the
world, the other based on some alternative conception. It is, however, as
if this struggle does not really catch Kant’s attention, leading to a
disturbing ambiguity in the text. 82
If the idea of an unconscious struggle between ideas seems
unattractive, we may perhaps instead return to the idea that Kant did not
succeed in working through all parts of his system. The ideas emphasized
in my interpretation of the Critique may be seen, then, as belonging to
the ideas that he did not have the time, interest or energy to make fully
explicit, and this may then account for the relative absence of references
to the body or to embodied acts and practices.
Which of the above explanations is to be preferred, I will not try to
decide here. My reason for suggesting them is only to argue that, from
the fact that explicit references to the body and to embodied acts and
practices are so few in the Critique, we cannot conclude that such acts
81 Henrich (1989), 34 notices that the juridical Deduktionsschriften that may have
represented Kant’s stylistic ideal when writing the Critique, were ‘brief, solid and
perspicuous’. The term Deduktionsschrift refers to a genre originally used by
lawyers to justify controversial legal claims. If Henrich is right, it may explain the
abstract and dry style of the Critique.
82
That there is more to be found in the Critique than both the reader, and even
its author, may be aware of, is also suggested by Bennett (1966), 4. He maintains
that Kant’s style is often confused, and his philosophical points badly expressed,
however, they may still contain hints leading to useful and interesting insights:
‘Kant has a natural, subliminal sensitivity to philosophical problems, so that even
where he argues badly his writing is rich in hints and suggestions which can lead
one to insights which Kant himself did not have.’

154
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
and practices are irrelevant to the transcendental discourse. There are
several ways of explaining the relative absence of such references and
some are compatible with the interpretation promoted here, that the
body and embodied acts and practices are after all essential to Kant’s
transcendental reflections.

5. SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE
CRITIQUE
The reason for practicing throwing, whether
trying to throw things as far as possible or at a
target, is also to exercise the senses, in particular
the capacity to see things in their right
perspective. Playing ball is one of the best games
for children, as running is also good for the
health. In general those games are best that not
only make children exercise their bodily skills but
also make them better at using their senses, for
instance, using the visual sense to make accurate
judgments about distance, size and proportion,
and with the help of the sun, to find the main
points of the compass; these are all good exercises.
From Kant’s On pedagogy 1
Kant says that ballgames are good for children not only because of the
healthy effects of running, but also because they exercise their senses.
More specifically, through the game they can learn to judge distance, size
and spatial proportions better. Like Rousseau, Kant may be seen here as
a proponent of the idea that man is not born with a fully developed
capacity to orient himself in three-dimensional space, that is, to decide
the location of an object in space relative to other objects and/or himself.
He has to learn to do so, and in this learning process the body is essential.
Earlier, in texts like Directions in space, Orientation and Anthropology,
we have seen that Kant explains the presence of basic spatial concepts by
1
Ak IX: 467, a.t. Here is the German original: ‘Die Übung im Werfen, teils weit
zu werfen, teils auch zu treffen, hat auch die Übung der Sinne, besonders des
Augenmaßes, mit zur Absicht. Das Ballspiel ist eines der besten Kinderspiele,
weil auch noch das gesunde Laufen dazu kommt. Überhaupt sind diejenigen
Spiele die besten, bei welchen, neben den Exerzitien der Geschicklichkeit, auch
Übungen der Sinne hinzukommen, z.E. die Übung des Augenmaßes, über
Weite, Größe und Proportion richtig zu urteilen, die Lage der Örter nach den
Weltgegenden zu finden, wozu die Sonne behülflich sein muß, u.s.w. das alles
sind gute Übungen.’

156
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
reference to the body and to embodied acts and practices. For instance,
we have seen him argue that our capacity to grasp an object is a
condition of our capacity to form a concept of its shape. In this passage
emphasis is placed on acts involving the whole body, such as running,
throwing, trying to hit a target, etc. In an earlier chapter, I called the
ideas underlying this way of thinking Kant’s ‘theory of the embodied
constitution of spatial representations’, or his ‘embodied theory of space’
for short.
In this and the following chapter I will argue that the theory of space
and spatial experience as it is found in the Critique, or Kant’s ‘critical
theory of space’, for short, is remarkably similar in structure to his
embodied theory of space. It is true that in his critical theory there are no
explicit references made to the body, at least, not in the way we see them
in Directions in space, Orientation, Anthropology and On pedagogy. At
the centre of the critical theory of space stands the abstract notion of a
mind [Gemüt], the relation of which to the body is not specified, and the
abstract notion of space, defined as the a priori form of intuition. This
form is claimed to have its source a priori in the mind. To be more
specific, it is said to have its origin in the activity of the mind, or so I shall
argue. At no point, however, is this activity said to be embodied in the
way we have seen in the texts examined above. The absence of explicit
references to the body is especially noticeable in the Transcendental
aesthetic, the part of the Critique dedicated to Kant’s critical
examination of sensibility, which is also the part where space is first
discussed in the Critique. Despite this absence, I will maintain that his
critical theory of space is remarkably similar in structure to his embodied
theory of space. Based on this similarity, and based also on other
theoretical reflections, I shall put forward the thesis that the former
theory may be read, in part, as an abstract version of the latter. The task
of this and the following chapter is to provide evidence for this claim.
The reason why Kant’s critical discussion of space is allowed to
occupy two whole chapters should come as no surprise. Alongside time,
space is one of the main topics of the Critique, and he returns to discuss it
from various angles throughout the text. I also hope that by discussing his
critical theory of space at some length the foundations will be established
to support my interpretation of other parts of the Critique, namely his
critical theory of time and the categories.
By claiming that Kant’s critical theory of space is, in part, an abstract
version of his embodied theory of space, I mean that the abstract
character of the former is, in part, due to the fact that explicit references
to the body have been removed from the latter. More specifically, I claim
that the abstract notion of the mind, found in the Critique should be

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 157
interpreted as referring to a mind that is thoroughly embodied, meaning,
amongst other things, that both its domain of activity and its domain of
immediate awareness are congruent with that of the body. Secondly, I
claim that what in the Critique is abstractly described as ‘affection’ (the
term is not further defined) is to be understood as the affection of the
body, or better, the embodied self. Kant’s theory of affection is relevant
to the present discussion because it is part of his critical theory of
sensibility, forming the context within which his critical notion of space is
first explored. Finally, I claim that Kant’s critical theory of space, in
which space is defined as the form of intuition and the claim is advanced
that this form originates in the activity of the mind, should be read as a
theory of how our experience of space is constituted through embodied
acts and practices.
Even if I stress the similarities between Kant’s two theories of space
here, I do not claim that they are similar in all respects. Kant’s theory of
space, as found in the Critique, is both more complex and more
sophisticated than the theory of space found in or implied by other
Kantian texts. In the Critique we find highly sophisticated arguments,
ideas and perspectives that are found nowhere outside it, or if they are
found, only as fragments or suggestions. Nowhere except in the Critique
are these arguments, ideas and perspectives presented as part of a unified
and comprehensive theory. But when we turn our attention to some
essential features of the basic structure of his critical theory of space,
these are the same as those we find in his embodied theory of space. In
this sense the former theory may be regarded as the abstract version of
the latter. This is what I am going to argue below.
The idea that Kant’s critical theory of space contains implicit
references to the body in some of the ways suggested above has also been
put forward by others. 2
In an argument similar to mine, Kaulbach points
to the connection between Kant’s theory of space in Directions in space
and Orientation, where our experience of space is claimed to be
grounded in the awareness of embodied movement, and Kant’s critical
theory of space. Even if Kant does not explicitly say so, we have to
conceive of the human self of the Critique as an embodied self, Kaulbach
contends, and as such, as inhabiting the same spatio-temporal world as
the things of its experience. 3 Moreover, as a spatial being it has no means
of experiencing the spatiality of this world other than by moving around
2 Cf. e.g. Falkenstein (1995), Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and 1968), Rossvær (1974),
Melnick (1989), Saugstad (1992) and Wyller (2000), cf. especially p. 162.
3 Kaulbach (1965), 150.

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in it. 4 Falkenstein’s discussion of the connection between space and
embodiment in the Critique will be discussed separately in a later
chapter.
5.1 A brief remark about the structure of my argument
The claim that Kant’s critical theory of space may be thought of in part
as the abstract version of his embodied theory of space will be supported
by more than one line of argument. In this chapter I shall present a
rather lengthy argument focusing on the similarity in structure between
the two theories, emphasizing the following similarities: In both theories
the cognitive subject is said to arrive at experience of spatially extended
objects in three-dimensional space through a process in which the subject
is both passive and active. Moreover, there is a characteristic reciprocity
between these active and passive aspects. This, I will refer to as the
‘active-passive character’ of the process. This is present, I will argue, in
both Kant’s critical and embodied theories of space. This demonstration
of a parallel structure is not intended to constitute a decisive proof that
the former theory is an abstract version of the latter in the way specified.
Similarity of structure between two theories alone does not prove that the
one is an abstract version of the other. Thus, the similarity-in-structureargument
is intended as nothing but the first step in a line of arguments
that will continue in the next chapter.
Even if I do not want to put too much emphasis on the similarity-instructure-argument,
I think it merits a place here. For one thing, it is not
obvious that the two theories I compare really are similar in the way I
claim. For instance, not all interpreters agree that Kant’s critical theory
of space qua form of intuition involves the idea that space is constituted
by the activity of the cognitive self. 5 As part of the argument to be
presented in this chapter, I will also examine central parts of the
Transcendental aesthetic and the Transcendental logic. This
4 He writes: ‘Der Mensch als leibliches Wesen [...] bringt sich selbst als Körper
mit im Bereich des Weltraumes unter.’ (Kaulbach (1960), 114). A similar point is
also made by Melnick (1989), 5ff. From Kant’s idea that space is a continuum, he
argues that to Kant only the flowing nature of spatial production or construction
by an embodied agent may account for this character of a continuum.
5 Cf. e.g. Falkenstein (1995), 4 and 99, and also Obergefell (1985), 200. In general
I think that all those who reject Kant’s transcendental psychology would have to
meet with suspicion the idea that space is constituted by the activity of the
cognitive self, cf. chapter 4 of this work.

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 159
examination will introduce us to concepts and perspectives central to the
further discussion of my thesis.
5.2 The architectonic of the Critique
The first part of the Critique, the Transcendental doctrine of elements, is
divided into two parts. The first part, the Transcendental aesthetic, is
dedicated to a critical examination of sensibility. Within this context
Kant gives a first basic introduction to his critical theory of space,
according to which space is defined as a form of intuition. The second
part, the Transcendental logic is also divided into two parts, the first of
which is the Transcendental analytic, dedicated to Kant’s critical
examination of the understanding. Here we also find the part of the
Critique that has perhaps received more attention than any other, the socalled
transcendental deductions of the categories or in short, the
transcendental deductions. The Transcendental analytic also contains
what is commonly referred to as Kant’s theory of schematism. The
architectonic of the text suggests a neat division between the topics
discussed: for a proper understanding of Kant’s critical theory of
sensibility and space we only have to look at the Transcendental
aesthetic. A closer inspection of the text, however, reveals that the matter
is more complicated than this. Kant argues that in the constitution of
human experience, sensibility and understanding never operate alone.
Even if these two faculties of the mind may be distinguished
conceptually, they always work together in an integrated way.
My argument in this chapter is based on the assumption that in order
to arrive at a thorough understanding of Kant’s critical theory of
sensibility and space, one has to include not only what he says in the
Transcendental aesthetic, but also what he says in the Transcendental
analytic. Consequently, this chapter will examine parts of both, including
the two versions of the transcendental deduction. 6 The literature on both
the Transcendental aesthetic and the transcendental deductions is vast.
As for the Transcendental aesthetic, the literature typically examines the
various arguments Kant presents in order to prove the a priori character
of time and space qua forms of intuition. As for the transcendental
deductions, the focus is usually on their logical structure and how this
6
That the Transcendental aesthetic can only be understood properly in light of
later parts of the Critique, is also argued by commentators like Rossvær (1974),
100, Schaper (1992), 312, and Kaulbach (1965), 104.

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structure differs in the two versions found in the A- and B-edition of the
Critique. 7
In the Kant-scholarship so much energy has gone into discussing the
transcendental deductions that it may seem almost impossible to reflect
on Kant’s transcendental philosophy without getting caught up in this
debate. However, I will avoid this. Neither will I examine the various
arguments that Kant presents in the Transcendental aesthetic in order to
prove the a priori character of time and space qua forms of intuition.
This is not because I think these arguments are irrelevant or without
interest, but they are not relevant in the present context. Here my aim is
to put forward the similarity-in-structure-argument and this does not
require an analysis of Kant’s transcendental arguments.
5.3 The cognitive theory of the Critique
In an earlier chapter I made a distinction between cognitive theory and
epistemology. According to my definition, cognitive theory is the theory
that aims at describing how our experience of the world is constituted,
that is, what human capacities are involved, how they work and how they
contribute to the constitution of our experience. Cognitive theory,
further, is to be distinguished from epistemology, understood as the
theory discussing whether our beliefs are true and justified. Kant’s
transcendental theory is basically an epistemic project. However, as we
have seen, he also includes a cognitive theory in this enterprise. This
theory is centered on the notion of a mind [Gemüt] endowed with a
variety of capacities and faculties.
Kant introduces the cognitive theory of the Critique by drawing the
by now well known distinction between what he claims to be two basic
faculties of the mind, sensibility [Sinnlichkeit] and understanding
[Verstand]. As we have seen, this distinction is also reflected in the basic
architecture of the Critique. In the first part of the text, the
Transcendental aesthetic, Kant professes to explore sensibility in
abstraction from the understanding (A 22/B 36). In the following part,
the Transcendental logic, he professes to explore the understanding in a
parallel way, that is, abstracting away all that does not belong to it (A
62/B 87).
7
For a standard interpretation of the Transcendental aesthetic and the
transcendental deduction, see e.g. Gardner (1999). For a survey on recent
publications on the transcendental deduction, see Zoeller (1993), 452. A
noteworthy analysis of the B-deduction is found in Allison (1983), 133ff.

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 161
At the beginning of the Transcendental aesthetic, ‘sensibility’ is
defined as the capacity to be affected.
The capacity (receptivity) to acquire representations through the way
in which we are affected by objects is called sensibility. (A 19/B 33) 8
At A 19/B 33 sensibility is also defined as the origin of our intuitions
[Anschauungen]. All intuitions have two aspects, Kant further explains,
one is the immediate effect of an object affecting the mind and is called
sensation [Empfindung] (A 19-20/B 34). The other is what he refers to as
the pure form of intuition. This term refers to the Kantian idea that the
empirical content of cognition is intuited in certain temporal and spatial
relations, which are claimed to exist a priori in the mind (A 20/B 34). In
the Critique the notion of sensibility [Sinnlichkeit] includes both these
aspects, both sensation, which is also called the matter of an intuition,
and its a priori form or forms, namely time and space. In the
Transcendental aesthetic both aspects are paid due attention.
Does this theory also include the notion of an active mind? This
seems to be clearly refuted by Kant’s definition of sensibility at A 19/B
33. Here, the defining character of sensibility seems to be receptivity
alone. This seems to exclude the idea that having intuitions presupposes
activity. This interpretation also seems to be supported by the fact that at
this point Kant seems to ascribe all activity and spontaneity to the
understanding. And as sensibility and understanding are described as
heterogeneous faculties, this seems to exclude the idea that our intuitions,
which originate in sensibility, presuppose activity. However, rather than
being the final truth, this is, I will argue, no more than an initial
approach to a more comprehensive theory of intuition. As we read more
of the text, the idea that having intuitions presupposes the activity of the
mind becomes gradually more explicit.
A first indication of this idea is found in Kant’s claim that the form of
an intuition is supplied by the mind. By stating the point in this way,
using the term ‘to supply’, a weak suggestion is made that the form of an
intuition does in fact presuppose some kind of activity. A more
explicit reference to activity is found at A 20/B 34 where Kant
introduces the concept of an ‘appearance’ [Erscheinung], defined as ‘the
8 This definition, or equivalents to it, is also found at other places in the Critique,
cf. e.g. A 44/B 61 and A 51/B 75.

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undetermined object of an empirical intuition’. 9 Like an intuition, an
appearance is said to have two aspects, called its form and matter. In an
appearance we may discern its matter, described as a manifold
originating from sensation, and its form. In order to explain why this
matter has this form, Kant uses the verb ‘to order’:
I call that in the appearance which corresponds to sensation its
matter, but that which allows the manifold of appearance to be
intuited as ordered in certain relations I call the form of appearance.
(A 20/B 34)
Here, by talking about ordering, some sort of activity is suggested. The
text is strangely elusive, that is right, referring to a process in which
something is ordered but without containing any explicit reference to an
ordering act or an ordering subject. But the suggestion is still there.
5.4 Synthesis
Leaving the Transcendental aesthetic behind and moving forward to the
Transcendental logic, reference to the activity of the mind is no longer
merely hinted at here. Our representations of time and space are now
explicitly said to originate in the spontaneous activity of the mind. More
precisely, they are said to be the product of synthesis. In what follows I
will explore how this idea is presented in the A- and B-versions of the
transcendental deduction.
First, it should be noted that in reading the first paragraphs of the
Transcendental logic there are few hints of what is to come. On the
contrary, the text seems again to explicitly exclude the idea that time and
space are produced by the activity of the mind. The Transcendental logic
begins by repeating the now well known dichotomy between sensibility
and understanding, and sensibility is associated only with receptivity. The
spontaneous production of representations, on the other hand, is ascribed
to the understanding (A 51/B 75). True, Kant emphasizes that sensibility
and understanding have to work together in order to produce experience
(Erkenntnis) but he argues that they still have to be distinguished as
essentially different (A 51/B75, cf. also A 68/B 93).
So far, we have been presented with a simple, unambiguous model of
cognition. On the one hand we find sensibility, which, even if it is
associated with a priori elements, seems to presuppose no activity. On
9 In order to determine an object as an object one has to use the categories. These
are however not introduced in the Transcendental aesthetic.

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 163
the other we find the understanding, to which all activity and spontaneity
of the mind seems to be ascribed. This model still seems to be implied
when we reach what in the B-edition of the Critique is called § 10,
entitled ‘On the pure concepts of the understanding or categories’. Time
and space, we are now told, contains a manifold. However, the
spontaneity of our thinking demands that this manifold is gone through,
taken up, and connected. Only in this way is experience [Erkenntnis]
produced. This, Kant states, is synthesis.
Now space and time contain a manifold of pure a priori intuition, but
belong nevertheless among the conditions of the receptivity of our
mind, under which alone it can receive representations of objects,
and thus they must always also affect the concepts of these objects.
Only the spontaneity of our thought requires that this manifold first
be gone through, taken up, and combined in a certain way in order
for a cognition [Erkenntnis] to be made out of it. I call this action
synthesis. (A 77/B 102)
I have said that the now well-established dichotomy between sensibility
and understanding seems still to be implied at this point, a dichotomy
defining sensibility as passive and the understanding as active. It is
somewhat confusing, therefore, that a few sentences later Kant claims
that synthesis in general is the product of the imagination. The
imagination, he tells us, is a blind, but indispensable function of the soul
of which we are rarely conscious, but without which we would have no
experience [Erkenntnis].
Synthesis in general is, as we shall subsequently see, the mere effect of
the imagination, of a blind though indispensable function of the soul,
without which we would have no cognition at all, but of which we are
seldom even conscious. (A 78/B 103)
This sudden introduction of the imagination is confusing for a number of
reasons. First, up to this point Kant seems to have been taken it for
granted that there are only two basic faculties of the mind, sensibility and
understanding. No mention has been made of any others. Further, while
up to this point Kant has ascribed spontaneity only to the understanding,
now he seems to be arguing that spontaneity originates not there but in
the imagination. So it seems we have now been taken into a totally new
theoretical context in which the function of the understanding seems to
have been dramatically limited. While synthesis in general is ascribed to
imagination, the task of the understanding, Kant tells us now, is the more
limited function of bringing this synthesis under concepts (A 78/B 103).

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Kant’s introduction of the imagination suggests that the original
model according to which the mind is organized into sensibility and
understanding does not tell the whole story. This is further confirmed at
A 94. We have now reached the part of the transcendental deduction
that was rewritten in the B-edition. In what follows I will first examine
the A-version of this part of the deduction, and then the B-version.
At A 94 Kant tells us that there are three original faculties [Quellen,
Fähigkeiten oder Vermögen] of the mind forming the conditions of the
possibility of experience. These are sense, imagination and apperception
(A 94). The understanding, surprisingly, is not mentioned among the
three original faculties of the mind. A bit later in the A-deduction the
understanding is, somewhat vaguely, said to be produced by the three
original ones. Then, at A 119, he argues that the understanding is
nothing but the unity of apperception in relation to the synthesis of
imagination (A 119).
I include these notes on Kant’s cognitive theory in order to
demonstrate how the meaning of his terminology undergoes constant
development and modification throughout the first part of the Critique.
No satisfactory interpretation of his theory of cognition can ignore these
modifications. 10 It is also worth noting, that, while he initially proceeds as
if it is possible to draw a sharp dividing line between sensibility and
understanding, a line also dividing the passive side of the mind from the
active side, the new threefold model seems to undermine this division.
5.5 The syntheses of imagination
At A 94, where Kant introduces his model of the three original faculties
of the mind, synthesis is associated with the imagination. At A 97 he
10
The fact that Kant often uses the same term in different senses is commented
on by a number of authors. Thus, for instance, Falkenstein (1995), 31 writes:
‘Kant was forced, by the internal dynamics of his project and the arguments
needed to establish his conclusions, to twist the traditional meanings of his terms.
Often, however, he is not aware that he has done so and he reverts to traditional
definitions, which continue to exist uneasily in his work alongside the revised
ones.’ Bennett (1966), 135 attacks Kant’s elusive use of terms as a weakness:
‘Worse, instead of choosing one label and keeping to it, Kant shifts restlessly from
one set of technical terms to another, making no attempt to relate them.’
Whether this is a weakness or not, I will not discuss here, however, Kant’s
inconstancy suggests that it is well worth paying attention to this terminology,
and also to search for the logic underlying the various ways in which terms are
used, if such a logic exist. As will soon become clear, I think it does.

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 165
elaborates further on his theory of the syntheses of the imagination. Here
the notion of a threefold synthesis is introduced:
If therefore I ascribe a synopsis to sense, because it contains a
manifold in its intuition, a synthesis must always correspond to this,
and receptivity can make cognitions possible only if combined with
spontaneity. This is now the ground of a threefold synthesis, which is
necessarily found in all cognition: that, namely, of the apprehension
of the representations, as modifications of the mind in intuition; of the
reproduction of them in the imagination; and of their recognition in
the concept. Now these direct us toward three subjective sources of
cognition, which make possible even the understanding and, through
the latter, all experience as an empirical product of understanding. (A
97) 11
This passage is loaded with information. The threefold synthesis, we are
told, is a necessary condition of all cognition. What does this mean? I will
try to answer this question, with the emphasis still on the A-edition of the
text.
5.6 Apprehension
Apprehension is the first of the three syntheses mentioned at A 97. At A
99 it is defined as a process creating a unity of the manifold of intuition.
In order to do this, we have to go through and put together this
manifold, Kant explains, and this is apprehension.
Now in order for unity of intuition to come from this manifold (as,
say, in the representation of space) it is necessary first to run through
and then to take together this manifoldness, which action I call the
synthesis of apprehension. (A 99)
Kant’s way of describing apprehension is interesting, not only in that it
exemplifies how important the activity of the mind is in cognition. It also
expands the theory of the a priori forms of intuition that was presented in
the Transcendental aesthetic. There the a priori forms of intuition were
described as a priori and ascribed to the mind with only vague references
to activity. Now time and space are clearly associated with activity and at
11
In this passage Kant also uses the term ‘synopsis’. This is one of the more
obscure notions of the Critique. It is mentioned explicitly only twice in the whole
Critique and only in the first edition, and I will not discuss it here. For a brief
discussion of the term, cf. e.g. Brook (1994), 125.

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A 99 we learn, for instance, that the a priori representations of time and
space presuppose the synthesis of apprehension:
Now this synthesis of apprehension must also be exercised a priori,
i.e., in regard to representations that are not empirical. For without it
we could have a priori neither the representations of space nor of
time, since these can be generated [erzeugt] only through the
synthesis of the manifold that sensibility in its original receptivity
provides. (A 99, my emphasis)
Without the activity of the mind, that is, without the synthesis of
apprehension, no a priori representation of time and space would exist,
Kant claims.
5.7 Reproduction
That the a priori representations of time and space presuppose activity is
further emphasized by the section beginning at A 100. This paragraph
concerns what Kant calls the reproductive synthesis of imagination. One
of the examples he uses to explain this kind of synthesis is the drawing of
a line in thought. Here is the relevant passage:
Now it is obvious that if I draw a line in thought, or think of the time
from one noon to the next, or even want to represent a certain
number to myself, I must necessarily first grasp one of these manifold
representations after another in my thoughts. But if I were always to
lose the preceding representations (the first parts of the line, the
preceding parts of time, or the successively represented units) from
my thoughts and not reproduce them when I proceed to the following
ones, then no whole representation and none of the previously
mentioned thoughts, not even the purest and most fundamental
representations [Grundvorstellungen] of space and time, could ever
arise [entspringen können]. (A 102)
Kant seems to presuppose here that no object is ever presented to us qua
object by the senses. What is presented to us is nothing but a manifold.
He does not tell us exactly how we are to conceive of this manifold.
However, let us, like him, use a line as our example, and let us assume
that the manifold of the line consists of the infinite number of points by
which the line is formed. 12 His point then seems to be something like this.
12
This does not mean that I want to turn Kant into a kind of sense impression
atomist. Considered transcendentally, the line is not the sum of an infinite

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 167
To recognize that these points form a line, we have first to go through
them and put them together. This is done through the synthesis of
apprehension. This is one of the functions of the imagination, as we
learned in the previous section. However, we now learn that this going
through and putting together presupposes another function of the
imagination. When we go through the points constituting the line, we
must constantly reproduce before the mind the points we went through a
moment ago, while proceeding to the remaining points. This
reproduction is what Kant refers to as ‘the reproductive synthesis of
imagination’.
This reproductive synthesis cannot be isolated from the synthesis of
apprehension, he emphasizes. More interesting for the present discussion,
however, after having introduced the synthesis of reproduction, Kant
again returns to discuss time and space. Without the reproductive
synthesis no whole representation would ever come into being, he argues,
not even the pure and original representation of time and space (A 102).
Kant uses the German term ‘entspringen’ to account for what is here
taking place, which may be translated as ‘originate’. The claim, thus, is
that both time and space, considered as fundamental representations, has
synthesis as their source. The fact that everything appears in time and
space, the fact that all experiences have a temporal and spatial form, is
due to our own activity.
5.8 The B-deduction
Does the idea that time and space are products of synthesis also occur in
the B-version of the transcendental deduction? When we start to read the
B-version of the deduction at § 15 we seem once more to be confronted
with a clear refutation of this thought. Sensibility is here again described
as a receptive faculty. Time and space, further, are said to lie a priori in
our representative faculty, but only, Kant adds, as the mode [Art] in
which the subject is affected (B 129). Connection, on the other hand, can
never reach us through the senses and so has nothing to do with the pure
plurality of infinitely small points. It is the embodied act by which the line is
apprehended, i.e. the consciousness of this act. I will say more about this below.
Arthur Melnick (1989), 5 expresses this point beautifully when he writes: ‘When I
sweep out a line, say, there is a flow to my construction ... […] In this sense, the
sweeping out of a line is a non-discrete performance, not composed of a series of
pointings or a series of anything ... […] In this regard the whole (the extensive
sweep) is prior to the parts (the further elaboration of parting and segmenting)
and is not composed out of them.’

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form of an empirical intuition, that is, time and space. All connection
originates in the spontaneity of the representative faculty, he maintains,
that is, the understanding. Thus, all connection, or synthesis, is an act of
the understanding.
The understanding seems here to have regained some of its central
significance, compared with, for instance, the passage at A 78/B 103
discussed above. While synthesis in general was there ascribed to the
imagination, it is here ascribed to the understanding. What does this
mean? Is Kant unable to decide which faculty is the origin of synthesis?
Or worse, is he unaware of the fact that he seems to contradict himself?
Neither conclusion is required. One way of escaping the charge of
contradiction is by assuming that the understanding and the imagination
are connected so that both are involved in synthesis, and that this is the
point Kant is making by shifting between the two terms. That would also
be my view. However, as we shall see when we look at § 16 of the Bdeduction,
there is more to be said on this question as well.
5.9 Transcendental apperception
In § 16 Kant defines the notion of ‘pure’ or ‘original’ apperception.
Original apperception, he explains, is a sort of self-consciousness,
however, it must not be confused with our empirical apperception or selfconsciousness.
While empirical apperception is a constant flux of
changing representations or our awareness of these representations,
transcendental apperception is always the same.
I call it the pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from the
empirical one, or also the original apperception, since it is that selfconsciousness
which, because it produces the representation I think,
which must be able to accompany all others and which in all
consciousness is one and the same, cannot be accompanied by any
further representation. (B 132)
As readers of Kant are well aware, the notion of transcendental
apperception lies at the very heart of the B-deduction of the categories. I
will not go into the structure of this deduction here, but Kant argues that
it must be possible for transcendental apperception to accompany all
other representations. 13 In being connected to all other representations, at
13 Allison (1983), 137 comments: ‘… this principle affirms only the necessity of the
possibility of attaching the “I think”, not the necessity of actually doing so. In

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 169
least potentially, and at the same time being one and the same,
transcendental apperception is the fundamental principle of unity that
keeps our consciousness together. 14 As such, it is also the principle on
which all synthesis depends, Kant argues. And, finally, it is the principle
under which all use of the understanding takes place. Actually, Kant
concludes, this synthetic unity of apperception is the understanding.
And thus the synthetic unity of apperception is the highest point to
which one must affix all use of the understanding, even the whole of
logic and, after it, transcendental philosophy; indeed this faculty is the
understanding itself. (B 134, note)
How is this new modification of the meaning of ‘understanding’ to be
understood? Let us return for a moment to the A-version of the
transcendental deduction. At A 94 we saw that Kant stated there are
only three original faculties of the mind, sense, imagination and
apperception. Within this model, the understanding lacks the status of
being an independent basic faculty but is said to be produced by the
three original ones. Is this any help here? I think it is. If the
understanding is a derived faculty, originating in the interplay of (all or
some of) the three more basic faculties, then it should come as no surprise
that the term ‘understanding’ is sometimes associated with imagination,
and sometimes, as in B 134, with transcendental apperception. 15
Kant’s use of the term ‘understanding’ in the B-deduction is an
indication, I believe, that he operates with a threefold model of the mind
not only in the A-deduction, but here as well. That this is actually so is
confirmed a little later in the B-deduction where he introduces the notion
of a ‘figurative synthesis’, which is also called the transcendental synthesis
of the imagination (B 151). Here Kant also defines imagination for the
first time in the B-deduction: imagination is the capacity to represent an
object also when it is not present.
It is sometimes maintained that the B-deduction differs from the Adeduction
in that the imagination is ascribed a more limited function
here, but I do not agree. On the contrary, I think that up to this point in
the B-deduction the presence of the imagination has been presupposed,
other words, it does not affirm that I must actually perform a reflective act in
order to represent (think) anything.’
14
For a further and highly interesting discussion of transcendental apperception,
cf. Brook (1994), 55ff.
15
It might be useful here to remind oneself of the ambiguous use of the term
‘understanding’ in the Anthropology too, cf. e.g. Ak VII: 196-7.

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even if it has not been explicitly mentioned. It has been presupposed as
part of what Kant has referred to as the understanding. Even more
significant, however, is that after the imagination has been explicitly
introduced at B 151, it is also given a most important function relative to
sensibility. That is, the imagination stands in a relation not only to
transcendental apperception but also to sensibility. This is confirmed by
Kant’s description of the figurative synthesis [synthesis speciosa]:
figurative synthesis is the synthesis of the imagination (B 152). In
figurative synthesis, moreover, the form of sensibility is determined a
priori. That is, time and space, considered as the forms of sensibility, are
determined through the figurative synthesis of the imagination.
Kant does not further define the notion of a figurative synthesis. It is
simply defined as the synthesis of the imagination, in contrast to the
synthesis of the understanding, which is also called the intellectual
synthesis [synthesis intellectualis]. In the A-deduction a similar opposition
was set up between the syntheses of apprehension and reproduction on
the one hand and what was called ‘recognition in the concept’ on the
other (A 97). My guess is that what in the B-edition is called figurative
synthesis corresponds more or less with the combination of what in the
A-deduction were called the syntheses of apprehension and reproduction.
What, then, does this say about the a priori form of space and
whether it requires activity, i.e. synthesis? First let us notice that at this
point (B 152) Kant does not say that time and space, considered as the
forms of sensibility, are produced by a synthesis. All he says is that time
and space are determined by a synthesis. By stating the point in this way,
he seems to be implying that time and space, considered as the form of
sensibility, exist prior to our determination of them. Their existence does
not presuppose synthesis, only their determination does. If this is so, the
claim in the B-deduction is weaker than the one in the A-deduction.
There Kant argued that time and space, considered as basic
representations [Grundvorstellungen] originate [entspringen] through
the synthesis of the imagination. Now he seems to be arguing that only
the determination of these representations requires synthesis, not their
production. 16
However, the last word on time and space in the Bdeduction
has not yet been said. Let us now proceed to § 26.
16
This point seems also to be confirmed in other parts of the B-deduction, such as
at B 137-138 (space) and at B 154 (time).

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 171
5.10 § 26 of the B-deduction
The aim of § 26 of the B-deduction is to explain how it is possible for the
categories to be the concepts by which the objects of our senses become
objects for us. In order to explain this, Kant first introduces the notion of
a synthesis of apprehension, well known from the A-edition, but not
previously mentioned in the B-deduction. 17
Synthesis of apprehension, he
explains, is the synthesis by which the manifold of an empirical intuition
is put together so that a perception [Wahrnehmung] is produced.
First of all I remark that by the synthesis of apprehension I
understand the composition of the manifold in an empirical intuition
through which perception, i.e., empirical consciousness of it (as
appearance), becomes possible. (B 160)
In order for us to have a perception an imaginative synthesis is required.
This reminds us of the argument of the A-deduction in which perception
was likewise said to require imagination (A 120). Then in a footnote at B
161 Kant returns to discuss space. Space considered as an object, that is,
space as we deal with it in geometry, contains more than just the pure
form of intuition. It also contains the synthesis of the manifold given
according to this form in an intuitive representation [anschauliche
Vorstellung]. He then proceeds by drawing a distinction between space,
considered as the form of intuition, and ‘formal space’. While space,
considered as the form of intuition, contains nothing but a manifold,
formal space also contains unity (B 161, note). As I understand it, what is
here called formal space is space determined by the categories, i.e., by
the synthesis of the understanding. If this is right, then the distinction
between the form of space and formal space is not new. Then the passage
just quoted is just another example of what seems to be Kant’s basic
point in the B-deduction, that only the determination of time and space
requires synthesis, not their production.
Then, however a conceptual shift is announced. The unity of formal
space, Kant tells us, was ascribed to sensibility in the Transcendental
aesthetic, and rightly so. This unity, namely, is prior to all concepts.
However, he continues, it presupposes a synthesis that does not belong to
the senses. And only through this synthesis is the concept of time and
space possible.
17
If my interpretation above was right, however, it was indirectly referred to by
the term’ figurative synthesis’

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In the Aesthetic I ascribed this unity merely to sensibility, only in
order to note that it precedes all concepts, though to be sure it
presupposes a synthesis, which does not belong to the senses but
through which all concepts of space and time first become possible. (B
161-162, note)
The passage has to be read slowly in order to not miss what is said. Time
and space has a unity that is prior to all concepts. As such, the idea of this
unity belongs within the context of the Transcendental aesthetic where
sensibility is described in abstraction from the understanding. Still this
unity presupposes a synthesis that does not belong to the senses. What is
to be inferred from this? What may be inferred, I think, is that the theory
of sensibility in the Transcendental aesthetic does presuppose activity, i.e.
synthesis, after all. How? This question is answered in two steps in the
footnote at B 161-162.
First Kant states that the concepts of time and space are made
possible through synthesis, then he goes a step further. Through the
synthesis by which the understanding determines sensibility, space and
time, considered as intuitions, are originally given.
For since through it (as the understanding determines the sensibility)
space or time are first given as intuitions, the unity of this a priori
intuition belongs to space and time, and not to the concept of the
understanding (B 162, note, my emphasis)
The passage comes late in the B-deduction in a footnote and the point is
made only once. It is therefore possible to argue that it should not be
given much weight. It might be a mistake or not express an idea that
Kant really wanted to put forward.
I think the opposite. I think the position stated in the passage at B 162
represents Kant’s final position. Kant does not specify, that is right,
which of the previously mentioned syntheses that he has in mind at this
point, and given the rather complex taxonomy of syntheses that he has
offered, I will for the moment abstain from making a guess. The
significant point, however, is that he now, as he did in the A-deduction,
explicitly states that space (and) time are first given as intuitions through
our own synthesizing activity. In this sense, our basic representation of
space presupposes the activity of the mind, or of the cognitive self. And
this was what I set out to prove here.

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 173
5.11 Problems of comparison
At the beginning of this chapter I said that I was going to compare
Kant’s critical theory of space with his embodied theory of space. My
account of the latter theory is based mainly on four sources; the
Anthropology, Directions in space, Orientation and On pedagogy. It
may be objected that in these texts, space is discussed under a perspective
and with a terminology very different from the Critique, making
comparison difficult. While in the Critique space is discussed qua form of
intuition, and in the context of a comprehensive and complex cognitive
psychology, in the other texts it is not so. This is especially true of On
pedagogy, Directions in space and Orientation. Here there are few, if
any, references to cognitive psychology. Despite these differences,
however, I think a comparison is still possible. In both theories space is a
topic, and in neither case is it discussed as a separately existing thing or
phenomenon, i.e. in abstraction from the human observer. What is
discussed is this human observer and his capacity to experience objects in
space. Borrowing a critical expression, we may say that the discussion
deals not with space as such [an sich], but space for us. Kant uses a
number of terms to signal this perspective. In the Anthropology and
Directions in space space is discussed as a concept [Begriff]. In Directions
in space it is also called a basic representation [Grundvorstellung].
In the Critique Kant presents a taxonomy according to which
concepts and intuitions are all subspecies of representations in general.
From this we may say that in both theories he discusses the
representation of space, that is, he discusses how it is possible for a
human being to represent objects in space. Or, as the point is expressed
in the Critique, the aim is to explain how it is possible for us to represent
objects as being outside ourselves, i.e. in space, each object with a certain
size, shape, and relation relative to other objects:
By means of outer sense (a property of our mind) we represent to
ourselves objects as outside us, and all as in space. In space their
form, magnitude, and relation to one another is determined, or
determinable. (A 22/B 37, my emphasis)
Compare this to the passage from On pedagogy where Kant tells us that
through playing ballgames a child learns to improve its judgment of
distance, size and spatial proportion. Or notice, for instance, how in the
Anthropology he argues that without the capacity to grasp and feel we
would never arrive at the concept of the shape of an object. In all these
cases the focus is on a human subject endowed with skills making it
possible for it to experience the world in which it lives as a spatially

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extended world with objects likewise extended, i.e. with shape and size,
and standing in spatial relations to each other.
A further comparison lies in the fact that in the exercise of these skills,
the subject is typically 18 both active and passive. That this idea is part of
Kant’s critical theory of space was established above. Expressed in the
critical terminology, his point is that while the content or matter [Stoff]
of an empirical intuition, what he also refers to as ‘sensation’
[Empfindung], originates in the passive affection of the subject, i.e. its
outer sense, its form emerges through certain acts performed by this
subject.
Now, how does Kant describe the active-passive character of spatial
experience within his embodied theory of space? If we look at the
Anthropology, we see how Kant explicitly describes the outer senses as
part of the body, and, moreover, that our sensations originate in the
physical affection of these senses. However, in order to experience a
spatially extended object, being passively affected is not enough. The
subject also has to act, for instance by reaching out for the object and
grasping it. This act gives us a concept of its shape. In order to get a
more comprehensive grasp of the spatially extended world around us,
other activities are also required: we have to walk or run or move around
in other ways.
Within the perspective of Kant’s embodied theory of space, the
active-passive character of spatial experience is best seen, I think, if we
focus on the act of grasping an object. Such an example also makes
explicit the characteristic reciprocity between the active and passive
aspects of the act. Imagine a person exploring an object with her hands.
In moving her hands along the surface of the object, she is active. At the
same time, in the very same act, however, her hands are also passively
affected by the object, by its texture, its weight, its shape etc. Thus, at one
and the same time, she is both active and passive. This activity and
passivity, moreover, are different aspects of the same event. They may be
distinguished conceptually, but they cannot be separated in the real
world.
5.12 Two versions of the same theory?
We have seen that both in his critical and embodied theory of space
Kant puts forward the idea that in spatial experience, the subject is
18
I will later discuss whether within Kant’s theory of space there are any
exceptions to this general idea.

SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE 175
typically both passive and active. This similarity in structure, I argue,
may be used as an argument in support of the idea that the two theories
are, roughly speaking, versions of the same theory, or more precisely,
that the critical theory of space may be read in part as giving an abstract
account of his embodied theory of space.
The fact that Kant describes the subject as being typically both
passive and active in both theories, is of course, not conclusive evidence
for this. However, if we look at the details of each theory, the
resemblances are remarkable. Notice, for instance how our basic
representation of space within both theories is claimed to be produced by
the activity of the subject. Notice also how the active and passive aspects
of this process are typically described as occurring together. However.
while this passivity and activity are explicitly said in the one theory to
involve the body, no explicit references to the body are found in the
other, at least not in the same way. For instance, while in the first theory
Kant describes a human agent that is obviously a unity of mind and
body, the subject of his critical theory is typically referred to by the term
‘mind’ [Gemüt] only. Moreover, when Kant is describing the activity of
this subject he employs a psychological terminology, suggesting that, far
from referring to outer, embodied acts like grasping, walking, running
etc, the theory refers to acts carried out deep down in the mind of the
subject, at an inner or mental level. Whatever these acts are, they are not
identical with the overt acts we perform with our bodies. Similarly at first
glance it seems unlikely that the syntheses of apprehension and
reproduction have anything to do with embodied activity given the way
he describes them.
This apparent dilemma persists only as long as we insist that the mind
of the Critique works independently of the body, but we have seen that
throughout his career Kant vigorously advanced another view according
to which the mind is thoroughly embodied. In Dreams of a spirit-seer
and the Inaugural dissertation the mind is said to be virtually present
wherever the body is. As I have argued, this opens up for the idea that
even the simplest movement of the body may also be seen as the
movement of the mind, and vice versa. The mind is not positioned
somewhere else, directing the movement from afar. The mind is the
origin of the movement, but it is also in the movement. Within this
perspective it is no longer obvious that the acts that according to the
Critique are carried out by the understanding, the imagination or other
faculties of the mind have necessarily to be interpreted exclusively as
inner mental acts. On the contrary, within this context it is even possible

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to see the term ‘synthesis’ as referring to embodied activity in one way or
another. 19 In the next chapter I shall argue that this is not just a possible
interpretation. There are theoretical considerations belonging to the very
center of the critical discourse that require the notion of synthesis is
interpreted in this way, at least to some extent. This point will be put
forward along with an examination of Kant’s theory of schematism.
5.13 Summary
In this chapter I have compared what I take to be two theories of space
discernible in Kant’s writings, his theory of the embodied constitution of
spatial experience and his critical theory of space. I have argued that at a
basic level and in a basic sense they are versions of the same theory in the
way that the latter may be read as giving, in part, an abstract account of
the former.
Before concluding this chapter, let me remind the reader once again
that when I say that Kant’s critical theory of space may be read, in part,
as an abstract version of his embodied theory of space, I do not claim
that the former is nothing but an abstract replica of the latter, that is, a
replica from which the body has been abstracted away. It is partly this
(and that is the point I have stressed in this chapter), but it is also more.
The theory of space found in the Critique is both more complex and
more sophisticated than the reflections Kant presents on this topic
elsewhere. Nowhere is the cognitive process analyzed in more detail than
here. And nowhere is the transcendental perspective more fully
developed. This complexity and sophistication does not imply, however,
that the cognitive processes referred to by the theory should no longer be
interpreted as embodied, or so I argue. What the critical theory does, I
think, is to give us an idea of the conditions required of an embodied self
whose mind is to have sensations in time and space. Very briefly,
according to the Critique, such a mind has to be endowed with senses,
imagination and apperception and the capacity to synthesize its
representations in the way specified above. 20 However, it also has to have
a body, and in most of its cognitive operations, the movements of this
body are involved.
19
That the term synthesis in the Critique may sometimes refer to embodied acts
is an idea also espoused by Kaulbach (1968), 285.
20
In addition to this, the Critique is also concerned with the validity of our
knowledge of time and space.

6. SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
One could not learn to judge the extension and
the size of bodies well without also getting to
know their shapes and even learning to imitate
them; for, at bottom, this imitation depends
absolutely only on the laws of perspective, and
one can estimate extension by its appearances
only if one has some feeling for these laws.
Children, who are great imitators, all try to draw.
I would want my child to cultivate this art, not
precisely for the art itself but for making his eye
exact and his hand flexible.
From Rousseau’s Emile 1
In this passage from Émile, Rousseau advises that children practice the
art of drawing in order to learn how to recognize the size and shape of
objects. He justifies his advice by arguing that drawing or copying the
shape of objects enhances our grasp of the laws of perspective. The art of
drawing is not merely a playful game, it is also an activity with an
important cognitive function. In the Critique, too, the notion of drawing
appears in the context of cognitive theory. For instance, when I perceive
a house, Kant tells us at B 162, it is as if I draw its shape. Especially in his
theory of schematism, references to constructive acts like drawing
abound. How are we to understand these references? In this chapter I
will argue that these constructive acts may be understood as acts
involving the body, acts in which we somehow recreate the shape of
external objects by moving parts of our bodies, as when we draw an
image of them. I do not claim that this idea, in exactly this form, is found
in Émile. At a more general level, however, I hold it to represent yet
another example of a perspective shared by Rousseau and Kant, a
perspective emphasizing that embodied acts and practices have a
significant cognitive function.
1
Rousseau (1979), 143.

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My main emphasis in this chapter is Kant’s theory of schematism as it
is found in the Critique. This theory is officially presented in what I shall
call the schematism chapter, a chapter covering fewer than ten pages and
constituting the first part of the Analytic of principles, which comes
shortly after the transcendental deduction. However, I think that
passages representing this theory may also be found in other parts of the
Critique, as I shall show later. My main thesis, however, is that in Kant’s
theory of schematism the cognitive agent must be perceived as an
embodied agent, and the cognitive acts ascribed to this agent as
embodied acts or practices. Moreover, I will argue that only if these acts
or practices are perceived in this way does the theory solve the problem it
purports to.
The term ‘schema’ has a history dating back to ancient Greece where
it was used to refer to the outer appearance of something or someone. In
a narrower sense it signified geometrical shape. 2
Kant’s use of the term
precedes the Critique by several years. In New elucidation, for instance,
he talks about ‘the schema of the divine understanding’. This pre-critical
use of the term will not be discussed further here. Neither will I discuss
how the term is used in the second and third Critiques. My aim is
primarily to examine the kind of schematism theory that Kant promotes
in the first Critique.
As I see it, the task of this theory is to explain how concepts apply to
objects intuited in time and space. 3 Or to state the question in more
Kantian terms: How is it possible to subsume appearances, which are
undetermined intuited objects in space and time, under concepts? How,
given the radical difference thought to prevail between concepts and
intuitions, may the one be applied to the other? Also, even if Kant
himself is not always explicit on this point, I will claim that it is possible
to distinguish two parts in his answer to this question, one having to do
with temporal schematism (time) and one with spatial schematism
(space). Leaving the question of temporal schematism to a later chapter, I
will focus here on spatial schematism, i.e. the question of how concepts
apply to spatially extended intuited objects. My claim is that within his
2
For a further overview of the history of the term and its use, cf. Stegmaier
(1992), 1252-1259 and also Obergefell (1985), 58.
3
Officially the task of this theory is to explain how the transcendental concepts,
i.e., the categories, applies to the spatio-temporal world of objects, cf. e.g. A 137-
138/B 176-177, however, if we look at the actual discussion taking place in the
schematism chapter and in other related passages, we find that the scope of the
discussion is wider, and may be defined as I just did in the main text.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 179
theory of schematism Kant answers this question by establishing a theory
of embodied practice. In order to subsume a spatially extended object
under its concept, we have, by means of our body or part of our body, to
copy or recreate its shape in an act similar to drawing. More specifically,
such an embodied practice is what he calls a schema. A possible
objection to this idea is that even if he admits that the notion of a schema
refers to a kind of activity [Verfahren], this activity, according to Kant,
takes place in the imagination. This seems to exclude the possibility that
the notion of a schema can be interpreted as referring to embodied
practices. However, this depends on how the term ‘imagination’ is
understood. I will argue that in the context of Kantian philosophy, the
term refers to the human capacity for image production in general. This
means that the imagination is active also when a person uses her body to
create images or image-like structures.
Several authors have suggested that Kant’s theory of schematism is a
key to understanding his theory of space as it is found, for instance, in the
Transcendental aesthetic. 4 In a previous chapter I argued that Kant’s
critical theory of space repeats on an abstract level the basic structure of
the theory found in texts like Directions in space, Orientation,
Anthropology and On pedagogy. That is, our experience of spatially
extended objects presupposes that we perform certain embodied acts, as
when we grasp and feel an object with our hands. Kant’s theory of spatial
schematism in part addresses the same topic, i.e. spatial experience, and
so in a certain sense the present chapter continues the argument of the
previous one. Thus, I will argue that if we establish that Kant’s theory of
spatial schematism needs to be interpreted as a theory of an embodied
self performing certain embodied practices, then his critical theory of
space in general should be interpreted along the same lines.
Kant himself said that the chapter on schematism was one of the
most important chapters in the Critique. 5 Not everyone agrees with him
on this point and T. E. Wilkerson goes as far as to suggest that it serves
no useful purpose at all and can be ignored without loss. 6 At the other
end of the scale we find Heidegger claiming that it is the real heart of the
Critique. 7
A positive evaluation of Kant’s theory of schematism has also
4
Cf. e.g. Schaper (1992), 312 and Rossvær (1974), 100.
5
Cf. Prolegomena, § 34.
6
Wilkerson (1976), 94.
7
Heidegger (1976), 358.

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SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
been advanced by others. 8 Somewhere in the middle we find Bennett
arguing that, even if he does not find Kant’s schematism theory totally
convincing, it is more promising than most theories that link concepts
with images. Instead of associating each concept with a single image or
with a set of exactly similar images, Kant’s theory associates each concept
with a rule for image-production. This, Bennett argues, saves him from
difficulties that are fatal to other theories. 9
The perspective developed in this chapter is indebted to a number of
earlier studies. I would like to draw particular attention to Rossvær’s
highly inspiring work Kant og Wittgenstein 10 and its discussion of Kant’s
constructivism in mathematics. On a general level my perspective is also
structurally similar to the one found in a number of works by Kaulbach. 11
Even if he admits that the Critique is not unambiguous, he maintains
that the cognitive self of this work is also an embodied self. As such it is
part of the same spatio-temporal world as the objects of its experience. Its
immediate presence in this world is located in the specific here-and-now
of its body. And Kant’s transcendental philosophy, Kaulbach contends,
may be read as a theory of how this embodied self confronts the world.
In Kaulbach’s interpretation self-conscious movement is a basic
principle. By moving about in the world and being aware of his own
movement, man explores its spatio-temporal structure. Such movement,
Kaulbach argues, may also be seen as a transcendental condition of
experience. 12 The perspective here established is also applied to Kant’s
theory of spatial schematism, which, according to Kaulbach, is a theory
of an embodied self performing constructive operations by means of its
body. 13
8
Cf. Pippin (1982), 222, Paton (1936), 17ff., Guyer (1987), 157, Shaper (1992)
and Obergefell (1985), to mention but a few names. Also Rossvær (1974) and
Svendsen (1998), 11 have argued that the schematism chapter is central to a
proper understanding of the Critique.
9
Bennett (1966), 141.
10
Rossvær (1974).
11
Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and 1968).
12
Cf. Kaulbach (1960), 99.
13
He writes: ‘Ohne daß sich der Konstruierende in den Raum und in die Zeit
hinein ausdehnt, indem er sich eine Raumgestalt entlang bewegt, gibt es keine
Konstruktion einer Figur. Das konstruierende Bewusstsein muss sich bewegen
und damit den begangenen Weg, d. i. die Konturen der konstruierten Figur
markieren.’ (Kaulbach (1965), 122). For Kaulbach’s discussion of Kant’s theory
of schematism, cf. also Kaulbach (1960), 117 and 127 and Kaulbach (1968), 285.
Cf. also Saugstad (1982), 24ff.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 181
Although I think that Kaulbach’s interpretation is basically right, I
feel it could have been supported by more explicit references to the
actual text of the Critique. Kaulbach articulates his interpretation of the
Critique in impressive and poetic language, but it is not always evident
how it applies to what Kant actually says. I also feel that his discussion
often becomes too general, leaving unresolved a number of more specific
problems: How does the schema (understood as self-conscious, embodied
movement) mediate between concept and intuited object, as Kaulbach
claims it does? What is the exact relation between concept, movement
and object? In my own discussion I shall try to give a more detailed
answer to these questions than the one supplied by Kaulbach, and in
doing so also stay close to Kant’s text.
6.1 The production of images
Now, back to the thesis to be defended in this chapter. My claim is that
within his theory of schematism, Kant maintains that in order to
subsume a spatially extended object under its concept, we have, by
means of our body or part of our body, to copy or recreate its shape in an
act similar to drawing. More specifically, such an embodied practice is
what he calls a schema.
My first argument in favor of this thesis is that Kant, in explaining
what a schema is, introduces the term ‘procedure’ [Verfahren] (A 140/B
179). That this procedure must be understood as a practice, moreover, is
confirmed by the following example dealing with the schema of number.
Suppose I put five points one after another. Then these points would be
an image of the number five. The procedure by which this image is
produced is the schema corresponding to the concept of the number five.
The schema of a number in general, Kant then concludes, is the
procedure according to which an image is constructed so that this image
represents the number:
… if I place five points in a row, . . . . . , this is an image of the
number five. On the contrary, if I only think a number in general,
which could be five or a hundred, this thinking is more the
representation of a method for representing a multitude (e.g., a
thousand) in accordance with a certain concept than the image itself,
which in this case I could survey and compare with the concept only
with difficulty. Now this representation of a general procedure
[Verfahren] of the imagination for providing a concept with its image
[einem Begriff sein Bild zu verschaffen] is what I call the schema for
this concept. (A 140-141/B 179)

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The procedure, or schema, here described is obviously a practice in the
Kantian sense of the term. We have an agent performing a set of
embodied acts resulting in the production of an image. These acts are
directed by a concept, i.e., the concept of the number five. And they have
a purpose, which is the already mentioned production of the number.
The example is followed by two more examples, one concerning
triangles and one concerning dogs. The triangle example is only
incompletely given. The schema of a triangle, says Kant, is a rule for the
construction of a triangle.
The schema of the triangle can never exist anywhere except in
thought, and signifies a rule of the synthesis of the imagination with
regard to pure shapes in space. (A 141/B 180)
Following this model, however, we may again distinguish between three
levels. We have the concept of the triangle, its schema and, finally, the
image of a triangle. The schema of the concept would then be the
practice according to which this image is constructed.
The last example concerns the empirical representation of a dog.
The concept of a dog signifies a rule in accordance with which my
imagination can specify [verzeichnen] the shape of a four-footed
animal in general, without being restricted to any single particular
shape that experience offers me or any possible image that I can
exhibit in concreto. (A 141/B 180)
Interpreted according to the now established model, we should again
make a threefold distinction, between the concept of a dog, the schema of
this concept (that is, the practice according to which an image of a dog is
produced), and finally the image itself. In both of the two last examples,
Kant’s point seems to be that a schema is the practice according to which
an image corresponding to a concept is produced.
6.2 The construction of geometrical figures
According to my interpretation of the second example in the schematism
chapter, the schema of a triangle is the practice according to which an
image of a triangle is constructed. Stated thus simply the example seems
straightforward. We know that triangles, like other geometrical figures,
are constructed. Moreover, this is what geometers do all the time, when,
for instance, by means of a pair of compasses, a ruler and a pencil a
triangle is constructed on a piece of paper. Could we interpret Kant’s

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 183
theory of geometrical schematism, suggested by the triangle example, as
referring simply to these well known practices of geometers?
At first glance the answer appears negative. From the context in
which the example is stated, we seem forced to conclude that the
construction in question is different in kind from the one used by a
geometer constructing a triangle on a piece of paper. Kant says, namely,
that the construction in question is performed in the mind, i.e. by the
imagination (cf. e.g. A 141/B 180). Kant’s association of schematism and
imagination seems to demand an internalist interpretation of the
schematism theory: whatever constructions the theory refers to, they
cannot be conceived of as external constructions.
I will argue that the constructions referred to in the schematism
chapter must after all be conceived of as external, embodied practices. A
key point of my argument concerns the question of how to understand
the term ‘imagination’ as used in Kant’s theory of schematism. I will
argue that, contrary to how it may seem, the Kantian term ‘imagination’
does not refer exclusively to an inner mental realm. First, however, let us
take a brief look at some general positions developed relative to Kant’s
terminology of construction, such as when he associates a schema with
the act of drawing. 14
6.3 Mental constructions?
Hardly any reader of the Critique, not even the most hard-headed
proponent of an analytic interpretation, has failed to notice that in the
cognitive theory of this text Kant develops and applies a wide repertoire
of terms that in everyday use refer to acts of manipulation and
construction, and not only in the schematism chapter but also in other
parts of the Transcendental logic. Several interpretative strategies have
been developed in response.
One sees these terms as referring to mental acts or other kind of
cognitive processes taking place in the mind. In this group we find
Kitcher, Ros, Wolff and others, who read Kant’s terminology as
expressing a transcendental psychology which, far from being outdated,
still has important insights to offer. 15
Ros represents a version of this
position when, discussing the schematism chapter, he argues that it is
14
Other terms which in ordinary language likewise refer to overt acts of
construction will be discussed below.
15 Cf. Kitcher (1990), Ros (1990) and Wolff (1963).

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putting forward the idea that a concept is the capacity to perform a
certain operation that results in the production of a mental image. 16
According to Ros, a person possesses a concept when she is capable of
producing a representation or mental image according to a rule, i.e., a
concept. 17 According to Wolff, one of the theoretically most significant
innovations of the Critique compared with the Inaugural dissertation is
that in the Critique Kant no longer sees concepts as mental contents or
objects of consciousness, but as ‘ways of doing things’. 18 This way of
doing things, which Wolff sees as central to Kant’s new theory, is here,
however, interpreted in terms of ‘forms of mental activity’.
Another strategy involves interpreting Kant’s terminology of
manipulation and construction in a more metaphorical sense. It does not
refer to actual acts or processes, but to transcendental conditions in a
more abstract sense. Forschner and Obergefell may be said to represent
this strategy through their criticism of Kant’s language of action. 19
Forschner and Obergefell both read Kant’s language of action as a
metaphorical language incapable of conveying his real message.
A third strategy, which is also the one adopted below, is represented
by those contending that Kant’s terminology of manipulation and
construction may be understood as referring in some way or other to
embodied acts and practices. At a general level, this position is advanced
by, among others, Kaulbach, Kambartel, Rossvær and Saugstad. 20
Emphasizing that man exists in the same space as the objects of his
experience, Kaulbach contends that self-conscious embodied movement
is a transcendental condition of having experience of these objects.
Kant’s terminology of manipulation and construction, therefore, refers,
at least to some extent, to embodied acts. Discussing the first example of
the schematism chapter (the arithmetic example) Kambartel notices that
Kant exemplifies the schema of number by referring to practices
belonging to our ordinary life-world. 21 In the next section I will briefly
consider some aspects of Rossvær’s contributions to this field. Amongst
other things, it will help us get a deeper understanding of the Kantian
16
Ros (1990), 67.
17
Op. cit.
18
Wolff (1963), 70.
19
Cf. Forschner (1986), 83 and Obergefell (1985), 200.
20
Cf. e.g. Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and 1968), Kambartel (1976), Rossvær (1974)
and Saugstad (1982). Cf. also Rudisill (1996).
21
Kambartel (1976), 117. A somewhat modified and less radical position is found
in Kambartel (1986).

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 185
term ‘imagination’ and how it is used within Kant’s theory of
schematism. I think it is absolutely necessary to do this if we are to arrive
at a proper understanding of Kant’s schematism theory.
6.4 Rossvær’s anti-mentalist approach
A key point made by Rossvær is that some Kantian terms that at first
sight appear to refer exclusively to an inner domain in fact do not do so
after all. Rossvær gives special attention to the terms ‘intuition’ and
‘imagination’. Central to his discussion of the term ‘intuition’ are some
remarks on mathematics made by Kant in the Transcendental doctrine
of method (A 729-30/B757-8). Kant here discusses what he calls ‘the
construction of mathematical concepts in the intuition’. What kind of
construction is this, Rossvær asks? One possible answer is that Kant is
referring to constructions taking place in an inner mental space, or some
abstract or ideal mathematical space other than the space we inhabit as
embodied beings. 22
Rossvær argues, however, that this interpretation is
far from obvious. On the contrary, Kant presents a number of examples
suggesting that the constructions in question are ordinary, external
constructions taking place, for instance, by constructing geometrical
figures on a piece of paper. If this is the case, then ‘intuition’ cannot be
given a merely mental interpretation.
Rossvær also discusses Kant’s claim that the apodictic nature of a
geometrical proof is derived from the fact that such a proof is led by the
intuition. Again he asks whether ‘intuition’ is here to be understood in a
mental sense. At least one example, he argues, suggest that it should not.
In a passage at A 716-17/B744-45. Kant discusses the Euclidean proof
that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. For a
philosopher limited to conceptual analysis this is impossible to prove, he
argues. For the geometer, however, the case is different. He simply
constructs a triangle and then he proceeds by a series of constructive
steps to prove his point. Kant gives a detailed account of these steps, and
there is no doubt, Rossvær argues, that he is referring to overt
constructions performed by an embodied agent. If this is what Kant
means by a proof led by intuition [von der Anschauung geleitet], then
‘intuition’ cannot be understood in a mental sense. Rather it seems to
refer simply to the act of seeing what is immediately present before one’s
22
See Rossvær (1974), 92 for a further discussion of this view.

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eyes, or more generally, what is immediately given before one’s senses. 23
A similar point is made with regard to Kant’s notion of imagination.
When in his theory of schematism Kant ascribes to the imagination the
capacity to produce images, ‘image’ should not be given a mentalist
interpretation, Rossvær contends. 24 I shall say more about ‘imagination’
and ‘image’ as used by Kant, according to this interpretation, in due
course.
6.5 Kant’s theory of mathematical construction
The above remarks are not intended to give a complete account of
Rossvær’s interpretation of Kant. I do, however, share Rossvær’s belief
that Kant’s discussion of mathematical construction in the
Transcendental doctrine of method sheds interesting light on an earlier
part of the Critique. I find it particularly relevant for our understanding
of the schematism chapter. In fact, I take Kant’s theory of mathematical
construction in the Transcendental doctrine of method to be a part of the
same schematism theory as the one found in the schematism chapter. We
find here the same tripartite structure of concept, constructive procedure
and image as in the schematism chapter. Also, in On a discovery from
1790, in another discussion of the construction of mathematical concepts
similar to the one found in the Transcendental doctrine of method, this
construction is explicitly called schematic. 25
Let us therefore take a closer look at Kant’s theory of mathematical
construction in the Transcendental doctrine of method in order to get an
even clearer conception of his theory of schematism. And let us start with
his claim that to define a mathematical concept means to construct it in
the intuition (A 729f/B757f). An argument found some pages earlier
suggests that what he has in mind is spatio-temporal construction
performed by an embodied agent. Here it is:
23 Ibid., 79ff.
24 Ibid., 217.
25 Ak VIII: 191, footnote. I will return to discuss this passage below.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 187
Philosophical cognition [Erkenntnis] is rational cognition from
concepts, mathematical cognition that from the construction of
concepts. But to construct a concept means to exhibit a priori the
intuition corresponding to it. For the construction of a concept,
therefore, a non-empirical intuition is required, which consequently,
as intuition, is an individual object, but that must nevertheless, as the
construction of a concept (of a general representation), express in the
representation universal validity for all possible intuitions that belong
under the same concept. Thus I construct a triangle by exhibiting an
object corresponding to this concept, either through mere
imagination, in pure intuition, or on paper, in empirical intuition, but
in both cases completely a priori, without having had to borrow the
pattern for it from any experience. The individual drawn figure is
empirical, and nevertheless serves to express the concept without
damage to its universality, for in the case of this empirical intuition
we have taken account only of the action of constructing the concept,
to which many determinations, e.g., those of the magnitude of the
sides and the angles, are entirely indifferent, and thus we have
abstracted from these differences, which do not alter the concept of
the triangle. (A 713f./B741f.)
The example of the passage is a triangle. To construct the concept of a
triangle, so we learn from the text, means to produce [darstellen] a priori
an intuition corresponding to the concept. Kant then says that this
requires an intuition that is not empirical, but that still qua intuition is
both an individual object, and at the same time, exhibits the general
features of all objects falling under the concept, that is, all triangles. Let
us stop here to reflect on what Kant is saying.
First, Kant seems to say that the general features of the triangle are
not found in the triangle as such, but in the procedure by which the
triangle is constructed, a procedure, moreover, that is common to all
triangles. I will return to discuss this point below. Further, we are told
that the product of the construction just referred to is an intuition that is
not empirical. This may seem to suggest that the construction in question
does not include empirical elements such as our hands, a pencil or a
piece of paper, but is performed in some other way, outside the empirical
or even the spatio-temporal domain, and Kant’s remark that the
construction is a priori may seem to support this interpretation. The
notion of the a priori is typically seen as opposed to the notion of the
empirical.
I think we would be wise, however, to refrain from reaching such a
conclusion just yet. Kant continues by distinguishing between two ways
of constructing a triangle: it may be constructed either through the pure
imagination, or on a piece of paper. In the second case the construction

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takes place in the empirical intuition. In both cases, however, the
construction is a priori. The last point is, I think, highly significant. The
notion of the a priori can now no longer be seen to exclude the spatiotemporal
constructions of an embodied agent. The term ‘a priori’ seems
now rather to be referring to the constructive process itself, or some
aspect of this process. Kant himself suggests that what qualifies the
construction as a priori is the fact that we perform it without depending
on some pattern borrowed from experience.
Also relevant to the present discussion is a passage in On a discovery
from 1790 containing a clear parallel to the above passage. Kant here
discusses the notion of an a priori construction of a concept in the pure
[bloße] imagination. 26 Now he uses the concept of a circle to illustrate the
point. In order to explain how this concept is constructed a priori in the
pure imagination, he refers to a person drawing a circle in the sand.
The following may serve to secure against misuse the expression
‘construction of concepts’ of which the Critique of Pure Reason
speaks several times, and has thereby first made an accurate
distinction between the procedure of reason in mathematics and in
philosophy. In a general sense one may call construction all
exhibition of a concept through the (spontaneous) production of a
corresponding intuition. If it occurs through mere imagination in
accordance with an a priori concept, it is called pure construction
(such as must underlie all the demonstrations of the mathematician;
hence he can demonstrate by means of a circle which he draws with
his stick in the sand, no matter how irregular it may turn out to be,
the properties of a circle in general, as perfectly as if it had been
etched in copperplate by the greatest artist). If it is carried out on
some kind of material, however, it could be called empirical
construction. The first can also be called schematic, the second
technical construction. Now the latter construction, which is really
improperly so-called, (because it belongs not to science but to art and
is done by means of instruments) is either the geometrical, by
compass and ruler, or the mechanical, for which other instruments
are necessary, as for example, the drawing of the other conic sections
besides the circle. 27
This is far from easy to understand. What I would like to draw attention
to, however, is the example Kant gives us in order to explain his notion
of an a priori pure construction in the imagination [bloße
26
Thanks to Rossvær (1974) for bringing my attention to this passage.
27
Ak VIII: 191.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 189
Einbildungskraft]. The example is a mathematician drawing a circle in
the sand with a stick. Now, why does he use this particular example? If
he took the term ‘construction in the imagination’ to refer exclusively to
inner mental constructions, then the example seems badly chosen. One
possible way of solving this problem, is to explain away what Kant has
just said as slip of the pen: but I will not do that. Rather, I think that this
passage opens up a more comprehensive understanding of the Kantian
term ‘imagination’. I suggest that we take it to refer to the general
capacity of a human agent to create images. The term ‘image’ is used in
a highly general sense here, so all these can be seen as examples of image
making: a person drawing a circle on a piece of paper; a person drawing
a circle in the sand, and a person drawing a circle in the air by making a
circular movement with is hand. Even if in the last case no material
image is produced, I will include this as an example of image making
because an alert observer would be able to see the image of an
(imaginary) circle being produced (in the air). 28 I will shortly explain why
I regard this interpretation as preferable.
First, however, I want to draw attention to the last part of the
passage. Here Kant seems to be contrasting a priori constructions in the
imagination and constructions involving material elements [an irgend
einer Materie ausgeübt]. The latter are also called empirical. This seems
to jeopardize my interpretation, at least if the contrasted alternatives are
conceived as mutually exclusive. If this is so, however, why does Kant use
a person drawing a circle in the sand as an example of an a priori
construction in the imagination? I readily admit that the passage taken as
a whole now seems rather confusing. Let us, therefore, take a fresh look
at it. There are two points relating to what Kant calls an a priori
construction in the imagination that we have so far not discussed. The
first point relates to the construction of concepts in general, and Kant’s
emphasis that such constructions originate in the agent. Kant uses the
German term selbsttätig to make this point. 29 The second point is a
remark concerning the example of the person drawing a circle in the
sand. The circle may be very irregular but it may still be used to prove
the qualities of a circle. Notice also that the second kind of construction
discussed above is also called technical and is claimed to be not a
construction in the same sense as the first kind. In German Kant says
28
I am here close to the interpretation offered by Rudisill (1996), 135. Discussing
not the schema, but the concept of a circle, he argues that this concept is the rule
for the production of, for instance, a circle in the air by moving the hand.
29 Ak VIII: 191.

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that it is an uneigentlich so genannte Konstruktion. In contrast with the
first kind, it makes use of instruments.
Given all this, it is possible to argue that Kant’s distinction between
the two types of construction described in the above passage is not meant
to distinguish between inner and outer constructions. What is essential to
the first kind of construction (the one described as an a priori
construction in the imagination) is rather that the agent performs the
operation independently [selbsttätig] without depending on some pattern
borrowed from experience, or as Kant expresses the point in German;
ohne das Muster dazu aus irgend einer Erfahrung geborgt zu haben (A
713/B741). A second point may be derived from Kant’s claim that the
circle may be used to prove the qualities of a circle even if it is irregular.
How can it be used as such a proof? My guess is that it is because it is the
product of a procedure that is a universal procedure for producing
circles, and as long as we focus on this procedure rather than its product,
the general qualities of the circle remains intact. Why does the
construction of a circle with instruments not count as a construction in
the same sense? My guess is that the agent in this case does not prove
unequivocally that she is really a master of this universal procedure. The
production of the circle might in this case be the product of mere luck,
the fact that she incidentally bumped into the instrument so that a circle
was produced. If so, there is an essential connection between the first and
second points above and we may conclude that the basic point of Kant’s
theory of a priori construction in the imagination is not to say anything
decisive about the image being produced, nor to say anything decisive
about the medium in which it is produced. The focus is the productive
procedure in which a free and autonomous agent exhibits the capacity to
produce an image corresponding to a concept.
If I am right, the reason why Kant refers to this kind of construction
as an a priori construction in the imagination is not in order to deny that
it may result in the production of real images (as circles in the sand), but
because this aspect of the process is not the focus here. Or to put it
differently, the theory of an a priori construction in the imagination is
neutral with regard to the specific status of the image and its medium.
This will be a premise in the further development of my interpretation.
6.6 Further remarks on the imagination
In ordinary language the term ‘imagination’ typically refers to the
capacity of a human agent to have inner, mental images. I see no point in
denying that Kant may have taken the term to also have this sense. A
number of remarks in e.g. the Anthropology seem to demand such an

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 191
interpretation, for instance, when Kant describes a person with a vivid
imagination who believes he is seeing before him what is actually only in
his head.
The illusion caused by the strength of our imagination often goes so
far that we think we see and feel outside us what is only in our mind
[Kopf]. 30
My point is, however, is that when ‘imagination’ refers to the mental
domain, this is only part of the meaning it has in the Kantian corpus at
large. In its broader sense, it refers to the human capacity for image
production in general. This means that the imagination is at play
whenever a person uses her body to create images or image-like
structures. As for Kant’s theory of schematism, I think ‘imagination’
should be understood here in this extended sense. 31 So the fact that in the
schematism chapter Kant associates schematism and imagination does
not exclude the notion of embodied practices from the theory. On the
contrary, in the geometry example I take the term ‘schema of the
triangle’ to refer to any practice by which a triangle is constructed, such
as the drawing of a triangle on a piece of paper, on the blackboard, in the
sand, or perhaps even in the air, as when a person draws an imaginary
triangle in the air with his hand. I shall also argue that only if we
understand ‘schema’ in this way is Kant capable of solving the question
he opens the schematism chapter with.
30 Ak VII: 178.
31 Kaulbach (1968) comes close to the same conclusion. When ‘imagination’ is
used by Kant in an epistemic context, it corresponds to the capacity of embodied
image production. To Kaulbach, this insight follows immediately from Kant’s
thesis of the emboidied self: ‘Daß das Subjekt, welches beschreibend seine
ursprüngliche Einbildungskraft ins Werk setzt, ein leibliches Wesen sein muss,
resultiert aus dem Gedanken, daß Beschreibung, die mit seinsbildendem
Anspruch auftritt, eine die Figuren produzierende Kraft aufbieten muss. Das
beschreibende Subjekt muß die ursprungliche Kraft haben, durch eine Handlung
des Ausdehnens den Raum figürlich zu bestimmen, ihn zu ‘beschreiben’, wie
man eine bisher leere Tafel beschreibt. Kraft bedeutet hier wie auch anderwärts
dasjenige Vermögen des Subjekts, sich als unausgedehntes Wesen raumbildend
auseinanderzulegen, dadurch erst einen figurierten Raum hervorzubringen.’
(Kaulbach (1968), 285.)

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6.7 Construction and subsumption
We are now ready to return to that question. How is it possible to
subsume appearances, i.e. undetermined intuited objects that are
spatially extended, under concepts? Kant presents a theory of how
certain practices are used to construct images corresponding to concepts
and these practices he calls ‘schemata’. What does this theory of
construction have to do with the subsumption of spatially extended
appearances under concepts? The question is intriguing because in most
standard theories of subsumption under concepts, subsumption is seen as
something different from construction; these are seen as different kinds of
acts. According to one such standard theory, also advanced by Kant
elsewhere, 32 a concept is a collection of marks referring to certain
properties found in objects, and when we observe an object with these
properties, we may subsume it under the concept.
The intriguing nature of Kant’s association of subsumption and
construction is also noted by Bennett:
Kant’s theory says that to be able to apply a concept one must know
how to make something, namely images; which is, on the face of it,
peculiar. Recognition is clearly relevant, but where does making
come in? 33
I think a first step towards a solution to this problem may be found by
assuming that the schematism chapter is not meant to supply a general
theory of the subsumption of objects under concepts. It deals only with a
certain aspect of such a theory. This aspect, however, is a highly
significant one, at least within the theoretical context of the Critique. It
concerns the spatial and temporal forms of the objects in question. This
means that Kant is operating here on a level that is both more general
and more basic than most theories that deal with the subsumption of
objects under concepts. Such theories require us to take into account a
wide repertoire of marks. In the schematism chapter Kant directs his
attention towards two types of ‘marks’ only, relating to the spatial and
temporal form of intuited objects. These marks are, however, more
fundamental than any other, as without them any intuition of objects
would be impossible for us.
The basic idea of Kant’s theory of spatial schematism, as I see it, is
that in order to subsume an object under a concept we need to take into
32
Cf. e.g. A 68/B 93.
33
Bennett (1966), 142.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 193
account the spatial form of this object, i.e. its shape, and this is done, by
means of an act similar to an act of construction. Now, how does this
help us towards a better understanding of the relation between
subsumption and construction in Kant’s theory of schematism? As the
theory needed to answer this question is only hinted at in the schematism
chapter, we have to try to deduce it from the little that is said. Let us try
to do so, however, and in order not to stray too far, let us concentrate on
the triangle example.
Following the example of the triangle, Kant tells us that his theory of
schematism may be used to solve the old problem of the generality of
concepts, namely how can a concept be general and still apply to
particulars which, moreover, are not congruent? If we think of the
concept as an image, or something like an image, the required generality
would never be attained, he argues.
No image of a triangle would ever be adequate to the concept of it.
For it would not attain the generality of the concept, which makes
this valid for all triangles, right or acute, etc., but would always be
limited to one part of this sphere. (A 141/B 180)
If we instead think of the concept of a triangle as a rule-governing
practice through which all existing triangles may be produced, the
problem of generality is solved. Let us represent the rule of this practice
linguistically like this: ‘Draw three straight lines in a plane. Each line
must intersect the other two. The triangle is the figure constituted by the
lines connecting the intersections.’ By means of this practice, an infinite
set of triangles may be produced. Further, since the rule is unspecific
regarding angles and distances, each new triangle produced is potentially
different from the others. However, as long as they are produced
according to the rule, they are all triangles. The problem of generality is
solved because the generality is guaranteed by the procedure. In a sense,
the generality is found in the procedure rather than in each individual
triangle.
Kant has now demonstrated that the procedure for producing a
triangle may be conceived of as general in the same sense that a concept
is usually considered to be general. However, the main question is still
left unanswered, which is how does this help us understand what
subsumption has to do with construction? Let us assume that we have a
triangle before us, a triangle empirically given, for example one drawn on
a piece of paper or made of wood. How do we recognize this triangle as a
triangle? And how does this recognition involve an act of construction?
What does Kant mean when he suggests that the capacity to recognize it

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as a triangle, that is to subsume it under its concept, requires that we are
capable of constructing a triangle?
I think three answers are possible and two of these are discussed by
Bennett. Either the recognition of the triangle as a triangle takes place
through an act of comparison, where we first construct an actual triangle
and then compare it with the triangle that was already present, or we do
the same thing, except that the triangle we construct is now constructed
only in our imagination, that is, as a mental image or an inner
representation. According to Bennett, Kant goes for the second
alternative:
If recognition requires actual production and not just knowledge of
how to produce, then for overwhelming practical reasons the
requirement must be for the production of images only, if images will
suffice to do what needs doing. 34
It is interesting to see that Bennett also briefly discusses a third option.
Various embodied acts of construction may have a cognitive function like
the one Kant ascribes to the schema:
Kant thinks, as I have already mentioned, that imagination plays a
vital mediatory role in the application of concepts to data because it is
active like the understanding, yet like sensibility it deals in intuitions.
But does not physical activity also have a foot in each camp? In
carpentering and walking and blinking we actively bring about
changes in our sensory states. The making of chairs, then, has the
same double virtue as the imaging of chairs, namely that it is an
activity which results in the occurrence of intuitions. Yet schemas are
said to be rules for the production, specifically, of images. 35
As Bennett is unable to see that embodied acts of construction fit in with
what Kant says in the schematism chapter, this alternative is rejected.
However, contrary to Bennett, I think that the third option may lead us
on to the right track, even if my interpretation is not fully congruent with
the one Bennett suggests.
Imagine a blind person investigating a triangle made of wood. In the
absence of sight, she uses one of her hands to explore the object, that is,
she lets her hand follow the contours of the triangle, one side after the
other. In doing this, her hand makes roughly the same movement as the
34 Ibid., 143.
35 Ibid., 143.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 195
one she would perform in order to construct a triangle, for instance, on a
piece of paper. Thus, while she explores the triangle, it is at the same
time as if she constructs its shape. If I am right, Kant’s basic idea in the
schematism chapter, expressed through its second example, is that the
recognition of the triangle as a triangle takes place by making a
movement like the one just described, and, in making this movement,
recognizing it as the movement involved in the construction of triangles. 36
Later I will discuss whether the structure of this example also applies
to visual perception, but first let us see in what sense the movement just
described relates to what Kant says about the schema in the schematism
chapter. The first point I want to underline concerns image production.
The schema, Kant tells us, is a procedure for image production. The
movement just described, I would argue, may also be seen as
representing a practice resulting in the production of an image. Earlier I
suggested that when Kant uses the term ‘imagination’ it should be taken
to refer to our capacity to produce images in a wide sense. According to
this interpretation, a person drawing a circle in the air by making a
circular movement with her hand may be seen as constructing an image
even if no material image is produced. The act just described, when a
person lets her hands follow the contours of the triangle, one side after
the other, is imaginative or image-productive in the same sense.
Secondly, even if there is an aspect of this act that could be described
as ‘passive’ or ‘empirical’ in Kantian terminology, in the sense that the
person in question adjusts her movements to an already existing shape, so
that in ordinary language we would say that she copies the triangle rather
than creates it, nevertheless at the same time the act is also creative. It is
creative in the sense that it would never have taken place without the
active initiative of the agent. It represents an event in which the agent
does not just passively receive impressions from the world, but in which
36 Such a theory is implied, I think, by Berkeley, Descartes, Condillac, Rousseau
and others, when they argue that we arrive at knowledge of spatial properties of
objects by moving parts of our bodies, such as when we move our hands or eyes
when we observe an object. Included in this theory is the idea that the mind
during such an act receives information of the minutest changes in the muscles
operating our organs. Even a small movement by the pupil of the eye is registered
and the resulting information is used. As far as I know, however, neither of the
authors mentioned develops a theory of schematism from this like the one I take
to be implied by Kant’s schematism chapter. I think that Kant’s theory of
schematism may be seen as such a development.

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she actively confronts and interacts with it, and actively recreates the
shape in question. She is, as Kant says in On a Discovery, selbsttätig. 37
Most important, however, is the point already stated, that in making
this movement she makes roughly the same movement as the one she
would have performed in order to construct a triangle. Thus, while she
explores the triangle, it is at the same time as if she constructs its shape.
In the schematism chapter Kant tells us that we need to know how to
construct a triangle in order to know what a triangle is, and in order to
recognize a triangle as a triangle. According to my interpretation, Kant’s
basic idea in the second example of the schematism chapter is that the
recognition of the triangle as a triangle takes place when the agent makes
a movement like the one just described, and, in making this movement
recognizes it as the movement involved in the construction of triangles.
The reason why she recognizes the triangle, then, is not that she
recognizes the shape of a triangle as such, but that she recognizes the
practice of its construction.
This point is also made in a different way by Kitcher who writes:
We apply concepts to presented objects by noting in some
unconscious way that the imagination followed the same procedure in
constructing a present image that it followed in previous cases. That
is, concept application involves a comparison of procedures for
constructing representations, rather than a comparison of images
themselves. 38
Kitcher does not, however, take the procedure involved here to be an
embodied practice. The procedure is performed in the mind, and its
cognitive function follows from the fact that it is followed by ‘the mind’s
eye’, she argues. 39
6.8 The key argument
In what follows I shall insist that the construction of images or image-like
structures discussed in Kant’s theory of schematism has to be conceived
of as embodied practices in the spatio-temporal domain in the way
suggested above. I shall defend this position not only because I think that
a careful reading of the Kantian text allows us to do so. I shall argue that
37
Ak VIII: 191, footnote. This point is also promoted by Saugstad, cf. e.g.
Saugstad (1993), 109.
38
Kitcher (1990), 153.
39
Ibid., 156.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 197
only by interpreting Kant’s theory of schematism in this way does the
theory solve the problem that it is supposed to solve.
Let me state again the question I take to stand at the centre of Kant’s
theory of spatial schematism: how may concepts, which are not
intuitions, still be applied to objects intuited in space? In trying to exhibit
the structure of what I take to be the Kantian answer to this question, the
first point to note is that the objects intuited are actually existing objects,
that is, physical objects present in the same spatio-temporal domain we
inhabit as embodied beings. That Kant takes space to be
transcendentally ideal, and that this ideality also pertains to the spatial
form of intuited objects, does not refute this point. 40
I have argued that what Kant calls a schema in the schematism
chapter is an embodied practice in which the shape of an object is
created or re-created by an embodied agent through the movement of its
body, or parts of its body. The essential insight I take to underlie his
theory of spatial schematism is that only by conceiving of the schema as
such a practice, unfolding in the same space as the one in which the
intuited objects exist, does the theory fulfill its task. A theory of
schematism operating solely at the level of inner representations cannot
answer the relevant question, at least not as long as the objects the theory
is supposed to deal with are empirical, spatio-temporal objects and not
just representational images. A theory of schematism that operates only
at the level of inner representations could perhaps explain how concepts
apply to such representations, but it is incapable of explaining how it is
possible for these concepts to apply also to empirical objects actually
existing in time and space.
This problem pertains, I think, to all those who take Kant’s theory of
schematism to refer to the inner domain of human representations only,
such as Ros, who takes the objects [Konkreta] referred to in the theory of
schematism to be mental images. 41 The problem with a theory of
schematism that deals only with mental images is that it does not go ‘all
the way out’ to the actually existing world of spatio-temporal objects. It
remains within the world of mental representations, where the final
question remains unanswered: how do we connect this mental world with
the world of physical objects that our thoughts, statements and theories
are all about? 42 Once we assume that the schemata of Kant’s theory of
40
This point will be further discussed in chapter 7.
41
Ros (1990), 69.
42
For a somewhat different criticism of the mentalist position, see Bennett (1966),
142.

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spatial schematism are to be understood as embodied practices in the
sense specified above, this problem is solved.
If I am right, then it immediately follows also that the mind [Gemüt]
of the Critique is an embodied mind. The point is simple: our mind can
only conceptually recognize objects extended in time and space if it is
itself extended in time and space, and if it has the capacity to move in
space in the way specified above. This is possible only if the mind is
embodied. For a disembodied mind, there would be no space, and no
spatially extended objects. 43 A similar argument has been put forward by
Gibbons. 44 She argues that Kant’s theory of schematism in the Critique
implies that the cognitive agent exists in time and space. Not as radical,
but with a similarly structured argument, Shaper argues that Kant’s
theory of schematism implies that the mind of his transcendental
psychology has to exist in time:
The basic Kantian insight which lurks in the Schematism seems to
me this: Though it is true that we construct, we construct not as
minds, or intellects, not by being mind, but by being in time. I am not
saying by ‘thinking in time’, or even ‘experiencing under the form of
time’, which would be closer to the Kantian text, but ‘being in time’.
Kant never put it quite like this. But it seems to me that this is what
was hidden as the real modes of activity to which Kant referred, and
with which he grappled in this chapter. Otherwise imagination would
be a deus ex machina if ever there was one. 45
6.9 Visual perception
Does the interpretation now put forward apply also to visual perception?
In order to examine this question, let us return to the example discussed
above. In this example we imagined a blind person examining a wooden
triangle with her hands. But what if the person could see? What if she did
not have to use her hands to explore it, but could observe it in a single
glance? If my interpretation is to hold, then we need a theory here that
43
Again it is tempting to refer to the general discussion of the embodied basis of
spatial cognition going on in Europe in the eighteenth century. That a
disembodied mind or a mind incapable of moving would possess no
representation of space, is, perhaps, most dramatically stated by Rousseau, in his
thought experiment with the oyster. Being without the capacity to move,
Rousseau argues, the whole world must appear to the oyster as nothing but a
point, cf. Rousseau (1979), 143.
44
Gibbons (1994), 62f.
45
Shaper (1992), 313-314.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 199
states that in this case too some kind of embodied movement is necessary
in order to recognize the triangle as a triangle, a movement similar in
structure to the movement employed in the construction of a triangle.
Does such a movement exist? If so, what could it be? One possible
answer is that our eyes move as we observe the triangle. That is, in
observing the triangle we let the focus of our eyes pass along its contours,
and in doing this, our eyes make the required movement. The act may
take place in less than a second and it may take place without explicit
awareness, but nevertheless the movement is there. And again the
movement is similar in structure to the one we would have used if we
were to construct a triangle. 46 I take Kant’s point in the schematism
chapter to be that we recognize a perceived triangle as a triangle when
we see one, because this latter movement is the same in structure as the
one we would have used to construct one, and that this similarity is
noticed in the act of visual perception.
From his reading of contemporary theories on visual perception,
Kant was well aware that visual perception presupposes the movement of
the eyes, or at least, this was what some of these theories claimed.
Consequently there is nothing to prevent us from assuming that his
theory of schematism can be interpreted as referring to such movements
when applied to visual perception. Or perhaps we should use the term
‘acts’ instead of ‘movements’, to emphasize that to Kant perception is
something we actively perform, not just something we passively undergo.
The same point may also be applied to the third example of the
schematism chapter concerning the empirical representation of a dog.
The concept of a dog signifies a rule in accordance with which my
imagination can specify [verzeichnen] the shape of a four-footed
animal in general, without being restricted to any single particular
shape that experience offers me or any possible image that I can
exhibit in concreto. (A 141/B 180)
Interpreted according to the now established guidelines, we have here
the concept of a dog, the schema of this concept, which is the method
according to which an image of a dog is produced, and finally the image
itself. Further, Kant uses the concept of drawing [verzeichnen] in order
to describe the process of producing the form [Gestalt] of the dog.
46
Imagine, for instance, that the pupils of the observer sent out laser beams with
the capacity to make marks in some background medium. Then the movements
used to construct a triangle on this background would be the same as the ones
made when the focus of the eyes passed along the contours of an existing triangle.

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SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
According to my interpretation, drawing should here again be
understood in an extended sense. Thus in visually perceiving a dog, and
recognizing it as a dog, the point is not that we literally draw its form or
image. The point is that the observer lets her eyes move as their focus
slides along the external contours of the dog’s shape, and in doing this
she performs an act similar in structure to the one she would have
performed in order to draw its image. If I am right, Kant’s basic idea in
the third example of the schematism chapter is that the recognition of the
dog as a dog takes place, not simply by looking at it, but by making a
movement like the one just described, and, in making this movement,
recognizing it as what Kant calls the schema of a dog.
Of course, in this example the case is not as simple as in that of the
triangle. First we have the problem that dogs come in more shapes and
sizes than triangles because while all triangles have the same basic
structure, dogs do not. Actually, it is probably impossible to identify a
dog as a dog on the basis of shape alone. In order to recognize a dog as a
dog, I assume that marks other than shape are necessary, for instance
dogs bark, and a complete theory of schematism would have to take this
into account. However, as I have now stated more than once, I do not
think that the schematism theory of the Critique is intended as such a
complete theory but deals only with a limited (although basic) aspect of
schematism. In the present case, before we can recognize a dog as a dog
on the basis of conceptual marks (e.g. dogs bark) we have to recognize it
as an object with a spatial (and temporal) form. That is, we need
something that mediates between the concept of a dog and the empirical
dog as it exists in space (and time). This is what I think Kant deals with in
the third example of the schematism chapter, i.e. as I have already
suggested, I think he deals with the mediation between the concept and
the dog qua spatial being.
Another problem pertaining to the present case, and also to other
cases of visual perception, is perspective. The perceived shape of an
object varies relative to the perspective of the observer, and sometimes
we need to see a three-dimensional object from more than one side in
order to properly represent its shape. In such a case, a single act of
‘drawing its shape’ is not enough. However, this is not my point. My
point is the more general one that such a drawing has to be part of the
schematic process. Whether it takes place in one step only, or in several
steps, corresponding to various perspectives, is not relevant as far as this
general point is concerned.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 201
6.10 Schematism in the transcendental deduction
This interpretation gives sense to a number of other passages that, even if
they are not found in the schematism chapter, I still regard as part of
Kant’s theory of schematism. These passages are found in the
transcendental deduction, both in its A- and B-version. In order to have
cognition of something in space, such as a line, I have to draw it, Kant
argues, for instance at B 137-138. Similar examples are found
elsewhere. 47 The reason I take these passages to be part of his theory of
schematism is, first, they claim that cognition involves acts of
construction, usually referred to by means of the verb ‘to draw’
[zeichnen], and secondly, these constructions are claimed to be
performed in the imagination. This is also, roughly, how Kant’s theory of
schematism is presented in the schematism chapter. Following my
interpretation of this chapter, however, I shall argue that the
constructions referred to in these passages also refer to movements of the
body or embodied acts in the way just specified.
This interpretation is especially required, I think, at B 162. In order
to perceive a house, Kant argues, I have to draw its shape:
Thus if, e.g., I make the empirical intuition of a house into perception
through apprehension of its manifold, my ground is the necessary
unity of space and of outer sensible intuition in general, and I as it
were draw its shape in agreement with this synthetic unity of the
manifold in space. (B 162, my emphasis)
It would be absurd to read this passage as claiming that the perception of
a house requires that we literally draw its shape. According to my
interpretation of Kant’s theory of schematism, however, the passage
invites us to search for an embodied act that is structurally similar to the
act we would have to perform in order to literally draw it. If we assume
that the perception here described is visual, as the passage seems to
suggest, this is most likely the act by which the observer moves her eyes
as their focus slides along its external contours.
6.11 Degrees of consciousness
When I see a house from a distance, I am not normally aware that my
eyes move as their focus slides along its external contours. However, seen
from a Kantian perspective, this is no objection against the interpretation
47 Cf. e.g. B 102, B 154 and B 162.

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SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
suggested. As we saw in an earlier chapter, Kant allows cognitive acts
and processes to take place without consciousness. This idea, in a slightly
modified version, is also explicitly present in the Critique. Instead of
saying that part of the cognitive process, or the representations involved,
are unconscious, Kant now introduces the notion of ‘obscure’ [dunkele]
representations. An obscure representation, he explains, is not totally
without consciousness, but it is a representation with very little
consciousness. This revision may be seen as the necessary consequence of
the idea, promoted in the Critique, that the ‘I think’ is a consciousness
that accompanies all concepts. Consciousness in general is not a
representation by which a certain object may be discerned, but simply
the general form of an object, insofar as it is to count as part of our
knowledge (A 346/B 404). According to this theory, consciousness is an
absolute condition of having experience [Erkenntnis]. This does not
mean, however, that cognition is always conscious in the ordinary sense
of the term, that is, being the explicit focus of attention. There are a
number of representations that are not explicit in this way. Kant calls
these representations obscure. Cognition involving these representation
may be said to proceed at an obscure level.
The notion of an obscure representation is defined in a footnote at B
414-415:
Clarity is not, as the logicians say, the consciousness of a
representation; for a certain degree of consciousness, which, however,
is not sufficient for memory, must be met with even in some obscure
representations, because without any consciousness we would make
no distinction in the combination of obscure representations; yet we
are capable of doing this with the marks of some concepts (such as
those of right and equity, or those of a musician who, when
improvising, hits many notes at the same time). Rather a
representation is clear if the consciousness in it is sufficient for a
consciousness of the difference between it and others. To be sure, if
this consciousness suffices for a distinction, but not for a consciousness
of the difference, then the representation must still be called obscure.
So there are infinitely many degrees of consciousness down to its
vanishing. (B 414-415)
The distinction between clear and obscure representations does not
conform to the opposition between conscious and unconscious
representations. There are obscure representations among which we
make distinctions, and this we could not do without consciousness. What
makes these distinctions obscure is the fact that the consciousness
involved is too weak to leave behind any memories.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 203
Indirectly the notion of obscure representations is also implied, I
think, by the idea, generally advanced in the Critique that consciousness
comes in degrees. This idea is mentioned in the main text, just before the
footnote:
For even consciousness always has a degree, which can always be
diminished. (B 415)
This idea is also put forward, for example, at A 175/B 217. In a passage
dealing with empirical consciousness in relation to inner sense, Kant
explains that this consciousness may vary in degree from zero upwards. 48
Several passages in the Critique also suggest that parts of the cognitive
process may take place with little consciousness. A central passage in this
respect is where Kant introduces the synthetic power of the imagination,
a blind force we constantly apply but normally without explicit
consciousness (A 78/B 103). A similar point is stated somewhat later,
arguing that all synthesis is a product of the representative faculty, he
adds that this may be either conscious or unconscious (B 130). It may be
confusing that Kant says that the synthetic acts of the understanding are
sometimes not conscious, and if I was right earlier then no thinking, and
so no synthesis, can take place without consciousness. However, I think
that Kant is talking here about what we, following the distinction made
at B 414-415, may call obscure consciousness, and the same applies in
other cases in the Critique when he refers to unconscious cognition.
Kant’s idea that consciousness comes in degrees, can also, without
difficulty, be applied to embodied acts or practices. Interestingly, the
Critique contains at least one example that deals explicitly with an
embodied act that is performed at an obscure level of consciousness.
Actually, this example occurs in the same footnote where the notion of
an obscure representation is defined. The example describes the
improvisations of a musician (B 415). At some level the musician has to
be aware of what he is doing, Kant argues, or else he could not produce
music. More precisely, without consciousness he could not make the
connections and distinctions that are needed in order to produce music.
However, he cannot possibly have his attention focused on every single
movement of his fingers. Thus, the rapid movements of his fingers are
deliberately produced and accompanied with consciousness, but on an
obscure level, so that when later asked to describe these movements, he
would most likely be unable to do so.
48 A 175/B 217. Cf. also B 208

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SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
All this does not prove that, for instance, the movements of the pupils
of the eyes are usually involved in the conceptual recognition of an
empirical object. But Kant’s theory of consciousness does not exclude
this. On the contrary, the theory tells us that such movements could be
involved, even if we were not explicitly aware of making them. They
could be involved, even if they took place in less than a second and
involved only the minutest changes in the positions of the pupils, as when
a musician playing a guitar creates a subtle but stunning effect through
an almost unnoticeable relocation of his fingers.
6.12 The empirical aspect of apprehension
In the previous chapter I argued that Kant’s theory of space in the
Critique may be understood in part as an abstract version of his theory of
the embodied constitution of space. I also argued that his theory of
schematism may be used to support this interpretation. The point is
simple. The theory of schematism is a theory about an embodied agent
confronted with physical objects, and in order to subsume these objects
under concepts, the agent performs certain embodied practices, as
specified above. In order to do this, however, to use Kant’s own
terminology, this agent has first to take up or apprehend the relevant
objects in his empirical intuition. In the Critique, Kant tells us that such
apprehension presupposes that the agent is both active and passive. The
content of our empirical intuitions derives from the affection of the agent,
while their spatio-temporal features are constituted through her activity.
Now, if Kant’s theory of schematism demands that we conceive of
this cognitive agent as embodied and regard the schemata as embodied
practices, then this is also an argument in favor of the idea that embodied
acts are also involved when the agent apprehends an empirical object.
After all, we meet the same agent in both Kant’s theory of schematism
and in his theory of apprehension.
This point may also be stated in more formal terms. In a footnote at
B 162 in the Critique, Kant states that the various syntheses described
are all aspects of one and the same synthetic activity.:
In such a way it is proved that the synthesis of apprehension, which is
empirical, must necessarily be in agreement with the synthesis of
apperception, which is intellectual and contained in the category
entirely a priori. It is one and the same spontaneity that, there
under the name of imagination and here under the name of
understanding, brings combination into the manifold of intuition. (B
162, note, my emphasis)

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 205
As we saw in the previous chapter, Kant has a rather complex theory of
the imaginative syntheses, involving the notion of a synthesis of
apprehension, a synthesis of reproduction, and, in the B-deduction, a
figurative synthesis, and then finally an intellectual synthesis. 49 In order to
keep the present discussion from becoming unnecessarily complicated, I
will here use the term ‘apprehension’ to include all these, except for the
last one. By ‘apprehension’ I shall then mean the synthesis in which the
empirical manifold is taken up, made conscious and organized in time
and space. The point just made, however, implies that when Kant talks
about apprehension in this sense, and when he talks about intellectual
synthesis, he refers to the same spontaneity of one single individual.
In the schematism chapter, where he is discussing how an object may
be subsumed under a concept, I take Kant’s interest to be primarily
directed at what I just called the intellectual synthesis. However, if I am
right and this synthesis is only an aspect of the same spontaneity as the
one in which the empirical manifold is taken up, made conscious and
organized in time and space, then my interpretation of Kant’s theory of
schematism has consequences for the interpretation of his theory of
apprehension as well. Specifically, if the theory of schematism is taken to
refer to embodied practices, and I have argued that it must be, then this
interpretation also supports the claim made earlier that apprehension,
according to the Critique, involves embodied acts. This is why I think
Kant’s theory of schematism is not only relevant to the interpretation of
Kant’s theory of apprehension, but essential for its proper understanding.
The direction of my argument is the same as that suggested by
Rossvær and others. Rossvær recommends that earlier parts of the
Critique be understood in the light of what is established later in the
text. 50 More specifically, he argues that the notion of a schema,
established in the schematism chapter, is presupposed in the
Transcendental aesthetic, even if the term is not explicitly mentioned
there. 51 That a proper understanding of the Transcendental aesthetic
requires that we first read and understand the schematism chapter is also
maintained by Shaper:
49 I here refer to what he calls ‘recognition in concepts’ in the A-deduction (A 97)
and synthesis intellectualis in the B-deduction (B 151).
50 Rossvær (1974), 100.
51
Ibid., 215.

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SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
And it is thus easier... […] to read the Critique backwards from
Schematism than forwards from the Aesthetic. 52
Now, I shall try to demonstrate how one and the same embodied act may
illustrate both the synthesis of apprehension and the intellectual synthesis.
Let us return to the example of a blind person investigating a wooden
triangle with her hands. This example was used to illustrate how the
movements made by the person’s hands made her recognize the triangle
as a triangle. However, as is evident from the example, the act in which
the person lets her hands pass over the triangle is also the act in which
the triangle first comes into contact with the sensibility of that person,
and in which it is ‘taken up’ or apprehended by her consciousness. Thus,
the act also illustrates the synthesis of apprehension.
If this is accepted, we may say that what Kant refers to as the
affection of the senses is the effect produced by the triangle on the hands
of the observer as she lets them pass along its edges. The spatial feature of
the triangle, its shape, is constituted for the observer as this movement
proceeds in space. Finally, the conceptual recognition of the triangle as
such is due to the fact that the observer recognizes this movement as
structurally similar to the movement involved in the construction of a
triangle, that is, what Kant calls the schema of the triangle. Implied by
this interpretation is the idea that whenever the term ‘affection’ is used in
the Critique, i.e. in its theory of the outer sense, it refers to an event in
which the body of the cognitive agent is literally affected by some
external object or some other physical cause. When perception is visual,
the affection is mediated by the light reflected from the object perceived.
According to my interpretation, however, its apprehension still requires
embodied movement, that is, the movement of the pupils as their focus
slide along the external contours of the object.
This point may also be seen as supported by the fact that in the Bdeduction
Kant uses the expression ‘to draw’, and presents examples in
which this term is used, to illustrate both the synthesis of apprehension
and the intellectual synthesis. This, at least, is how I interpret him. I take
the example at B 162 about the house as particularly illustrating the
synthesis of apprehension, while the example found at B 137-138 (the
drawing of a line) seems primarily to be meant as an illustration of the
intellectual synthesis.
52 Schaper (1992), 312.

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 207
6.13 Falkenstein’s argument concerning intuition and body in the
Critique
In this chapter I have emphasized the connection between Kant’s theory
of spatial experience in the Transcendental aesthetic and his theory of
spatial schematism as found in the schematism chapter. Both these
theories demand that we see the cognitive self as embodied, and that the
cognitive operations ascribed to this self are taken to involve embodied
acts. In this section I shall discuss an interpretation that to some extent
moves along the same lines. It is found in Lorne Falkenstein’s Kant’s
Intuitionism. 53 In an argument somewhat different from mine but with a
similar conclusion, Falkenstein argues that Kant’s theory of intuition in
the Transcendental aesthetic implies that the cognitive self of the
Critique is embodied.
Falkenstein’s interpretation is interesting, because even if he admits
this, and even if he contends that the term ‘affection’ in Kant’s theory of
intuition refers to the affection of the body, he denies that the notion of
embodied acts has anything to do with Kant’s theory of space. Actually,
he argues, our experience of space does not require any activity on behalf
of the agent at all. In this way, Falkenstein’s interpretation runs contrary
to my reading of Kant’s critical theory of space. I shall briefly consider
this interpretation and then suggest how it may be dealt with.
A basic premise of Falkenstein’s interpretation is the idea expressed
by Kant in the Transcendental aesthetic that space is given. According to
Falkenstein, this implies that our perceptions are spatially structured
when they are taken up by the mind, i.e. prior to any activity. This again
implies not only that the cognitive self exists in time, as Shaper has also
pointed out, 54
but also that this self has an existence in space as well, i.e.
that it is an embodied self, even if this is not explicitly stated in the
Critique. Falkenstein’s argument may be summarized by saying that as
the stimuli corresponding to our perceptions hit the body at various
places, they are spatially structured from the very start, and that is why
Kant can contend that space is given. That is, space is from the very
beginning an aspect of the manner in which sensations are received. He
concludes:
53
Falkenstein (1995), cf. also Falkenstein (1998).
54
Shaper (1992).

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There is strong evidence, therefore, that Kant did indeed take
sensations, as ‘effects on the representative capacity’ arrayed in space
as well as time, to be physiological states of the body of the
perceiver. 55
So far I am in agreement. Falkenstein’s argument, however, differs from
mine on a vital point. While he argues correctly that Kant’s critical
theory of space implies that the cognitive self is spatially extended, he
opposes the idea that the spatial form of the representations of this agent
requires activity. Expressed in more Kantian terms, he denies that this
form is constituted through what in the Critique is called synthesis.
Falkenstein acknowledges, of course, the Kantian thesis that all
experience is ordered and determined by the synthesizing activity of the
understanding. Thus, there is a sense in which space is also synthesized.
However, he contends that this synthesis concerns only the conceptual
determination of space, not its original constitution and that it is not the
case, as some claim, that Kant took space to be first constituted through
intellectual operations, such as the figurative synthesis of imagination. 56
Space exists for us prior to any synthesizing activity. It is part of what is
originally given in our experience. This is why Kant claimed that space is
intuited. It is intuited, and at the same time it is also the form in which
our sensations appear. Thus, Falkenstein calls his position ‘formal
intuitionism’. 57
Falkenstein argues that his conclusion may only be reached indirectly.
As experience, according to the Critique, is always ordered and
determined by the categories, there are no separate products of the lower
faculty of sensibility, such as space, that we can examine without making
them products of the higher faculty of the understanding first. 58 He
writes:
55 Falkenstein (1995), 123.
56 Falkenstein (1995), 4.
57 According to Falkenstein the same point also applies to time.
58 Cf. Falkenstein (1995), 55. This is why, Falkenstein argues, in the
Transcendental exposition Kant explicitly discusses the concepts of time and
space, that is, time and space qua determined by the categories, and not time and
space as intuitions (ibid., 63-64).

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 209
Given that the representations of intuition are, though not nothing,
certainly ‘nothing to us’ prior to intellectual synthesis, we cannot
possibly strip the contributions made by the intellect out of
experience and attempt thereby to uncover a set of essential features
characterizing a sensory representation. 59
Kant’s strategy in the Transcendental aesthetic, therefore, has to be
indirect. In order to prove that space is given, Kant has to show that it
cannot be produced through synthesis, that is, it cannot come into
existence as a result of a process in which material is unified that is in
itself in no way spatial. 60 According to Falkenstein, this is what Kant does.
Even if I do not think that this interpretation is entirely wrong, yet I
think it has its weaknesses. One is that Falkenstein bases his
interpretation of Kant’s intuitionism almost exclusively on the
Transcendental aesthetic, where Kant first discusses the notion of space.
Here Kant still operates with a strong dichotomy between sensibility and
understanding, corresponding to the passive and active side of cognition.
I have argued, however, that this dichotomy is undermined and finally
revised in the Transcendental analytic.
Before continuing with my criticism, let me add that in a limited
sense I think Falkenstein is right to claim that knowledge of space
requires no activity. In Directions in space we learn that we have a
primitive awareness of space solely through the fact that we are
embodied. For instance, Kant refers to our intuitive capacity for
distinguishing between the right and left parts of our body. The point
seems to be that from this experience alone, a primitive intuitive notion
of space emerges. If this is so, then it is also possible to argue that we may
be externally passive and still be aware of the position at which an
impression reaching us from an external source affects us, which is
Falkenstein’s point if I understand him correctly. Analyzed in this way,
and at this level, space may be said to be present prior to any activity, i.e.
as the spatial structure of the stimuli affecting our body surface. And if
Kant’s theory of space in the Critique reflects the insights developed in
e.g. Directions in space, then a corresponding notion of a primitive space
may be found here also, that is, the notion of a space existing prior to any
kind of synthesis, a space that is simply given or intuited, as Falkenstein
claims.
59 Ibid., 63.
60 Ibid., 64.

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However, even if the Critique may contain the idea of such a
primitive space, we are seriously misled if we believe we have now
reached the core of Kant’s critical theory of space, because this theory
aims much wider. Its task is to explain how it is possible for us to have
knowledge of objects in space, and of the shape and the reciprocal
relations of these objects. To know this, more is required than just to be
affected by these objects, even if this affection has a spatial structure in
the way that Falkenstein claims. What is required is activity: the cognitive
agent has to be able to move. This is what I take to be Kant’s insight
before, in and after the Critique. And when in the Critique he describes
this activity with a terminology that seems to suggest that the activity in
question is mental or internal, for example when he uses the term
‘synthesis’, a further examination reveals that this is not the case after all.
The acts referred to by the Kantian term synthesis also include embodied
acts. 61
Falkenstein fails to see this by uncritically adopting a far too narrow
conception of the term ‘synthesis’, according to which the synthetic acts
described in the Critique are purely intellectual acts whose main function
is to unite material supplied by the senses, material that already has a
temporal and spatial form. Thus, he conceives of even the figurative
synthesis as intellectual. However, Kant classifies it as an imaginative
synthesis, and if I am right, it corresponds to what Kant calls the
syntheses of apprehension and reproduction. As I have argued, it needs
to be conceived of as a constructive activity involving the body. With his
far too narrow conception of synthesis, Falkenstein fails to see this point.
6.14 The embodied agent
According to Hans Blumenberg, most scientific and philosophical
theories rest on a basic metaphor. 62
The term ‘metaphor’ is here used in
the sense of an image serving as a model from which the basic structure
and concepts of the theory are derived, without, however, entering the
field of abstract discourse itself, except through occasional references.
The metaphor belongs to what I have called the background or horizon
within which the more abstract theory is developed. 63
Without intending
to go deeply into this subject, I think that, in the Critique, the embodied
agent is Kant’s basic metaphor in a Blumenbergian sense. An embodied
61
Cf. e.g. my discussion of the synthesis of apprehension.
62
Blumenberg (1960).
63
Cf. also Black (1962).

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 211
agent moving around in the world, actively interacting with its physical
objects, touching, grasping, holding, etc, is the reservoir supplying Kant
with his basic perspectives, concepts and theories. 64 Typical of this agent
is that she uses her whole body as an instrument of cognition. She
benefits from the fact that she can feel all the parts of her body, the
movements of those parts and their positions relative to each other. And
she relies on the impressions received from without, mediated by her
outer senses, located at the surface or close to the surface of her body.
Also essential is her ability to grasp and hold objects, without which she
would have no concept of their spatial shape.
Against this background, it is ironic, and a symptom of the
interpretative challenges offered by the Critique, when Bennett
complains that Kant is misled by his far too frequent use of terms
referring to the visual field. Kant shares that preoccupation with the
visual that has weakened and narrowed epistemology for centuries,
Bennett claims. Throughout the Transcendental aesthetic he virtually
equates outer sense with eyesight. This prevents him from considering
other possible spaces, such as auditory space. 65 In actual life, there are
plenty of alternatives to eyesight that help us orient ourselves in the
world, Bennett maintains. His example is a blind man trying to find his
way through a valley with a road, a farmhouse etc:
I do not need eyesight to discover how the things in the valley are
disposed: A man blindfold could find out by stumbling down into the
valley, feeling the road under his feet, then colliding with the
farmhouse, and so on. He would steer primarily by touch and by his
so-called kinaesthetic sense, i.e. his ability to know where and how he
is moving. 66
If Bennett had studied the Anthropology and related works he would
perhaps not have been quite as critical. As we have seen, there Kant
discusses how we use the body to orient ourselves in space in much the
same way as Bennett suggests, for instance when we move in a dark
room, we rely on the distinction that we feel between the right and left
sides of the body, or we make use of the echo reflected off the walls. As I
have argued in this chapter, this perspective is also implied in the
64
For a more thorough investigation into Kant’s basic metaphors, see Sommer
(1977).
65
Bennett (1966), 29.
66
Ibid., 29-30.

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Critique, and nowhere more than in the schematism chapter. If this
chapter gives the key to a proper understanding of other parts of the
Critique, however, then the same point applies to all of the Critique. In
the next chapter I will discuss how this may further enhance our
understanding of the text.
6.15 Summary
In this chapter I have discussed Kant’s theory of schematism as it is
found in the Critique. As I read it, the task of Kant’s theory of
schematism is to establish how our concepts apply to the world of objects
intuited in time and space. And even if Kant himself is not always explicit
on this point, I maintain that it is possible to distinguish two parts within
this project, one having to do with temporal schematism (time) and one
with spatial schematism (space). In this chapter I have only discussed
Kant’s theory of spatial schematism. The basic idea of this theory,
according to my interpretation, is that in order to subsume a spatially
extended object under its concept, we have, by means of our body or
parts of our body, to copy or recreate its shape in an act similar to
drawing. More specifically, such an embodied practice is what Kant calls
a schema. Using a triangle as an example, Kant’s basic idea is that the
recognition of a triangle as a triangle takes place by making a movement
similar to the one involved in the construction of a triangle, and, in
making this movement, to recognize it as the movement involved in such
a construction.
I have also discussed how the Kantian term ‘imagination’ is to be
understood. I have argued that in the context of Kantian philosophy the
term refers to the human capacity for image production in general. This
means that the imagination is active whenever a person uses her body to
create images or image-like structures, whether this results in a material
image, or not.

7. THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL
The difference between the transcendental and
the empirical therefore belongs only to the
critique of cognitions [Erkenntnisse] and does not
concern their relation to their object.
From the Critique 1
I have argued that Kant’s theory of cognition in the Critique may be
read, at least in part, as referring to embodied acts and events. For
instance, I have argued that when he says that the empirical content of
our intuitions originates in the affection of the mind, then the mind in
question has to be conceived of as an embodied mind, and what Kant
refers to by the term ‘affection’ should be understood as the affection of
the physical senses of the body. I have also argued that when Kant says
that space and time qua forms of intuition are produced by the mind's
activity, this is the embodied activity of an embodied mind. I have even
argued that his theory of subsumption under concepts in the schematism
chapter may be read as a theory referring to embodied practices. In the
following I will refer to all this as ‘Kant’s theory of embodied cognition’.
When claims like this are put forward, two objections are typically
raised, both having to do with the distinction between the empirical and
the transcendental. The first objection relates to the epistemic project of
the Critique and involves the claim that our knowledge of the body is
empirical, and that empirical observation cannot support the a priori
claims of transcendental philosophy. I shall discuss this objection in a
later chapter. In this chapter I shall discuss another potential objection to
the above interpretation. It may be stated like this. In the Critique Kant
establishes a transcendental philosophy, and along with this a
transcendental perspective. This perspective is to be kept sharply distinct
from an empirical perspective, the perspective we use to describe the
empirical world. And even if the task of transcendental philosophy is to
answer how it is possible to have objective knowledge of the empirical
world, transcendental philosophy itself is not about this world. This,
again, means that we cannot take the concepts of transcendental
1
A 55/B 81.

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philosophy to refer to phenomena known from the empirical world.
When, for instance, in his transcendental philosophy Kant talks about
the affection of the cognitive agent, this cannot be interpreted as a theory
of physical affection. Neither can Kant’s transcendental theory of
cognitive activity be interpreted as referring to embodied acts. To do this
would involve what may be termed a ‘transcendental transgression’ and
would mean that we gave up the distinction between the transcendental
and empirical that Kant demands we uphold.
A version of this position is represented by Strawson. According to
Strawson, Kant tries to discover the limits of human knowledge from a
position outside these limits, or, as Strawson puts it, Kant ‘seeks to draw
the bounds of sense from a point outside them’. 2 From this he concludes
that the syntheses described in the Critique belong to a theory of a mind
that cannot be empirically observed. Kant’s theory of these syntheses,
therefore, cannot be interpreted as referring to anything we know from
the empirical world. A similar point is made by Bennett. 3 As we have
seen, not all agree with Strawson and Bennett on these points. So for
instance, Falkenstein argues that Kant’s critical theory of space in the
Transcendental aesthetic implies that the mind of the Critique is
embodied, and, consequently that parts of the cognitive process
described in Kant’s transcendental psychology also involve the body. 4
Starting out from Kant’s theory of schematism, Shaper argues it implies
that the mind described in the Critique has to be conceived of as existing
in time and so not fully outside the spatio-temporal domain. 5 Even if I
agree with both Falkenstein, Shaper and others on the point that the
mind described in the Critique both can and must be conceived of as
embodied, I also take the position defended by Strawson, Bennett and
others seriously. I think that Kant’s way of presenting his transcendental
philosophy may very easily be misread in a way that may seem to make
such a position unavoidable.
In promoting his transcendental idealism, Kant argues that all our
experience is representational and that time and space are nothing but
subjective forms of intuition. Moreover, he claims that there is an aspect
of reality (the world as it is independently of our way of experiencing it)
2
Strawson (1973), 12.
3
Discussing Kant’s theory of sensibility, Bennett argues that what Kant in the
Critique calls the outer sense cannot be identified with our biological senseorgans
(Bennett (1966), 18).
4
Falkenstein (1995).
5
Shaper (1992).

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 215
to which these forms do not apply. In making these claims one may easily
get the impression that Kant is speaking from a point beyond the
empirical world. The same applies to the transcendental theory by which
he purports to explain how our representations of this empirical world
are constituted. Although Kant maintains that there is no way in which
we can escape our subjective forms of experience, nevertheless he seems
to have discovered a method (in the form of a transcendental reflection)
by which such a position may still be reached, a position from which we
may explain transcendentally how our representations are constituted,
without including in our explanation anything empirical.
In this chapter I shall argue, however, that despite how it may seem,
Kant’s transcendental idealism does not demand that we adopt an
interpretation like this one. Another interpretation of this idealism is
possible according to which we may both maintain all its basic doctrines
and at the same time, without inconsistency, conceive of the cognitive
agent of the Critique as embodied and the transcendental psychology
associated with this agent as referring to embodied acts and events.
Actually, I shall argue that Kant’s transcendental idealism follows from a
line of reflection in which the embodied self and the embodied nature of
human cognition are basic premises. Within the context of this
interpretation, the idea of embodied cognition is not foreign to or
inconsistent with Kant’s transcendental idealism. On the contrary,
because it is a premise underlying transcendental idealism, in promoting
this idealism Kant both accepts and presupposes that cognition is
embodied.
It may be argued that this strategy involves a vicious circularity. In
order to defend the idea that the embodied mind has a central place
within Kant’s transcendental philosophy I argue that transcendental
idealism may be seen as the end product of a line of reflection taking as
its starting point the idea that the human mind and human cognition is
embodied. Thus I assume what is to be proved. However, I have already
given independent arguments in support of the idea that the cognitive
agent of the Critique is an embodied self and that its cognition is
embodied. This is not an ad hoc hypothesis suddenly introduced at this
point. Secondly, my immediate aim in this chapter is not to supply
further proofs for this idea. My aim is more modestly to argue that it is
not contradicted by Kant’s transcendental idealism, if only we
understand it in the right way.
The following discussion will touch upon topics that have been
extensively discussed in Kant scholarship, such as the relation between
empirical objects and things in themselves. I will reflect upon my position
relative to this discussion towards the end of this chapter. First, however,

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I shall spend some time examining Kant’s transcendental idealism as it is
put forward in the Critique. Then I shall discuss in more detail how this
idealism seems to jeopardize my claim that embodied acts and practices
are central to the cognitive theory of the Critique. Finally, I shall present
my own conception of this transcendental idealism. In order to prevent
the discussion from becoming too voluminous, I shall focus on space in
particular, that is the transcendental ideality of space, in this chapter.
The transcendental ideality of time will be discussed in a later chapter.
7.1 The transcendental distinction
The term ‘transcendental idealism’ is introduced late in the Critique. In
the A-edition it is first introduced in the paralogism chapter, and in the
following way:
I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the
doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere
representations and not as things in themselves, and accordingly that
space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not
determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things
in themselves. (A 369)
In short, transcendental idealism involves the idea that appearances are
nothing but representations [Vorstellungen]. Further it draws a
distinction between these representations on the one hand, and what
Kant calls the thing or things in themselves. 6 Let us call this ‘the
6 Kant’s way of denoting what we called ‘things in themselves’ varies throughout
the Critique. Sometimes he uses the singular form Ding an sich selbst or Sache
an sich selbst. Sometimes he uses the same expressions in plural. According to
Prauss (1974), 13ff., however, Kant most typically uses the expression Ding an
sich selbst betrachtet, or versions of this, suggesting that the thing in question is
not ontologically distinct from the ordinary things of our experience, but identical
to them, only that everything pertaining to our human way of experiencing them
has now been abstracted away. Kant sometimes also seems to be using the notion
of das transzendentale Objekt (e.g. A 46/B 63 and A 494/B 522) and das
transzendentale Gegenstand (A 109) in the same sense. For instance, using
raindrops as an example, at A 46/B 63 Kant claims that not only are they
appearances, so are their round form, and even the space through which they
fall. The transcendental object, however, is unknown. At other places, however,
he seems to be using the concept of a transcendental object in a different sense, as
referring to the unity which must be present in a manifold if we are to experience
it as an object, cf. for instance A 109. Prauss (1974), 126 claims that the notion of

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 217
transcendental distinction’. 7 Further, transcendental idealism involves the
claim that we cannot know anything about the nature of the things in
themselves on the basis of our representations. Doing this would involve
what we may call a transcendental transgression.
Even if the term is introduced in the A-edition as late as the
paralogism chapter, and even later in the B-edition, transcendental
idealism is implicitly present in the Critique from the very beginning.
Thus, in claiming the transcendental ideality of time and space, the
above passage refers directly back to the Transcendental aesthetic. At A
26/B 42, for instance, Kant maintains that space is nothing but the form
of the appearances of the outer sense. Shortly thereafter, at A 28/B 44,
he concludes that the things in themselves cannot be ascribed spatial
determinations. Thus, where space is concerned, Kant claims that:
... it is nothing as soon as we leave out the condition of the possibility
of all experience, and take it as something that grounds the things in
themselves. (A 28/B 44)
Transcendental ideality is likewise ascribed to time, for instance at A
32/B 49, and then again promoted in general in the Transcendental
logic, cf. e.g. B 164:
But appearances are only representations of things that exist without
cognition of what they might be in themselves. (B 164)
In the passage just quoted, the term ‘appearance’ is said to involve
nothing but the representation of a thing. The term is further defined at
A 20/B 34 as the undetermined object [Gegenstand] of an empirical
intuition.
the transcendental object must be kept distinct from the notion of the thing in
itself. As we have just seen, however, Kant’s use of the term transcendental object
is ambiguous, so that an absolute distinction is hard to maintain.
7
Kant at A 44/B 62 refers to it as a transzendentaler Unterschied. Here the
distinction is drawn between appearances and things in themselves. Below I will
argue that Kant’s point is that no representation can ever tell us anything about
the things in themselves. Thus the transcendental distinction, properly described,
has to be drawn between the representational domain on the one side, and the
things in themselves on the other.

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That intuition which is related to the object through sensation is
called empirical. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is
called appearance. (A 20/B 34)
As this undetermined object appears in time and space, and time and
space are nothing but the forms in which objects are represented, it
follows that we cannot, on the basis of how objects appear to us, say how
these objects are in themselves.
7.2 The unknown subject
Kant presents a parallel argument regarding self-knowledge. Through
the inner sense I observe my inner life, the form of which is time.
Through the outer sense, the form of which is space, I observe myself as
a body. However, doing this I observe myself only as I appear to myself,
not as I am considered as a thing in itself. 8 That there is a clear limit to
what we can know about ourselves, is also argued in the paralogism
chapter of the A-and B-edition. Here I will present a brief exposition of
the argument of the paralogism chapter of the A-edition. This chapter is
notoriously difficult and I do not intend to give an extensive analysis of it
here. At first sight, and this is also how the chapter is commonly read, its
main agenda is to refute the claims of rational psychology as represented
by Wolff and other rationalist philosophers. We may, however, also
discern another agenda in the paralogism chapter that is perhaps just as
important, if not even more. Starting with a general discussion of selfconsciousness,
Kant discusses what we can learn about ourselves as
human beings from the fact that we are self-conscious.
Our capacity for self-consciousness is central to both the A- and the
B-versions of the transcendental deduction. In the A-deduction selfconsciousness
is introduced in the chapter called ‘On the synthesis of
recognition in the concept’ (A 103 ff.). Kant begins by stating that
cognition presupposes the capacity of being conscious that what we
thought a moment ago is the same as what we think now. Without this
capacity, the manifold of our intuitions would never constitute a whole. It
would lack the unity that only this consciousness can give it. In order to
denote this consciousness Kant introduces the term ‘transcendental
apperception’ (A 106). Transcendental apperception is a pure, original
and unchanging consciousness. It is necessarily represented as being
numerically identical. And as all unity in experience presupposes this
8 Cf. e.g. B 156.

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 219
consciousness, it is an a priori condition of the possibility of experience (A
108).
7.3 The temptations of self-consciousness
What can we learn about ourselves from the fact that we have this
specific kind of self-consciousness called transcendental apperception? If
we return to rational psychology, as Kant deals with it in the paralogism
chapter, from the fact that we are self-conscious, rational psychology has
thought it possible to infer a number of conclusions regarding what it
calls ‘the soul’, Kant writes. Not only is the soul taken to be the most
essential part of us, but according to rational psychology it is a substance,
single, without parts and numerically identical through time. From this
rational psychology has further inferred its immortality.
In all these arguments rational psychology has used the sentence ‘I
think’ as its only premise, Kant claims.
I think is thus the sole text of rational psychology, from which it is to
develop its entire wisdom. (A 343/B 401)
But are the deductions of rational psychology tenable? As readers of
Kant are well aware, he firmly denies this. His official strategy is to show
that the arguments of rational psychology involve a misuse of logic (A
341/B 399). It is, however, also possible to extract another argument
from the paralogism chapter: the error of rational psychology is due to a
transcendental transgression. The argument is that rational psychology
has regarded human self-consciousness as a privileged source of
knowledge about what we really are as human beings. Using Kant’s
terminology, we may say that it claims to have access to knowledge of
what a human being is, considered as a thing in itself. But, human selfconsciousness
is no such source. It is a representation, and as such, it tells
us nothing about ourselves considered as a thing in itself. Rational
psychology has failed to see this and so is guilty of the charge of
transcendental transgression.
Kant supports this point in various ways. Sometimes he argues that in
analyzing self-consciousness we find nothing but the structure of our
representations, or as he puts it, the form our representations necessarily
must have in order to belong to our consciousness (A 363). At other times
he refers to the ‘I think’, or more specifically, the ‘I’ of ‘I think’, as a
representation, for instance here:

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But ‘I am simple’ signifies no more than that this representation ‘I’
encompasses not the least manifoldness within itself, and that it is an
absolute (though merely logical) unity. (A 355)
I will not try to decide here which of the above descriptions best covers
Kant’s point but I will simply repeat what I take to be his basic agenda in
these passages. In analyzing self-consciousness, we never leave the field of
our representations, so there is no way in which transcendental
apperception may be used as a premise from which we may deduce what
a human subject is qua thing in itself. A few pages later, Kant refers to
this unknown and unknowable subject as ‘the transcendental subject’ (A
356). 9
As I see it, Kant’s concept of the transcendental subject is a clear
parallel to his concept of a thing in itself. Just as our empirical
representation of an object does not tell us the whole truth about what
such an object is, so, according to Kant, analyzing our representations
does not tell us the whole truth about who we are considered as thinking
beings. In both cases, there remains something unknown that will forever
remain beyond the reach of human knowledge. 10
7.4 The unknown origin of affection
How does Kant’s theory of embodied cognition, which I claim is implied
and presupposed by the abstract discourse of the Critique, fit with Kant's
transcendental idealism? As was suggested in the introduction to this
chapter, there are problems involved in trying to combine these two
perspectives. In this section I shall take a closer look at these problems,
and then argue how they may be overcome. Let me start by focusing on
Kant’s idea that sensation involves affection.
According to Kant’s theory of embodied cognition (cf. e.g. the
Anthropology), all sensation involves the body being affected directly or
indirectly by physical objects. According to the transcendental idealism of
the Critique we are justified, as part of an empirical psychology, in
9
See also A 354, A 355, A 381 and A 382.
10
This I also take to be Allison’s point (1983), 287 when he writes: ‘The Critique
contains two distinct and incompatible doctrines about the relation between the
subject of apperception and the noumenal self. According to one, which is Kant’s
official position, the subject of apperception is identified simply with the
noumenal or ‘real’ self. According to the other, which I take to express Kant’s
deepest view, the subject of apperception is distinguished from the noumenal self,
indeed, from any kind of intelligible object.
‘

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 221
exploring the physical interaction between the human body and other
physical objects, and trying to identify how this interaction affects us.
However, once we shift to a transcendental perspective, we realize that in
doing this, we only describe ourselves and the physical objects affecting
us as they appear, that is as appearances. Considered transcendentally,
what we describe is nothing but representations. In these representations
we may distinguish between their a priori form, which according to the
theory is supplied by ourselves, and their content, which according to the
theory is produced by the affection of the mind.
Now, what is this affection of the mind? How does it take place? If we
are to answer this question from a transcendental perspective, it seems
that we cannot answer it by referring to the affection that we observe
empirically. If we did this, we would end up with a circular explanation.
We would then explain the empirical content of our representations by
referring to the very same representations the theory was supposed to
explain. 11 In order to avoid this circularity, it seems we have no other
option but to seek the source of the affection of the mind outside the
representational domain, that is in the domain of the things in
themselves.
This also seems to be Kant's idea, for instance at A 494/B 522, where
he states:
The sensible faculty of intuition is really only a receptivity for being
affected in a certain way with representations, whose relation to one
another is a pure intuition of space and time (pure forms of our
sensibility), which, insofar as they are connected and determinable in
these relations (in space and time) according to laws of the unity of
experience, are called objects. The non-sensible cause of these
representations is entirely unknown to us, and therefore we cannot
intuit it as an object; for such an object would have to be represented
neither in space nor in time (as mere conditions of our sensible
representation), without which conditions we cannot think any
intuition. Meanwhile we can call the merely intelligible cause of
appearances in general the transcendental object, merely so that we
may have something corresponding to sensibility as a receptivity. (A
494/B 522, my emphasis)
In this passage the affection of the mind is claimed to be produced by a
non-empirical cause, here called ‘the transcendental object’. This non-
11
That is, the theory was supposed to explain a certain aspect of this experience,
what Kant calls its matter.

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empirical cause, Kant emphasizes, is totally unknown; all we can know is
that it exists. The conclusion seems to be that from a transcendental
perspective we can say nothing about the original affection of the mind
other than that this affection occurs.
Also, to claim that this original affection involves the body seems not
only to lead to circularity but it also seems to involve a transcendental
transgression in which elements from the representational domain are
illicitly used to make claims about the transcendental domain of things in
themselves. However, as Kant does not allow such transgressions to take
place, it seems as if his embodied account of the affection of the senses
has to be strictly distinguished from his transcendental account of
affection. 12 If so, it seems we also have to reject the idea that the theory of
affection found in the Critique gives an abstract account of the theory of
embodied affection put forward in other texts.
An argument similar to the one just suggested may also be used in an
attempt to refute the idea that our representations of time and space are
constituted by embodied acts. From a transcendental perspective, such
an explanation would again seem to be circular, given that time and
space are the forms in which our embodied acts are represented. In order
to explain the constitution of these forms it seems we cannot seek the
explanation inside the domain of the form that is to be explained. In
order to avoid circularity it seems we have to seek it outside this domain,
which again seems to lead us to the domain of things in themselves. To
claim that this constitution involves embodied acts, then, would seem to
involve a new example of an illegal transcendental transgression.
If this holds, then we may have found the final reason why the
cognitive theory of the Critique contains few, if any, explicit references to
the body. The reason is that the body has nothing to do in a cognitive
theory produced under the perspective of transcendental idealism. If this
is so, then in the Critique Kant attempts to establish a cognitive theory of
a totally different kind from the theory of embodied cognition found in
his other writings, different in the sense that it operates on the nonempirical
side of the transcendental distinction, that is, the side of the
things in themselves. In that case, Kant’s transcendental psychology is
not a psychology of man as he exists as an empirical being in an
empirical world. It is the psychology of man as he exists as a
transcendental subject.
Before we draw this conclusion, however, we should ask whether
other interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism are possible. As
12 For a further discussion of this problem, see e.g. Prauss (1974), 192ff.

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we have already seen, a number of commentators have put forward what
I have called a life-world perspective according to which Kant’s
transcendental philosophy involves a philosophical reflection taking place
within the human life-world as we know it. I would argue that this is also
the case where Kant’s transcendental idealism is concerned: Kant’s
transcendental idealism follows from a line of reflection in which the
embodied nature of human cognition is a basic premise. By adopting this
interpretation, we may maintain both the basic doctrines of Kant’s
transcendental idealism, and at the same time contend that Kant’s theory
of embodied cognition is a legitimate part of transcendental philosophy. 13
I shall shortly present my interpretation in more detail, and argue
why I think it should be preferred. This will also be my way of
responding to those who argue that references to the body have no place
in Kant’s transcendental idealism, for instance by pointing at the
problems (or apparent problems) we have investigated in this section. My
strategy is not to argue directly against this position, but rather to argue
that another and better reading of Kant is available. Indirectly, however,
this strategy of course also involves a criticism of earlier interpreters such
as Strawson because it implies that their reading of the Critique misses
some rather essential points.
As a final point before continuing, let me state that I am aware that
Kant claims to have followed more than one way leading to
transcendental idealism, one starting from the antinomies, another from
the a priori nature of geometry. The way emphasized in this chapter is
perhaps not the only one leading to a transcendental idealism of a
Kantian sort but it is a way that I take to be fundamental. With this in
mind, let us proceed.
7.5 From the empirical to the transcendental
I have suggested that Kant’s transcendental philosophy in general
involves philosophical reflection taking place within the human life-world
as we know it, and that Kant’s transcendental idealism is a product of
this reflection. More specifically, I shall now argue that Kant’s
transcendental idealism is the product of a reflection having as its starting
13 Only at one point within his transcendental reflection does Kant point beyond
the empirical world, I think. This is when he defines the general notion of a thing
in itself. However, I agree with those arguing that this notion is used only
negatively, as denoting that in an object that cannot be known. Thus, properly
understood, the term refers to the limit of our knowledge, and does not imply
that Kant attempted to cross this limit.

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point the everyday world of our experience, i.e. the idea that this world is
roughly as we experience it to be. Let us call this ‘the empirical world’.
Moreover, let us assume that this world is more or less as described by
Newtonian physics, here conceived of as a physics valid for the medium
sized objects of our world. Finally, let us assume that we exist in this
world as embodied beings. If we do this, we arrive at a conception of the
world more or less similar to the one Kant explicitly defends. Note that
contrary to, for instance, Descartes and Hume, Kant never indulges in
skepticism concerning the existence of the world of our experience. On
the contrary, he frequently tells us that we are justified in taking this
world to be real. This is what I take to be implied by his claim that this
world is ‘empirically real’. Transcendentally considered the things of our
world may all be appearances, but this does not mean that they are just
illusions [ein bloßer Schein]. Contrary to what the terminology may
suggest, he emphasizes that these things are real.
If I say: in space and time intuition represents both outer objects as
well as the self-intuition of the mind as each affects our senses, i.e., as
it appears, that is not to say that these objects would be a mere
illusion... […] Thus I do not say that bodies merely seem to exist
outside me ... (B 69)
That we have no reason to doubt the reality of the spatio-temporal
objects of our empirical world is also emphasized in Kant’s refutation of
the skepticism of Hume and Descartes, found for instance, in the Aversion
of the paralogism chapter. Our immediate awareness
[unmittelbare Wahrnehmung or Bewußtsein] of these objects is sufficient
proof of their existence, he argues.
I am no more necessitated to draw inferences in respect of the reality
of external objects than I am in regard to the reality of the objects of
my inner sense (my thoughts), for in both cases they are nothing but
representations, the immediate perception (consciousness) of which is
at the same time a sufficient proof of their reality. (A 371)
That Kant took this world of objects to obey the laws of Newtonian
physics is also well documented. Actually, the very Critique itself is an
argument in support of this.
As for the embodied nature of human existence, we have seen that
this idea is put forward in a number of texts published both before and
after the Critique. A basic idea of these texts is that the human mind is
radically embodied and that there is no way in which it may operate
independently of the body. This idea is stated in different ways at

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different times. In Dreams of a spirit-seer Kant states that the mind is
present wherever the body is. At other times he argues that the mind is
virtually present in the body. In the Anthropology the idea is simply
assumed as an obvious fact. In the Critique the embodied nature of the
mind is not explicitly discussed. Still, I have argued that here too we need
to see the human mind as embodied.
Let us accept that the cognitive agent of the Critique is an embodied
human being. It is a being whose mind is virtually present in the body,
that is, it is present as the life of this embodied being. The term ‘life’ is
here to be understood in a wide sense, signifying awareness or
consciousness, biological processes as well as behavior. What follows if we
accept this idea of human embodiment and if we ask how this
embodiment affects our experience? One conclusion that follows is that,
qua embodied beings, we always find ourselves to be placed in a radical
manner in the position of the body. This means that in our search for
experience, or knowledge, of the world, we have to help ourselves with
whatever capacities and resources we are endowed with in virtue of being
embodied. One aspect of this is positive in that our embodied nature, or
to use a more Heideggerian expression, our being-in-the-world-as-body,
gives us certain capacities and powers that we would not have had if,
counterfactually, we were not embodied. However, our radical
embodiment also puts certain and absolute limits on what it is possible
for us to achieve.
Where awareness is concerned, for instance, it follows from the idea
of radical embodiment that immediate awareness can include nothing
but the body. I may in principle have an immediate awareness of all parts
of my body but there is no way in which I can have such an awareness of
things existing outside it. I can have an immediate awareness of my hand,
my leg and the beating of my heart but I cannot have this kind of
awareness of the table in front of me or the tree outside my window. In
this sense, my immediate awareness is confined within the space in which
I exist as an embodied being, that is, the space of my body. Where
immediate awareness is concerned, the boundary of this space is an
absolute limit. Inside it, immediate awareness is possible, outside it, it is
not.
What follows if we further reflect upon this limit? As already noticed,
it follows that we have no immediate or direct awareness of objects
existing outside the boundaries of our bodies. Let us accept that such
objects exist in the way specified above, that we exist as embodied beings
along with these objects, and that we physically interact with them, either
directly, for instance when we touch or grasp them, or indirectly, for
instance, when rays of light are reflected from an object and strike the

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eyes. It still follows that we have no immediate awareness of these objects
with which we interact. We may believe that we have and when I touch
an object with my hand I may think that I have an immediate awareness
of it. However my immediate awareness includes only the changes
occurring in my hand (the way my hand is affected) as it touches the
object, and its movements as I grasp it. The same applies to any other act
of perception. When, for instance, I see a tree in front of me, my
immediate awareness includes the changes occurring in my eye as they
are affected by the rays of light reflected from the tree, and the
movements of my pupils as they focus on the tree. It does not include the
three as such. In all acts of perception, my immediate awareness never
includes the object of perception, but only the changes occurring in my
embodied states. We are here close to a point expressed by Kant in the
A-edition:
For one cannot have sensation outside oneself, but only in oneself,
and the whole of self-consciousness therefore provides nothing other
than merely our own determinations. (A 378)
This idea is also restated in the B-edition. Kant here maintains that it is a
reasonable and well founded philosophical claim that we have no
immediate experience [unmittelbahre Erfahrung] outside ourselves (B
275).
The fact that I refer to these passages in order to illustrate my points
is of course no coincidence. On the contrary, I think the reflection we are
now involved in is more or less the same as the one leading to Kant’s
transcendental idealism. It starts by stating that we are embodied beings,
and thus have a limited existence in time and space, 14 and proceeds by
asking what philosophical consequences may be drawn from this. The
idea that, in all acts of perception, my immediate awareness never
includes the object of perception but only the changes occurring in my
internal, embodied states in the perceptive act, may seem strange if not
outrageous. However, I do not think there is anything wrong with it. On
the contrary, it follows directly from assumptions that were not only
supported by Kant (if I am right) but are also taken as obvious by most
people today. If we accept that the world is like how we take it to be, that
14 The idea that we, as human beings, are limited [endliche Wesen] is explicitly
stated at B 72. In line with the general abstract style of the Critique, Kant does
not say that a human being is finite because it is embodied. However, I think we
may well assume that this is the argument.

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we exist in this world as embodied beings, and that our immediate
awareness includes our own bodies only, then the rest of what was said
above follows.
There is one sense in which this reflection is strange, however. It is
strange in the sense that it is a reflection in which we do not ordinarily
engage. We are not used to reflecting upon the fact that we are
embodied, and that our immediate awareness is confined within the
space that we inhabit as embodied beings. This, however, is what Kant
does as part of his transcendental reflection, I believe. It should also be
emphasized that this is a reflection and when we are talking about the
embodied states of which we are immediately aware, this immediate
awareness should not be identified with our normal state of
consciousness. Our normal state of consciousness is the one implied by
Kant’s notion of empirical realism, a state of consciousness in which we
experience ourselves in space along with other spatio-temporal objects; in
a world of houses, trees and other everyday things. The fact that our
immediate awareness is confined within the space that we inhabit as
embodied beings is an idea, therefore, that we would probably not have
come upon had it not been for this reflection.
It may be objected against this analysis that even if we accept it as
part of a theoretical reflection, it is wrong, for instance because I assume
that the embodied acts accompanying our perceptions are something of
which we are aware. It may be claimed that this is not so. When I
perceive a tree, I am not normally aware of the movements of my pupils
as they focus on the tree. Within the context of Kantian philosophy,
however, this is not a problem. As we have seen earlier, Kant argues that
embodied acts, even if we are not explicitly aware of peforming them,
may still be conscious at a deeper level. In a sense we are aware of them,
but this awareness is too weak to reach the level of explicit attention.
Let us now return to the idea that, when we physically interact with
objects outside us, our immediate awareness never includes these objects
as such, but only the changes occurring in our internal, embodied states
in the perceptive act. And let us now proceed a step further. From what
has just been said it follows that everything we experience as being
outside our bodies is known only indirectly through our awareness of
these embodied states. To use a metaphor, we could say that the world of
our experience, the world in which we find ourselves living, the world of
physical objects like tables, houses and trees, is some kind of construction
made on the basis of our awareness of these states, elaborated by
whatever capacities our embodied minds may have. Being familiar with
this construction since early childhood, we do not doubt its objectivity.
Nevertheless, it is a construction.

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Let us call the construction just referred to a ‘representation’, or
perhaps better, let us talk about representations in the plural. A
representation, then, corresponds to a state within an embodied mind. 15
How and where it exists in this embodied mind, and how it involves the
body and/or embodied acts and events, we do not have to discuss here,
although I shall return to it later. At present I want to emphasize that the
reflection has now led us to a conclusion that is central to Kant’s
transcendental idealism: all our experience of the world is
representational.
I also want to emphasize that we have arrived at this idea without,
metaphorically speaking, having left the empirical world. We have not
placed ourselves outside this world, for instance in the domain of things
in themselves. The perspective we have established is not a perspective in
which the empirical world is critically examined from a position outside
it. Notice also, that this representationalism is not defined in contrast to a
hypothetical knowledge of things in themselves. In fact, the notion of
things in themselves has not been a part of the reflection at all so far. The
notion of a representation has been called upon simply in order to
characterize the specific status of our experience. This, I think, is highly
significant. Even if Kant sometimes contrasts representational knowledge
with hypothetical knowledge of things in themselves, it does not follow
that this contrast is required in order to define the transcendental notion
of a representation. Notice, finally, that in claiming our experience to be
representational, I do not challenge our normal, everyday confidence in
the empirical world, and neither does Kant’s representationalism require
us to do so. So far, the reality of the empirical world has been a premise
underlying the reflection. If it seems that our confidence in this world has
been undermined, we shall soon see, and by means of a Kantian
argument, that there is no need to draw this conclusion.
Before we do that, however, let me make a final remark concerning
the transcendental character of the present reflection. It may seem that
the reflection we have now entertained is indistinguishable from an
empirical investigation of the process of perception. I shall maintain,
however, that it is not. The transcendental reflection, as it has now been
presented, does presuppose that we have empirical knowledge of the
perceptive process and the context in which it takes place. It presupposes
15
As for empirical intuitions, Falkenstein (1995), 120 approaches a similar view:
‘Such an intuition is immediately grounded in the affection of the body, and
there is a sense, therefore, in which intuitions are present as ‘extended and
enduring physiological states’.

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 229
what Kant would have called an empirical anthropology. However, it is
not identical with such a science. On a general level, if we draw a
distinction between what we may call an empirical perspective and a
transcendental perspective, I take an empirical perspective in a Kantian
sense to be established, roughly, when we ask how the empirical world is.
A transcendental perspective is established when we ask how we attain
experience of this world. The last question contains a reference to our
subjective relation to the world, which goes beyond a mere empirical
description of its objects, and also beyond a mere empirical description of
man. Also, the question just stated leads us to formulate concepts and
doctrines that have no place within a merely empirical science, such as
the claim that all our knowledge is representational. This claim concerns
not the content, but the epistemic status of our knowledge. Thus, the
present reflection is in its essence transcendental, not empirical.
7.6 Kant’s representationalism
In the history of philosophy, Kant is not alone in arguing that all
experience is representational. Both Descartes and Hume put forward a
representationalist position, and so do a number of other sixteenth and
seventeenth-century philosophers. In the philosophy of both Descartes
and Hume this representationalism is associated with skepticism
concerning the existence of the external world. Even if both philosophers
strive to overcome this skepticism, there is a moment in the philosophical
reflection of each in which skepticism is overwhelming, in which all
confidence in the reality of the external world, including the human
body, is lost, and in which only the reality of the mind itself remains
secure. Under the perspective of this radical skepticism the agent is
invited to look at itself as a disembodied mind, mysteriously existing
outside the spatio-temporal world of physical objects, constituting a
mental domain where free-floating images come and go.
Kant’s representationalism is sometime taken as a version of such a
representationalism. However, there is at least one way in which his
representationalism differs radically from the ones found in Hume and
Descartes. Nowhere in the transcendental project does he doubt that the
external, empirical world exists, or that this world is, roughly, as it
appears to us. Nowhere does he suggest that our confidence in this world
is unfounded. And, significantly, never does he conceive of the mind as
disembodied. Within the context of Kant’s transcendental reflection,
there is no moment at which we are encouraged to conceive of
representations as free-floating images coming and going in a
disembodied mind. According to his transcendental philosophy the way

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it is conceived here, these images, i.e. representations, are always firmly
grounded in the immediate experience of the embodied states of the
embodied agent interacting with the physical objects, which are also the
objects of its experience. In this way Kant’s representationalism has more
in common with the embodied representationalism of Condillac and
Rousseau, than the representationalism of Descartes or Hume.
The immediate awareness of embodied states on which our
representations are grounded may be classified under two categories; the
awareness of embodied affection and the awareness of embodied acts. I
shall elaborate this point by means of an example through which I also
want to illuminate further what I take to be the relation between the
empirical and the transcendental in Kant’s critical philosophy. Finally I
shall discuss how Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space
may be interpreted within the context now established.
Imagine yourself with closed eyes holding a large ball in your hands.
Imagine that you feel its surface with your fingers. In order to get an idea
of its shape, you move your hands along its surface. Imagine that you do
this with the kind of everyday familiarity with which we normally
confront the world. That is, imagine that the ball is there with a fixed
shape and a fixed texture in the way that we normally take objects to
exist in this world. Imagine this. Then, within this context, go on to focus
only on that of which you have immediate awareness. What is it? First it
includes the movements you are making with your hands. Secondly, it
includes the feeling in your palms and fingers as they move. Notice that
in drawing this conclusion you have not moved from one world to
another. You have not become a different person. You are the same
person all along, and the event you have been involved in, the moving
and touching, is the same as well. What has happened, however, is that
you have now established another perspective on this event. According to
the first perspective, the ball is simply there, in space, with a fixed shape,
independently of whether you observe it or not. The ball is what Kant
calls ‘empirically real’ and so are its texture and its spatial features, i.e. its
shape. So we may call this perspective ‘empirical’. According to the other
perspective, however, the ball is not simply there. What is there is your
awareness of your body, that is, your awareness of the movements you
are making with your hands, and the feeling in your palms and fingers as
they move. The focus here is not on the empirical object as such, but an
aspect of your way of attaining experience of it. Thus, according to my
definition in chapter 4, this perspective may be called transcendental in a
general sense.
Even if Kant himself does not explicitly describe the relation between
the empirical and the transcendental in exactly this way, I think this

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example may be used to illuminate this relation in a Kantian sense. First,
it illuminates what I take to be a central Kantian point, that moving from
an empirical to a transcendental perspective does not mean that we
suddenly become different people or that we deal with another world
with other kinds of objects. The move involves a change in perspective
only, focusing on our way of attaining experience of objects rather than
the objects of this knowledge. This point, I think, is clearly expressed in
the passage quoted at the beginning of this chapter:
The difference between the transcendental and the empirical
therefore belongs only to the critique of cognitions [Erkenntnisse] and
does not concern their relation to their object. (A 57/B 81)
The example also illustrates how our experience or knowledge of the
ball, as we take it to exist within the empirical perspective, is grounded in
our immediate awareness of our embodied states. It is not a free-floating
image in a disembodied mind. Notice also how these states are of two
sorts. First we have the awareness of our palms and fingers as they are
affected by the texture of the ball. Then we have the awareness of our
hands and perhaps the rest of the body as we actively grasp the ball and
let our hands move along its surface. What within the empirical
perspective we refer to as the texture of the ball corresponds to or is
grounded in the first sort of awareness, while what within this perspective
we refer to as its shape, corresponds to or is grounded in the second sort
of awareness.
Below I shall argue that the reflection presently entertained also
entails the idea that space is transcendentally ideal, or at least that space
may be described in the same terms as we find in the Kantian doctrine of
the transcendental ideality of space. Before we reach that point, however,
we need to return for a moment to the example of the ball. Imagine
yourself again holding it in your hands with closed eyes. Imagine how
you move your hands along its surface. When you consider the ball with
the everyday confidence that characterizes what we have called the
empirical perspective, the ball is simply there, in space, with a certain
fixed shape, independently of whether you observe it or not. Thus its
spatiality, i.e. shape, is what Kant calls empirically real. If, however, you
direct your attention to that of which you are immediately aware only,
the shape of the ball is not simply there anymore. What is there, is your
awareness of that which in the perspective now established corresponds
to the empirical shape of the ball. As we have seen above, and as is
obvious from the example, this is the movement you are making with
your hands as you move them along the surface of the ball.

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What is the relation between what within the first perspective is seen
as the shape of the ball, and this awareness of movement? As long as you
actually stand there examining the ball, I think there is a sense in which
the two are the same. When you say to yourself that the ball is round,
thereby making a statement belonging to the empirical perspective, there
is a sense in which the term ‘round ball’ refers to your awareness of your
movement. Now, please notice the implication of this: the spatial features
of the ball, i.e. its shape, which inside the first perspective is seen as
empirically real, and according to Kant legitimately so, must in a
transcendental perspective be acknowledged as your awareness of your
own movement. Transcendentally considered space not only presupposes
embodied activity, space is such activity, or better, embodied, selfdetermined
movement of which we are immediately aware.
I have focused on an example in which the tactile sense is central not
just because I think it is illuminating, but also because, as I have argued
earlier, I take embodied acts such as the one explored in this example to
be prototypical in Kant’s cognitive theory. In all perception there is an
essential aspect of embodied movement. In visual perception, for
instance, I typically move my pupils as their focus slides along the
external contours of the object perceived. Consequently, I think the
results just arrived at may be generalized to include all kinds of
perception. Stated generally, and transcendentally considered, space is
awareness of embodied movement, or better, it is embodied, selfdetermined
movement of which we are immediately aware. 16
We have now arrived at a position that is consistent with all the
central ideas defining Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental ideality of
space. In the Critique he contends that, transcendentally considered,
space is subjective. 17 According to the present interpretation it is so
because the notion of space, transcendentally considered, refers to the
awareness of the embodied movements of the cognitive agent. It is also
16
I am here close to Kaulbach’s interpretation, cf. e.g. Kaulbach (1965), 104.
Here he writes: ‘Die Lehre Kants von Raum und Zeit in der transzendentalen
Ästhetik konnte den Begriff der Bewegung nicht voll entfalten, weil die beiden
‘Formen’ der Anschauung hier noch isoliert von der Synthesis mit dem
Verstande behandelt werden. Im weiteren Verlauf der Vernunftkritik zeigt sich
jedoch immer deutlicher das Hervortreten des Bewegungsprinzips. Es wird dabei
deutlich, daß Raum und Zeit nichts für sich sind, sondern Momente an dem
Wesen der Bewegung: Beide müssen daher von ihr her philosophisch analysiert
werden.’ I am also close to Melnick’s position (1989), 6 when he ascribes to Kant
the view that space ‘is fundamentally our behavior or something we do’.
17
Cf. e.g. A 26/B 42. Cf. also A 99, A 103 and B 162.

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 233
obvious why he argues in the Critique that space is not an empirical
concept in the sense of being abstracted [abgezogen] from our
experience of empirical objects in space.
Space is not an empirical concept that has been drawn from outer
experiences. (A 23/B 38)
On the contrary, our representation of space is what makes possible the
experience of such objects.
… but this outer experience is itself first possible only through this
representation [of space]. (A 23/B 38)
In the context of the present interpretation, Kant may claim this because,
again, the notion of space, transcendentally considered, refers to the
awareness of the embodied movements of the cognitive agent. And only
through this, that is, by touching, grasping, etc., and by being aware of
these acts, do we learn to know the spatial form of empirical objects. In
this sense, these acts combined with awareness make possible the
experience of objects in space. Thus, Kant may legitimately claim that
the representation of space is not abstracted [abgezogen] from our
experience of such objects. It is the other way around. Our
representation of space, i.e. our embodied acts combined with awareness,
make our experience of these objects possible.
By means of the present interpretation we can also explain how Kant
may legitimately claim both that space, transcendentally considered is
produced, i.e. that it originates [entspringen] in our own activity, and
that it is not a discursive concept, but a pure intuition (A 24-25/B 39).
The term ‘intuition’, I think, signals, among other things, the special
quality of immediate awareness characterizing our self-determined
embodied movements, which transcendentally considered is space. 18
Because we have this immediate, intuitive awareness of space, we do not
have to employ conceptual thinking or logical reasoning in order to know
space intuitively. It is known intuitively through the immediate awareness
we have of our embodied movements, which, transcendentally
considered, is space. In this specific sense, space is given. At the same
18
Also relevant here is what Kant says about space in Directions in space and
Orientation, that we have an immediate awareness of the spatial relations within
our body, such as the difference between its left and right side. This awareness is
immediate, and thus, intuitive.

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time however, it is also activity, or awareness of activity. Falkenstein fails
to see this point when he claims that the Kantian idea that space is given
entails that it is given prior to any activity of the agent. 19
Within the context of the present interpretation, we may explain,
finally, how Kant, as part of his doctrine of the transcendental ideality of
space, may legitimately contend that, transcendentally considered, the
notion of space refers only to our way of intuiting the world, and cannot
be used to qualify objects as they exist independently of this (cf. e.g. A
24f/B 39ff.). If we accept that space, transcendentally considered, is
embodied movement, or our awareness of such movement, and if we
accept that Kant’s statement for instance at A 24f/B 39ff. is based on this
insight, then I think that Kant’s point is that, transcendentally
considered, this is the only space we know. Why? Let us return for a last
time to the example of the ball. According to what we called the
empirical perspective, the ball is simply there, in space, with a fixed
shape, independently of whether you observe it or not. The ball is what
Kant characterizes as empirically real and so are its spatial features, i.e.
its extension and shape. According to what we called the transcendental
perspective, however, the ball is not simply there. Within this perspective
we place brackets, as it were, around the empirical world. As we place
brackets around this world, what is left qua space, is nothing but our own
self-conscious movement. Within the transcendental perspective, this is
space, and moreover, it is the only space we know. And as long as we
remain strictly within this perspective, we cannot talk about any other
space. Consequently, we must also abstain from any talk that ascribes
spatial qualities to objects as they exist in abstraction from our way of
perceiving them. This, I think, is Kant’s basic insight when he insists that
the notion of space cannot be applied to the things in themselves. 20
Notice, finally, that the Kantian idea of the transcendental ideality of
space does not demand that we give up our ordinary confidence in the
empirical reality of space. The Kantian idea principally concerns our
way of experiencing this space. It involves a transcendental reminder of
19
As I have argued, Falkenstein may be right in a limited sense, but not when we
take into account our experience of the spatial form of objects.
20
This I take to be also Kaulbach’s idea, when discussing Kant’s critical theory of
space, he states: ‘Die Figur selbst ... […] ist keine an sich seiende Wesenseinheit,
sondern spiegelt die Handlung des Beschreibens wider: Da sie diese Bewegung
spiegelt, ist die Figur Ausdruck der Bewegung des Beschreibens. Unabhängig und
ausserhalb dieser Bewegung ist sie nichts.’ (Kaulbach (1968), 274.)

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 235
the origin of our empirical knowledge of space, and the limits of this
knowledge. It does not question our intuition of this space.
I do not claim to have conclusively proved that Kant’s doctrine of the
transcendental ideality of space follows from a reflection upon human
embodiment. In fact, I do not think that it is possible to arrive at any final
or decisive interpretation of a text as complex as the Critique. However, I
have demonstrated that an interpretation of the Critique exists according
to which we may legitimately contend both that space is transcendentally
ideal and that cognition is embodied in the way suggested, that is to say,
where our intuitions of empirical objects are concerned, they are
grounded in the affection of the body along with its self-conscious
movements. This we can do because the existence of the body is never
doubted as part of the transcendental reflection. On the contrary,
through this reflection we learn to realize that it is the instrument by
which alone, through embodied interaction, we learn to know the world
around us. This was what I wanted to show here.
Before ending this chapter, I shall take a final look at Kant’s antiskepticism,
and also consider further how we are to understand the
Kantian notion of a representation.
7.7 Kant’s anti-skepticism
Kant’s transcendental idealism, perhaps the most famous of all his ideas,
is often attacked as an example of the loftiness of philosophy in general
and Kant in particular. Talking about things in themselves is seen as
representing a morbid and unfounded skepticism quite foreign to
common sense. The same applies to his radical representationalism and
the idea that time and space are transcendentally ideal.
We have seen that the transcendental idealism of the Critique may be
seen to follow a reflection with its starting point being an idea that most
of us accept as obvious, that human existence is embodied. I think that
this transcendental idealism represents a position that any qualified
thinker has to end up with if she takes seriously the embodied nature of
human life. Far from being a sign of the loftiness of his philosophy,
Kant’s transcendental idealism tells us that Kant himself is such a
thinker. We have also seen that Kant vigorously distances himself from
skepticism. Rather than promoting it, he says that the Critique should be
seen as an attempt to diagnose and cure the unwarranted skepticism of
other philosophical positions. As the whole Critique may be read as an
argument against skepticism, I will not go into all the details of Kant’s
anti-skeptical arguments here. I think, however, that the notion of the

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embodied mind is a basic element of his anti-skeptical strategy, even if he
does not stress that point himself. I shall say more on this in due course.
First, however, let us notice that it is far from obvious that the notion
of human embodiment can be used in a strategy to fight skepticism. On
the contrary, the notion itself seems to be vulnerable to skepticism. I have
argued that Kantian representationalism follows from a reflection
starting out from the idea that human existence is radically embodied. It
is possible to argue, however, that by following this reflection to the end,
the very notion of embodiment is undermined. If we accept that
everything that we represent as being outside us is some kind of
construction made on the basis of information present to our embodied
minds, then it seems to follow that what I call my body is such a
construction too. When I observe my arm, my legs, and other parts of my
body, then my body appears to me in space along with all the other
empirical objects of my empirical world. If these are representational
constructions, must not my body also be such a construction? If so, do I
have any privileged knowledge of it? Can I know that what I take to be
my body is really my body? Can I know that this body is where my mind
is? It may seem as if all these questions have to be answered negatively. If
so, then the very idea that the mind is embodied undermines itself, or so
it seems.
The problem is not a trivial one. When I observe my body from the
outside, for instance, if I look at one of my arms, then it has the same
epistemic status as other objects in my environment, and as such I have
no privileged epistemic access to it. However, the knowledge I have of
my body is not derived just from the knowledge I have from observing it
from the outside. I also know my body from the inside, and this
knowledge is immediate in a sense that my knowledge derived from
external observation is not. 21
Now, what kind of knowledge is this
immediate knowledge? What can it tell about myself? Does it tell me I
am embodied?
Before I answer this question let me emphasize, as I have done
before, that what I here call ‘immediate knowledge’ is not identical with
our normal state of consciousness. So the answer to the question just put
is not found by asking what we actually feel inside at some particular
moment. It is found by asking what it is possible to know, and what not,
when we start to reflect upon human embodiment. With this in mind, let
us proceed.
21
Kaulbach (1968), 285 expresses this point beautifully: ‘Der Leib ist
unmittelbare Gegenwart. Er ist mir, raumlich gesprochen, das Nächste.’

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 237
I think that much of my knowledge of myself as an embodied being
has to be given up when I establish the theoretical perspective just
suggested. I have to give up all parts of this knowledge that is based on
observation from outside the body, such as when I observe my arm on
the table in front of me now. I have to give up, for instance, my
knowledge of the color of my skin and my eyes, as well as my knowledge
of the exact constitution of my organs, including my sense organs. Even if
all this is given up, however, something, I think, remains, namely, that I,
as a conscious mind, inhabit a space within a certain boundary. Thus, I
know myself as a being in space. 22 I also know myself as a being with the
capacity to move in space, as a being with the potential for being acted
upon, and with a potential for acting upon other beings. Whether I am
justified in referring to this spatial being that I am as a body may be a
matter for discussion. If we define a body in a minimal sense, however, as
a being endowed with consciousness, extended in space and with the
capacity to act and being acted upon, then I am also justified in saying
that my mind inhabits a body in the sense just specified.
Whether Kant would have agreed to this argument or not, I do not
know. He might have pointed out that there are other arguments
favoring the idea that the mind is embodied in the sense just specified as
well, such as the one suggested in my analysis of the schematism chapter;
that cognition of objects in space presupposes that we exist in space with
the capacity to interact with these objects. Or he might have insisted that
the fact that we are embodied beings (at least in this life) is such an
obvious fact that there is no point in denying it. Regardless of the
underlying argument, however, I think that Kant would have insisted
that his transcendental philosophy presupposes the notion of human
embodiment in the way specified. Moreover, I think that this notion is a
basic element of Kant’s anti-skeptical strategy, as I shall try to show.
Let us take a look at Kant’s refutation of the skepticism of Descartes
and Hume in the A-version of the paralogism chapter. Kant here fights
what he diagnoses as skeptical idealism, that is, the position claiming that
the existence of objects in space is doubtful, which he ascribes to both
Descartes and Hume. This skepticism, he argues, arises from the
assumption that the mind is the only thing of which we have immediate
awareness, i.e., sensation. This is in itself no bad assumption, according
to Kant. In fact, it is also his own position:
22 At least, this follows if we accept that we have an immediate awareness of the
spatial relations within our body, as Kant contends in Directions in space and
Orientation.

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For one cannot have sensation outside oneself, but only in oneself,
and the whole of self-consciousness therefore provides nothing other
than merely our own determinations. (A 378)
So assuming that the mind is the only thing of which we have immediate
awareness is not a mistake in itself, according to Kant. However, the
skeptical idealist combines this assumption with other ideas with
disastrous consequences. Among these is the idea that time and space
exist independently of our representations, and consequently, that objects
experienced in time and space exist as such independently of our way of
representing them. This position Kant calls transcendental realism. If this
realism were true, he admits, the existence of objects in space would
indeed be uncertain. Then we would have to make an inference from our
representations of these objects in us to the objects corresponding to
these representations as they exist independently of our representations.
But as such inferences are an easy prey to skepticism, no knowledge of
these objects, considered independently of our representations, would be
secure.
If we let outer objects count as things in themselves, then it is
absolutely impossible to comprehend how we are to acquire cognition
of their reality outside us, since we base this merely on the
representation, which is in us. (A 378)
However, transcendental realism does not hold, Kant argues. Space
exists only as the form of our intuition, and objects in time and space
(what we usually call external objects) are known to us only in intuition.
Thus, it is wrong to regard these objects, qua experienced, as external to
the mind. Our awareness of them is just as immediate and direct as is the
mind itself. Consequently, we should reject the idea that we have some
sort of privileged knowledge of the mind that does not apply also to
objects intuited in space. We have no more reason to doubt the existence
of objects in space, qua experienced, than we have to doubt the existence
of the mind itself.
I am no more necessitated to draw inferences in respect of the reality
of external objects than I am in regard to the reality of the objects of
my inner sense (my thoughts), for in both cases they are nothing but
representations, the immediate perception (consciousness) of which is
at the same time a sufficient proof of their reality. (A 371)
So contrary to what someone might believe, according to Kant the idea
that what we call external objects are through and through

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 239
representational does not jeopardize their epistemic status. Quite the
opposite, it frees them from the doubt directed at them by skeptical
idealism, and so transcendental idealism necessary leads to what Kant
calls empirical realism.
At first sight Kant’s story here seems to be rather different from the
one I have told above. Nothing is said about an embodied mind. Instead,
he seems to be giving us an account of a mind almost indistinguishable
from the mind as it is according to Hume and Descartes, a disembodied
mind aware only of its own inner states. This mind, Kant emphasizes, is
the only thing of which we have immediate and secure knowledge.
Moreover, what we take to be objects existing independently in space
are, transcendentally considered, nothing but representations in this
mind. However, we also know that Kant vigorously resisted the idealism
of Descartes and Hume. Consequently, whatever the message of the
above argument is, it should not be confused with the position of these
philosophers.
Kant may himself have become aware that this way of stating his
point might lead readers to confuse his transcendental idealism with the
more dubious forms of idealism of Descartes and Hume. No wonder,
then, that he rewrote the paralogism chapter for the B-edition and also
added a newly written Refutation of idealism. However, the fact that he
rewrote the A-version of the paralogism chapter does not mean that he
took its argument to be false. More probably he feared that it would be
misread, or that more was needed to get his point across than what was
said in the A-edition. Actually, in the Refutation of idealism of the Bedition,
Kant repeats what we have just seen him claim in the A-edition
version of the paralogism chapter. He discusses a position called
problematical idealism which is an idealism of a Cartesian sort, in which
the existence of external objects is not denied, but claimed to be dubious.
This idealism is based on the assumption that we have no immediate
experience [unmittelbahre Erfahrung] outside ourselves. This is a
reasonable and well founded philosophical claim, he maintains (B 275). 23
But does not this make Kant a Cartesian? Does not this make his
position just what he wants to avoid? In the B-edition he still attacks
Cartesian idealism, so in what way is his position different? One way of
seeing it as different and giving sense to the argument found both in the
23
However, he now also adds another argument to prove the existence of
external objects. Our experience of time, which belongs to the inner sense, and
thus to the domain which even the sceptic accepts as certain, is possible only if
outer objects exist. This argument will be further explored in a later chapter.

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A-version of the paralogism chapter and the B-edition Refutation of
idealism that we have no immediate experience [Erfahrung] outside
ourselves is to conceive of the cognitive agent referred to in the argument
as an embodied self. This would ensure that Kant’s position is different
from Descartes’, and moreover, it takes us into a reflection remarkably
similar in structure to the reflection that has formed the core of the last
part of this chapter.
According to Kant, the reason why my experience of the empirical
world is not threatened by the skepticism of such as Descartes is that it is
established as a fact beyond doubt, that I am a body in the minimal sense
defined above, i.e., a being endowed with consciousness, extended in
space and with the capacity to act and be acted upon. This is established
by the intuitive and immediate awareness that I have of being such a
body. The same intuitive immediacy applies also to my intuitions of
objects of my empirical world, such as when I hold a ball in my hands.
Even if I do not have any immediate awareness of the ball as such (due to
the fact that I have no immediate awareness outside my body), I have an
immediate awareness of how the ball affects my hands (or the something
that corresponds to this affection affects me), as well as my movements as
I hold and grasp it, which is its spatial form within the transcendental
perspective. Thus, everything the ball is to me, of this I have an
immediate, intuitive awareness. And if immediate awareness testifies to
reality, as Kant obviously think it does, then the ball, as I experience it, is
real as it can be to me. And the same is true of every object of my
experience. This is why Kant can conclude, as he does (A 371), that ‘I am
no more necessitated to draw inferences in respect of the reality of
external objects than I am in regard to the reality of the objects of my
inner sense (my thoughts), for in both cases they are nothing but
representations, the immediate perception (consciousness) of which is at
the same time a sufficient proof of their reality.’ The fact that there is an
aspect of the ball that I do not and cannot know, as Kant contends there
is, is within this context no problem. This unknown something never has
and never will be part of my experience. As for my experience, however,
and everything contained in it, it has now been secured from the
skepticism of Hume and Descartes and any similar skepticism.
7.8 More about the Kantian notion of a representation
Before I end this chapter I want to add some brief remarks concerning
the Kantian notion of a representation. I have suggested that, according
to my interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism, there is a sense in
which a representation may be seen as corresponding to a state within an

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 241
embodied mind. We have also seen that there are cases in which the
Kantian notion of a representation may be seen as referring to selfconscious,
embodied movement, such as in his transcendental theory of
space. If we accept that transcendentally considered, space is selfconscious
embodied movement, and also, transcendentally considered,
that space is a representation, then the point just made follows. 24
However, I do not want to restrict the meaning of the Kantian term
‘representation’ to those suggested by these examples. I think
‘representation’ as used by Kant may have several meanings, each
depending on the perspective that is operative. Sometimes, for instance,
he seems to use it in the sense of mental image. However, my point is
that where the representations of sensibility are concerned, the
underlying message of the Critique is that these are always grounded in
our immediate awareness of our embodied states in the way specified
above. Even my visual representation of, for instance, a tree is so
grounded. What is the exact connection between the awareness of my
embodied states and this visual representation? As Kant does not supply
us with an explicit answer to this question, it is hard to say what his
answer might have been. The basic point that I take to be implied by the
Critique is that such a connection exists, and that we need to be
reminded of this. More than in any other kind of perception, there is a
quality to visual perception that makes objects appear to us as something
existing in themselves independently of whether we perceive them or not
and with qualities that stand in no relation to our way of perceiving
them. I think that a basic message of Kant’s transcendental philosophy is
that even my visual perception of a tree, or some other distant object, is
grounded in immediate embodied experiences, such as my awareness of
the light reflected from the object affecting my eyes, and my awareness of
my embodied acts as I move my pupils in order to get the object in focus,
or when I move in order to see the object from different angles.
I asked what the exact connection was between my awareness of my
embodied states and my visual representation of, for instance, a tree and
I claimed that Kant does not supply us with an explicit theory of this
connection. This does not mean that Kant has nothing more to say on
the matter other than what has been suggested so far. When I have
referred to the immediate awareness of embodied states, i.e., the states on
which my empirical representations are grounded, I have given an
24 The same point may be deduced from his theory of schematism, according to
which a schema is an embodied practice, and at the same time, also claimed to
be a representation.

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interpretation of Kant’s theory of sensibility. The states identified are the
states that in the context of this theory are abstractly referred to by the
term ‘affection’, or by means of various terms (e.g. ‘synthesis’) referring to
activity. However, from the Critique, we also learn that more than
sensibility is required in order to arrive at experience of the world as we
know it, that is, a world of physical objects obeying the laws of nature
Kant took to be formulated in Newtonian physics. This ‘more’ is the
categories and our general capacity for conceptual thinking. In the
following chapters I shall take a closer look at Kant’s theory of the
categories and argue that even here the text invites us to include the
notion of embodied acts and practices in our interpretation.
7. 9 Summary
The idea that Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space may
be seen as following from a line of reflection in which the embodied self
and the embodied nature of human cognition are basic premises may
seem strange given the trend that has dominated Kant research for
almost two centuries, but there are several reasons for accepting it. First,
by accepting it, it becomes possible both to accept this doctrine as a
legitimate and tenable part of transcendental philosophy and at the same
time, without inconsistency, to contend that the Critique sees cognition
as embodied, even if due to the abstract character of the text, the body is
not explicitly mentioned as a rule. This interpretation saves both major
parts of the Critique and Kant from potential charges of transcendental
transgression and/or circularity. As for the charge of transcendental
transgression, it was based on the idea that nothing in our
representational domain could ever tell us anything about the things in
themselves. I have argued that, even if transcendental idealism includes
the idea of things in themselves, i.e., some unknown dimension of the
world of which we can know nothing, in formulating transcendental
idealism Kant does not speak from the domain of these things in
themselves. He speaks from a position within the empirical world. So
Strawson is wrong in his idea that Kant seeks to draw the bounds of sense
from a point outside them. 25
Kant’s philosophy is transcendental, but this
does not mean that he transcends the world as we know it.
Finally, if we accept that Kant develops his transcendental idealism in
the way I have suggested, this may be used to support not only the claim
that the cognitive theory of the Critique gives an abstract account of
25
Strawson (1973), 12.

THE BODY AND THE TRANSCENDENTAL 243
Kant’s embodied theory of cognition, it may also be used to explain why
the account has to be abstract. I argued that the perspective of Kant’s
transcendental idealism involves a focus on the embodied states of which
we are immediately aware. I also argued that much of my knowledge of
myself as an embodied being has to be given up when I establish this
perspective. I have to give up all parts of this knowledge based on
observation from the ‘outside’ of my body. The consequence of this is
that certain empirically based statements cannot be imported into the
Critique. For instance, while in the Anthropology (operating here within
an empirical perspective) Kant may legitimately present a detailed
description of the various senses of man, based on empirical observation,
the Critique leaves room only for the general and abstract concept of the
outer sense. The same holds for all the other specific details of Kant’s
embodied theory of cognition that are based on empirical observation.
They cannot be imported into the cognitive theory of the Critique, and
so they have to be abstracted away. What is left is nothing but the
general and abstract structure of the original theory.

8. KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
Thereby the expression that only souls (as a
particular species of substances) think would be
dropped; and instead it would be said, as usual,
that human beings think.
From the Critique 1
This passage is taken from the part of the paralogism chapter in which
Kant discusses the ontological nature of human beings. Given the
general background of the chapter and its criticism of rational
psychology, the passage may be read as an expression of dismay
concerning the steadfast belief of many philosophers that thinking has to
be explained by reference to some invisible, immaterial part of man. It is
possible, Kant argues, that the very same being that we call a body in one
respect is a thinking being in another (A 359). If this is the case, then it is
not appropriate to say that it is souls (considered as a special sort of
substances) that think. We should simply say that human beings think,
that is, human beings considered as whole persons, body and mind.
We should be careful not to infer too much from a single passage. If
my interpretation of other parts of the Kantian corpus is correct,
however, then both before and after the Critique Kant presupposed a
theory of rationality according to which human rationality is explored
and analyzed at the level of embodied practices. We have also found that
he approaches a similar perspective in the Critique when in his
schematism theory he promotes the idea that the subsumption of objects
under concepts, which is a form of rational thinking, involves embodied
practice. With this as a background I shall focus on Kant’s theory of the
transcendental concepts, or the categories, in this and the following
chapters. I shall argue that not only may the Kantian notion of a schema
be interpreted as referring to embodied practice, but the Kantian notion
of a transcendental category may be so interpreted as well. 2
In this
chapter I defend this claim at a general level only. As a first argument in
support of it, I shall maintain that there are embodied practices that have
1 A 359.
2 The possibility of such an interpretation was briefly mentioned in chapter 6.

246
the same function in the constitution of experience (the term is used here
in its strong Kantian sense meaning ordered or determined experience 3 )
as the categories are said to have in the Critique. The logic of this
argument is simple: because such practices exist, it is also possible to
think of the categories as such practices. I shall also give an example of
such a practice. First, however, I shall discuss some possible objections to
the idea just stated, and suggest how these objections may be met. In
subsequent chapters I shall examine Kant’s theory of the categories in
more detail, with an emphasis on the category of quantity and the
relational categories.
8.1 The necessary structure of the world
Kant’s theory of the categories forms the core of what may be called his
transcendental epistemology. The aim of this section is to give a
preliminary outline of this epistemology, which I see as having more than
one aim. One is to draw a limit between what can be known and what
can only be the subject of religious belief or metaphysical speculation. In
Kantian terminology this roughly corresponds to the distinction between
the empirical world and the things in themselves. Just as important,
however, is the epistemic project dealing with our knowledge of the
empirical world. Here Kant is preoccupied with the question of objective
knowledge: how is it possible for us to attain objective knowledge of the
empirical world?
This question is far from trivial. As we have seen, Kant sees our
experience as having a subjective origin. Our sensations are nothing but
modifications of our minds. 4 Time and space are subjective forms of
intuition. Even the categories are subjective in the sense that they are acts
or functions carried out by ourselves. They are not Platonic ideas or
eternal patterns of which the structure of the world is merely a reflection.
The notion of a category refers to an aspect of how we, as human beings,
approach the world. Given this subjective origin, how is objective
knowledge possible? How do we arrive at the experience of a world
ordered in time and space, a world of spatio-temporal objects interacting
according to universal laws of nature?
At first sight, these questions seem to demand a cognitive theory, a
theory explaining how experience is constituted by means of the
3
KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
In Kantian terms, and according to Kant, to determine the undetermined
manifold of an intuition, the categories are required.
4 Cf. A 378.

KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
247
cognitive capacities and powers available to us. And, as we have seen, the
Critique actually offers such a theory. However, the above questions also
have an epistemic aspect, and Kant never fails to emphasize that this is
his most basic concern in the Critique. When we ask how it is possible for
us to attain objective knowledge of the world, there is introduced a
concept of objectivity according to which a statement about the world
can be either true or false. Thus, the question of objectivity goes beyond
asking merely how our knowledge is produced. It concerns the validity of
our knowledge claims.
How is it possible for us to attain objective knowledge of the world
given that the origin of this knowledge is subjective in the sense specified?
Kant’s answer is that such knowledge may be proved to be possible when
we realize that some of the subjective elements on which our knowledge
is based are actually that which makes experience (or knowledge)
possible. They are what Kant calls ‘a priori conditions of experience’. In
order to make this theoretical move to solve the problem, however, we
also have to show that these a priori conditions make possible what Kant
calls ‘synthetic a priori knowledge’ of the world. This synthetic a priori
knowledge is knowledge of the necessary order in which the world
appears to us, or the determinations that the world needs to have in
order to appear as more than a mere manifold, to use a well known
Kantian expression. That objects exist beside each other in Euclidean
space is an example of what Kant here means by order. Causality, the
fact that in the empirical world every event has a cause, is another
example. Kant’s point is that the world appears to us as ordered and
determined because our a priori forms of experience, even if they are all
subjective, are conditions of synthetic a priori knowledge of the kind just
suggested. This is why Kant can phrase what he claims to be the main
question of the Critique as ‘How is synthetic a priori knowledge
possible?’
This question is also implied by Kant’s general definition of
transcendental philosophy, which has already been discussed, as ‘a
system of transcendental knowledge (Erkenntnis) which deals with the
specific manner in which we achieve knowledge of objects (Erkenntnisart
von Gegenständen) as far as this is possible a priori’ (A 11/B 25). An
essential mark of this transcendental philosophy, Kant points out, is that
all its concepts are pure a priori: They contain nothing empirical (A 14/B
28). Later the same point is stated like this:
I call all representations pure (in the transcendental sense) in which
nothing is to be encountered that belongs to sensation. (A 20/B 34)

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KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
Kant also argues that transcendental philosophy involves setting up a
certain kind of proof structure. Not any a priori insight [Erkenntnis] is
transcendental. Characteristic of a transcendental insight [Erkenntnis] is
that it makes us understand that and how certain representations
(intuitions or concepts) are possible and may be used a priori only.
And here I make a remark the import of which extends to all of the
following considerations, and that we must keep well in view, namely
that not every a priori cognition must be called transcendental, but
only that by means of which we cognize that and how certain
representations (intuitions or concepts) are applied entirely a priori,
or are possible (i.e., the possibility of cognition or its use a priori). (A
56/B 80)
In order to denote this transcendental proof structure, Kant introduces
the notion of a transcendental deduction. Most familiar is the
transcendental deductions of the categories. However, he also refers to
the proof structure of the Transcendental aesthetic as a transcendental
deduction (A 87/B 119-120). A transcendental deduction in general is
compared with a trial (A 84/B 116). 5 The aim of this trial is to explain
how it is possible for a concept to relate a priori to objects, and why this
use of the concept is justified. A transcendental deduction is contrasted
with an empirical deduction in which only the origin of the concept is
explained (A 85/B 117).
8.2 Problems
As Kant’s transcendental epistemology is part of his transcendental
philosophy, 6 what has been said so far also applies to this epistemology.
This raises a number of problems relative to what I have set out to prove
in this chapter, that the categories may be conceived of as embodied
practices. The claim, for instance, that only pure a priori representations
5
For a highly interesting study of the etymology of the term ‘deduction’ and the
meaning it had for Kant, cf. Dieter Henrich’s influential article (1989). According
to Henrich, the meaning of the term for Kant cannot be identified narrowly with
a logical deduction, represented by a syllogism, but was influenced by the
juridical Deduktionsschriften of his time which aim it was to justify controversial
legal claims, cf. Henrich (1989), 32.
6
The reason why I here distinguish between Kant’s transcendental philosophy in
general and transcendental epistemology in particular is that I take Kant’s notion
of transcendental philosophy to include more then just an epistemology. It
includes, e.g. also his transcendental psychology, i.e., cognitive theory.

KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
249
(i.e. non-empirical representations) have a place within this
transcendental epistemology, seems to exclude the notion of embodied
practices from epistemological reflection because the notion of an
embodied practice seems to carry with it too much of the empirical.
Another problem in claiming that the categories may be conceived of as
embodied practices is that Kant classifies these categories as concepts,
and according to our traditional understanding of what a concept is, it is
not an embodied practice. Finally, his distinction between an empirical
and transcendental deduction raises a problem of its own that will be
considered later. I will deal with these problems in the order in which
they appear here. First, then, we must discuss Kant’s requirement that
the representations involved in transcendental philosophy should include
only pure a priori concepts.
8.3 The a priori
The term ‘a priori’ occurs in several contexts within the Critique. A
central one is Kant’s theory of a priori concepts. Concepts are a priori
when they have to be presupposed as necessary for having experience (B
XVIII-XIX). Kant also uses ‘a priori’ to denote a certain kind of
knowledge [Erkenntnis]. The essential feature of such knowledge is that it
is independent of the impressions of the senses (B 2). As such, it is
contrasted with empirical knowledge derived ‘a posteriori’ (B3). 7
Other
essential features of a priori knowledge are necessity and universality (B
3). Finally, as we have seen, Kant sees the a priori conditions of our
experience as subjective in the sense that they have their origin in the
subject rather than the object of experience.
In the light of this, Kant’s notion of the a priori may be characterized
in terms of three points:
Something is a priori when:
1) it is a condition of having experience
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,
and
3) it originates in the activity of the agent 8 .
As we have seen, the a priori is defined in opposition to the empirical, so
getting a clear idea of what Kant means by ‘empirical’ may also help us
7
For a short survey of the story of the notions of a priori and a posteriori in
German philosophy prior to Kant, see Oberhausen (1997), 46ff.
8
As I will argue below, this last point also implies that the a priori has a structure
which is independent of contingent empirical facts.

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understand the a priori better. So, what does Kant mean by ‘empirical’?
At B2 where the topic is first discussed, he begins by saying, perhaps not
very helpfully, that empirical knowledge is knowledge that originates
from experience. More helpful, I think, is the passage found at A 19-
20/B 34. The passage starts by defining the notion of a sensation
[Empfindung]. A sensation, Kant explains, is produced when the mind 9
is affected by an object. He further tells us that an intuition that relates to
an object through a sensation is empirical. The undetermined object of
such an intuition is an appearance. In such an appearance, there is what
he calls its ‘matter’, corresponding to our sensations, and form. As is now
well known, this form is time and space, which, according to Kant are a
priori.
From this, we may argue that an empirical intuition has two aspects.
The first, its matter, is that in the intuition which derives from the
affection of the mind. The other is the a priori forms of time and space,
originating in the activity of the mind itself. This, however, seems to leave
us with a somewhat ambiguous understanding of the term ‘empirical’, at
least as long as we talk about empirical intuitions. On the one hand, the
whole empirical intuition is empirical. On the other, Kant tells us that
one aspect of this intuition is a priori and so cannot be empirical. Only
what is left, therefore, is empirical, namely that in the intuition that is
derived from the affection of the mind. The same point pertains to
representations in general. In any such representation there will be an a
priori aspect. What is empirical in a strict sense is only its matter, derived
from the affection of the mind.
From this it follows that we may use the term ‘empirical’ in both a
wide and a narrow sense. 10
We use it in a wide sense when we use it to
characterize representations (intuitions and concepts) that contain
elements derived from the affection of the mind. We use it in a narrow
sense when we refer only to these elements, i.e. the elements derived
from the affection of the mind. In this last sense ‘empirical’ means ‘that
in a representation that originates in the affection of the mind’. This
9 I.e. the faculty of representation.
10 A somewhat parallel point is made by Kambartel (1976), 98. He points out that
the term ‘experience’ has an ambiguous history in Western philosophy.
Sometimes it is used to refer to that which is delivered by the senses, conceived of
as some kind of raw material of cognition. At other times it is used to refer to our
awareness of the empirical world, conceived of as a well ordered, structured
system of interrelated objects and processes. According to Kambartel this
ambiguity is also imported into Kant’s philosophy.

251
means that ‘a priori’ may be used in a correspondingly narrow sense to
denote that in a representation that does not originate in the affection of
the mind, but in the activity of the cognitive agent. This conforms to the
final of the three points stated above, something is a priori when it
originates in the activity of the agent. In what follows I shall take this to
be an essential defining mark of the Kantian a priori. 11
The claim just made will be of significance in the further discussion in
more than one way. First, I shall use it in support of the idea that the
categories may be conceived of as embodied practices after all. The logic
of my argument is this. If we accept that a defining mark of the a priori is
that it originates in the activity of the agent, then an embodied practice is
a priori in this specific sense. An embodied practice is an activity
performed by an agent, thus, we may also say that it originates in the
agent. 12 This alone, of course, does not prove that the categories are
embodied practices, or that we may legitimately conceive of them as
such. In order to make this probable, we also have to show that there are
practices satisfying the first and second demands listed above. We must
demonstrate that there are embodied practices that are conditions for
having experience, and that produce knowledge that is necessarily true
and universal. This I shall do next.
8.4 Embodied practice as a condition of experience
In this section I shall argue that there are embodied practices that are
conditions for having experience in a Kantian sense, and that produce
knowledge that is necessarily true and universal. That there are
embodied practices with such a function may perhaps not strike the
reader as evident. 13
Let me therefore give an example of an embodied
11
KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
The a priori may of course also be defined in opposition to the empirical
relative to the first and second of the marks listed above defining the a priori. The
point is then that 1) while the a priori is a condition of having (empirical)
experience, (empirical) experience is conditioned by the a priori, and 2) while the
a priori produces knowledge which is necessarily true and universal, the empirical
cannot do this: empirical claims are merely contingent ( cf. e.g. A 91/B 123 and
A 196/B 214).
12
This is only meant as a brief suggestion here. I will say more about it below in
discussing the normativity of a practice.
13
Within the Wittgensteinian tradition, however, there is a growing awareness
that embodied practices may be conditions for having experience in a Kantian or
quasi-Kantian sense. Cf. e.g. Lear (1986) and Railton (2000). I will return to this
point below.

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practice that does have such a function, that is, a practice that is a
condition for having experience. The term ‘experience’ is used here, as
before, in its strong Kantian sense, which means, among other things
that it is an experience of objects that are determined. The following
example focuses on one such determination, size.
Imagine we are to measure the size of an object, for instance a table. 14
In order to do so, we need an object to use as a measuring rod. The
measuring is performed by placing the rod next to the table. If the table
is larger than the rod, we will have to successively move the rod from one
position to another along the object, while memorizing in the mind, or
perhaps by counting on the fingers, how many times this takes place. In
doing this, our acts are not arbitrary but take place in a regular way.
They also have a goal, finding the size of the table. According to the
definition of a practice given above, they may be regarded as a practice.
Let us call it ‘the practice of finding the size of an object’.
As can be seen, we would not attain knowledge about the size of the
table without this practice. Or to use a more Kantian expression, we
would not be able to determine this particular aspect of the table without
it. Where this particular aspect of our experience of the table is
concerned, we may say that the practice is an a priori condition of having
it.
8.5 An empirical or a transcendental deduction?
There is one problem with the example just offered which has to do with
Kant’s distinction between an empirical and a transcendental deduction.
It seems we have only given an empirical account of how the table is
measured, so what we have done, at best, is provide what Kant calls an
empirical deduction, telling the story of how the concept of the size of the
table originates in our practice.
First, let us notice, that even if Kant seems to be drawing a sharp
distinction between the two sorts of deductions in the Critique, the first
having to do merely with origin, the other with validity, it is not evident
that in his transcendental epistemology he only operates on one side of
this distinction. Both in the A- and the B-deduction of the categories and
elsewhere in the Critique, Kant frequently refers to the origin of our
knowledge. He also seems to think that, in doing this he is saying
something about the justification of this knowledge (cf. e.g. A 66/B 90
and A 86/B 119). There is more than one way to respond to this. We
14
I owe this example, and also its interpretation, to Saugstad (1992), 388.

KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
253
may criticize Kant for not being loyal to his own distinction, and try to
reformulate his philosophy according to our idea of how the distinction
ought to be understood. Or we may see the two sides of the distinctions
as being two aspects of a common, unified project. As the second option
conforms to the Critique better than the first, I think this is to be
preferred, so within Kant’s transcendental epistemic project we are
allowed to talk about the origin of knowledge, for instance by
investigating its origin in our cognitive capacities. Actually, I think Kant’s
point is that we must do this: we cannot critically examine our knowledge
without also examining the origin of this knowledge, that is, our way of
attaining this knowledge. 15
In doing this, however, and this I think is Kant’s main point, we
should not be content with merely telling the story of the genesis of our
knowledge. In telling this story, we should take care to identify the
elements or aspects that may also tell us something about the validity of
this knowledge. This I take to be his point in the following criticism of
Locke.
15 This also conforms to the original meaning of the term ‘deduction’ in the
German juridical tradition. If Dieter Henrich is right, Kant’s notion of a
transcendental deduction is modelled on the juridical Deduktionsschriften of his
time, cf. Henrich (1989), 32ff. Such deductions were also typically preoccupied
with origin. In order to decide the rightfulness of a juridical claim to a property,
for instance, it was standard to trace the origin of this claim. Was the property
lawfully purchased, or acquired in any other lawful way (such as inheritance)? An
essential point, however, is that such a ‘deduction’ was also concerned with more
than just origin, i.e., the question of right.

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KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
Such a tracing of the first endeavors of our power of cognition to
ascend from individual perceptions to general concepts is without
doubt of great utility, and the famous Locke is to be thanked for
having first opened the way for this. Yet a deduction of the pure a
priori concepts can never be achieved in this way; it does not lie
down this path at all, for in regard to their future use, which should
be entirely independent of experience, an entirely different birth
certificate than that of an ancestry from experiences must be
produced. I will therefore call this attempted physiological derivation,
which cannot properly be called a deduction at all because it
concerns a quaestio facti, the explanation of the possession of a pure
cognition. It is therefore clear that only a transcendental and never an
empirical deduction of them can be given, and that in regard to pure
a priori concepts empirical deductions are nothing but idle attempts,
which can occupy only those who have not grasped the entirely
distinctive nature of these cognitions. (A 86-87/B 118-119)
The reason why Kant criticizes Locke is that he merely describes the
genesis of our knowledge. Kant does not thereby deny that our
knowledge has a genesis. What he says is that this genesis is not presently
his interest, because its story cannot justify our knowledge. 16
Even if we have now modified our concept of the distinction between
an empirical and transcendental deduction, our basic problem still
remains. Have we proved that the practice just described may function as
a condition of experience in a Kantian sense? Have we not merely given
an empirical account of the origin of the concept of size, i.e. the concept
of the size of the table? It depends on how we interpret the example. It is
possible to interpret it as a story of origin in the way suggested. But
another interpretation is also possible, and this interpretation emphasizes
not origin but something else. Through the practice the undetermined
intuition of the table (undetermined in the sense that we do not know
what its size is) becomes determined. In this sense the practice constitutes
an aspect of our experience for us, an aspect that would not have been
16 This is also the point I see implied by the much discussed reflection R 4900
where Kant discusses Tetens’ theory of concepts, declaring that he himself
concerns himself neither with the evolution of concepts nor with their genesis
through action. I think his point is not that he is indifferent to the genesis of
concepts, only that this is not his main concern. This interpretation is supported
by Carl (1989), 120. He claims that Kant was sympathetic to Tetens’ theory of
concepts, but that he also maintains that examining concepts qua acts performed
by the cognitive subject was not enough. One had to deal with their objective
validity as well.

255
there for us without this practice. This is also what a category does,
according to Kant. So, the above practice does the same for our
experience as a category is said to do within his transcendental
epistemology. Consequently there are embodied practices that are a
priori in the sense of being a condition of having experience in the
Kantian sense of the term.
8.6 The normativity of practice
The aim of this discussion is to prove that there are embodied practices
that satisfy the demands defining the Kantian notion of the a priori:
Something is a priori when:
1) it is a condition of having experience,
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,
and
3) it originates in the activity of the agent.
In the last section we focused on the first of these demands, using the
practice of finding the size of an object as our example. With this
example at hand, let us now discuss the third demand. Earlier I argued at
a general level that a practice may be conceived of as originating in the
activity of an agent, so satisfying this third demand. The present example
illustrates this because the measuring of the table would never have taken
place if the agent had not actively measured it. This is something the
agent does. In this way, the practice originates in the activity of the agent.
In this section I shall point out that saying that the practice originates
in the activity of the agent involves more than this simple and somewhat
trivial claim. It also means that the structure or form of the practice is not
determined by contingent empirical facts. The specific outcome of a
specific act of measuring depends, of course, on the size of an actual
object, so this outcome is contingent, which means it bears the essential
mark that Kant ascribes to the empirical. But the practice itself does not
depend upon this outcome. Neither is it dependent on such contingent
facts as the age, sex or other similar features of the person performing the
practice. 17
KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
What counts is that the person in question knows how to
perform the practice, not his or her personal features. A similar point
may be made with regard to the instrument or instruments used in the
practice, for instance, the measuring rod, its size, its color or its
17
I owe the general idea behind this point to Saugstad (1993), 111.

256
KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
material. 18 In the absence of a conventional measuring rod, we might
even use other objects to do the job, such as our arms, our feet etc. 19
However, the practice would still essentially be the same. In this sense, its
basic structure is independent of contingent empirical facts. Let us add
this to the list of characteristics of the Kantian a priori:
Something is a priori when:
1) it is a condition of having experience,
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,
3) it originates in the activity of the agent, and
4) its structure is independent of contingent empirical facts. 20
What we are examining here may also be addressed through the notion
of normativity. To say that a practice is normative means that, even if a
practice unfolds in the empirical world, and even if it involves elements
that may be explored at an empirical level, there is an aspect of the
practice (its most essential aspect) that resists being qualified as empirical.
This is its normative aspect. To say that the practice is normative, means,
among other things, that it is possible to specify norms or rules according
to which the practice takes place. In order to identify these rules, we
typically abstract them from an existing practice. However, this does not
mean that they are merely empirical generalizations.
The following example may illustrate this point. 21 In the linguistic
practice of a language community, the linguistic rules governing this
practice are not disconfirmed even if individual members fail to conform
to them. Such rules can be said to hold or be in force in the particular
instances in which they are violated as well as those in which they are
followed. Neither are these rules confirmed a posteriori by instances of
rule-conforming use. When, struggling, I manage to use a phrase
correctly in French, this may somewhat enhance my credibility as a
French speaker, but it does not strengthen the credibility of the rules of
French grammar. According to Railton this aspect of the rules, their
18
The only thing we need to consider is to specify the scale of the act of
measuring relative to the sort of measuring rod we are using.
19
In pre-scientific societies size was normally specified by means of scales
referring directly to the body or embodied acts such as this.
20
As most practices are maintained by a social community, there is also an
important social aspect to a practice. In a sense, the practice is therefore not
controlled by the individual, but by the community. However, when a practice is
performed by an individual in an individual case, point 4 still applies.
21
The example is borrowed from Railton (2000), 176ff.

KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
257
normativity, is also transferred to the practice within which they occur. 22
Discussing an example similar to the one given above (i.e. measuring an
object with a measuring rod), he maintains that this practice is not
disconfirmed when someone fails to live up to its standards. 23
The idea that practices are normative in the sense here specified, is, I
think, also integral to the Kantian definition of a practice. When Kant
defines a practice as ‘acts performed according to a rule to attain an end’,
he clearly ascribes to it a normative aspect, signaled by the fact that he
claims the practice to be governed by a rule, i.e. a norm. So confronting
the world with a practice involves more than just passively registering one
of its properties. In confronting the world with a practice, we set up a
standard, a standard represented by the practice. Borrowing a
metaphor from the old master himself, we may say that in confronting
the world with a practice, we approach the world not as students waiting
to be told its secrets, but like judges, demanding that the world answers
our questions. Or as Kant expresses the point in the preface to the Bedition:
Reason, in order to be taught by nature, must approach nature with
its principles in one hand, according to which alone the agreement
among appearances can count as laws, and, in the other hand, the
experiments thought out in accordance with these principles - yet in
order to be instructed by nature not like a pupil, who has recited to
him whatever the teacher wants to say, but like an appointed judge
who compels witnesses to answer the questions he puts to them. (B
XIII)
In Kant’s Transcendental Idealism Allison discusses what might count as
a priori conditions of experience in a Kantian or transcendental sense. 24
There are several conditions that have to be met in order for a person to
have experience of the world, such as the physiological processes going
on in the brain but Allison rightly denies that such processes may be
called a priori conditions of experience in a Kantian or transcendental
sense. Allison’s criticism, however, does not apply to a practice in my
view. One essential difference is that the physiological processes in the
brain are not something we actively control in the same way that we
22 Ibid., 176.
23 Ibid., 180. Interestingly, Railton here also introduces the notion of a priori.
The rule, he claims, is a priori regulative to the practice.
24 Allison (1983), 10.

258
control our practices. Neither can these processes be said to be normative
in the sense that a practice is normative. 25
8.7 Arithmetic as an a priori synthetic science
In our discussion of the apriority of an embodied practice we have now
covered all the criteria defining the a priori, except this one: something is
a priori when it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and
universal. Can embodied practices meet this requirement?
It is interesting to see that in the Critique Kant himself gives an
example of such a practice. The example, or different versions of it, is
found in more than one place. At present, let us focus on the version
found in the introduction to the B-edition at B 15ff. 26 The example deals
with arithmetic. In arguing that arithmetic is an a priori synthetic
science, Kant explains how our fingers are often used to perform
arithmetic calculations, such as when we are to calculate the sum of 7 +
5. In fact, this calculation by means of the fingers is used to illustrate
what is meant by the idea that arithmetic is an a priori synthetic science,
producing knowledge that is necessarily true and universal. In order to
arrive at the insight that 7 + 5 = 12, more is required than merely to
have the concepts of 7 and 5 respectively. We may examine and analyze
these numbers as much as we like, and even try to think of them
together, without getting any closer to the solution. What is required is
the practice of counting (for instance on the fingers); we arrive at the sum
once we start to count, step by step, first from one to seven, and then five
steps more, until we reach the number of twelve:
25 It follows from the present discussion that investigating the rules of our
practices may be classified as a transcendental project in a general Kantian sense.
This is also a point made by Pettit (1986), 270ff. Discussing Wittgenstein’s
investigation of rule-following practices he argues that this may count as a
transcendental investigation in a loose Kantian sense: ‘I suggest that we go back
to Kant's definition and loosen it, so that a non-empirical inquiry into rulefollowing
counts as a transcendental investigation.’
26 Thanks to Saugstad for bringing my attention to this passage and its
significance.
KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY

KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
259
The concept of twelve is by no means already thought merely by my
thinking of that unification of seven and five, and no matter how long
I analyze my concept of such a possible sum I still do not find twelve
in it. One must go beyond these concepts, seeking assistance in the
intuition that corresponds to one of the two, one’s five fingers, say, or
(as in Segner’s arithmetic) five points, and one after another add the
units of the five given in the intuition to the concept of seven. For I
take first the number 7, and, as I take the fingers of my hand as an
intuition for assistance with the concept of 5, to that image of mine I
now add the units that I have previously taken together in order to
constitute the number 5 one after another to the number 7, and thus
see the number 12 arise. (B 15ff.)
The example is interesting, I think, in establishing a clear link between
the embodied practice of counting on the fingers and the a priori
synthetic character of mathematics. Kant does not claim that the
arithmetic operation of addition may be performed my means of fingers
only. This is just one example of how such an operation may take place.
However, even if this is just an example, the fact that Kant uses it is
interesting. As arithmetic, according to Kant, is a science producing
knowledge that is necessarily true and universal, and as he clearly
acknowledges that arithmetical operations can be carried out by counting
on the fingers, it shows that there are embodied practices that produce
such knowledge. Counting on the fingers is one such practice. If I use my
fingers to perform the arithmetic operation of 7 + 5, the answer will
always be 12, as long as I know how to perform the operation properly.
For the same reason, the answer will also be universal.
8.8 Thinking as practice
At the beginning of this chapter we listed some possible objections to the
general idea that the categories are embodied practices. One such
objection was based on Kant’s claim that transcendental philosophy
allows pure a priori concepts only. We then identified the following four
marks defining the Kantian notion of the a priori:
Something is a priori when:
1) it is a condition of having experience,
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,
3) it originates in the activity of the agent, and
4) its structure is independent of contingent empirical facts.
We have seen that an embodied practice may be a priori in all these
senses.

260
We may now proceed to another of the objections suggested above.
The categories are classified as concepts. According to our traditional
understanding of what a concept is, however, it is not an embodied
practice. How are we to solve this problem? A first step towards a
solution may be found by reminding ourselves that the term ‘concept’
may have several meanings. Sometimes it is used to mean ‘mental
representation’. At other times, it may refer to a system of beliefs, or
prototypes. 27 Johannessen complains that philosophers typically use the
term as if it were settled what it meant, when it is not. 28
In some Kantian texts published before and after the Critique we
have seen that Kant promotes what we have called a pragmatic theory of
embodied rationality, according to which a person may possess a concept
solely through the successful performance of an embodied practice. In
such a case, the concept exists in the practice itself, or as what we termed
a working concept. In this and the following sections I shall examine
some statements in the Critique about the categories. I shall argue that
even if Kant does not explicitly say that the categories are embodied
practices, what he says is consistent with the idea that they are such
practices.
Notice how Kant typically qualifies the categories. They are functions
or acts carried out by the agent, or as Kant puts it in German, they are
Handlungen des reinen Denkens (A 57/B 81). However, the categories
are also referred to as rules. 29 A category, we may conclude, is both an act
and a rule, or an act taking place according to a rule. This way of
paraphrasing the point conforms to Kant’s definition of a practice, so at a
general level his way of describing the categories conforms to his own
definition of a practice. It may be objected that the parallel is merely
formal here, and should not be emphasized too much. I agree, but the
Critique also contains other interesting reflections on the connection
between concepts, categories and practices. Not surprisingly, given what
we have previously learned from examining his Logic, they are found in
Kant’s general discussion of logic introducing the second main part of the
Critique, the Transcendental logic.
27
Cf. Peacocke (1992), 3.
28
Cf. Johannessen (1999), 95.
29
Cf. e.g. A 126 and B 145.
KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY

KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
8.9 Logic
261
Kant starts his Transcendental logic by dividing logic into two main
areas. The first he calls general or elementary logic. This is the logic
corresponding to the general employment of the understanding. It
contains the necessary rules of thinking without which no use of the
understanding would take place. The second is called ‘the logic of the
particular use of the understanding’, and contains the rules on how we
are to think properly about a certain kind of objects. There exists more
than one such logic, one for each existing science.
The logic corresponding to a particular science, that is, the rules of
how to understand a certain sort of objects according to this science, is
described by Kant as a sort of propaedeutic to this science, that is,
something a person has to know before he can become a proper student
of it. However when we reflect upon the development of reason (and
here he probably has the development of a specific science in mind), the
rules of this logic are formulated at a relatively late point, that is, after the
science has been established in its final form.
The former can be called elementary logic, the latter, however, the
organon of this or that science. In the schools the latter is often stuck
before the sciences as their propaedeutic, though in the course of
human reason they are certainly the latest to be reached, once the
science is already long complete, and requires only the final touch for
its improvement and perfection. For one must already know the
objects rather well if one will offer the rules for how a science of them
is to be brought about. (A 52/B 76-77)
Only when the science has been firmly established may we specify the
rules of the logic on which the science is founded.
This passage is very interesting because we may clearly see here the
ideas underlying Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality. In a
previous chapter, discussing an example illuminating this theory, we saw
Kant claim that the rules or concepts of grammar are present in the
linguistic practice of a person, even if they cannot make these rules
explicit. This passage seems to express a similar point, saying that to
every science there corresponds a logic; i.e. a set of concepts and/or
rules. Before they can be made explicit [angeben], however, the science
must be established. If we accept that it needs to be established as a
practice, and that this practice is embodied, then we have found an
argument with a similar structure to Kant’s grammar example. The
abstract logic of the science, i.e. its rules and/or concepts, is abstracted
from the embodied practice.

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Is this really what this passage says? First, we have to ask whether
Kant conceives of science as an embodied practice in the Critique. Even
if he does not explicitly say so, I think he does. From the references to
Galileo, Torricelli and Stahl in the preface to the B-edition of the
Critique, we may deduce that he was well aware of the embodied aspects
of the scientific practice. Here he writes:
When Galileo rolled balls of a weight chosen by himself down an
inclined plane, or when Torricelli made the air bear a weight that he
had previously thought to be equal to that of a known column of
water… […] a light dawned on all those who study nature. They
comprehended that reason has insight only into what it itself
produces according to its own design... (B XII-XIII)
Notice how Kant describes science as an embodied activity here. The
scientist is a person in flesh and blood, performing all sorts of
experiments with physical objects. The passage shows that he did not
conceive of science merely as a theoretical or contemplative activity. On
the contrary, the above passage suggests that his conception of a science
conforms, at least in part, to our notion of an embodied practice. So the
logic described above may be interpreted as the logic inherent in such a
practice, a logic that is later made explicit in a process similar to the one
Kant refers to in his grammar example.
Shortly after the passage just examined, an argument similar to the
one we have just discussed is also presented with regard to general logic.
Even general logic is the product of a process of abstraction, we are told.
It is what remains when we abstract away all the empirical conditions
under which the understanding is employed.
Now general logic is either pure or applied logic. In the former we
abstract from all empirical conditions under which our understanding
is exercised, e.g., from the influence of the senses, from the play of
imagination, the laws of memory, the power of habit, inclination, etc.,
hence also from the sources of prejudice, indeed in general from all
causes from which certain cognitions arise or may be supposed to
arise, because these merely concern the understanding under certain
circumstances of its application, and experience is required in order
to know these. (A 52-53/B 77)
Whether the starting point of the abstraction process includes embodied
practices here is not explicitly stated. Still, the theory of general logic
presented has a radical embodied and pragmatic strain. Pure general
logic contains nothing but a priori principles (A 53/B 77), but the basis

KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
263
for even this pure system of logic is the understanding of its empirical use.
Even the purest most abstract principle of logic has its origin in some
activity performed by the cognitive agent close to the empirical objects of
the world.
8.10 Transcendental logic
Kant then proceeds to define his notion of a transcendental logic. Like
the other logics identified so far, this is also a product of abstraction.
However, in this case, not all content has been abstracted away.
In this case there would be a logic in which one did not abstract from
all content of cognition … (A 55/B 80)
Transcendental logic is the logic dealing with the origin of our knowledge
[Erkenntnis] of objects, it concerns the part of this knowledge that is not
derived from the objects themselves.
It would therefore concern the origin of our cognitions of objects
insofar as that cannot be ascribed to the objects... (A 55-56/B 80)
Its concepts [Begriffe] relate a priori to these objects and are nothing but
acts of pure thinking (A 57/B 81), Kant claims. A science [Wissenschaft]
that presents the origin, scope and validity of such knowledge is
transcendental logic.
Such a science, which would determine the origin, the domain, and
the objective validity of such cognitions, would have to be called
transcendental logic, since it has to do merely with the laws of the
understanding and reason, but solely insofar as they are related to
objects a priori and not, as in the case of general logic, to empirical as
well as pure cognitions of reason without distinction. (A 57/B 81-82)
Thus, like logic in general, transcendental logic is the result of a process
of abstraction in which something originally part of a more
comprehensive context is isolated and then examined in this isolated
state. We are told (A 62/B 87) that what is here isolated is simply the
understanding.
I think it is very important to keep in mind what Kant says here
about logic in general, and transcendental logic in particular, being the
product of a process of abstraction, so that we are not misled when a few
pages later he emphasizes the pure, non-empirical character of the
transcendental concepts or the categories. These concepts are pure and

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not empirical, he says (A 64/B 89). The notion of a pure concept may
very easily evoke the idea of an entity having some kind of independent
existence in some sort of Platonic world of ideas. This interpretation
might also be suggested when some lines later Kant extols the systematic
nature of the transcendental concepts and says that pure understanding
distinguishes itself not only from all the empirical, but from all sensibility
as well. It is a stable, self-contained unity (A 65/B 89-90).
No doubt Kant wants us to see the transcendental concepts as part of
some complete system, and that the structure of this system comes not
from what he calls sensibility, but from somewhere else. Yet, as we have
repeatedly emphasized, Kant also says that these pure concepts are the
product of a process of abstraction from a context originally far more
complex and richer in content, a content that also includes empirical
elements. In this context, the transcendental concepts exist as the actions
of the cognitive agent confronting the empirical world. Whatever this
agent is, and whatever its actions are, it is clear that the transcendental
concepts are far from being Platonic ideas with an independent existence,
as these ideas have traditionally been understood. They exist as the acts
of a cognitive agent as this agent confronts the empirical world.
Kant’s discussion of logic does not prove that the categories are
embodied practices, nor even that they may be conceived of as such
practices, but it serves as a useful background against which to further
explore the tenability of this idea.
8.11 The categories are acquired
A final Kantian point to be discussed in this chapter in support of the
idea that the categories may be conceived of as embodied practices is
Kant’s claim that the categories are acquired, found in a number of
passages from the period in which the different versions of the Critique
were published. 30 Let us start with the following passage from On a
discovery, published in 1790, the same year as the third edition of the
Critique:
The Critique admits absolutely no implanted or innate
representations. One and all, whether they belong to intuition or to
concepts of the understanding, it considers them as acquired. 31
30
For a further discussion on this point, see Oberhausen (1997).
31
Ak VIII: 221.

265
The fact that the categories are a priori does not mean, as one might
easily be tempted to think, that they are innate, he argues, or that they
are present from the very first minutes of our lives. As with any other
concept, they are acquired. This process of acquisition Kant refers to as a
process of ‘original acquisition’:
But there is also an original acquisition (as the teachers of natural
right call it), and thus of that which previously did not yet exist at all,
and thus did not belong to anything prior to this act. According to the
Critique, these are, in the first place, the form of things in space and
time, second, the synthetic unity of the manifold in concepts… 32
The same idea may also be seen to be implied by Kant’s claim in the
Critique that the categories are the product of what he calls the
‘epigenesis of pure reason’. However, he also emphasizes here that the
categories are not of empirical origin (B 167).
How may the categories be acquired and yet not be of an empirical
origin? I will argue that a possible answer to this question may be found
by assuming, again, that the categories are embodied practices. An
embodied practice has to be learned and so is acquired. At the same
time, a practice is in its essence normative and so transcends what Kant
refers to as the empirical. In an argument similar to mine, Saugstad
argues that the categories have behavioral techniques as their subjective
basis. I take this notion of behavioral techniques to be more or less
synonymous with my notion of an embodied practice. By assuming the
categories have behavioral techniques as their subjective basis, Saugstad
argues, we may explain both that they are a priori conditions of
experience, and that they are acquired:
The behavioral techniques that make empirical judgements possible
do not exist in the agent before they are learned. Hence externalism
explains how representations can be both a priori and originally
acquired: they are neither abstracted from the senses nor developed
from intellectual ‘seeds’, but formed with the acquisition of
behavioral skills. 33
Again, we have found an argument that, even if it does not prove that the
categories are embodied practices, may be used as a general support for
this idea. The argument begins from Kant’s claim that the categories are
32
Op. cit.
33
Saugstad (1992), 389.
KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY

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acquired. As we have seen, this claim is compatible with the idea that
they are embodied practices.
8.12 Summary
In this chapter I have given some arguments in favor of the general idea
that the categories may be interpreted as embodied practices. So far this
idea has been defended at a general level only, with few explicit
references to the Critique. However, the idea seems consistent with basic
ideas explicitly put forward by Kant. In the following chapters I intend to
take a closer look at some selected categories, such as quantity and
causality, to see whether it is possible to interpret what Kant says about
these as referring to embodied practices. With some reservations, I will
argue that the answer is positive.
Before continuing, let me add a general remark about the nature of
the practices we shall be looking for. In contrast to the specialized
practices of scientists, which require years of education and are found
only within professional communities, the categories are supposed to be
common to all humans, perhaps, except, new-born babies, or at least,
this is how I understand Kant. Consequently, if the above-mentioned
categories are embodied practices, then their development should require
no specialized context. Living an ordinary life should suffice. We should
also expect them to be acquired early in life. Finally, from what we have
learned from Kant’s discussion of consciousness, it is possible that they
are not performed with full consciousness. With this in mind, let us
proceed.

9. QUANTITY
The pure schema of magnitude (quantitatis),
however, as a concept of the understanding, is
number, which is a representation that
summarizes the successive addition of one
(homogeneous) unit to another.
From the Critique 1
Kant here draws a connection between the transcendental concept of
quantity and addition. What does this mean? Does the transcendental
concept of quantity presuppose addition, or is it even the same thing as
addition? If so, what is meant here by addition? Is it the silent calculation
of abstract numbers in the head? Or is it addition understood as an
embodied practice, such as when we count on the fingers? In the
previous chapter I argued that there are embodied practices that can be
a priori conditions of experience in a Kantian sense. I also argued that at
a general level, Kant’s theory of the a priori conditions of experience is
not inconsistent with the general idea that the categories are embodied
practices. In this and the following chapter I will discuss Kant’s theory of
the categories more specifically, and examine whether the idea that they
are such practices is supported by textual evidence from the Critique.
The topic of this chapter is the transcendental concept of quantity. In his
table of the categories at A 80/B 106 Kant lists three categories of
quantity. 2 In the following, however, I will discuss only the transcendental
concept, or category, of quantity in general. This is because my
discussion will be based on what Kant says about quantity in the
schematism chapter and the Analytic of principles where he deals with
quantity in general only.
Despite the rather abstract style of the text, I shall argue that it invites
us to conceive of the category of quantity as an embodied practice. More
specifically, I claim that Kant’s theory of quantity in general may be
interpreted as referring to a class of embodied practices that all have in
common the fact that they represent a sort embodied addition. One
1 A 142/ B 182
2 In German they are; Einheit, Vielheit and Allheit.

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QUANTITY
example of this is counting on the fingers, and I will argue that counting
on the fingers may be considered as one example of what Kant has in
mind in his transcendental theory of quantity. In the following chapter, I
shall then go on to discuss the relational categories. As far as I know,
there is not much secondary literature supporting the interpretation that
I am going to put forward. However, Saugstad has presented an
interpretation that I think is similar to mine in its basic structure and that
has had an influence on my own. 3
9.1 Transcendental schematism
In my discussion of quantity I shall again turn to the schematism
chapter, 4 as well as the Analytic of principles of which that chapter is a
part. In chapter 6, I suggested that the basic aim of these parts of the
Critique was to establish a connection between our concepts and spatiotemporal
reality. I also argued that the practices involved when we
construct figures in space are a central part of this theory. By this theory
of construction, Kant establishes a connection between concepts in
general, and objects qua extended in space. However, this only solves
half the problem. Time remains to be discussed. Why is it that concepts
in general and the categories in particular apply to an empirical world
that is both spatial and temporal? Do we need the notion of practice in
order to answer also the latter part of this question? If so, what kind of
practice is this?
Not far from where the notion of a Verfahren is first introduced,
Kant gives an answer that points in the direction in which we will now
take our investigation: the categories and their schemata make possible
the transcendental determination of time. In the last part of the
schematism chapter this general statement is followed up by a more
detailed account relating more directly to the different categories and
their corresponding schemata. This more detailed account begins at A
142/B 182, that is, in the schematism chapter, and extends into the
following chapters.
In Kant’s table of categories, the twelve categories are sorted into four
groups, quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Each of these is now
3 Cf. especially Saugstad (1992). Cf. also Kambartel (1976).
4 The reason why I base my interpretation here on the schematism chapter is that
this is where Kant most explicitly discusses how the categories are applied to the
empirical world. If the categories are embodied practices, or if their employment
involves such practices, this is where we are most likely to find this to be
expressed by Kant.

QUANTITY 269
associated with four basic ways in which time is transcendentally
determined, having to do with; 1) the flow of time; 2) the content of time;
3) the order of time; and, finally, what Kant calls 4) the sum total of time
in regard to all possible objects [Zeitinbegriff in Ansehung aller
möglichen Gegenstände]. In what follows I shall examine the category of
quantity in general and argue that it is possible to interpret Kant’s theory
of this category and its schematization as referring to embodied practice.
9.2 Quantity
Now, let us turn to see what Kant has to say about quantity and time.
Discussing the concept of quantity, he explains that while the pure image
of all quantity of the outer sense is space, the pure image of all quantity
whatsoever is time. The pure schema corresponding to this general
concept of quantity is number, which again is a representation of the
successive addition of one equal element to another. Thus he concludes
that number is nothing else than the unity of the synthesis of the
manifold of a homogenous intuition in general, as the subject himself
creates time in his apprehension of an intuition:
The pure image of all magnitudes (quantorum) for outer sense is
space; for all objects of the senses in general, it is time. The pure
schema of magnitude (quantitatis), however, as a concept of the
understanding, is number, which is a representation that summarizes
the successive addition of one (homogeneous) unit to another. Thus
number is nothing other than the unity of the synthesis of the
manifold of a homogeneous intuition in general, because I generate
[erzeuge] time itself in the apprehension of the intuition. (A142/B
182)
The passage is loaded with information. First, the fact that Kant claims
that number is the pure schema of quantity, considered as a concept of
the understanding, suggests that the theory now promoted refers back to
the first example of the schematism chapter, the example of number.
Number, he argues, is the pure schema of quantity in general. Quantity,
however, has two pure images: the pure image of quantity corresponding
to the outer sense is space and the pure image of quantity corresponding
to the inner sense is time. Also worth noting is the fact that time, which
by now is firmly established as the form of all intuition, is explicitly
described as the product of our own activity, more specifically, time is
said to be produced [erzeugt] by the synthesis of the manifold of an
homogenous [gleichartigen] intuition, or in short, by our apprehension of

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such an intuition. The process in which this takes place is referred to as
‘successive addition’.
Let us stop for a moment to consider this term ‘successive addition’ as
it used here. Another word for successive addition is counting. Counting,
I think, may be described, without any great controversy, as a practice,
and moreover as a practice that often involves the body. Kant has given
us several examples of counting qua embodied practice, such as when we
count on our fingers (B 15). Other examples of counting involving the
body are easily found. One such example is when we count a series of
external objects by manipulation, for example when we pick up ten
apples in the supermarket and place them in our shopping basket. Even
when we count a series of objects without touching them, as when we
count the number of books standing in a bookshelf, our body is involved
as we move our eyes, focusing on one book after the other.
9.3 The production of time
Now, let us return to our discussion of time. The passage suggests that, in
some way or another, the transcendental determination of time may
involve acts or practices like the ones just suggested. What is more, time
itself, Kant tells us, may be seen as produced by such acts. What does this
mean? Despite Kant’s rather abstract and/or obscure way of making his
point, I think his idea is quite simple. In all acts of counting (one..., two...,
three...) the act of counting constitutes a primitive time flow. As we
count, through our counting as such, time comes into being for us.
Before saying more about this, however, let us now take a look at the
last part of the passage again:
Thus number is nothing other than the unity of the synthesis of the
manifold of a homogeneous intuition in general, because I generate
[erzeuge] time itself in the apprehension of the intuition. (A142/ B
182)
A connection is established between the theory of time production just
suggested, and the concept of apprehension. What is this connection? In
what way is counting (successive addition) involved in apprehension? Let
me suggest the following answer, and let me use the apprehension of an
empirical object as my example. According to Kant, the apprehension of
an empirical object takes place as a process in which new parts of the
object are constantly perceived and added to the parts previously
perceived. The fact that parts just perceived are added to previous ones
means that apprehension always involves addition or counting. For
instance, imagine yourself standing close to a very large building, so large

QUANTITY 271
that you cannot take it all in in one look. You have, literally, to start the
process of perception at one part of the house, say its northern end, and
then proceed by letting your eyes pass towards its southern end, or vice
versa. We are now close to Kant’s own description of such a situation at
A 192/B 237-238.
In the previous example of a house my perceptions could have begun
at its rooftop and ended at the ground, but could also have begun
below and ended above; likewise I could have apprehended the
manifold of empirical intuition from the right or from the left. (A
192/B 237-238)
In the case of a large building, I think it is obvious that the process of
perception or apprehension may be described as a process in which the
different parts of the building are added together. It is obvious from the
fact that you cannot take in the whole building in a single glance. You
have to apprehend one part of the building at a time, and then add the
parts together. According to the following passage, however, this process
of addition, far from being something we seek recourse to only where
large objects are concerned, is part of even the minutest perception, such
as the perception of a very small line.
I cannot represent to myself any line, no matter how small it may be,
without drawing it in thought, i.e., successively generating all its
parts from one point [alle Teile nach und nach zu erzeugen], and
thereby first sketching this intuition. (A 162-163/B 203, my
emphasis.)
I here interpret the expression ‘alle Teile nach und nach zu erzeugen’ as
part of the same general theory of apprehension as addition as the one
identified above. Notice also how in this passage, as before, the practice
of addition is seen as an integral part of apprehension as such.
From what has been said so far, it should be clear that the counting
involved in apprehension has to be conceived of as an embodied
practice. When the object of apprehension is large, and we stand very
close to it, this is perhaps most obvious. If the object is a large house, for
instance, and I stand close to it, I have to take it in part by part and then,
in order to recognize the house as a unity, I have to add the parts
together. Moreover, this whole process demands that I actively use my
body, turning my head so that I can see the different parts of the
building, or moving myself in relation to the house. The counting
exemplified here is similar to the addition involved when I count a series

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of objects without touching them, as when I count the number of books
standing in a bookshelf by moving my eyes.
Kant’s idea may be perceived to be that a similar process is involved
in all apprehension. In chapter 6 I argued, following Kant, that
apprehension could be described as a kind of drawing in which our
bodies are involved. In visual perception, for instance, I move my eyes,
making a movement similar to the one I would have made in order to
produce a drawing of the shape of the object perceived. I think that the
theory of apprehension implied by the passages just examined may be
interpreted as referring to the same embodied acts as those identified
there. That is, all apprehension presupposes and implies embodied
movement. What is new, however, is that these acts are now also
described as instances of addition or counting.
If my interpretation is correct, this idea is used in the Critique in two
ways. First, it is used to account for the fact that all empirical objects
apprehended have spatial size. They have size because the act in which
they are apprehended is an act in which part is added to part, and this is
how spatial size is constituted for us. Another way of stating this point is
by saying that empirical apprehension always involves a sort of primitive
measuring of the apprehended object, a measuring in which we use our
body, or parts of our body, as a primitive measuring rod. This is most
obvious when apprehension takes place by touch. When I place my hand
directly on the surface of the object to be apprehended, in the very same
act I also measure its size relative to the size of my hand. Perhaps I also
have to move it in order to really get a hold on what kind of object it is.
Along with this, and as part of the very same act, measuring takes place
again. How many times do I move my hand a ‘hand-sized’ distance in
order to get from one side of the object to another? The fact that I am
perhaps unaware of making such a measurement does not prevent it
from taking place. Kant might have said that I am aware of it on an
obscure level of consciousness. Most important, however, and what I take
to be the basic Kantian point, is that we cannot apprehend an object
without at the same time measuring it. And typically, in most everyday
situations, the ‘measuring rod’ we use to perform the measuring is our
bodies or parts of our bodies, such as when people in primitive cultures
measure by means of their feet, thumbs or other body parts. 5
5
In Émile Rousseau advances similar thoughts when he writes: ‘Since man’s first
natural movements are, therefore, to measure himself against everything
surrounding him and to experience in each object he perceives all the qualities
which can be sensed and relate to him, his first study is a sort of experimental

QUANTITY 273
In addition to this, another highly important new aspect is now added
to Kant’s theory of empirical apprehension. If we accept that his theory
of empirical apprehension refers to embodied acts, and that these acts
typically also exemplify the embodied practice of counting, then we may
read the above passage at A142/B 182 as arguing that not only do these
acts constitute the spatial form and size of empirical objects, they also
constitute their temporal form, i.e., the fact that they appear to us in
time. How is it that the temporal form of an object is produced in the
same act as the one in which the object is apprehended and its size is
measured? I think the answer is similar to the one given about space
above. Time is produced through this act, because it involves the
addition of parts. Through this addition, Kant explains, two images of
quantity are produced; not only space, but also time (A 142/B 182).
Thus, time and space are constituted [erzeugt] in the same act.
Again I think that apprehension of large objects, such as a large
building, best exemplifies the Kantian point. When I stand close to a
large building and perceive it, part by part, adding together these parts,
this addition (one..., two..., three...) constitutes a time flow. However, as
this time flow is constituted through the same acts as the building is
apprehended, the perceived building must necessarily appear in this time
flow. It must necessarily appear to us as existing in time. However, this
applies not only to large objects. Again I take the underlying idea to be a
general one: the same constitution of a time flow in which the objects are
necessarily perceived, is present in all apprehension.
9.4 Some objections and answers
In this section I shall briefly discuss two potential objections to this
interpretation First, there are cases in which we count without using the
body, such as when we silently perform mathematical operations. How
do we know that Kant is not talking about such inner calculation? I do
not deny that addition may take place in this inner way. In a sense I also
think that the practice then performed is the same as when, for instance,
we count on the fingers. A person may count internally or externally. In
both cases counting takes place, and in both cases the person in question
physics relative to his own preservation’ (Rousseau (1979), 125). Cf. also p. 143:
‘There are natural measures which are almost the same in all places - a man’s
pace, his outstretched arms, his stature. When the child estimates the height of a
story, his governor can serve him as measuring rod; if he estimates the height of a
steeple, let him measure it against houses. If he wants to know the number of
leagues covered by a road, let him count the hours it takes to walk it.’

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participates in the practice of counting. In both cases, according to Kant,
time is also produced, at least this seems to be his idea. However, my
point is that where empirical apprehension is concerned, and when Kant
claims that this kind of apprehension involves addition, then the addition
referred to is embodied. It is embodied because empirical apprehension
always involves the body. So for instance, when I apprehend a house,
adding the various parts of the building together as I let my eyes pass
from one part of the building to the other, I partake in the practice of
embodied counting. Although my body may only be involved to a small
degree, still it is involved, and so the practice is embodied.
The second objection concerns time as the form of inner sense. Kant
defines time as the form of inner sense, and in doing this seems to locate
the constitution of time in the innermost part of our minds. How can I
then claim that time is produced by embodied acts? I will not discuss
here why Kant refers to time as the form of inner sense, or what the term
‘inner’ means in this context. Rather, I want to emphasize that Kant also
maintains that time, even if it is the form of inner sense, can only be
represented in outer sense for instance by drawing a line. Consider for
instance the following passage at B 155.
Time… cannot be made representable to us except under the image
of a line, insofar as we draw it… (B 155)
The interpretation put forward may be used to explain why Kant makes
this claim. The line does not represent time in itself, that is, the line
considered as an object extended in space. It represents time indirectly,
in virtue of representing the act by which time is produced [erzeugt]. In
fact, the passage just quoted may be seen as yet another one that supports
the idea that time is produced by embodied acts.
Earlier I listed four criteria characterizing an a priori element of
cognition:
Something is an a priori element of cognition when:
1) it is a condition of having experience,
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,
3) it originates in the activity of the agent, and
4) its structure is independent of contingent empirical facts.
So far, it may be argued, I have shown that the category of quantity,
interpreted as an embodied practice, satisfies the first, third and fourth of
these criteria. But what about the second? Indirectly this question was
answered in the previous chapter. We there saw Kant argue that
arithmetic qua embodied practice (for instance counting on the fingers) is
the source of knowledge that is necessarily true and universal. Geometry

QUANTITY 275
is another example frequently used by him to illustrate the production of
such knowledge. As I argued in chapter 6, he also saw geometry as an
embodied practice (cf. e.g. A 239ff./B299ff.). Thus, I conclude that it is
possible to interpret Kant’s theory of quantity as referring to an
embodied practice (the practice of counting) and that there is textual
evidence in the Critique supporting the view that this was how Kant
conceived of the matter.
One last question that may need to be discussed is whether we are
entitled to interpret the category of quantity as such as an embodied
practice, or whether we should adopt the more modest claim, that it is
only when we apply this category that we are involved in the practice
defined above. Expressed in Kantian terminology, is the category an
embodied practice, or is it only the schematized category which is such a
practice?
As long as we distinguish between a category and its schema, the
latter option must be preferred, I think. However, it is not obvious that
we are justified in upholding such a distinction. Even if Kant is not
unambiguous on this point, a number of interpreters have argued that
there is no room in his theory for the notion of an unschematized
category. By defining a category as an act [Handlung] or a function
performed with regard to the empirical manifold of our intuitions, Kant
by definition seems to say that the category has no existence in
abstraction from its employment. Gardner comments:
... the notion of an unschematized category disappears, or becomes a
dubious abstraction from the conditions of empirical knowledge... 6
If so, then we are entitled to adopt the stronger of the two options
suggested above, that the category of quantity as such may be interpreted
as an embodied practice. This will also be my position. This means,
however, that whenever the claim is made that a category is an embodied
practice, the term ‘category’ is used in the sense of a schematized
category.
6
Gardner (1999), 169f. Cf. also Kambartel (1976), 127.

10. THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES
... [we] can ... perceive all time-determination
only through the change in outer relation
(motion) relative to that which persists in space
(e.g., the motion of the sun with regard to the
objects on the earth)...
From the Critique 1
The task of this chapter is to answer the question of whether Kant’s
theory of the relational categories as found in the Critique may be
interpreted as referring to embodied practices in a way analogous to
what we found in the previous chapter concerning the category of
quantity. The approach of the chapter will be as follows. First, I examine
what Kant has to say about these categories in the Analogies of
experience, which is the part of the Analytic of principles dealing with
these categories and their function relative to time. A central idea put
forward here is that objective time determination is only possible given
these categories. However, Kant also contends that such determination
presupposes the existence of external objects. Moreover, in the above
passage from the Refutation of idealism, following closely on the
Analogies of experience, he uses the sun and its movement across the sky
as an example of a process [Wechsel] in the outer conditions [äußere
Verhältnisse] that make the determination of time possible. From this, I
will argue, it is possible to infer that there is a level at which the relational
categories may be conceived of as embodied practices, and that this is
implied by the Critique. These are the practices involved whenever we
use the movements of the sun or another object to determine time.
I end this chapter somewhat hesitantly, however. Kant’s general
theory of the categories seems to demand that the relational categories,
whatever they are, are virtually present at every moment of our lives, at
least as long as we are awake and in a normal state of consciousness. If
there is a level at which these categories exist as embodied practices, we
have to search for practices that are similarly entertained at every
moment of our lives. It is not obvious that the practices involved when
1 B 277-278.

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we use the movement of the sun or another object to determine time are
such practices. This problem is followed up in a further discussion in the
next chapter
As for the secondary literature, with a few significant exceptions I
have found little of immediate relevance to what I shall discuss in this
chapter. 2
Of course, the textual passages on which my interpretation is
based have frequently been discussed but these discussions have mostly
taken a rather different direction from the one I will be pursuing.
10.1 The analogies of experience
First, let us take a look at Kant’s discussion of the relational categories,
and the function he ascribes to them within his theory of time. As we
have seen, according to Kant, the categories do not all determine time in
the same way. The transcendental schema of quantity merely produces a
time flow [Zeitreihe] (A 145/B 184). In order to have a representation of
time order [Zeitordnung] we need something more. We need the
transcendental schemata of the relational categories of substance,
causality and interaction. The distinction made between time flow and
time order may be interpreted as a distinction between subjective and
objective time. Through empirical apprehension a first, primitive time is
produced, and sensations or perceptions are located in this time. This,
however, does not tell me anything about the objective order of time,
that is, the time order of the objective world. All I know at this point is
the temporal succession of my subjective representations. How is it
possible for us to know, then, that there also exists an objective time
order? And what does it mean to say that such an order exists?
Kant’s answer to this question is presented in his theory of the
transcendental schemata corresponding to the three relational categories.
This theory is provided in the chapter entitled the Analogies of
experience, consisting of what Kant refers to as three analogies. Each
analogy is connected to one of the three relational categories, and each
consists of a principle followed by a proof.
2
An exception is Kambartel (1976). Cf. also Melnick (1989). As part of his
general attempt to interpret the categories at the level of human behavior, he
argues, for instance, that the relational category of substance may be interpreted
as referring to our capacity to perform certain procedures characterized by a
temporally extending behavior (1989), 86. Saugstad presents an externalist
interpretation of the Kantian notion of causation in Saugstad (1993a), 219ff, cf.
also Saugstad (1992), 383.

THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 279
The first analogy deals with what Kant refers to as ‘the principle of
the permanence of substance’. In the B-edition it is stated as follows:
In all change of appearances substance persists, and its quantum is
neither increased nor diminished in nature. (B 224)
At first sight, it is not easy to see how this has anything to do with
objective time determination. In order to get a clue as to how this
principle relates to time, we have to proceed to the proof that
immediately follows it. Unfortunately, the argument supplied by this
proof is far from transparent. In the A-edition Kant begins his proof by
stating that all appearances are in time. Further, as apprehension of the
manifold of these appearances is successive, we are confronted with a
manifold that is always changing. Based on this manifold alone it would
be impossible, Kant argues, to decide [bestimmen] whether the objects of
experience are coexistent or whether they follow each other in time.
Such a determination requires that there is a substrate underlying the
appearances, a substrate that is lasting and permanent. This substrate is
substance.
How does this argument relate to Kant’s theory of transcendental
time determination? Let us take a look at the parts of the proof where
Kant more explicitly refers to time. A basic feature of objective time is
that there is just one such time. This was established in the Aesthetic and
it is now repeated. 3 Time is also in a basic sense unchanging. We may say
that our appearances change in time, but this does not entitle us to say
that time itself changes. Time, considered as the form of appearance, is
always the same.
The time, therefore, in which all change of appearances is to be
thought, lasts and does not change. (B 224-225)
Further, only in relation to such a time can we say that two events are
either simultaneous or follow each other (B 224-225). This, however,
raises a new question. Time, not being an empirical representation but
only the form of such a representation, cannot be observed (B 225). From
where, then, do we get the representation of a single, unchanging time?
Kant’s solution involves the category of substance, which, applied to
the world of our experience, invites us to conceive of a stable and
permanent substratum underlying this world. This substratum, or
3 See e.g. A 188/ B 232.

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substance as Kant prefers to call it, remains the same even if its
determinations change and so is perfect for serving as the representation
of time in general. Substance is a representation of time in general
Consequently it is in the objects of perception, i.e., the appearances,
that the substratum must be encountered that represents time in
general… (B 225).
The term ‘substance’ seems to be used somewhat ambiguously in the
text. In the first part of the first analogy the term is used in the singular,
and from the context seems to refer to the idea of some unobserved
primary matter underlying all empirical reality. The principle of the first
analogy, claiming that the quantity of substance in nature neither
increases or decreases, seems to confirm this reading. Then, however,
Kant begins to use the term in the plural, talking about substances, 4 as if
he were using the term in an Aristotelian sense, talking about tables and
trees and other empirical objects in space. Later in the text, as in the
third analogy, the term is undoubtedly used in this sense.
The apparent dilemma is best solved, I think, by remembering that
the term ‘substance’ when used transcendentally refers neither to objects
in space nor to an unobservable primary matter, but to a conceptual
synthesis by means of which something permanent is thought in the
empirical world, without, however, committing us to any particular
metaphysics. 5 What the first analogy teaches us is that this synthesis may
be performed in two different ways; one in relation to nature at large,
and one in relation to what we refer to as empirical objects. It may also
be argued, however, that Kant’s argument in the first analogy rests
primarily on the first of the above-mentioned uses. What he needs here is
the representation of something unchanging that neither increases or
decreases in quantity. This kind of stability may only be found, I think, if
we consider nature at large.
The kind of stability just mentioned plays a fundamental role in the
argument found at A 188/B 231. Imagine new substances coming into
being while others disappeared, Kant suggests. That would not only do
away with the empirical unity of time, it would abolish even the
4
See especially the part following A 188/ B 230.
5 Here I agree with Gardner (1999), 174. I take also Allison (1983), 209 to be
making the same point, when, in discussing this part of the first analogy, he
comments: ‘It should be kept in mind, however, that this is a strictly
transcendental claim, which tells us nothing about the nature of this matter.’

THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 281
possibility of such a time. Our appearances would then relate to two
separate times flowing side by side. But this is clearly beyond reason (A
188-189/B 231-232). Even if it is perhaps not crystal clear what this
argument achieves, it confirms what seems to be Kant’s basic point in the
first analogy. A representation of a single and unified time is possible only
under the condition that we think of the appearances of nature as being
founded on something the quantity of which is neither increasing or
decreasing.
10.2 The second analogy
Looking at what Kant is trying to achieve with the three analogies, the
first one has laid down some foundations, but he has not yet told us how
it is possible to have knowledge of the objective order of time. This
question is dealt with in the second analogy. This presents what he refers
to as ‘the principle of temporal succession according to the law of
causality’. In the B-edition, the principle is expressed in this way:
All alterations occur in accordance with the law of the connection of
cause and effect. (B 232)
The proof following this principle states that only if experience is
organized according to the principle of cause and effect can we
determine the objective time order of two events. This is possible, Kant
argues, for the reason that when we have determined an event A to be
the cause of another event B, then, as part of this determination, we have
also determined that B follows A. Thus, we have also established an
objective time relation between A and B (A 192/B 237).
To illustrate this proof Kant presents his famous example of the
house and the ship. Imagine, first, that you are observing a house.
According to his theory of apprehension, you have to take it into your
consciousness part by part. Now, it is clear that the order in which the
different parts of the house are apprehended is not determined by any
rule. This means that the parts may be apprehended in a number of
different ways. In this sense, the order of apprehension is accidental.
Imagine now that you see a ship drifting down a river. At one moment
you see the ship at one point in the river and some time later you observe
it at a lower point in the river. In this case, Kant argues, you cannot first
apprehend the ship at the lower point and then, at some later time,
apprehend it at the higher position. The order of the succession of
perceptions is here determined by something transcending the subjective
order of apprehension.

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I see a ship driven downstream. My perception of its position
downstream follows the perception of its position upstream, and it is
impossible that in the apprehension of this appearance the ship
should first be perceived downstream and afterwards upstream. The
order in the sequence of the perceptions in apprehension is therefore
here determined, and the apprehension is bound to it. (A 192/ B 237)
What is it in this example that makes it possible for us to transcend the
subjective order of apprehension? Kant is quite clear that it is the
category of causality. By means of this category, you decide that the
situation in which the ship was higher up the river is the cause leading to
the situation in which the ship has moved to a lower point of the river.
Let us call the first situation A and the second B. By deciding that A is
the cause of B, it follows that B cannot precede A. It also follows that it is
impossible to apprehend B before A.
This is the case whenever we observe that something happens. Kant
here seems to be thinking that the concept of something happening
implies the concept of an objective time order, which is why he can claim
that the rule of causality is necessarily present in all contexts in which
something is happening.
But this rule is always to be found in the perception of that which
happens, and it makes the order of perceptions that follow one
another (in the apprehension of this appearance) necessary. (A193/B
238)
How do we know that one event is the cause of another? According to
Hume we can never know this in an absolute sense. As our idea of
causality is based on induction, it lacks the universal and necessary
character found in a priori principles. Kant agrees with Hume that if the
concept of causality was founded merely on induction, then the principle
that everything that happens has a cause would be merely empirical, and
thus accidental (A 196/ B 241). However, Kant claims that there is more
to causality than this and that it is possible to prove that causality is a
necessary condition of objective time determination. According to this
proof, objective time determination is possible only given the necessary
connection between cause and effect.
The argument has here the structure of a transcendental proof.
Starting out from something thought to be evident, that is, the fact that
we experience the world as a series of events taking place in an
irreversible time order, Kant then proceeds to argue that this fact can
only be explained by assuming that this time order already stands under

THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 283
the category of causality. This category, then, is proven to be an a priori
condition of what was taken to be evident, and the proof is concluded. In
giving his proof of the transcendental function of causality, Kant does not
require us to constantly investigate the exact causal relations of the
elements of our environment in order to objectively determine time, at
least not in the way I read him. I take Kant’s point to be that the fact that
we experience the world as a series of events taking place in an
irreversible time order confirms that we already apply the category of
causality in our experience, even if we are not explicitly aware of this.
This is possible, because, as we have seen, Kant contends that a
significant part of our cognitive process may take place at an obscure
level of consciousness.
10.3 The third analogy
In my presentation of the two previous analogies, I have tried to
emphasis their main structure, deliberately omitting a number of details.
My discussion of the third analogy will be even briefer. In short, Kant
claims that determining two objects as simultaneous require the category
of reciprocal causal interaction. He has previously stated that time has
only two modi, that is, succession and simultaneity (B 226/A182). In the
second analogy he argued that objective succession presupposes causality.
Thus, the first of the two modi of time was taken care of. The second
modus, simultaneity, is the topic of the third analogy. As I understand it,
Kant’s theory of the category of reciprocal causal interaction is little
more than an extension of his theory of the category of causality.
According to this theory, while the latter determines a causal relation to
be present between A and B, the former determines that it also, at the
same time, is present between B and A. If this is right, it follows that
causality, alongside substantiality, is the essential principle of time
determination. It also follows that simultaneity is a special case of
succession. When A and B causally influence each other reciprocally, we
may say both that A succeeds B and that B succeeds A, which can be true
only if they are simultaneous and the time between A and B is zero. 6
6 This comes close to the cases described in the second analogy at A 203ff/ B
247ff. Here Kant discusses cases in which cause and effect exist simultaneously.
Actually some of these cases, such as the iron ball resting on a pillow, might have
been used as examples of reciprocal interaction just as well as unidirectional
causality. In this case, there is causal directionality present both from the ball to
the pillow and from the pillow to the ball.

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10.4 Time and the world
When introducing the three analogies, Kant declares that their purpose is
to show how objective time determination is possible. Now, after having
briefly looked at the structure of the three analogies, it is clear that they
all work together in achieving this aim. In order to have an objective
representation of time we need the category of substance, causality and
interaction. The first makes it possible to think of the world and its
objects as being permanent in either an absolute or relative sense, the
second and third make it possible to think of the objects of this world as
standing in causal relations to each other. And all of this is necessary if
we are to think of these objects as existing in an objective time order.
After having read our way through the three analogies, we now also
know more about what Kant means by ‘objective time order’. When first
introducing the term, it might seem as if he meant simply the
representation of time, considered in abstraction from all empirical
representations, a time that objectively considered is unified and
sequential, and that somehow exists independently of our subjective
order of representations. We now realize that this objective time order
cannot be conceived of independently of an objectively existing empirical
world, that is a world characterized by permanence (in the sense specified
above) and causality. Apart from this world, so Kant’s argument goes, no
such thing as an objective time order can exist. This is why objective time
in itself cannot be intuited.
So the argument of the three analogies concerns more than objective
time abstractly considered. It concerns the existence of an objectively
existing empirical world with objects interacting according to the laws of
causality. In fact, so we learn from the three analogies, these two
questions, the question of objective time and the question of an objective
world order, can only be solved together. This does not mean that the
three analogies in themselves contain the whole of Kant’s theory of an
objectively existing world or of how we may possess such a world. Parts
of this theory are established before we reach the analogies, in his theory
of space. However, as is easily understood, space alone cannot account
for our knowledge of an objective world. An essential feature of this
world is its character of being a process in time and so as part of our
theory of objective experience we need a theory of objective time
determination as well.
10.5 Time measuring practices
The task of this section is to answer the question of whether Kant’s
theory of the relational categories as found in the Critique can be

THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 285
interpreted as referring to embodied practices in a way analogous to
what we found in the previous chapter concerning the category of
quantity. So far, this question has not been answered. We have found,
however, that the transcendental determination of an objective time
order requires an empirical world. More specifically, it requires an
empirical world where objects interact and where events follow each
other according to the laws of causality.
A similar point is also made at B 155, where Kant, after having stated
that time may be represented only by the image of a line, continues to
argue that the determination of time always has to be made relative to
changes in the outer world:
But that it really must be so can be clearly shown, if one lets space
count as a mere pure form of the appearances of outer sense, from
the fact that time, although it is not itself an object of outer intuition
at all, cannot be made representable to us except under the image of
a line, insofar as we draw it, without which sort of presentation we
could not know the unity of its measure at all, or likewise from the
fact that we must always derive the determination of the length of
time or also of the positions in time for all inner perceptions from
that which presents external things to us as alterable; hence we
must order the determinations of inner sense as appearances in time
in just the same way as we order those of outer sense in space. (B 155,
my emphasis)
Does this give us any clue as to how the above question may be
answered?
When we study the history of man, we find that people have used
events in the outer world to determine the order of time in various ways.
For instance, from prehistoric times the cycles of the sun and the moon
have been used to construct a system of objective time determination.
Could it be that the practice of observing the celestial bodies and, on the
basis of such observations, making judgments regarding the order of
time, could be used as an example of the practices involved in the
transcendental determination of time? There are arguments in support of
this claim. Actually, Kant seems to confirm this claim himself in a
passage at B 277 in the Refutation of idealism. He uses the movement of
the sun as an example of the kind of process in the outer world that
makes possible the determination of time in general [alle
Zeitbestimmung]. He writes:

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... [we] can … perceive all time-determination only through the
change in outer relation (motion) relative to that which persists in
space (e.g., the motion of the sun with regard to the objects on the
earth)... (B 277, my emphasis)
Let us assume that Kant is here referring to the practice suggested
above. 7 If this is accepted, it should be obvious that there are also a
number of other practices that may count as a time-determining practice
in a similar sense. One example is when I determine time by means of a
mechanical clock, run, for instance, by a couple of weights. The basic
structure of this practice is the same as the one examined above, only the
hands of the clock have now replaced the sun as the moving object. Does
this mean that the case is now settled?
I hesitate to let this be the final conclusion of my examination, not
because I believe my line of argument is wrong, but because it has so far
not made us realize the fundamental significance that the relational
categories (interpreted as embodied practices) have in our daily lives. A
basic point of Kant’s transcendental philosophy is that the relational
categories, metaphorically expressed, are what tie the world together. In
a more formal manner, this point is expressed in the first part of the
Analogies of experience in a passage newly written for the B-edition.
Through the original apprehension of the objects of the empirical world,
these objects are placed beside each other in space, Kant explains, and
moreover, as apprehension takes place in time, a subjective notion of
time is introduced here. However the term ‘experience’ signifies more
7 A possible objection to this interpretation, is that the sun is an empirical
phenomenon, and so is its movement. If we use this movement to keep track of
time, it seems as if the resulting concept of time is abstracted from merely
empirical observations. I will suggest an answer to this question by drawing an
analogy back to the example where the size of an object is measured by means of
a measuring rod. There is a sense in which this rod is an empirical object like any
other. However, the moment we employ it in an act of measuring, all these
qualities become irrelevant. All that matters now is its function as a standard, and
it is only this function that now interests us. So it is with the sun and its
movements. From an empirical perspective, the sun is of course empirical, and so
is its movement. Considered as elements of a time-determining practice,
however, their status changes. What interest us now are not their empirical
qualities but their function within this practice. In establishing this practice, the
sun and its movement are given the status of a standard by which time is
measured and relative to which other events may be ordered. That an object’s
status changes when used in a practice like measuring is a point also made by
Wittgenstein (1984), § 50.

THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 287
than this. It signifies the knowledge we have when the objects of the
world are conceived within an objective time order. This is made possible
through a synthesis different from the synthesis of apprehension, he
argues. It is a synthesis that takes place through synthesizing concepts
[verknüpfende Begriffe], and these are no other than the relational
categories (B 218 ff.).
The basic significance that Kant ascribes to the relational categories
here is also evident from a passage found at A 216/B 263. According to
Kant the term ‘nature’ used empirically refers to appearances connected
by necessary rules, and these are the rules explored in the three
analogies, i.e. the relational categories. Now, even if we accept that there
are embodied practices that have the basic function Kant here ascribes to
the relational categories, and also that there is a level at which the
relational categories are these practices, it is not obvious that the practice
(or practices) that we have identified so far can fulfill this function. When
I determine the objective order of time by using the movement of the sun
across the sky as a standard, this is something I do only from time to
time. So also with the other practices identified above. We perform them
from time to time. However, the way I interpret Kant’s theory of
experience as expressed in the above passage and elsewhere in the
Critique, the relational categories are presupposed at every moment of
our waking existence. As long as we experience ourselves as living in a
coherent and ordered world, signified by the Kantian term ‘nature’, the
relational categories are working.
Notice also Kant’s argument at A 196/B 241. He claims that
causality is a necessary condition of objective time determination.
Objective time determination is possible only given the necessary
connection between cause and effect. As I have already stated, I do not
think that Kant demands that in order to objectively determine time, we
have to constantly investigate the exact causal relations of the elements of
our environment. I take Kant’s point to be that the fact that we
experience the world as a series of events taking place in an irreversible
time order shows that we already apply the category of causality in our
experience, even if we are not explicitly aware of this.
This all supports the idea that the relational categories, whatever they
are, are virtually present at every moment of our lives, at least as long as
we are awake and in a normal state of consciousness. If there is a level at
which these categories are embodied practices, we have to search for
such practices that are similarly entertained at every moment of our lives.
In the next chapter I discuss what these practices may be.

11. CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS
Reality data are treated or modified in such a way
as to become incorporated into the structure of
the agent.
Piaget 1
In the previous chapter I argued that if there is a level at which the
relational categories exist as embodied practices, then these practices
have to be continuously entertained. In this chapter I ask whether there
are practices with a function similar to the one ascribed to the relational
categories in the Critique that satisfy this demand. I shall argue that if
there are such practices, and if we accept that there is a level at which the
relational categories exist as embodied practices, then these may be the
ones.
In searching for practices satisfying these criteria, I shall seek help in
the work of Jean Piaget. 2 That Piaget is relevant here may not be
immediately obvious. He is a child psychologist empirically studying the
cognitive development of the child. However, he is also deeply inspired
by Kant, calling himself a ‘dynamic Kantian’. 3 Among the ideas in his
1
Piaget and Inhelder (1987a), 52.
2
That the work of Piaget may be of help in order to achieve a more
comprehensive understanding of Kant’s transcendental epistemology was first
brought to my attention by Hansgeorg Hoppe (1983) and his highly interesting
study Synthesis bei Kant. Here he writes: ‘Diese Theorie [Piaget’s] einer
Gegenstandskonstitution durch Synthesen, die ihrerseits Kategorien
hervorbringen oder von Kategorien geleitet sind, ist sowohl für die
Gegenstandsbeziehung unserer Vorstellungen als auch für ihre Interpretation
von außerordentlicher Wichtigkeit...’ (Hoppe (1983), 160-61). However, even if
Hoppe claims that a Piagetian approach may help us arrive at a more interesting
notion of transcendental philosophy, he also thinks that we then go beyond Kant
(ibid., 20). Cf. also Hoppe (1988), 116.
3
Cf. Arbib (1986), 45 and Oberhausen (1997), 27. Even if he called himself a
dynamic Kantian, however, openly acknowledging a Kantian influence, he took
the dynamic aspect of his theory to be incompatible with the Kantian notion of
the a priori. Oberhausen reports that Piaget characterized Kant’s theory of space
as a nativist theory, and that he ascribed to Kant the idea that space and causality

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CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS
work that reveal a Kantian orientation is the idea that experience
involves more than the senses of the child being passively affected. For
the child to experience itself as living in an ordered world of causally
interacting spatio-temporal objects, it needs to actively relate to this
world.
The reason why I use Piaget in this chapter is, however, not just this
general Kantian orientation. Equally important is the fact that according
to Piaget, the activity just referred to, the activity making possible the
experience of an ordered world, is a behavioral activity. Also, Piaget
attempts to identify in detail how different behavioral patterns make
possible various aspects of the child’s experience of the world, such as
object-permanence and causality. I shall argue that these behavioral
patterns may be conceived of as practices, and that they may be those we
are looking for.
Critics have argued that Piaget’s empirical findings cannot always
support the more general conclusions that he himself draws from them
and that his theory is therefore in need of revision. 4 The outcome of this
chapter, however, does not stand or fall by the empirical truth of each
and every detail of Piaget’s theory. I think that even if we allow this
theory to be revised, there are aspects of it that remain tenable, and
moreover, that have a relevance beyond the specific context in which
they are introduced. Of specific interest is the Piagetian notion of a
sensorimotor intelligence, an intelligence working through perception
and action alone. I shall argue that this notion of a sensorimotor
intelligence may also be of relevance in understanding Kant’s
transcendental epistemology in general, and his theory of the relational
categories in particular.
Finally, it may be worth noting that the project of this chapter will
take us beyond what I take to be Kant’s main concern in his theory of the
relational categories. As I read the Critique, his interest lies not in
presenting a comprehensive theory of what these categories are, or what
we do when we employ them. His basic aim is to prove the validity of the
relational categories. This validity, moreover, is proved by means of a
transcendental argument, starting out from what is taken to be evident,
i.e. that we experience the world as a series of events taking place in an
are part of the a priori cognitive framework with which the child is born. From
what I have argued above, however, there are good reasons for questioning this
conclusion.
4 For a discussion of this criticism, cf. e.g. Goswami (1998) and Butterworth
(1987).

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 291
irreversible time order. Kant then proceeds by arguing that this is
possible only if we accept that the relational categories are already
functioning as the principles by which our experience achieves unity.
I shall argue, however, that there is a certain sense in which the
project of this chapter is still Kantian. It is Kantian in the sense that it is
consistent with basic assumptions, explicit or implicit, underlying the
transcendental discourse of the Critique. Among other things, as we have
seen, in the Critique Kant explicitly describes the categories in general,
and thus also the relational categories, as acts. They do not constitute
some abstract, Platonic structure to which the empirical world simply
and mysteriously conforms. They are something an agent does, that is,
they are acts performed by a agent confronting the empirical world. Also,
if I am right, the agent to whom these acts are ascribed in the Critique
cannot be understood in any other way than as being an embodied
agent, an agent, moreover, whose only way of attaining knowledge of the
objects of the world is by interacting with them. This, along with the
Kantian idea that the categories may be described both as acts and as
rules points towards the conclusion that far from being inconsistent with
basic assumptions underlying the Critique, there are aspects of this text
that invite us to consider whether there is a level at which the relational
categories may be perceived as embodied practices.
11.1 Piaget and the cognitive development of the child
According to Piaget’s account of the cognitive development of the child,
it may be divided into phases. The first, including roughly the first
eighteen months of the child’s life, is the sensorimotor period. 5 In it the
child develops what Piaget calls a sensorimotor intelligence. This is an
intelligence working without language or representations, totally
embedded in perception and action. It consists essentially of the ability to
co-ordinate the perceptions and actions of the child, without involving
thought or representation. As Piaget himself expresses the point,
sensorimotor intelligence is a practical intelligence. It aims at getting
results rather than stating truths. 6 According to Piaget, sensorimotor
intelligence develops gradually during the sensorimotor period. Initially,
the universe of the new-born child is centered entirely on its own body.
5
Piaget emphasizes that individuals develop differently, and that all claims that
he makes about ages and phases are approximate, cf. Piaget and Inhelder
(1987a), 51 and also Goswami (1998), 278.
6
Piaget and Inhelder (1987a), 52.

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In the course of the first eighteen months, however, a sort of general
decentering process takes place. The child goes through a sort of
Copernican revolution, replacing its original egocentric perspective with
a more objective one, learning to regard itself as an object among others
in a spatio-temporal universe of permanent objects interacting causally. 7
In the beginning, however, this knowledge is sensorimotor only.
Let me illustrate Piaget’s account of the development taking place in
the sensorimotor period by focusing on causality. According to Piaget,
the first primitive understanding of causality originates in the child’s
capacity to manipulate external objects. When the child is approximately
four and a half months old, it enters a period in which it tries to grasp
and manipulate everything it sees in its immediate vicinity. When, for
instance, a cord connected to a rattle is hung within its reach, it will pull
it, and, motivated by the interesting sound produced, it will repeat this
movement again and again. Through acts like this, Piaget argues, the
child demonstrates a first primitive knowledge of causality. 8
To say that in the sensorimotor period the child understands basic
features of the world, such as causality, or that it has knowledge of these
things, needs comment. Normally, we employ these terms to suggest that
some sort of conceptual thinking is taking place, but Piaget argues that in
the sensorimotor period the child does not engage in conceptual thinking
in the usual sense of the term. When we say that the child in this period
develops understanding or knowledge of causality, what we mean,
therefore, is simply that it learns to interact with the world in an ever
more sophisticated manner. This is what is implied by the term
sensorimotor intelligence.
Another notion introduced in order to describe the child’s intelligence
on this level, is the notion of an action-scheme or simply a scheme.
Examples of such schemes are the grasping and holding of an object,
using an object, for instance a rope, to produce an effect in some distant
object connected to the rope, or searching for objects temporarily out of
sight. Piaget emphasizes that a scheme is neither a representation nor a
thought. 9 Rather, it is a strategy or practice developed by the child in its
embodied interaction with the world. In its first, primitive form it is
simply what we call a habit. It is a habit carried out whenever the child
finds itself in a certain situation. In order to know when the habit is to be
employed, it needs the capacity to perceive and recognize certain aspects
7
Piaget and Inhelder (1987b), 165.
8
Piaget and Inhelder (1987a), 55.
9
Op. cit.

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 293
of the situation. Consequently a scheme has two aspects, one related to
perception and one to action. The scheme, we might say, is what coordinates
these. And as already emphasized, it does so without
introducing representational or conceptual elements. It is totally
embedded in perception and action:
In the absence of language and symbolic function, these constructions
[schemes] are made with the sole support of perceptions and
movements and thus by means of a sensorimotor co-ordination of
acts without the intervention of representation and thought. 10
According to Piaget, sensorimotor intelligence develops gradually during
the first eighteen months of the child’s life. There is a continuous
progress from spontaneous movements and reflexes to acquired habits
and sensorimotor intelligence. 11 However, a turning point takes place
when the child is approximately four and a half months old. Now the
child starts to combine its acquired behavioral schemes into ever more
sophisticated strategies of problem solving. It is in this combinatory
capacity that Piaget sees the primary sign of intelligence at this stage.
According to Piaget, the first traces of representations are found in
the child towards the end of the sensorimotor period. The child may now
be observed to have what seems to be moments of sudden insight. For
example, Piaget reports that a child confronted by a slightly open
matchbox containing a thimble first tries to open the box by physical
groping. Upon failing, it presents a totally new kind of reaction. It stops
the act and attentively examines the situation. In the course of this it
slowly opens or closes its mouth, or, as another agent did, its hand, as if
in imitation of the results to be attained, that is, the enlargement of the
opening. Then it suddenly slips its finger into the crack and thus succeeds
in opening the box.
11.2 Practice as a condition of experience
To possess an action-scheme means to be able to act in a regular way
when a certain input situation is present. It is also implied that the agent
acts to achieve a goal. Thus, the concept of an action-scheme contains all
the essential marks of an embodied practice. If this is accepted, we may
also express Piaget’s point like this: to say that the child of the
sensorimotor period knows causality means that it masters a certain
10
Op. cit.
11
Op. cit.

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embodied practice. The knowledge lies in this practice. The same,
according to Piaget, also applies to time, space and object-permanence.
What is implied by saying that the child achieves this knowledge?
According to Piaget, among other things, it implies that the child now
starts to perceive the world in a new way. It begins to perceive the world
as an ordered and structured world, characterized by being spatial and
temporal, containing permanent objects standing in causal relations.
Expressed in Kantian terms, the action-schemes or practices acquired by
the child, are a priori conditions of experience. The term ‘experience’ is
here used in its strong Kantian sense, meaning an experience ordered or
determined in the way just specified.
Piaget seems to be aware that he is here establishing a Kantian
perspective, and it is hardly a coincidence that he uses Kantian
terminology to express his point. Like Kant, he suggests that the
empirical data of the senses needs to be structured by the agent in order
to become experience.
Reality data are treated or modified in such a way as to become
incorporated into the structure of the agent. In other words, every
newly established connection is integrated into an existing
schematism. According to this view, the organizing activity of the
agent must be considered just as important as the connections
inherent in the external stimuli... 12
He also uses the metaphor of the filter, a metaphor not employed by
Kant, but often used to explain his point to students.
... the input, the stimulus, is filtered through a structure that consists
of the action-schemes... 13
Read in isolation, these passages might be taken to refer to some mental
process taking place in some mental disembodied space in which raw
data from the senses were mysteriously structured by some other mental
entities or processes called action-schemes. This, at least, is how Kant is
often interpreted when he uses similar expressions. Piaget, however,
firmly resists such a reading. When, in the above passages he refers to the
organizing activity of the agent, he is explicitly referring to embodied
12 Op. cit.
13 Ibid., 52.

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 295
practices. It is embodied practices performed by the child that account
for the fact that it finds itself living in an ordered world.
Notice that the perspective established by Piaget contains more than
just an account of how the child develops cognitively from birth to
adolescence. It contains a philosophical theory of how embodied
practices may be considered a priori conditions of experience, that is,
experience in the strong Kantian sense. 14 Even if this idea is integral to
Piaget’s theory of development, that is, placed in a diachronic setting, it is
also possible to extract it from this setting, thereby establishing a
synchronic perspective. In this perspective, what is considered is no
longer the genesis of concepts. The focus is on how embodied practices
are a priori conditions of experience.
This is, I think, philosophically considered, the most interesting part
of Piaget’s theory. It is also the hardest part to grasp. How can embodied
practices, like the ones suggested above, make the world appear ordered
to us? Piaget’s answer is this: long before the child has a name for
substance and causality or anything similar to this, long before it has
started to form mental representations of the world, long before it has
started to reflect consciously at all, it has the capacity to act and respond
in a regular way relative to the complex network of sensual impressions
in which it is living. It is capable of acting so that certain desired ends are
produced and others are avoided. At this level, in the absence of other
structural techniques such as language or inner mental representations,
having and using these embodied practices is what it means for the agent
to live in an ordered world. Without them the world is chaotic and
meaningless. With them, the world is ordered and full of meaning.
This is a radical theory, radical in the sense that it breaks with a
number of well-established habits of thought. I assume that most of us
are not accustomed to thinking that behavior has the power to make the
world appear an ordered place to the agent. This, I assume, is also one of
the reasons why this theory is so hard to grasp. If I am right in my above
interpretation, however, this idea is not at all foreign to Kant. As we have
seen, in Kant’s works of anthropology and pedagogy, inspired by
Rousseau and others, he argues that we learn to know the world only
through embodied interaction. If my interpretation of Kant’s theory of
quantity is right, he also accepts that an embodied practice may function
as an a priori condition of experience.
If this is accepted, and if we are to continue the search for a level at
which the relational categories exist as embodied practices, then we may
14 This point is also made by Hoppe (1988), 116.

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now use Piaget as a guide. More specifically, when we find a practice
claimed by Piaget to have the same cognitive function as the relational
categories have according to Kant, then we may argue that this practice
is what we are looking for, i.e. it is where the category is present qua
practice. In what follows, I shall do that.
11.3 Sensorimotor practices and the relational categories
In the first analogy Kant explains the fact that we think of the objects of
our experience as permanent by referring to the category of substance.
Thus the category of substance accounts for the fact that we ascribe to
objects existence also in the periods when they are not immediately
perceived. According to Piaget, the child shows it has a sensorimotor
understanding of object-permanence when, for instance, it is found
searching for an object, including when this object is not immediately
perceived. Actually, according to Piaget, to entertain this and similar
practices is what it means at this level to know that objects have a
permanent existence. There is no knowledge of object-permanence
independent of and external to these practices. This means that if we
accept that there is a sense in which the child at this level experiences
itself to be living in a world of permanent objects, this experience is made
possible by the above suggested practices. The practices are a priori
conditions for possible experience in this specific sense. Let us assume
that all these practices are versions of one general practice, and let us call
this ‘the practice of object-permanence’.
The reason why I suggest that this general practice may be present in
more than one version is that I do not want to confine attention only to
those specified above, i.e. the practice of searching for an object,
including when this object is not immediately perceived. Actually, I think
that any act in which we adjust our behavior to the world of objects so
that certain desired ends are produced and others are avoided may be
seen as an example of the same general practice. An instance of this may
be when the child grasps and explores an object. Thus, I think that an
original, primitive sensorimotor knowledge of object-permanence is
found when the child first learns to grasp a ball or another object placed
before it.
In an earlier chapter I used the example of a person exploring a ball
to illuminate the idea that space is transcendentally ideal. Let us return to
this example, however, and now imagine that the person in question is a
child in the sensorimotor period. Let us also try to describe the event in
Kantian terminology. Transcendentally considered, what we call the
spatial shape of the ball is the awareness the child has of the movements

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 297
of its hands as it grasps the ball. In a similar sense the empirical quality of
the ball is the feeling the child has in its hands as they are affected by it.
That the child ascribes to the ball a size is due to the fact that the child,
in grasping and perceiving it, automatically also performs a primitive
measuring relative to its hands and/or body. This is what we learn from
Kant’s transcendental theory of quantity, I have argued. Now, finally, we
have the child’s knowledge of objects’ permanence. Is there an aspect of
the act that has so far not been emphasized and that shows the child has
this knowledge? This, I will now argue, is the fact that it reaches for the
ball in the first place, grasps it, and explores it. By doing this the child
signals that it knows that there is something there to explore. The ball is
not merely a floating sensation. It is a something.
The Piagetian perspective is useful in establishing a theoretical
context in which the knowledge here present may be acknowledged as no
more and no less than a practice. 15
According to Piaget, the child at this
level has no knowledge of object-permanence independent of and
external to its practices. Thus, it is not as if the child first knows that a
ball is there as a permanent something, and then acts. The knowledge
lies in the act itself. The practice of reaching and grasping is an example
of what it means for the child to know that objects are permanent. The
ball (or better, the reality data corresponding to what we call the ball)
stands out as a permanent object to the child by being incorporated into
the structure of its activity. I think, however, that the perspective
established here is Kantian as well. It is a perspective similar to the one
we identified in chapter 3 discussing what I called Kant’s pragmatic
theory of embodied rationality. And, if I am right, it is a perspective
underlying significant parts of the Critique, such as its theory of spatial
schematism and quantity. Fundamental to this perspective is the idea
that there exists a rationality that realizes itself in and through practice,
and moreover, that these practices are conditions of experience.
11.4 Causality and interaction
A parallel argument may be put forward with regard to causality.
According to Piaget, a first primitive understanding of causality is present
in the child’s capacity to manipulate external objects. The first causality
with which the child is aquatinted is therefore its own. His classic
15
We might have arrived at the same point by examining Melnick’s idea that
Kant’s theory of the relational category of substance refers to our capacity to
perform certain procedures characterized by a temporally extending behaviour
(1989), 86. However, I will not further explore Melnick’s views here.

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example is the act of pulling a cord connected to a rattle. It may be
added, following e.g. Butterworth, 16 that the child also takes the causality
of objects into account for instance by raising its hands in a defensive
movement when approached by what seems to be an oncoming object.
These practices will then all be part of what it means for the child of this
age to know causality. Following Piaget, we may also say that if we accept
that there is a sense in which the child at this level experiences itself to be
living in a world of objects standing in causal relations, this experience is
made possible by these practices, which are a priori conditions for
experience in this specific sense. For my own part, I think that all
practices through which the child interacts with the objects of its
environment may be conceived as such conditions. Let us see all these
practices as versions of one general practice, and let us call this ‘the
practice of causality’.
Even if I have not found this explicitly expressed by Piaget, I think it
is consistent with his general ideas to claim that this practice of causality
is a practice typically engaged in at every waking moment of the child’s
life. My argument is this. Let it be accepted that the practice of causality
includes all the practices by which the child interacts with the objects of
its environment. The notion of interaction here contains an implicit
reference to the intentions of the child. When the child interacts with the
world, it is always relative to some aim. It reaches out for an object
because it wants it, it raises its hand in a defensive movement when
approached by an object in order to avoid being hit by it, etc. This also
means that whether a specific interaction is to be conceived of as
successful or not depends on the specific aim involved and whether the
interaction succeeds in meeting the demand of this aim. Now, imagine
some external object approaching the child. Assume the child in this case
wants to be hit by the object, perhaps, because the ‘object’ is the
caressing hand of its father. In that case it deliberately stays in position,
without moving. Or perhaps it does not want to be hit by the object, and
tries to prevent this by moving away or by raising its hand in defense. In
the first case, no movement is observed, in the second it is. In both cases,
however, deliberate acts are performed. In the context of the two
examples, both staying at rest and moving have the status of intentional
acts. And in both cases, a genuine interaction takes place.
This conclusion is significant because it tells us that what we have
called the practice of causality does not require that embodied movement
actually takes place. Movement takes place only if the child believes that
16 Butterworth (1987), 100-101.

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 299
it is in its interest to move. If not, it remains at rest. However, interaction
still takes place. This point is perhaps best described by saying that the
child’s knowledge of causality is embedded in its general propensity to
move or to remain in rest relative to other objects so that desired
consequences are produced, and unwanted are avoided. As before,
‘knowledge’ means here sensorimotor knowledge, signifying that the
child at this age has no knowledge of causality independently of the
practice.
In a previous chapter I argued that if there is a level at which the
relational categories exist as embodied practices, then these have to be
practices entertained at every awake moment of our lives. I have now
identified what I have called a practice of causality that satisfies this
condition. I have also argued, following suggestions made by Piaget, that
this practice may be conceived of as an a priori condition of experience.
So this practice seems to have a function similar to the one ascribed to
the category of causality in Kant’s transcendental theory. If we accept
that there is a level at which the category of causality exists as an
embodied practice, the practice just defined may well be the practice we
are looking for. Note, as before, that I do not take this idea to be
explicitly promoted in the Critique. My claim is only that it is Kantian in
the weaker sense that is compatible with basic ideas underlying a number
of Kantian texts, including some parts of the Critique.
Note, finally, that just as the relational categories work together
according to Kant’s theory in the Critique, there is a sense in which the
two practices now identified, those of object-permanence and causality,
presuppose each other in a sense that makes them hard to distinguish in
an actual situation. To take into account the causality of the world means
to take into account that objects exist and that they have a permanence
beyond our perception of them. Therefore there is a level at which these
two practices converge into a general practice of interaction, i.e. they are
at play in every interaction we have with the objects of our world.
11.5 Sensorimotor intelligence in the adult
It may be that this argument is reasonable as long as we talk about
children in the sensorimotor period, but what about adults? The
cognitive capacities of the adult are dramatically more sophisticated than
those of the young child. Where the adult is concerned, would it not be
natural to see the categories as functions present within these more
sophisticated cognitive faculties? I think not, and my argument for this is
based in part on an aspect of Piaget’s cognitive theory that has so far not
been mentioned. It is the idea that sensorimotor intelligence is present

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not only in the child but also in the adult. According to Piaget, even if the
adult has other modes of cognition at her disposal, sensorimotor
intelligence continues to have a basic significance throughout life. 17 This
means that if we accept that there are embodied practices with the
cognitive and epistemic function suggested above, then these same
practices will also be found in the adult, and they will have the same
function in the adult as in the child. The fact that the adult has also other
modes of cognition to her disposal, does not change this.
In order to make my point as clear as possible, let me define
sensorimotor intelligence as an intelligence working through action and
perception only, and let us assume that this kind of intelligence is at work
whenever embodied practices are performed without the interference of
representations understood as mental images or abstract concepts. By
this move the notion of a sensorimotor intelligence acquires a relevance
far beyond child psychology. If we define it as an intelligence working
through action and perception only, it may be conceived of as a cognitive
substructure, present and working in the presence of other modes of
cognition too. The term ‘sensorimotor’ not only denotes a phase in the
development of the child, it denotes a distinct level of cognition, a
cognitive domain in its own right that is present throughout life.
A Kantian parallel may be established by comparing Piaget’s notion
of a sensorimotor intelligence with the Kantian notion of a rationality
embedded in practice. As I have suggested, this seems to be the level
where, according to Kant, the understanding does its basic work.
Actually, I think that what Piaget calls sensorimotor intelligence is more
or less the same as what Kant calls understanding. Like Piaget’s
sensorimotor intelligence, Kant’s understanding is associated with our
capacity to act regularly in the world. This, at least, is what I take to be
implied when Kant calls the understanding a capacity for rules. 18
We
have also seen that Kant typically locates the working of the
understanding at the basic level at which we first confront the physical
objects of the world, suggested for instance in the Anthropology through
the image of a servant, and in the Critique through the idea that the
categories are applied as we confront the empirical world.
This does not mean that Kant denies that the categories and/or other
concepts cannot also be used in other contexts, such as when we silently
reflect on earlier experiences, or when we involve ourselves in scientific
or philosophical reflections. However, I do not think that this use of the
17
Cf. Piaget (1950).
18 Cf. e.g. A 126 in the Critique, and also the Anthropology, Ak VII: 199.

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 301
categories is his main concern in the Critique. Here, when he talks about
the understanding, and how it is involved in the constitution and/or
determination of our experience, I think the term has a meaning very
close to Piaget’s notion of a sensorimotor intelligence.
A final argument in support of this idea is that in the Critique, the
categories of the understanding do their work without explicit awareness.
They represent a rational activity that cannot and should not be confused
with our conscious thoughts when we reflect upon a problem or perform
other thought operations in full consciousness. Of course, the categories
may be made the object of such explicit or conscious reflection, such as
when we reflect upon their nature and function. But this does not mean
that they do their basic work at this level. If I am right, the level at which
they do their basic work is the level at which we confront the world
through our embodied practices.
11.6 Objective time revisited
I shall end this chapter by returning to the question of objective time in
the Critique. As we have seen, Kant argues that the relational categories
make objective time determination possible. It is due to these categories
that we experience the processes of the world as events taking place in an
irreversible time order. In this chapter I have argued that there is a level
at which the relational categories are present as embodied practices, and
I have argued, following Piaget, that there is a sense in which these
practices make experience possible. Can we also say that they make
objective time determination possible?
I think so. Assume that there is a level at which knowledge exists
merely as practice. For an agent to have a certain knowledge at this level
means for her to be able to perform a certain practice. Assume also that
at this level there exists a practice we may call ‘the practice of objective
time determination’. When we say that a person at this level knows
objective time, or knows how to determine time objectively, we mean
that she has mastered this practice. This practice, I shall now argue, is
the same as the one identified above in our discussion of the relational
categories, that is, it is the general practice of interaction that is at play in
every interaction we have with the objects of our world.
How does this practice make objective time determination possible?
Imagine you are playing ball. As you move back and forth on the field
(and when we consider these movements from a transcendental
perspective) we may say, first, that these movements, or your awareness
of these movements, is the space within which you move. We could also
use a more Kantian expression and say that a first primitive space is here

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produced [erzeugt] through a number of apprehensive acts, and that
these acts involve your embodied movements across the field. If my
interpretation is correct so far, the same movements also give you a first,
primitive knowledge of the size of the field. Finally, as Kant emphasizes
that apprehension is also the origin of primitive time, we may say that
through these acts (running and perceiving) a primitive experience of
time is produced. However, this original experience of time is merely
subjective; it is the time flow in which various perceptions come and go
before the mind. Now, let us continue the example. Imagine yourself in
the field and imagine that you have no other information at your disposal
other than that specified so far. Would you be able to play ball under
such circumstances? I think not. Imagine, for instance, that you want to
catch a ball that is not coming directly towards you. In order to catch it,
you have to run, but as the ball is moving, you cannot run towards the
position in which the ball first appeared. You have first to calculate the
speed of the ball and then try to make an estimate of where it will be in,
let us say, five seconds. Then, you have to estimate your own potential
speed, and assess whether you will be able to reach the position towards
which the ball is heading in the time required, or not, etc.
All this requires a knowledge of time other than the subjective
awareness of a time flow just referred to. It requires a knowledge of
objective time. In this specific case it requires knowledge of the time it
takes for the ball to move from the original position to the position at
which you intend to catch it. This time is objective because it is an aspect
of how objects move. And only if such knowledge is present is it possible
for you to be a qualified player of the game. That is, only then will you
be able to properly interact with the ball, the other players, and finally
the physical environment in which the game takes place.
Now, let us return to the basic assumption under which this reflection
has been taking place, namely that there is a level at which knowledge
exists merely qua practice, and let us assume that it is possible to possess
the knowledge of objective time that we described in the above example
as such a knowledge. In that case, your knowledge of objective time is
present in no other way than in practice, that is, you show you have this
knowledge when you actually manage to co-ordinate your own
movements with the movements of the ball so that you catch it, or at
least try to catch it in a way that is not merely arbitrary, but rational,
given the way the ball moves. I think such a level of knowledge exists,
and anyone having played a ballgame knows it. At this level, to know
objective time and to know how to interact with the ball is one and the
same thing. It is not as if you first calculate how long it will take for the
ball to move from one point to another, and then adjust your movements

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 303
accordingly (even if this is how we may chose to describe the event). In
the midst of the game there is no time for such calculation. You simply
act and in these acts is embedded your knowledge of objective time,
which is nothing other than your knowledge of how the ball and yourself
move, which is through and through a knowledge-in-practice and
identical with your practice of interaction with the ball.
The same point may, of course, also be stated at a more general level,
when we start to reflect on our general way of interacting with the
physical objects of our environment. Just as in the ballgame example, we
would never be able to interact with those objects if we did not know how
they moved in time, which is the same as knowing objective time.
Moreover, this knowledge is normally not something of which we are
aware, or which is present in the form of an explicit calculation, but
merely as a knowledge-in-practice, that is, the practice of interaction
itself.
I think we are here approaching one of the basic ideas of the
Critique, expressed for instance in the Refutation of idealism, that
objective time determination is possible only in a world of externally
existing objects, objects, moreover, with which we ourselves interact. In
the Refutation of idealism and elsewhere in the Critique Kant does not
discuss exactly how this interaction takes place or how it is related to
objective time determination. The above reflections have supplied us
with a model of this, however, and it has led us to the same conclusion:
objective time determination is possible only in a world of externally
existing objects, objects, moreover, with which we interact. It is so
because to know time objectively and to know how to interact is one and
the same thing, and the one is not conceivable without the other.
Alternatively, we may say that by learning to interact with the objects
of the world, objects that either move or are at rest relative to ourselves,
we acquire a primitive physics. 19 We learn to calculate not only the
spatial sizes and positions of objects, but also their movements. In short,
we learn to know the world as a dynamic network of objects and forces
dynamically connected in an objective time order, that is, as a series of
causally connected events. When the child first acquires this knowledge
in the sensorimotor period, this knowledge is a knowledge-in-practice,
because this is the only kind of knowledge available to the child of this
period. However, as I have argued, we may also see this knowledge-in-
19 We may here draw a parallel to Rousseau’s Émile where he describes the
process of a child learning to interact with the objects of his environment, as an
experimental physics, c.f. Rousseau (1979), 125.

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practice as present in the adult. Only in so doing may we explain how it
is possible for us to move around in the world without constantly taking
explicit notice of our own movements and the movement of each and
every object in our environment. Our interaction with those objects
typically takes place ‘all by itself’, showing that we possess what I call a
primitive physics on a level other than that which our conscious thoughts
normally operate. It is a physics present in practice, in what we do. By
mastering this practice, we show we have a decentered knowledge of the
world, that is, a knowledge in which the dynamic network of objects and
forces in which we live our lives has the status of a network of
independently existing phenomena.
For the most part our interest in this network is based on the potential
use we may make of it, and we typically give more attention to those
elements that are of immediate relevance to the projects we are involved
in. These will normally be those objects and events close to us. However,
our knowledge also includes more distant objects and events, even the
movement of celestial bodies. This is why it is possible for us to use such
movements in time-determining practices, such as when we use the
movement of the sun to measure the periods of the day. In a previous
chapter I argued that time-determination by means of the sun may be
conceived of as a practice. I think that we may now see it as a special
version of the general practice of interaction we have defined above.
Other special versions are time determination by means of time glasses or
mechanical clocks. These all make possible exact and fine-grained
determinations of time. In this sense they are similar to the practices
developed within ancient geometry, replacing the old methods of
measuring size by means of hands, feet or other body parts. These more
specialized practices all grew out of original human practices, being more
sophisticated versions of these original practices. 20
11.7 A very brief remark on transcendental apperception
I have almost finished without discussing what in Kantian terminology is
called transcendental apperception. As readers of Kant are well aware,
this notion forms the very core of the transcendental arguments of the
20 As I take Kant’s cognitive and epistemic theory in the Critique to be a theory of
practice in general, both of these kinds of practices are included, at least
implicitly, in this theory, I think. This is why I claim that the Critique may be
read both as a theory of science (i.e. scientific practice) and a theory of our
everyday interaction with the world making possible what we may call Haben
einer Welt.

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 305
Critique. I think that the notion of transcendental apperception may be
examined and analyzed at more than one level, 21 but common to all these
levels is the idea that the notion refers to a unity principle. The
categories, Kant contends, are also such unity principles, but ultimately,
they all represent the unity of transcendental apperception. I have
defended the idea that the categories, or at least the general category of
quantity and the categories of relation, may be interpreted as embodied
practices. In the context established here, I think that what Kant calls
transcendental apperception may be conceived of as that which prevents
these embodied practices from degenerating into just a sequence of
meaningless movements. It is what makes these movements into a
practice, considered as a systematic unity of acts. This is meant only as a
brief suggestion and there is no time to go further into it here. 22
11.8 The categories of quality and modality
I shall end this chapter with a brief comment on the categories of quality
and modality, explaining why I do not think they need to be given special
emphasis here. As for Kant’s theory of the category of quality, it basically
deals with the intensity of the sensations [Empfindungen] of which the
agent is aware. In this part of his transcendental theory Kant concerns
himself with that in our cognition which is not a priori. Even if it is not a
priori, however, I take Kant’s point to be that something a priori may be
known about it. We can know a priori that it has a certain intensity (A
143/B 182). 23 This theory, I think, is part of Kant’s general theory of
apprehension. This theory, I have previously argued, may be interpreted
as a theory about the embodied practice of the cognitive agent. Being
part of this general theory, the present theory of quality is relevant to the
project pursued in this work. It does not, however, shed any new light on
21
On of the best discussions on transcendental apperception I have found is
Brook (1994). My interpretation is here roughly in line with his.
22
A possible way of developing this perspective further may perhaps proceed
along the same lines as those followed by Melnick (1989), 27ff. Melnick interprets
Kant’s theory of the categories basically as a theory of how human behavior is
brought under rule-form, which also is how unity enters the picture.
23
The term a priori is here obviously used in a looser and less specialized sense
than the one defined above. It seems simply to be used in the sense of ‘prior to
experience’.

306
CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS
the question of how we may describe or understand the embodied
practice of apprehension. 24
Kant’s theory of the categories of modality concerns how a certain
aspect of our world is present in time (A 145/B 184). The most
significant aspect of this theory, I think, is the distinction between
necessity and contingency. As necessity is an essential mark of a priori
knowledge and contingency is a mark of the empirical content of
knowledge, the distinction plays a very significant role in Kant’s
transcendental philosophy. In defining yet another major task of the
Critique, one might say that Kant’s transcendental philosophy,
considered as a whole, aims at making clear exactly how this distinction
relates to our knowledge of the world. More specifically, it aims at
answering the question of how it is possible to have knowledge about the
world that is necessarily true and universal. As this question underlies
Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a whole, however, it is unlikely that
it can be answered by identifying the categories of modality with a
certain group of practices, embodied or not. What may be argued,
however, as I have done, is that knowledge about the world that is
necessarily true and universal can be seen as originating in embodied
practices. Going further into Kant’s theory of the categories of modality
at this point, would not, I think, add much to what has already been said.
11.9 Summary
The aim of this and the previous chapters was to explore whether it was
possible to interpret the relational categories, as they are described in the
Critique, as embodied practices. I conclude that it is. Let me remind the
reader, however, that in making this claim, I have followed a path of
investigation that I think was probably not of much interest to Kant in
the Critique. However, as I have said, my investigation has not been
motivated by Kant’s main interest in the Critique but by a desire to look
beyond or behind the abstract theory of this text to see what may have
been omitted from it either accidentally or deliberately.
24 It may at most be seen as a sort of supplement to what was said above, when I
claimed that the cognitive subject in an act of empirical apprehension is always
affected and that this affection produces a sensation. In his theory of the category
of quality, Kant says that we can know a priori that this sensation has an intensity
lying somewhere between something and zero.

CONCLUSION
Man can only become man by education. He is
merely what education makes of him. It is
noticeable that man is only educated by man –
that is, by men who have themselves been
educated.
From Kant’s On pedagogy 1
When you enter this world as a newborn baby, you are a body endowed
with consciousness. Gradually, in and through your body, you start to
explore the world, but in the beginning only with great difficulty.
Holding and grasping an object, and other similar acts, are performed
clumsily and without any hint of elegance. Only gradually do you
become a master of your environment. It takes a long time until one day
you are able to hold a glass of milk without spilling its contents, eat with a
knife and fork, bring together objects that belong together, such as
replacing the lid of a jar, or running to catch a ball in a ballgame. Just as
gradually, however, you start to forget your original difficulties. In
performing your daily activities, you pay them less and less attention,
until one day you perform them almost unconsciously. They have
become what Polanyi calls ‘tacit knowledge’. 2 Along with this we also
start to forget how significant these skills are in our daily lives. 3
1
Ak IX: 443, a.t.
2
Cf. e.g. Polanyi (1978).
3
Meeting a person with a somewhat unusual biography, however, may remind us
of this. Oliver Sacks in his interesting book An Anthropologist on Mars (1995)
tells the story of the 50-year-old man Virgil who after an operation regained sight
after having been blind for almost all his life. While immediately after the
operation he was able to see colors and movements, he had great difficulties
interpreting what he saw, that is, recognizing the colours and movements as the
objects that he had previously known only through touch. He also had great
difficulties in judging the distance between himself and a perceived object.
Sometimes he jumped away in order not to be hit by an approaching bird in the
sky, even if the bird was far away. During his blind years he had learned to
recognize distance by walking. He knew, for instance, how many steps it took to
cross his porch, and this was his notion of its size. Now, he had to learn, little by

308
CONCLUSION
I think it is a basic feature of Kant as a philosopher that he has not
forgotten the basic significance of our interactive skills relative to the
physical world. He acknowledges that they represent a sort of knowledgein-practice
essential to human life. And even more, he sees their deep
cognitive and epistemic significance. This is why he advises that children
should run, play ball, draw images etc. so that they learn, for instance, to
judge size, shape and distance properly, and why he claims that without
the capacity to hold and grasp an object we would have no concept of its
shape.
As I have argued in this work, there may be a number of reasons for
Kant’s emphasis on embodied practice and behavior. His reading of and
his admiration for Rousseau has already been mentioned, and so has his
general interest in pedagogy and anthropology. Another reason may
have been his tendency to self-observation (mentioned by his
contemporary biographers), including with regard to the minutest events
taking place in his body. 4 Also significant is his growing empiricism and
pragmatism, which I discussed in the first part. The behavioral domain is
open to empirical observation and can also easily be influenced and
modified by means of proper didactic measures, to the common benefit
of man and culture. Both are basic concerns for Kant, at least from the
late 1760s. However, long before that, actually from the very beginning,
he was deeply preoccupied with the radical embodiment of human
existence.
It is evident that Kant’s philosophical orientation toward human
embodiment was bound to have epistemic implications. If human
existence is radically embodied, then it follows that there is no other way
to explore the world other than in and through the body. All experience
and all knowledge therefore have a subjective origin, which may be
specified by reference to the specific constitution of our body, its position
within the world and its capacity for action. One conclusion to be drawn
from this is that the old theocentric model of knowledge has to be given
up. There is no way in which we can arrive at a detached, objective
perspective of the world from which we can see it as it really is,
independent of all perspective, as perhaps its Creator sees it. The
subjective origin of our experience forms an absolute limit we can never
transcend so Kant’s model of knowledge is radically and fundamentally
anthropocentric. Exactly when he reached this position, I do not know,
little, to make his new visual appearances fit in with his experience of the world as
he had known it through touching it and by moving around in it.
4 Cf. Gross (1993).

CONCLUSION 309
but it is clearly present in Dreams of a spirit-seer from 1766. This text
represents a radical defense of what I have called an embodied
empiricism, involving e.g. the idea that our immediate awareness of
being in a body has an epistemic superiority that no skepticism can
undermine. As I have argued, the Critique may be interpreted as a work
that draws the philosophical implications of all this.
I therefore find it highly ironic when Kant is constantly accused of
having ignored the body and our embodied existence. Even those who
argue that his transcendental theory could easily be interpreted as a
theory of embodied practice typically complain that he failed to see this
himself, and certainly did not intend his theory to be interpreted in this
way. For example, Brook points to the fact that Kant’s transcendental
theory can be read as a theory of human behavior:
Suppose we reconceive Kant’s work and substitute ‘behavior’ and
‘dispositions’ for his ‘representations’, ‘experience’, ‘awareness’, and
so on. Then suppose we think of Kant as offering a contingent theory
of behavior, especially linguistic behavior, not an a priori ‘analytic’ of
a hidden mental realm. This theory would explain behavior by
postulating a certain unity and certain synthesizing powers. All
Kant’s insights into unity and synthesis could easily survive even so
radical a recasting. 5
But Brook also maintains, as if it were beyond doubt, that Kant himself
did not intend us to read his theory in this way: Kant himself understood
his theory to refer to mental activities and states of a Cartesian mind,
hidden and unobservable, something very different from behavior. 6
Brook does not contend that an interpretation focusing on behavior is
better than the one he takes Kant to be intending, but John McDowell
does in his highly interesting book Mind and World. 7 McDowell purports
to prove that Kant still has much to offer contemporary philosophy.
There are, however, several problems with Kant’s philosophy, he
complains. One such problem is his habit of conceiving of human
rationality in total abstraction from the actual lives we live as human
beings, i.e. as embodied animals endowed with rational capacities. So
Kant ends up with a quasi-Platonic conception of rationality, according
to which the categories are viewed as part of an eternal, timeless
structure beyond the empirical world.
5
Brook (1994), 19.
6
Op. cit.
7
McDowell (1994).

310
CONCLUSION
Instead of this quasi-Platonic orientation, Kant might have done
better adopting a more Aristotelian approach, McDowell argues. In
Aristotle, human rationality is seen as embedded in human skills
developing over time. McDowell especially emphasizes the Aristotelian
notion of the practical intellect found in his ethics. 8 The knowledge or
wisdom of this intellect is based in our natural potentials, but their actual
presence in the mature individual requires development, i.e. a process in
which both individual experience as well as a proper social influence is
essential. Moreover, it is a knowledge immediately related to our human
existence, the aim of which is to identify the best possible life given
human nature and the nature that surrounds us. Finally, even if moral
concepts, according to this conception of Aristotelian rationality, have a
history rooted in the conditions of a specific individual and a specific
society, the structure of these concepts is not seen as arbitrary. They
represent a practical rationality with an internal logic that supersedes
their historical origin. Aristotle is no ethical relativist. Some moral
standards are better than others due to the fact that they correspond to a
happier way of life.
McDowell introduces the notion of a ‘second nature’ to account for
the rationality described in Aristotelian ethics, a nature grounded in
biological nature, but transformed and refined through proper
development and education. He also recommends that this Aristotelian
concept should serve as a model for all human rationality.
We can return to sanity if we can recapture the Aristotelian idea that
a normal mature human being is a rational animal ... […] The way
to do that is to realize that our nature is largely second nature. 9
This Aristotelian model teaches us that a proper theory of human
rationality is found by studying who we are and what we do as rational
animals. Unfortunately, Kant was unable to adopt such a conception,
McDowell complains. His Newtonian concept of nature, according to
which nature is conceived of as a lifeless system governed by natural law
prevented him from developing the notion of a second nature specific to
human beings. 10 Hence he was unable to reach a proper understanding
of human rationality. And as experience is rationally structured for Kant,
this failure undermines his theory of experience as well:
8
Ibid., 79.
9
Ibid., 91.
10
Ibid., 96.

CONCLUSION 311
Kant's lack of a pregnant notion of second nature explains why the
right conception of experience cannot find a firm position in his
thinking. 11
Kant’s insight would have acquired a satisfactory shape only if he could
have accommodated the fact that a thinking and intending agent is a
living animal, McDowell contends. But with his firm conviction that
conceptual powers are non-natural and with his lack of a notion of
second nature, Kant was shut off from this idea. 12 McDowell therefore
suggests that we equip Kant with this idea of a second nature, in the
sense that we add to his philosophy something that was not originally
there. This would not only free Kant’s insight from the distorting effect of
the framework he tries to express it in, but it would also give Kant’s
theory of rationality a potentially revolutionary effect in modern
philosophy:
This is a framework for reflection that really stands a chance of
making traditional philosophy obsolete... […] I have described a
philosophical project: to stand on the shoulders of the giant, Kant,
and see our way to the supersession of traditional philosophy that he
almost managed, though not quite. 13
As should be clear from my argument throughout this work, I think that
McDowell is wrong in claiming that Kant ignored the embodied aspects
of human existence. If I have nevertheless included this rather lengthy
argument of McDowell’s, it is because I see him as yet another
representative of an almost unequivocal trend in Kant research, which
not only fails to see that the Critique may be read as a reflection on
human embodiment, but also ignores the texts in which Kant actually
and explicitly stands out as a philosopher preoccupied with the body. In
these texts he even explicitly expresses the idea of a second
anthropological nature that McDowell calls for. 14 I will not now reopen
the discussion concerning what the reason for this long-lasting neglect of
11
Ibid., 98.
12
Ibid., 104.
13 Ibid., 111.
14 Cf. the passage from On pedagogy quoted at the beginning of this chapter.

312
CONCLUSION
this side of the Kant’s philosophy among his interpreters may be, 15 but I
think the time has come to challenge the dominant image resulting from
it.
McDowell is also included here for another more positive reason. For
my own part, I am convinced that the interpretation offered in this work
makes Kant appear a far more interesting philosopher and a thinker with
far more relevance to contemporary philosophy than the Kant from
whom McDowell distances himself. However, as I have already
suggested, I think there is no need for McDowell to distance himself from
Kant the way he does. Kant’s philosophy does not need to be developed
in the way that McDowell demands. It already contains the insights that
McDowell calls for. So I will let McDowell end this work with his
declaration that this position is really a revolutionary one, even in the
context of contemporary philosophy.
15 I recommend Collins (1999) as an author giving an interesting discussion of this
question.

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Allison, Henry, 11, 63, 138,
140, 150, 160, 168, 220, 257,
280, 314, 315
Ameriks, Karl, 1, 3, 8, 17, 134,
315
Aristotle, 22, 83, 84, 98, 122,
310, 315
Basedow, Johann Berhard, xi,
95, 97, 99, 127, 315
Bennett, Jonathan, 81, 123,
136, 153, 164, 180, 192, 194,
197, 211, 214, 315
Berkeley, George, 64, 65, 66,
195, 316, 317
Brook, Andrew, 139, 141, 142,
165, 169, 305, 309, 316
Carpenter, Andrew, 3, 20, 316
Condillac, Etienne Bonnet de,
18, 64, 67, 69, 75, 76, 77, 78,
90, 195, 230, 318
Crusius, Christian August, xi,
18, 28, 43, 95, 96, 97, 99,
317, 319, 325
Descartes, René, 65, 66, 77, 88,
195, 224, 229, 237, 239, 240
Falkenstein, Lorne, xii, 3, 140,
157, 158, 164, 207, 208, 209,
210, 214, 228, 234, 317
Guyer, Paul, 136, 138, 180,
315, 318
Heidegger, Martin, 179, 318
Henrich, Dieter, 138, 153, 248,
253, 319
NAME INDEX
Hoppe, Hansgeorg, 137, 142,
289, 295, 319
Hume, David, 18, 19, 42, 43,
224, 229, 237, 239, 240, 282
Kambartel, Friedrich, 3, 141,
143, 144, 184, 250, 268, 275,
278, 319
Kaulbach, Friedrich, 3, 18, 62,
63, 69, 73, 133, 141, 143,
147, 157, 158, 159, 176, 180,
181, 184, 191, 232, 234, 236,
320, 321
Kitcher, Patricia, 3, 18, 64, 67,
136, 137, 139, 183, 196, 317,
320
Laywine, Alison, 3, 20, 34, 35,
39, 40, 60, 320
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, viii,
18, 19, 22, 43, 46, 63, 69, 70,
320
Locke, John, 18, 253, 254
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 82, 83, 84,
85, 321
Melnick, Arthur, 3, 141, 157,
158, 167, 232, 278, 297, 305,
321
Munzel, G. Felicitas, 3, 55, 82,
95, 130, 135, 321
Newton, Isaac, 18, 19, 63, 93
Nierhaus, Friedhelm, 3, 20, 21,
23, 24, 25, 33, 43, 321
Piaget, Jean, xiii, 118, 289, 290,
291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296,
297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 322

328
Pitte, Frederick P. van de, 3, 16,
18, 44, 55, 93, 94, 130, 135,
136, 322
Rawls, John, 82, 323
Rossvær, Viggo, xii, 4, 69, 73,
133, 141, 157, 159, 179, 180,
184, 185, 186, 188, 205, 323
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, vi, x,
6, 18, 19, 44, 67, 68, 69, 71,
75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 89, 90, 91,
92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 99, 108,
127, 155, 177, 195, 198, 230,
272, 295, 303, 308, 317, 323
Saugstad, Jens, 4, 9, 141, 143,
157, 180, 184, 196, 252, 255,
258, 265, 268, 278, 323
NAME INDEX
Schönfeld, Martin, 3, 18, 20,
21, 27, 35, 39, 40, 132, 133,
324
Shell, Susan Meld, 3, 5, 20, 26,
27, 34, 42, 43, 324
Strawson, P.F., 136, 138, 139,
214, 223, 242, 325
Tetens, Johann Nicolaus, 18,
67, 69, 75, 77, 88, 254
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 82, 118,
119, 120, 121, 122, 138, 180,
258, 286, 315, 317, 319, 323,
326
Wolff, Christian, 15, 88, 183,
184, 218, 325, 326

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