BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT
BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT
BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT
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<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> <strong>PRACTICE</strong> <strong>IN</strong> <strong>KANT</strong>
Studies in German Idealism<br />
Series Editor:<br />
Reinier Munk, Leiden University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands<br />
Advisory Editorial Board:<br />
Frederick Beiser, Syracuse University, U.S.A.<br />
George di Giovanni, McGill University, Montreal, Canada<br />
Helmut Holzhey, University of Zürich, Switzerland<br />
Detlev Pätzold, University of Groningen, The Netherlands<br />
Robert Solomon, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, U.S.A.<br />
VOLUME 6<br />
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
<strong>IN</strong> <strong>KANT</strong><br />
by<br />
HELGE SVARE<br />
Oslo, Norway
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.<br />
ISBN-10 1-4020-4118-7 (HB)<br />
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4118-1 (HB)<br />
ISBN-10 1-4020-4119-5 (e-book)<br />
ISBN-13 978-1-4020-4119-8 (e-book)<br />
Published by Springer,<br />
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This publication has been financially aided by The Norwegian Research<br />
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All Rights Reserved<br />
© 2006 Springer<br />
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Printed in the Netherlands.
If, instead of gluing a child to books, I bury him in a workshop, his hands<br />
work for the profit of his mind; he becomes a philosopher and believes he<br />
is only a laborer.<br />
Rousseau, Émile
CONTENTS<br />
Abbreviations xi<br />
Introduction 1<br />
1. The embodied mind 11<br />
1.1 Seele, Gemüt and Geist 14<br />
1.2 Empirical and rational psychology and anthropology 14<br />
1.3 Some preliminary remarks on Kant’s intellectual development 17<br />
1.4 Living forces 20<br />
1.5 New elucidation 27<br />
1.6 Universal natural history 29<br />
1.7 Maladies of the mind 33<br />
1.8 Dreams of a spirit-seer 34<br />
1.9 A crisis? 39<br />
1.10 An embodied empiricism 41<br />
1.11 Kant’s Inaugural dissertation 44<br />
1.12 A new perspective on the body-mind problem 47<br />
1.13 Holism in the Critique 50<br />
1.14 The virtual presence of the mind 53<br />
1.15 Anthropology 55<br />
1.16 Conclusion 59<br />
2. Body and space 61<br />
2.1 The European discussion of space in the 18th century 63<br />
2.2 Rousseau and space 67<br />
2.3 Directions in space 69<br />
2.4 A Copernican position? 73<br />
2.5 Orientation 74<br />
2.6 Anthropology 75<br />
2.7 Summary 77<br />
3. Rationality and embodied practice 79<br />
3.1 Practice 82<br />
3.2 Pragmatism 85<br />
3.3 The historical origin of Kant’s pragmatism 86<br />
3.4 Rousseau’s influence 89<br />
vii
viii<br />
CONTENTS<br />
3.5 Basedow and Crusius 95<br />
3.6 Kant’s theory of the understanding 99<br />
3.7 Concepts and rules 102<br />
3.8 Rules and practices 104<br />
3.9 Learning by doing 106<br />
3.10 The unconscious employment of the understanding 109<br />
3.11 Judgments cannot be learned 111<br />
3.12 Pragmatic priority 115<br />
3.13 Some modern parallels 117<br />
3.14 More about Kant’s theory of concepts 123<br />
3.15 Summary 126<br />
3.16 A short summary of the first part of the book 127<br />
4. The body in the Critique 129<br />
4.1 The Critique – a brief presentation 130<br />
4.2 Phases, perspectives and continuities 131<br />
4.3 Some trends and positions in the interpretation of the Critique 136<br />
4.4 Transcendental philosophy 142<br />
4.5 Kant’s Copernican perspective 145<br />
4.6 Some further remarks on the transcendental and the empirical 147<br />
4.7 Transcendental idealism 148<br />
4.8 What did Kant mean? 151<br />
5. Spatial experience and the body in the Critique 155<br />
5.1 A brief remark about the structure of my argument 158<br />
5.2 The architectonic of the Critique 159<br />
5.3 The cognitive theory of the Critique 160<br />
5.4 Synthesis 162<br />
5.5 The syntheses of imagination 164<br />
5.6 Apprehension 165<br />
5.7 Reproduction 166<br />
5.8 The B-deduction 167<br />
5.9 Transcendental apperception 168<br />
5.10 § 26 of the B-deduction 171<br />
5.11 Problems of comparison 173<br />
5.12 Two versions of the same theory? 174<br />
5.13 Summary 176<br />
6. Spatial schematism 177<br />
6.1 The production of images 181<br />
6.2 The construction of geometrical figures 182<br />
6.3 Mental constructions? 183
CONTENTS ix<br />
6.4 Rossvær’s anti-mentalist approach 185<br />
6.5 Kant’s theory of mathematical construction 186<br />
6.6 Further remarks on the imagination 190<br />
6.7 Construction and subsumption 192<br />
6.8 The key argument 196<br />
6.9 Visual perception 198<br />
6.10 Schematism in the transcendental deduction 201<br />
6.11 Degrees of consciousness 201<br />
6.12 The empirical aspect of apprehension 204<br />
6.13 Falkenstein’s argument concerning intuition and body in the<br />
Critique 207<br />
6.14 The embodied agent 210<br />
6.15 Summary 212<br />
7. The body and the transcendental 213<br />
7.1 The transcendental distinction 216<br />
7.2 The unknown subject 218<br />
7.3 The temptations of self-consciousness 219<br />
7.4 The unknown origin of affection 220<br />
7.5 From the empirical to the transcendental 223<br />
7.6 Kant’s representationalism 229<br />
7.7 Kant’s anti-skepticism 235<br />
7.8 More about the Kantian notion of a representation 240<br />
7. 9 Summary 242<br />
8. Kant’s transcendental epistemology 245<br />
8.1 The necessary structure of the world 246<br />
8.2 Problems 248<br />
8.3 The a priori 249<br />
8.4 Embodied practice as a condition of experience 251<br />
8.5 An empirical or a transcendental deduction? 252<br />
8.6 The normativity of practice 255<br />
8.7 Arithmetic as an a priori synthetic science 258<br />
8.8 Thinking as practice 259<br />
8.9 Logic 261<br />
8.10 Transcendental logic 263<br />
8.11 The categories are acquired 264<br />
8.12 Summary 266<br />
9. Quantity 267<br />
9.1 Transcendental schematism 268<br />
9.2 Quantity 269
x<br />
CONTENTS<br />
9.3 The production of time 270<br />
9.4 Some objections and answers 273<br />
10. The relational categories 277<br />
10.1 The analogies of experience 278<br />
10.2 The second analogy 281<br />
10.3 The third analogy 283<br />
10.4 Time and the world 284<br />
10.5 Time measuring practices 284<br />
11. Causality and common sense physics 289<br />
11.1 Piaget and the cognitive development of the child 291<br />
11.2 Practice as a condition of experience 293<br />
11.3 Sensorimotor practices and the relational categories 296<br />
11.4 Causality and interaction 297<br />
11.5 Sensorimotor intelligence in the adult 299<br />
11.6 Objective time revisited 301<br />
11.7 A very brief remark on transcendental apperception 304<br />
11.8 The categories of quality and modality 305<br />
11.9 Summary 306<br />
Conclusion 307<br />
Bibliography 313<br />
Name index 327
ABBREVIATIONS<br />
Ak: The Academy edition [Kants gesammelte Schriften]<br />
a.t.: Author's translation.<br />
Announcement: Mr. Immanuel Kant's announcement of the program of<br />
his lectures for the winter semester 1765-1766. [Nachricht von der<br />
Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem Winterhalbenjahre von 1765-<br />
1766.]<br />
Anthropology: Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view.<br />
[Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht.]<br />
Critique: Critique of pure reason. [Kritik der reinen Vernunft.]<br />
Directions in space: Concerning the ultimate ground of the<br />
differentiation of directions in space. [Von dem ersten Grunde des<br />
Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume.]<br />
Dreams of a spirit-seer: Dreams of a spirit-seer elucidated by dreams of<br />
metaphysics. [Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der<br />
Metaphysik.]<br />
Inaugural dissertation: On the form and principles of the sensible and the<br />
intelligible world. [De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et<br />
principiis/Von der Form der Sinnen- und Verstandesvelt und ihren<br />
Gründen.]<br />
Living forces: Thoughts on the true estimation of living forces, and<br />
criticism of the proofs propounded by Herr von Leibniz and other<br />
mechanists in their treatment of this controversy, along with some<br />
preliminary observations concerning the force of bodies in general.<br />
[Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte und<br />
Beurtheilung der Beweise, derer sich Herr von Leibniz und andere<br />
Mechaniker in dieser Streitsache bedienet haben, nebst einigen<br />
xi
xii<br />
ABBREVIATIONS<br />
vorhergehenden Betrachtungen, welche die Kraft der Körper überhaupt<br />
betreffen.]<br />
Logic: The Jäsche logic. [Immanuel Kants Logik, ein Handbuch zu<br />
Vorlesungen, hrsg. von G.B. Jäsche.]<br />
Maladies of the mind: An essay on the maladies of the mind. [Versuch<br />
über die Krankheiten des Kopfes.]<br />
Negative magnitudes: Attempt to introduce the concept of negative<br />
magnitudes into philosophy. [Versuch, den Begriff der negativen Größen<br />
in die Weltweisheit einzuführen.]<br />
New elucidation: A new elucidation of the first principles of metaphysical<br />
cognition. [Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova<br />
dilucidatio/Neue Erhellung der ersten Grundsätze metaphysischer<br />
Erkenntnis.]<br />
On a discovery: On a discovery according to which any new critique of<br />
pure reason has been made superfluous by an earlier one. [Über eine<br />
Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine<br />
ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll.]<br />
On the common saying: On the common saying: that may be correct in<br />
theory, but it is of no use in practice. [Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag<br />
in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis.]<br />
Orientation: What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? [Was heißt:<br />
sich im Denken orientieren?]<br />
Prolegomena: Prolegomena to any future metaphysic that will be able to<br />
come forward as science. [Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen<br />
Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können.]<br />
Universal natural history: Universal natural history and theory of the<br />
heavens; or an essay on the constitution and mechanical origin of the<br />
entire world edifice treated according to Newtonian principles.<br />
[Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, oder Versuch<br />
von der Verfassung und dem mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen<br />
Weltgebaüdes nach Newtonischen Grundsätzen abgehandelt.]
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION<br />
I still believe that, with classical works of the past,<br />
philosophers today should attempt, at least on<br />
some occasions, to give attention to all the<br />
dimensions of a major thinker’s work.<br />
Karl Ameriks 1<br />
Kant has often been accused of being a philosopher who blatantly<br />
ignores both the body and the fact that we experience the world in and<br />
through our bodies. This purported neglect is sometimes used as a basis<br />
for arguing that Kant’s philosophy is hopelessly outdated today.<br />
Occasionally it is also ascribed to some unfortunate feature of Kant’s<br />
psychological predisposition. Hartmut and Gernot Böhme exemplify<br />
both trends. They first declare that Kant’s philosophy represents an<br />
extreme version of the baseless dualism separating mind and body that<br />
has haunted Western philosophy for too long, a dualism that tends to<br />
devalue the physical aspect of human existence, and then explain this<br />
purported extremism by claiming that Kant was alienated from his<br />
body. 2 Thandeka categorically states that Kant fails to see that we are<br />
biological beings. 3<br />
Looking at more than two hundred years of Kant research seems to<br />
confirm that our embodied existence was of little concern to Kant. As for<br />
the Critique of pure reason, 4 which has probably received more attention<br />
than any of his other works, scholars contend that it contains a theory of<br />
human experience. It even contains the concept of an empirical subject,<br />
referring to humans as biological, embodied beings. However, following<br />
tradition, they deny that this empirical subject occupies any substantial<br />
position in the work. If the Critique is regarded as containing a<br />
1<br />
Ameriks (2000), viii.<br />
2<br />
Böhme and Böhme (1983), 14ff.<br />
3<br />
Thandeka (1995), 18.<br />
4<br />
In this book the Critique of pure reason will be referred to simply as the<br />
Critique. For other texts by Kant referred to, please consult the list if<br />
abbreviations at the beginning of the book and the bibliography at the end of the<br />
book.
2<br />
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION<br />
philosophy of man at all, this man is seen as a transcendental subject<br />
existing somehow above or behind the empirical dimension.<br />
The aim of this work is to show that this established image of Kant as<br />
a philosopher who ignores embodied human existence is radically wrong.<br />
Not only does Kant, throughout his career, in works published before<br />
and after the Critique, constantly reflect upon the fact that human life is<br />
embodied, but he is also occupied in exploring the philosophical<br />
implications of this fact. Discussing human cognition, for instance, he<br />
often emphasizes that cognition is embodied, and that the constitution<br />
and functioning of the human body condition our way of experiencing<br />
the world: Our experience of space, for instance, is based on the<br />
immediate awareness we have of being in our bodies and of our<br />
embodied acts. This idea is found in the first scholarly work that Kant<br />
published in 1747 and is repeated in a number of works until his death in<br />
1804.<br />
In the Critique the case is not that simple. Its highly abstract style<br />
seems to support those scholars who maintain that human embodiment is<br />
a topic of little significance within it. Against this, I would argue that the<br />
idea that human life is embodied is not only clearly assumed in the text<br />
but also that in a very basic sense the Critique may be read as a critical<br />
reflection upon the very fact that human life is embodied. This implies<br />
not only the simple and relatively trivial fact that while writing the<br />
Critique Kant held that a human being was both mind and body, it also<br />
means that a number of the philosophical doctrines promoted in this<br />
work, such as transcendental idealism, cannot be fully understood<br />
without taking human embodiment into account.<br />
Bringing this aspect of Kant's philosophy into the light is important,<br />
not only because it has too long been generally ignored, but also because<br />
it is highly relevant to contemporary discussions in philosophy about, for<br />
example, embodiment, learning and practice. By taking his philosophy of<br />
embodiment into account, we discover that far from being outdated,<br />
Kant stands out as a true contemporary.<br />
Even if this aspect of Kant’s philosophy has for the most part been<br />
ignored, I am not alone in emphasizing that central parts of it rest on<br />
reflections upon human embodiment. A growing number of scholars are<br />
paying attention to this dimension in his thought today. In the German<br />
Kantian tradition, this trend goes back further than it does in the Anglo-<br />
American one, due to the fact that in Germany more attention was given<br />
earlier to what Kant wrote before and after the Critique, texts in which<br />
human embodiment is more explicitly discussed. Discussing his early
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION 3<br />
academic years, Friedhelm Nierhaus, for instance, has written a helpful<br />
study of the young Kant’s views on the mind-body relation. 5 Turning to<br />
the Critique, in the 1960s Friedrich Kaulbach published a number of<br />
studies arguing that the central part of this work may be interpreted as a<br />
reflection upon self-conscious, embodied movement. 6 Friedrich<br />
Kambartel later argued that Kant’s theory of the categories may be read<br />
(at least in part) as a theory of embodied practice. 7<br />
Within the Anglo-American Kantian tradition, the significance of the<br />
body in his early philosophy has been explored by, among others, Alison<br />
Laywine, Susan Meld Shell and Andrew Carpenter, to mention only a<br />
few. 8 Kant’s reflections on embodiment have also received an increasing<br />
amount of attention through the growing interest in his ideas on<br />
pedagogy and anthropology, stimulated by, amongst other things, the<br />
publication of volume 25 of the Academy edition containing his lectures<br />
on anthropology. 9<br />
As for the Critique, the idea that parts of its theory<br />
refer to embodied events, acts or practices has been suggested by, among<br />
others, Sarah L. Gibbons, Lorne Falkenstein and Howard Caygill. 10 Most<br />
radically this approach has been followed by Arthur Melnick. 11 In<br />
5<br />
Nierhaus (1962).<br />
6<br />
Kaulbach (1960, 1965, and 1968). It may be worth noting that while in the texts<br />
referred to here he seems to be taking it for granted that Kant’s critical<br />
philosophy is a philosophy of the body, he later appears to be more cautious. In<br />
his Philosophie als Wissenschaft from 1981 he suggests that the notion of<br />
embodied acts and practices were first incorporated into Kant’s transcendental<br />
philosophy towards the end of his life, cf. Kaulbach (1981), 101.<br />
7<br />
Kambartel (1976).<br />
8<br />
Shell (1996) demonstrates convincingly how throughout his life Kant held a<br />
continuous interest in the embodied aspects of human life, and also how this<br />
interest is reflected in his philosophy. Where the period up to the Critique is<br />
concerned, the philosophically most systematic studies I have found in English,<br />
besides Shell’s study, are Laywine (1993) and Carpenter (1998). Also worth<br />
mentioning is Kitcher (1990) which, moreover, gives valuable information on the<br />
intellectual context in which Kant’s ideas of mind and body were moulded. I also<br />
want to draw attention to Schönfeld (2000) who even if he does not see the mindbody<br />
problem as the young Kant’s central concern, still offers a comprehensive<br />
discussion of the topic. Cf. also Ameriks (2000).<br />
9<br />
A survey of relevant literature regarding Kant’s pedagogical and<br />
anthropological ideas is found in Munzel (1999), 1ff. Here I want to emphasise<br />
Pitte (1971 and 1978), Brandt (1999) and Zammito (2002).<br />
10<br />
Cf. e.g. Falkenstein (1995). Cf. also Gibbons (1994) and Caygill (1995).<br />
11<br />
Cf. Melnick (1989). I came across Melnick’s work just as I was about to finish<br />
my own, thus, I do not relate extensively to it. On a number of points I think
4<br />
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION<br />
Norway Jens Saugstad has defended what he calls an externalist<br />
interpretation of the Critique, arguing, for instance, that Kant’s theory of<br />
the categories should be interpreted as a theory referring to what he calls<br />
behavioral techniques. 12<br />
Despite the highly valuable efforts of these authors and others<br />
working along similar lines, I think more work is needed in order to<br />
establish a proper grasp of this important aspect of Kant’s philosophy.<br />
We need to see how his reflections in this field are more than just<br />
fragments. They form a philosophy of embodiment that underlies much<br />
of his philosophical activity throughout his life. There are also problems<br />
and aspects of this philosophy of the body that are still neglected or<br />
poorly understood. 13 I hope that the present work will make a positive<br />
contribution in this respect.<br />
When I started to work on Kant some years ago, my interest was<br />
originally in the Critique and its interpretation. In a sense, I still think of<br />
the present work as essentially a study of the Critique, or to be more<br />
specific, of certain central parts of the Critique, such as its cognitive<br />
theory (often referred to as Kant’s transcendental psychology), its theory<br />
of experience, and its transcendental idealism. My understanding of these<br />
parts, however, has changed dramatically. When I first approached the<br />
Critique, my understanding of the text conformed more or less to the<br />
mainstream interpretation found in standard textbooks. According to<br />
this, the Critique is not a text dealing with human embodiment.<br />
However, I soon started to notice how terms that normally refer to<br />
embodied acts and practices abound on its pages. I started to ask myself<br />
whether Saugstad, whose work I had then just become acquainted with,<br />
might not after all be right in his claim that Kant’s theory of the<br />
categories should be interpreted as a theory referring to behavioral<br />
techniques, or what I prefer to call embodied practices.<br />
Melnick’s position conforms to the one defended here, such as his attempt to<br />
interpret Kantian notions like space, time and the categories as referring to<br />
embodied human behavior. Nevertheless, there is also a sense in which his<br />
project diverges from mine. His main approach is systematic, and he places little<br />
emphasis on showing that the ideas he presents, and which he claims to be<br />
Kantian, conform to or are supported by Kant’s actual text. Thus he omits what<br />
is most central to my approach, namley to show how extensively these ideas fit in<br />
with what Kant actually wrote.<br />
12<br />
Cf. Saugstad (1992, 1993a, 2000, and 2002), and also (1982, 1986, and 1993b).<br />
Cf. also Rossvær (1974), Wyller (2000 and 2001) and Svendsen (1999).<br />
13<br />
I have here in mind, for instance, the relation between Kant’s philosophy of<br />
embodiment and his transcendental idealism.
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION 5<br />
I could not fail to notice, however, the almost unanimous resistance<br />
to this interpretation among my colleagues. A standard criticism I<br />
frequently encountered was that this interpretation was incompatible<br />
with basic Kantian ideas. One such idea, frequently ascribed to Kant,<br />
was the idea of a Cartesian mind, a mind constituted solely by mental<br />
acts and processes. Kant’s theory of concepts had to be understood<br />
within this Cartesian context, I was told, as a theory referring to inner,<br />
mental acts and processes and not to embodied practices. 14 Another<br />
objection I met with was that the idea of concepts being practices<br />
belonged to a later period in the history of philosophy. It was a<br />
Wittgensteinian conception, presupposing the intellectual climate of the<br />
late nineteenth or early twentieth century, and could not have appeared<br />
as early as the eighteenth century.<br />
Susan Meld Shell’s work The Embodiment of Reason, 15 in which she<br />
explores the significance of the body in Kant’s philosophical reflections in<br />
works published before and after the Critique, inspired me to pursue my<br />
own investigations into these texts. The results astounded me. While the<br />
Critique presents us with a theory of an abstract subject with certain<br />
abstract skills and abilities which make experience possible, in these texts<br />
Kant explicitly and vigorously defends the idea that man as we know him<br />
is an embodied being, experiencing the world in and through the body,<br />
or better, as a body. In some of these Kantian works we also find what I<br />
will call a life-world perspective that takes into account not only the<br />
material or physical, but also the social conditions under which we live<br />
our lives.<br />
I had originally started to read these texts in order to learn more<br />
about the context in which the Critique emerged. I soon realized,<br />
however, that they also deserved to be studied in their own right. Of<br />
course, in these texts we also find highly abstract and formal arguments<br />
like the ones occurring in the Critique. However, through my reading of<br />
these texts a different image of the famous Königsberger emerged from<br />
that of the abstract and lofty thinker. They revealed a Kant deeply<br />
involved in the philosophical project of exploring the basic significance of<br />
our physical and social existence. As part of this project we find<br />
philosophical theories and perspectives that are stunningly modern, for<br />
instance, what I will call a pragmatic theory of embodied rationality, a<br />
theory inviting us to study rationality at the level of human behavior or<br />
14<br />
For a discussion and criticism of Cartesian interpretations of Kant, cf. Collins<br />
(1999).<br />
15<br />
Shell (1996).
6<br />
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION<br />
practice. This theory, I shall suggest, was developed in part inspired by<br />
Rousseau, who, I think, had a far more profound influence on Kant than<br />
most interpreters have acknowledged. In both Kant and Rousseau we<br />
find expressions of a deep respect for the skills and practices of the<br />
common artisan and everyday life. This, I suggest, is far more than just<br />
superficial admiration, but serves as the basis for revising the very<br />
concept of rationality.<br />
The first part of the present work deals with what I have found most<br />
significant in my reading of Kant’s early publications, as well as some<br />
works published after 1781, the year the Critique first appeared. I see this<br />
first part as an independent work that might have been published<br />
separately because it draws attention to some aspects of Kantian<br />
philosophy that, even if they are now receiving more attention than they<br />
used to, are still too little known within the general community of<br />
philosophers, let alone among the wider public. However, this first part is<br />
included in the present work because I think it also has an important role<br />
to play in understanding the context in which the Critique should be<br />
interpreted.<br />
That a work has to be interpreted in context, and that this should<br />
include what its author wrote at other times, is of course neither new nor<br />
foreign to interpreters of Kant. With a few exceptions, however, the<br />
works I explore in the first part of this work have not generally been<br />
regarded as really relevant to the Critique, and I think this has been<br />
detrimental to our understanding of it. Even if the Critique contains<br />
some philosophical reflections that have few if any parallels outside it, we<br />
also find strong continuities between the Critique and the works just<br />
referred to. A number of concepts with a central function in the Critique<br />
also appear in these other Kantian texts. More than one of the questions<br />
discussed in the Critique is also examined there. By including these texts<br />
in the context within which we interpret the Critique, therefore, we are<br />
in a better position to understand this central piece of Kantian<br />
philosophy than we would be if they were ignored.<br />
Finally, by reading the Critique in this context, we are able to<br />
respond to those who claim that the theoretical reflections of the Critique<br />
cannot be taken to refer to embodied events, skills or practices, because<br />
Kant did not care about the body, or that such reflections were foreign to<br />
the intellectual climate of the eighteenth century. By becoming<br />
acquainted with the writings discussed in part one of this work, we<br />
discover that Kant both could and did ascribe a basic significance to<br />
embodied events, skills and practices in his philosophy in a way that may<br />
seem radical even today. Reading the Critique in the context of these
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION 7<br />
texts, therefore, makes it easier to accept that embodied events, skills and<br />
practices may have a similar function there.<br />
It is impossible to write a work like the present one without entering<br />
into a discussion about Kant’s intellectual development. In my view, this<br />
development is characterized by both continuity and change. Continuity<br />
first: throughout his life, Kant took it as evident that human life as we<br />
know it is embodied. Central in this respect is the idea of the embodied<br />
mind, i.e. the idea that the mind of a living human being is not a freefloating<br />
mental entity that can be studied in abstraction from the body.<br />
On the contrary, as it has no life that we know of except its embodied<br />
life, it can only be examined and understood in its communion with the<br />
body. From start to finish, through all the changes and transformations<br />
that his thinking underwent, Kant continued to defend this idea.<br />
However, this very same idea that remained constant is also<br />
responsible for one of the most significant developments in Kant’s<br />
thought. It began as he started to reflect on its epistemic implications.<br />
Early signs of such reflections can be seen when he was still quite young<br />
and are found in most of his so called pre-critical works and they were<br />
triggered by the following problem. If human existence is radically<br />
embodied, then it follows that there is no other way of exploring the<br />
world except in and through the body. This means not only that a<br />
tenable cognitive theory has to explain how the body is used to establish<br />
knowledge of the world, it also implies that all knowledge has a subjective<br />
origin, which may be specified by reference to the specific constitution of<br />
our body, its position within the world and its capacity for action.<br />
This, however, raises a troubling question. If the origin of our<br />
knowledge is subjective in the sense specified, how is objective knowledge<br />
possible? My idea is that Kant, especially from the mid-1760s, was<br />
preoccupied with answering this question, and that his transcendental<br />
philosophy, as found in the Critique, is the outcome of this endeavor. It<br />
may be read as a theory of how man as a self-conscious embodied being<br />
confronts the world, how he is totally dependent on his body in<br />
establishing knowledge of this world, how he employs certain embodied<br />
acts and practices to explore it, and, finally, how such acts and practices<br />
make objective knowledge possible, i.e. objective knowledge in a Kantian<br />
sense.<br />
This interpretation conflicts not only with most other interpretations,<br />
it also seems to be incompatible with how Kant defines transcendental<br />
philosophy in the Critique. In part two of this work I shall maintain that<br />
a careful reading of the Critique reveals that this is not the case. Not only<br />
do there exist embodied acts and practices that serve as a priori<br />
conditions for knowledge in a Kantian sense, and not only is it possible to
8<br />
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION<br />
deduce a philosophical position from this fact, but there are also passages<br />
in the Critique that support the view that Kant himself held this position.<br />
I also argue that Kant’s transcendental idealism is the outcome of<br />
reflections on the facts of human embodiment. The reason why there is<br />
no way in which we can arrive at a detached, objective perspective of the<br />
world from which we can see it as it is in itself, as perhaps its creator sees<br />
it, is the subjective origin of our experience due to the fact that, qua<br />
embodied beings we are always limited to the specific perspective offered<br />
by our bodies. This also accounts for the specific epistemic status that<br />
Kant ascribes to objective knowledge. Objective knowledge is possible,<br />
but not of the world as it really is, only as it appears to us.<br />
Compared with most works on Kant published today, this one is<br />
different. It does not concentrate on a limited part of the Critique or<br />
other text. It is more global and examines a large number of texts he<br />
wrote over a period covering most of his intellectual career. While there<br />
is obviously a place for philosophical studies that focus on a limited text<br />
and examine it in minute detail (what, following Thomas Kuhn, we<br />
might call ‘puzzle-solving’), I think Ameriks is right, in the passage<br />
quoted at the beginning of this introduction, that sometimes it is also<br />
profitable to broaden the perspective. Sometimes, distance helps you see<br />
what is missed from close up. On the other hand, such a perspective also<br />
makes it hard or even impossible to see each and every detail in the<br />
material studied. So, each perspective has its advantages and<br />
disadvantages. I would maintain, however, that both perspectives are<br />
useful and consequently that global studies like the present one should be<br />
accepted as legitimate. I would also maintain that in the present case the<br />
global perspective is needed in order to establish and get across the<br />
intended message. First, throughout his career Kant reflected upon the<br />
fact that human life is embodied and how this affects us. Secondly,<br />
reading the Critique in this context makes it appear in a different light<br />
from the one standard interpretations suggest.<br />
The literature on Kant, after two hundred years of research, debate<br />
and interpretation, is vast, and the day is long past when a scholar could<br />
hope to have anything like a complete overview of the field. 16<br />
Today,<br />
even someone working on only a limited aspect of Kant’s philosophy has<br />
this problem. It goes without saying that in the present study this<br />
problem is even more acutely felt. I have responded to this in a number<br />
16 Zoeller (1993), 445 comments that over the past twenty-five years, scholarship<br />
on Kant has taken on ‘colossal proportions, effectively defying summary<br />
assessments and manageable presentation’.
<strong>IN</strong>TRODUCTION 9<br />
of ways. With some exceptions, I have given priority to recent secondary<br />
publications over older ones. I have also given priority to those scholars<br />
who address topics or perspectives that are relevant to my own discussion.<br />
As for the Critique, this approach has led me to ignore works that in<br />
other contexts would have been indispensable. For instance, as I do not<br />
examine the logical structure of the so called transcendental arguments of<br />
the Critique, of which the transcendental deductions of the categories are<br />
the more famous, I have generally ignored the secondary literature<br />
discussing these arguments. Seen from the position of mainstream<br />
contemporary research on the Critique, this may appear as unforgivable<br />
neglect. However, given the extent of the territory covered here,<br />
attempting to deal with the transcendental deductions as well would have<br />
resulted at best in merely paraphrasing what other commentators have<br />
already said much better. So I am happy to leave the transcendental<br />
deductions to those who have more time and energy to devote to them.<br />
This, of course, also reflects my general priorities. This work is not<br />
intended to be yet another contribution to mainstream Kant research,<br />
but an attempt to draw attention to aspects of Kantian philosophy that<br />
deserve more attention than they have so far received.<br />
A note on translation and citation: the titles of Kant’s works are all<br />
rendered in English, as are all quotations from his works. The original<br />
terms or phrases used by Kant are added in brackets whenever I think it<br />
may help. Passages I have translated myself are marked ‘a.t.’ In citing the<br />
Critique, I refer, as is customary, to the pagination of the original ‘A’<br />
(1781) and ‘B’ (1787) editions. All other references to Kant’s works cite<br />
the volume and page number of the Academy edition. The pagination of<br />
the Academy edition is also included in most standard translations of<br />
Kant's works, such as the English Oxford Edition.<br />
A number of people deserve to be thanked for the generous help<br />
offered me in support of my work. I would like to thank Associate<br />
Professor Steinar Mathisen at the University of Oslo for the good advice<br />
and support that he offered as I worked with the doctoral dissertation<br />
that has now become this book. I would also like to thank Dr. Trevor<br />
Curnow of St Martin's College, Lancaster (England) for copy-editing the<br />
text and the Norwegian Research Council for meeting the expense<br />
involved. First and foremost, however, I wish to thank Professor Jens<br />
Saugstad at the University of Oslo. His academic work on Kant has been<br />
a constant source of inspiration.
1. THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
It is noteworthy that the only form we can think<br />
of as suitable for a rational being is that of a man.<br />
Any other form represents, at most, a symbol of a<br />
certain quality of man – as the snake is an image<br />
of evil cunning – but not the rational being itself.<br />
From Kant’s Anthropology 1<br />
In this passage from his Anthropology, Kant reflects upon what he sees<br />
as a remarkable fact, which is that the only proper form we can think of<br />
as a symbol of a rational being is the form of a human being. Even if he<br />
does not explicitly say so, it is clear from the context that this is the form<br />
of an embodied human being. What is it about the embodied human<br />
being that makes it the only proper symbol of rationality? Is it its upright<br />
position, the shape of its head or other organs, or is it the way it moves<br />
and interacts with the world? The above passage does not answer this<br />
question. However, at some level, a connection is suggested between the<br />
human body and rationality.<br />
One of the central aims of this work is to explore in more detail how,<br />
according to Kant, the body is involved in human rationality. This aim<br />
will be pursued as part of a more general project, addressing central<br />
topics within his philosophy such as his ideas about the relation between<br />
mind and body, his cognitive theory and his epistemology. By ‘cognitive<br />
theory’ I mean, roughly, a theory aiming to describe how our experience<br />
of the world is constituted. In what follows, ‘rationality’ will be used to<br />
denote those aspects of human cognition that are associated in Kant’s<br />
theory with the higher cognitive faculties such as the understanding<br />
[Verstand] and the power of judgment [Urteilskraft]. Cognitive theory is<br />
to be distinguished from epistemology, understood as the theory<br />
concerned with whether our beliefs are true or justified. 2 Cognitive<br />
1<br />
Ak VII: 172.<br />
2 The distinction here suggested between cognitive theory and epistemology<br />
conforms to Henry Allison’s distinction between a psychological and an epistemic<br />
condition, cf. Allison (1983), 11. By a psychological condition Allison means some<br />
mechanism or aspect of the human cognitive apparatus that is appealed to in<br />
order to provide a genetic account of a belief or an empirical explanation of why
12<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
theory does not appear as an independent discipline in the Kantian<br />
corpus, but reflections on human cognition are typically integrated into<br />
other discussions dealing with topics such as cosmology, physiology,<br />
pedagogy or anthropology. Even in the Critique, epistemology is Kant’s<br />
main interest, not cognitive theory. However, passages dealing with what<br />
we now call cognitive theory are clearly present in several Kantian texts,<br />
and they increase both in number and in volume along with the<br />
development of his thoughts.<br />
This work is divided in two parts. While its second part is dedicated<br />
to a study of the Critique, this first part, comprising chapters 1 to 3, rests<br />
mainly on the study of works published before and after the appearance<br />
of Kant’s groundbreaking masterpiece in 1781. These are, among others,<br />
Living forces from 1747, Universal natural history and New elucidation,<br />
both from 1755, Maladies of the mind from 1764, Dreams of a spirit-seer<br />
from 1766, Directions in space from 1768, the Inaugural dissertation<br />
from 1770, Orientation from 1786, On the common saying from 1793,<br />
and then finally Anthropology, Logic and On pedagogy, all published<br />
during Kant’s latter years. Dedicated to a wide range of topics and<br />
representing different phases in his intellectual development, these texts<br />
nevertheless all justify their place in this work because they deal with<br />
various aspects of our present concerns, such as the relation between<br />
mind and body, cognition and rationality. 3<br />
we perceive things in a certain way, and which includes physiological as well as<br />
narrowly psychological factors. An epistemic condition, on the other hand, is<br />
appealed to in order to account for the objective validity of knowledge. Allison’s<br />
use of the term ‘psychology’ here corresponds to what I call ‘cognitive theory’.<br />
3<br />
In addition to the above mentioned texts, a number of Kant’s unpublished<br />
lectures are of relevance to the topics discussed here, especially his unpublished<br />
lectures on metaphysics and anthropology. ‘Unpublished’ here means<br />
unpublished by Kant. Most of them have subsequently been published in the<br />
Academy edition. These lectures are today receiving an increasing amount of<br />
attention, but are not included in the following discussion, except for occasional<br />
and mostly indirect references. One reason for not including them is to prevent<br />
this work from growing too voluminuous. Then comes the specific interpretative<br />
challenges following from the fact that they were published without Kant’s<br />
supervision. As we know them today, they are based on lecture notes taken by<br />
students. This raises the question of whether these students were reliable<br />
witnesses. To illustrate the difficulty in answering this question, Reinhold<br />
Bernhard Jachmann, a student and friend of Kant, claims that the notes taken<br />
from his metaphysics lectures are not always reliable, due to the fact that the<br />
students frequently misinterpreted what Kant was saying, cf. Gross (1993), 117.<br />
There is also the problem how to decide the status of the content of the lectures
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
This first chapter is dedicated to an investigation of Kant’s general<br />
ideas about mind and body as put forward in the above-mentioned texts,<br />
including some general remarks on cognition. It teaches us that<br />
throughout his life, when he discussed the mind and body, he almost<br />
exclusively emphasized how deeply the mind as we know it is ingrained<br />
in the body. This I will call Kant’s idea of the embodied mind, or<br />
perhaps better, his idea of the embodied self. It is the idea that in man as<br />
we know him, that is, man as a biological being in a world of physical<br />
objects, mind and body form a whole in the sense that all the operations<br />
of the mind, understood in a broad sense, depend on, and are<br />
conditioned by the body. This also means that human cognition,<br />
according to Kant, is embodied: the constitution and functioning of the<br />
human body determine, in ways that will be specified below, how we<br />
represent the world.<br />
While this first chapter deals with the embodiment of cognition at a<br />
more general level, the second chapter explores in more detail Kant’s<br />
theory of spatial experience, that is, his account of how it is possible for<br />
us to experience objects in space. As we shall see, the body is central to<br />
this theory as well. Finally, in the third chapter I investigate some of<br />
Kant’s remarks on human rationality found in some of the abovementioned<br />
texts, especially those dealing with pedagogy, logic and<br />
anthropology. Here he also demonstrates a remarkable interest in the<br />
body, an interest reflected both in the general framework and the details<br />
of his theory of rationality.<br />
This first chapter is also divided into several parts. First come some<br />
brief remarks on the general intellectual background against which Kant<br />
unfolded his reflections on mind, body and cognition. Special emphasis is<br />
placed on the existing tradition of metaphysics, and the emergence of the<br />
new study of anthropology in eighteenth-century Germany. Then follow<br />
some remarks on the phases into which his intellectual career is often<br />
divided, and on the nature of the young Kant’s philosophical enterprise.<br />
Then, finally, we will approach the texts to be investigated in this<br />
chapter, one by one, to see what they reveal about his ideas about mind<br />
and body and the embodied nature of cognition in general. As the aim of<br />
this chapter is to give a general overview of how these ideas developed, I<br />
even if we assume that the students were accurate in their notes: To what extent<br />
do the lectures represent Kant’s own views, and to what extent do they represent<br />
ideas that Kant for some reason chose to present as part of his official role and<br />
duty as a public servant?<br />
13
14<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
shall also take a brief look at some relevant passages from the Critique,<br />
even if the main treatment of that text belongs in part two.<br />
1.1 Seele, Gemüt and Geist<br />
I will normally use ‘mind’ to translate three German terms; Seele, Gemüt<br />
and Geist. By this I do not mean to imply that the three terms, when<br />
used by eighteenth-century Germans, always meant the same thing, or<br />
that they did to Kant. Nevertheless, they often did. According to<br />
Grimm’s Deutsches Wörterbuch all three terms were used in eighteenthcentury<br />
Germany to refer to the mental or spiritual part of man in<br />
general. In this usage the meanings of the terms included both the<br />
contents of our consciousness and what made this consciousness possible.<br />
Additionally, both Geist and Seele were sometimes used in an even more<br />
general sense, denoting the life of an organism in general, or what gave it<br />
life. These meanings also reappear in Kant’s use of the three terms.<br />
Often he switches between Geist, Seele and Gemüt in a way that makes<br />
it hard to see why he uses one term instead of another.<br />
To the extent that he distinguishes between the three terms, there is a<br />
tendency, at least in the more mature Kant, to use Gemüt in contexts<br />
where cognitive issues are discussed, and Seele in more ontologically<br />
oriented discussions. The distinction here suggested belongs, however, to<br />
the mature years of his intellectual life. In his earlier writings it is not yet<br />
established and there the term Seele is the dominant one, used both when<br />
the context is metaphysics and when the discussion deals more explicitly<br />
with cognitive issues. However, the terms Geist and Gemüt are sometimes<br />
also used in a similar way. This is why I will normally translate all of<br />
them as ‘mind’. When it seems more natural, however, I occasionally<br />
render Seele as ‘soul’ and Geist as ‘spirit’. Where it seems necessary or<br />
helpful to do so, I indicate the original German word being translated.<br />
1.2 Empirical and rational psychology and anthropology<br />
In eighteenth-century German philosophy there were two main contexts<br />
in which the mind or the soul was discussed and these were rational and<br />
empirical psychology. While the first aimed by means of logical proofs to<br />
reach knowledge of the ontological nature and status of the soul, and thus<br />
may be counted as a branch of metaphysics or ontology, the second<br />
allowed empirical statements to be included in its body of knowledge. 4<br />
4 A brief but good introduction to the empirical psychology of eighteenth-century<br />
Germany is found in Klemme (1996), 15ff., cf. also Hatfield (1992).
Both these forms of psychology belonged within a more<br />
comprehensive system of disciplines. In the system of the eighteenthcentury<br />
German philosopher Christian Wolff, whose works were<br />
frequently read at German universities, a distinction was made between<br />
what he called ‘general metaphysics’ [metaphysica generalis] and ‘special<br />
metaphysics’ [metaphysica specialis]. 5<br />
The task of general metaphysics,<br />
according to Wolff, was to discover the nature of things in general.<br />
Special metaphysics had three branches: cosmology was the a priori<br />
science of every possible material world; rational theology was the science<br />
of the existence and attributes of God as far as they could be known by<br />
rational argument; and then, finally, there was rational psychology.<br />
Even if it may be argued that, strictly speaking, they did not belong<br />
there, Wolff included chapters on empirical psychology in both his<br />
German and his Latin works on metaphysics. In his Latin Metaphysica<br />
he introduces the chapter on empirical psychology with a proof for the<br />
existence of the human soul. He points to the fact that we have<br />
consciousness of ourselves as well as of objects outside us. From this the<br />
existence of the soul is proven by means of a syllogism. Klemme makes a<br />
good point, I think, in remarking that the structure of Wolff's proof here<br />
demonstrates a close link between empirical psychology and cosmology. 6<br />
By this syllogistic proof, the existence of the mind is established in<br />
Wolff’s system. The deeper, ontological nature of the soul, however,<br />
remains to be explored. This is the task of rational psychology. In his<br />
rational psychology, Wolff argues that the soul is simple, immaterial and<br />
immortal. 7 In his system the task of explaining how it is possible for soul<br />
and body to communicate also belongs to rational psychology. The<br />
reason why this problem belongs here is obvious. Rational psychology<br />
proves that the soul is immaterial, but if it is immaterial how can it<br />
communicate with a body conceived to be material? In empirical<br />
psychology, it is the actual life of the soul as it may be observed through<br />
introspection that is the topic, which is why this problem does not belong<br />
there.<br />
This does not mean that the body is irrelevant to the empirical<br />
psychologist. To the extent to which the mind is influenced by the body,<br />
the body and its ways of influencing the mind are of concern to empirical<br />
psychology. This is not an insignificant point. It means that the<br />
5<br />
For a general overview of Wolff’s metaphysics, see e.g. Tonelli (1967) and<br />
Klemme (1996).<br />
6 Klemme (1996), 19.<br />
7 Ibid., 17-19.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
15
16<br />
communion of mind and body was discussed at two levels within<br />
eighteenth century German philosophy, resulting in two parallel<br />
discourses. One belongs to empirical psychology and there the<br />
communion of mind and body was regarded as a fact, not a problem. 8<br />
The problem arises only when we move to the discourse of rational<br />
psychology. The problem there is to explain the communion of mind and<br />
body given the radical difference thought to exist between them. In what<br />
follows I will refer to this as ‘the ontological mind-body problem’. In<br />
seventeenth and eighteenth-century European metaphysics several<br />
possible solutions to this problem were presented and discussed, among<br />
these the theory of influxus physicus or real interaction, the idea of preestablished<br />
harmony, and occasionalism.<br />
In addition to empirical and rational psychology, a third discipline in<br />
which the mind was examined and discussed emerged during the<br />
eighteenth century, namely anthropology. One of its roots was empirical<br />
psychology. 9 Like empirical psychology it considered the community of<br />
mind and body to be a fact and not a problem, a fact, moreover, to be<br />
examined by empirical observation. However, it also included within its<br />
field of study other aspects of human life, such as culture, habit and<br />
society. Through his lectures in anthropology, which he gave regularly<br />
throughout most of his academic career (starting in 1772 but based on<br />
reflections that may date back as far as 1757 10<br />
), Kant signaled an acute<br />
interest in the new discipline, and also a positive attitude towards the new<br />
approach of studying man that was associated with it. In an early<br />
anthropology lecture he said that he saw the advantage of anthropology<br />
over psychology in that it observed not only the soul, but the whole<br />
human being. 11<br />
To be aware of the disciplines within which the human mind and its<br />
relation to the body were examined and discussed in eighteenth century<br />
German philosophy is important as it helps us arrive at more adequate<br />
interpretations of the texts dealing with this topic. Within the disciplines<br />
8<br />
To say that the community of mind and body is here a fact, means that it is<br />
taken as a premise that is not questioned. Thus, within empirical psychology one<br />
is allowed to investigate or speculate upon the various effects that the body exerts<br />
on the mind (or vice versa) without being troubled by the ontological task of<br />
explaining how this is possible in the first place.<br />
9<br />
For the development of anthropology in Germany, cf. Klemme (1996), 14ff. and<br />
also Zammito (2002).<br />
10<br />
Cf Pitte (1978), xi and (1971), 11.<br />
11 Ak XXV: 471.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
just mentioned different questions were asked, which meant that they<br />
were looking for different kinds of answer. Consequently, in order to<br />
come up with a fair evaluation of whether or not an author succeeds in a<br />
certain text, it is necessary to know which discipline he associated himself<br />
with when he was writing it.<br />
It is not always easy to decide within which context Kant is operating<br />
when he discusses the mind-body relation. He discusses this relation in<br />
texts dealing with topics as varied as cosmology, medicine, 12<br />
epistemology, anthropology, pedagogy and logic. There is evidence,<br />
however, that at an early stage he adopted an agnostic attitude towards<br />
the mind-body problem in its ontological form. I shall return to this later.<br />
1.3 Some preliminary remarks on Kant’s intellectual development<br />
In the secondary literature surrounding the Kantian corpus the claim is<br />
often advanced that Kant’s intellectual development may be divided into<br />
more or less distinct phases. Even if there is no general agreement on the<br />
number and nature of these phases, the idea of a threefold structure is<br />
often suggested. First, we have a pre-critical phase which includes his<br />
early years. Then we have his critical phase, the years that saw the<br />
publication of the three Critiques. Finally, there is his later years, when<br />
he was struggling to develop a new or revised philosophical outlook, as<br />
evidenced by the notes compiled and published in what is now known as<br />
his Opus postumum.<br />
As for Kant’s pre-critical phase, it has been argued that it too may be<br />
divided into phases. According to Ameriks, Kant began as an empiricist,<br />
turned toward rationalism in 1756, shifted to a skeptical position in 1766,<br />
and finally adopted a quasi-critical point of view after 1768. 13<br />
Beiser in<br />
his study of Kant’s early intellectual development identifies four phases as<br />
well but they are different from Ameriks’. 14<br />
According to Beiser, Kant<br />
was initially infatuated with metaphysics, then became disillusioned in<br />
1760, partially reconciled himself with metaphysics in 1766, and finally<br />
liberated himself from metaphysical concerns in 1772.<br />
Just as there is no agreement on how best to divide Kant’s intellectual<br />
development into phases, so there are various answers to the question of<br />
how his projects and their aims are best described. In part two in this<br />
work I will briefly look at some interpretations of the Critique. Where his<br />
12<br />
In Maladies of the mind.<br />
13<br />
Ameriks (2000), 11ff.<br />
14<br />
Beiser (1992).<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
17
18<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
early years are concerned, he is typically regarded either as a traditional<br />
metaphysician or as a philosopher of science, or both. Michael Friedman<br />
may be seen as representing the second view, in characterizing the young<br />
Kant as a committed and sophisticated Newtonian, who attempted to<br />
construct the philosophical underpinnings of the Principia. 15 Schönfeld<br />
presents a version of the first view by claiming that the underlying theme<br />
of Kant’s early philosophy was the attempt to reconcile natural science<br />
and metaphysics, or, more specifically, to help construct a unified, nondualist<br />
model of nature. Inside this model, the young Kant hoped it<br />
would be possible to harmonize Newtonian physics with the main<br />
assumptions of metaphysics, i.e. the presence of purpose in the world, the<br />
possibility of freedom, and the existence of God. 16<br />
Many views also prevail concerning which philosophers or traditions<br />
influenced the young Kant. There is a longstanding tradition within<br />
Kant scholarship of looking at the young Kant as a dogmatic follower of<br />
Leibniz. I think Tonelli is right, however, in claiming that even if he was<br />
influenced by Leibniz, at no point was he a dogmatic disciple of the great<br />
German philosopher. 17 Further, an overemphasis on Leibniz may easily<br />
overshadow the fact that Kant also oriented himself in other directions.<br />
Tonelli reports that when Kant started his philosophical career, Leibniz<br />
had for a long time been subject to the criticisms of the Pietist school of<br />
philosophers, of which Crusius was a distinguished member. Against the<br />
rationalism of Leibniz, Crusius argued that the domain of human<br />
knowledge was more limited than the rationalists assumed, a point Kant<br />
also adopted. And even if Kant never became an orthodox follower of<br />
Crusius, his early philosophy was clearly influenced by him. 18 Other<br />
influences included Hume, Locke, Reid, Tetens, Lambert, Condillac,<br />
Newton and Rousseau, to mention just a few. 19<br />
This variety of philosophers and thinkers to whom Kant related in<br />
the development of his own thoughts should alert us, I will argue, to their<br />
15<br />
Friedman (1992).<br />
16<br />
Schönfeld (2000), 10.<br />
17<br />
Tonelli (1969), LI.<br />
18<br />
For the influence of Crusius on Kant, cf. also Wundt (1924), 70.<br />
19<br />
Kant’s contemporary Ludwig Ernst Borowski reports that Kant was extensively<br />
concerned with Hume and Rousseau, cf. Gross (1993), 69. Rousseau’s influence<br />
is also emphasized by Pitte (1971), Cassirer (1981) and Zammito (2002). As for<br />
Kant’s relation to other thinkers, cf. also Beck (1969a), Vleeschauwer (1962),<br />
Kitcher (1990), Kuehn (2002), Schönfeld (2000), Vorländer (1977), Kaulbach<br />
(1982), and Beiser (1987).
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
diversity. Instead of seeing his early reflections as part of a single major<br />
philosophical project, inspired by just one or a few philosophers and<br />
centered on only one problem or set of problems, I think an approach<br />
that acknowledges a variety of dimensions is preferable. Throughout his<br />
life he was engaged in dialogue, whether real or imaginary, with a wide<br />
range of philosophical and academic traditions and with a number of<br />
philosophers both living and dead. His reflections may be seen as<br />
prompted by and commenting upon thinkers as different as Leibniz,<br />
Newton, Hume and Rousseau. And as is the case with any great<br />
philosopher, I think that the philosophy resulting from this is far too rich<br />
and multifaceted to be summed up in any single formula.<br />
This is also why I am skeptical of a too strict adherence to the idea<br />
that Kant’s intellectual development is to be divided into phases. The<br />
principal division of his philosophical career into a pre-critical phase and<br />
a critical phase is entirely reasonable, but when it comes to dividing the<br />
pre-critical years into different phases I think we should be more<br />
cautious. It is better, I think, to see his early years as representing a multidimensional<br />
development in which many questions, problems, themes<br />
and perspectives were elaborated alongside each other. Of course certain<br />
ideas, perspectives and inspirational sources stand out as more important<br />
than others. As for those who inspired him, I will be emphasizing<br />
Rousseau, not because he was the only one who helped Kant develop his<br />
own ideas, but because I think his influence on Kant has still not been<br />
adequately understood. It is also the case that he stimulated Kant’s<br />
philosophical reflections in areas that are highly relevant to this work.<br />
As for Kant’s intellectual development, I will underline, among other<br />
things, his evolving agnosticism towards ontology, along with what I<br />
conceive to be a growing empiricism and a constantly more outspoken<br />
pragmatism. I will argue that these three elements combined to form a<br />
powerful influence in his philosophy. Dreams of a spirit-seer from 1766<br />
in many ways epitomizes the development here suggested. This text<br />
represents a radical agnosticism towards ontology, combined with a just<br />
as radical empiricism. This empiricism, moreover, may be regarded as an<br />
embodied empiricism, i.e. an empiricism that ascribes to the immediate<br />
experience of being in a body an epistemic status that no theoretical<br />
speculation can undermine. The text also has a strong pragmatic tone,<br />
demanding that priority should be given to knowledge that is useful, i.e.<br />
knowledge that improves the quality of life on earth.<br />
The development here suggested, I will argue, may also account for a<br />
significant change that took place in Kant’s cognitive theory sometime<br />
between 1750 and 1770. In the beginning, when he explored how<br />
human cognition depends on the body, his focus was on the internal<br />
19
20<br />
organic constitution of the body. At some point, however, this approach<br />
was broadened to take embodied acts and practices into account as well.<br />
It may even be argued that he gave these acts and practices priority in his<br />
cognitive theory. I will argue that he did so not only because these acts<br />
and practices are easy observable, which was of significance relative to<br />
his empiricism, but also because they could be developed and perfected<br />
and so become more useful, which was of significance in the context of<br />
his pragmatism.<br />
The young Kant’s ontology in the field of mind and body has been<br />
frequently discussed. 20 One of the views put forward is that in his early<br />
years he subscribed to a Leibnizian model according to which both mind<br />
and body were of a monadic nature, and also that he conceived of the<br />
mind as an independent monad within this model. My intention is not to<br />
enter deeply into this discussion about ontology. However, I cannot help<br />
but note that in my reading I have never come across any passages where<br />
Kant explicitly maintains this position. Instead, as has already been<br />
noted, he seems to be following what we might today call a holistic<br />
approach, according to which mind and body should not be perceived as<br />
two independent entities, monads or substances, but rather as different<br />
sides, aspects or dimensions of one being or substance, that is, man as we<br />
know him. Whether Kant conceived of this as an ontological model, i.e.<br />
as a model competing with the theories put forward by the rational<br />
psychologists of his time, is a question to which I do not have a definite<br />
answer, but I shall offer some further reflections on this point later.<br />
1.4 Living forces<br />
The mind and its relation to the body preoccupied Kant from the very<br />
start, as we can see from his first published writing, Living forces from<br />
1747. He wrote this text while he was still a student at the Herzog<br />
Albrecht University of Königsberg, before financial problems following<br />
the death of his father forced him to abandon his studies and earn a<br />
living as a tutor. Very roughly, the topic of the text is the concept of force<br />
and the question of whether this concept should include only those forces<br />
operating from outside an object, or whether it should include more than<br />
this. Kant argues for the second option, seeking inspiration from a<br />
Leibnizian concept of force. 21<br />
20<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
Cf. e.g. Nierhaus (1962), Carpenter (1998), Laywine (1993) and Schönfeld<br />
(2000).<br />
21 For a further discussion of this text, as well as for biographical notes about its<br />
genesis, cf. Kuehn (2004), 89f, Shell (1996), 10ff. and Schönfeld (2000), 19f.
Kant is known for having later considered the text a thorough<br />
embarrassment and most interpreters have agreed with him. Schönfeld,<br />
for instance, writes:<br />
21<br />
An unsuspecting reader of the Living forces, who thinks that the Bdeduction<br />
in the Critique of Pure Reason is the most difficult text in<br />
Kant’s oeuvre, will be in for a surprise. Studying Kant’s first book is<br />
an extraordinarily strenuous and frustrating undertaking. 22<br />
Even if Schönfeld has a point, it should not be exaggerated. I agree with<br />
Nierhaus 23 when he says that this early text represents both an interesting<br />
and for the most part consistent piece of philosophy, and perhaps even<br />
more important, it is a text in which Kant approaches topics that will<br />
preoccupy him for most of his career.<br />
Let us return to the question of the relation between mind and body.<br />
A characteristic feature of Kant’s approach in Living forces is that both<br />
this question and its solution are part of a general discussion of the<br />
concept of a world. A world is a totality [Ganze] of objects [Wesen,<br />
Dinge] that stand in real connections [wirkliche Verbindung] to each<br />
other, he argues. 24<br />
This connection, further, is established by the<br />
exchange of forces. He is obviously operating here within the discipline<br />
that is called cosmology within the Wolffian system.<br />
The relation between mind 25 and body is first addressed in § 5. Kant<br />
here discusses how to explain the fact that a physical impact on the<br />
human body provokes changes in the mind. The problem, he explains, is<br />
that metaphysics tells us that the two, matter and mind, are of different<br />
kinds. How, then, do they communicate?<br />
How is it possible that a force that only causes movement could also<br />
produce representations and ideas? These things are so different<br />
[unterschiedene Geschlechter von Sachen] that it is impossible to<br />
conceive how the one may be a source of the other. 26<br />
In the next paragraph he goes on to ask how it is possible for the mind to<br />
move matter. This problem is closely related to the first, he argues, and<br />
equally intriguing. However, as we shall soon see, he claims to be able to<br />
solve them both. The solution, he argues, is found by adopting a<br />
Leibnizian theory of force and movement.<br />
22<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
Schönfeld (2000), 19.<br />
23<br />
Nierhaus (1962), 12ff.<br />
24<br />
Ak I: 22.<br />
25<br />
Kant here, as well as in the rest of this text, uses the term Seele.<br />
26<br />
Ak I: 20, a.t.
22<br />
What is this theory? He approaches the answer indirectly, by first<br />
formulating the view to which he is opposed, namely, the idea that force<br />
is something that affects bodies [Körper] only from the outside. Further,<br />
according to this view, only moving bodies possess force, that is, only a<br />
body that moves has the capacity to influence another body. A resting<br />
body, consequently, does not possess force. This, Kant claims, has been<br />
the dominant view up to Leibniz, with the exception only of Aristotle. 27<br />
In addition to Aristotle, Leibniz is mentioned as a philosopher who<br />
understood more about the concept of force than others: Leibniz saw<br />
that a body possesses an essential force even prior to its extension. This<br />
he called its ‘working force’. 28 Unfortunately, according to Kant,<br />
Leibniz’s followers misunderstood this concept and so his project may be<br />
understood as motivated by the intention to restore the theory of working<br />
force to its original state.<br />
Due to the brief and rather unsystematic character of the text, it is<br />
not easy to determine exactly what the theory is that Kant is proposing.<br />
Here is an example of his style, taken from § 4, where for the first time he<br />
purports to be give a positive account of his theory:<br />
Nothing is easier than to deduce the origin of what we call movement<br />
from the general concept of working force. The substance A, which<br />
force is directed to work outside itself (that is, to change the inner<br />
state of other substances), either immediately finds an object which<br />
receives its entire force, or it does not. 29<br />
What does the above passage tell us about Kant’s theory of force and<br />
movement? In the first sentence, he draws a distinction between working<br />
force and movement, but he does not say what he means by movement.<br />
If we consider the context, however, ‘movement’ seems to be used in its<br />
normal sense denoting the movement of material objects in space.<br />
What is the relation between such a movement and a working force?<br />
The concept of a working force has something to do with the origin of a<br />
movement, we are told. More precisely, if we search for the origin of a<br />
movement, then this origin may be deduced from the concept of a<br />
working force. Does this mean that a working force is simply the origin of<br />
a movement? Let us see what the next sentence of the passage says. Here,<br />
the working force of a substance is said to be that in the substance which<br />
makes it possible for it to work outside itself? What does a substance do<br />
when it works outside itself? One possible answer is that it creates a<br />
27<br />
Ak I: 17.<br />
28<br />
Ak I: 17.<br />
29<br />
Ak I: 19, a.t.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
movement. An example of such a movement may be when substance A<br />
hits substance B and creates a movement in the latter. Is this what Kant<br />
has in mind? This seems to be a reasonable answer. However, if we<br />
examine what Kant adds in brackets in the above sentence, the answer<br />
seems not to be exhaustive. When a substance A acts on a substance B,<br />
then ‘the inner state’ of B is altered, Kant tells us. What does he mean?<br />
I take his theory to be this. A substance may be described under two<br />
perspectives. The first we may call the external perspective. Central to<br />
this perspective is extension and position in space. When we describe the<br />
movement of a substance in space, then this description takes place<br />
according to this external perspective. Then there is what we may call<br />
the internal perspective, focusing on the inner aspect of the substance.<br />
Kant does not explain in detail what we find when we establish this<br />
internal perspective. From the text, however, we may infer that the<br />
concept of working force belongs to this internal perspective. That is,<br />
when we ascribe to a substance a working force, then the description of<br />
this force takes place according to this internal perspective. The concept<br />
of working force, moreover, seems to be part of a theory claiming that<br />
what we observe as an external movement taking place in space typically<br />
has its origin within the substance. And also when a substance is<br />
externally affected, the effect involves more than what we observe from<br />
the outside. It affects its inner state as well.<br />
When a substance A acts on a substance B, we may consequently<br />
distinguish between three moments of the corresponding event. First, we<br />
have the working force of A considered as the origin of the event. In<br />
order to conceptually identify this force, we have to establish an internal<br />
perspective on A. Then we have the external movement in which A<br />
externally exerts its force on B. This is described according to the<br />
external perspective. In this process, however, something also happens<br />
with the inner state of B. In order to conceptually identify this, we have<br />
again to establish an internal perspective. 30<br />
This is only meant as a rough interpretation. 31 Instead of going deeper<br />
into Kant’s theory of working forces, I would like now to show how he<br />
uses it to explain the communion of mind and body. Before we can do<br />
this, however, we have to consider another idea from Living forces.<br />
Space is not a structure existing independently of the substances existing<br />
30<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
Kant seems also to be arguing that sometimes two substances may interact<br />
without external movement taking place, for instance when a substance acts at<br />
another without overcoming its resistance, see §§ 4 and 5.<br />
31 For more details see e.g. Nierhaus (1962), 13ff.<br />
23
24<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
in it, but is constituted through the physical interaction of these<br />
substances:<br />
It is easy to demonstrate that no space and no extension would exist if<br />
a substance had no force to work outside itself. For without this force<br />
there is no connection, without this no order, and without this,<br />
finally, no space. 32<br />
Kant also argues that the specific three-dimensional character of space as<br />
we know it is a product of the specific laws according to which substances<br />
interact in our universe.<br />
We are now in a position to see how Kant uses his general theory of<br />
forces and substances to explain communication between mind and<br />
body. This explanation is found in § 6 and the paragraph is divided in<br />
two parts. The first concerns how the mind affects other substances, the<br />
second how the mind is affected by other substances. Unfortunately,<br />
again the argument is not unambiguously clear. Let us, however, start<br />
with the first part of the argument. A basic premise of this argument is<br />
the idea just presented, that space is constituted by the interaction of<br />
substances. The argument, further, seems to contain two propositions.<br />
The first states that the mind is able to produce changes outside itself and<br />
thus to partake in the general interaction of substances. The second states<br />
that the mind has a spatial position. Exactly what is the logical relation<br />
between these propositions? Kant starts by posing the question of<br />
whether the mind has a working force, that is, whether it has the capacity<br />
to work outside itself. The answer has to be positive, he argues, due to the<br />
fact that the mind has a position in space. That the mind has a position<br />
in space is here presented as a fact, and thus seems to have the status of a<br />
premise. Kant then proposes what I take to be another premise of the<br />
argument, the idea that space is constituted by the interaction of<br />
substances. So his argument seems to be that since the mind has a spatial<br />
position, and space is constituted by the interaction of substances, we<br />
may infer that the mind partakes in the general interaction of substances,<br />
which again means that it is capable of producing changes outside itself.<br />
Here is the argument. 33<br />
32<br />
Ak I: 22, a.t.<br />
33<br />
Nierhaus (1962), 19 argues that Kant’s theory of space in Living forces is<br />
ambiguous. Sometimes he treats space as an epiphenomenon of the interaction of<br />
substances, sometimes space seems to be a condition of the possibility of such<br />
interaction. If this is so, it may explain why Kant’s account of the relation of the<br />
two premises just mentioned is not totally clear.
25<br />
The question of whether the mind [Seele] may cause movements,<br />
namely, if it has a moving force, turns into this one: whether its<br />
essential force may be judged to have an outbound force, that is,<br />
whether it is capable of creating changes in other beings [Wesen]?<br />
This question may be quite decisively answered in the following way:<br />
the mind must be able to work outside itself, because it inhabits a<br />
place [weil sie in einem Orte ist]. For when we analyze the concept of<br />
what we call place, we find that it points to the reciprocal effects of<br />
substances on each other. 34<br />
I will not discuss whether this argument is tenable or not. The author<br />
himself, however, seems to be convinced that the question has been<br />
settled and that the argument explains how it is possible for a mind to<br />
produce effects outside itself. And it is just as easy, Kant argues, to<br />
understand how physical objects may imprint representations and images<br />
in the mind. Matter in movement influences everything with which it is<br />
spatially connected, and that includes the mind.<br />
It is just as easy to understand the seemingly paradoxical statement<br />
on how it is possible that matter, which we imagine can produce<br />
nothing but movement, may in fact imprint upon the mind certain<br />
representations and images [der Seele gewisse Vorstellungen und<br />
Bilder eindrücke]. For matter that is brought to move, works on and<br />
in everything that is connected with it in space [was mit ihr dem<br />
Raum nach verbunden ist], thus, also the mind [Seele], that is, it<br />
changes its inner state in so far as it relates itself to the external [in so<br />
weit er sich auf das Äußere beziehet]. 35<br />
Exactly what theory of the mind does this line of argument imply? I think<br />
Nierhaus is on the right track when stating that no general distinction<br />
between mind and body is made in this text. 36<br />
Nierhaus suggests instead<br />
that Kant’s view here is a sort of monism according to which physical<br />
movement and thinking are seen not as activities performed by different<br />
kinds of substances, but as different forms of expressions<br />
[Erscheinungsbilder] of substances that are basically similar<br />
[gleichartig]. 37 As I read Living forces Kant here defends a model<br />
according to which mind and body are nothing but different aspects or<br />
dimensions of the human being, perceived as one substance. An<br />
argument in favor of this interpretation is that in discussing the<br />
34<br />
Ak I: 20-21, a.t.<br />
35<br />
Ak I: 21, a.t.<br />
36<br />
Nierhaus (1962), 27.<br />
37<br />
Ibid., 17.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
26<br />
communion of mind and body, Kant claims that this may be explained<br />
as a special case of a general principle governing all interactions between<br />
substances. In all such interactions both the outer and the inner aspects<br />
of the substance are involved, he argues. This suggests that he took the<br />
mind to be the inner aspect of the ‘substance man’. If so, this explains<br />
why he thought that the communion of mind and body could be<br />
understood by reference to this general theory of interaction. Kant’s idea<br />
was not that the mind interacts with other substances qua independent<br />
substance, but that it does so in virtue of being the inner aspect of the<br />
substance man.<br />
Regardless of whether this interpretation is correct or not, we may<br />
regard it as established that in his very first publication Kant states as an<br />
obvious fact that mind and body are intimately united. And as we will<br />
see, this is an idea that will stay with him for the rest of his life. In Living<br />
forces we also find signs of another idea that will stay with him, namely<br />
that cognition has both a passive and an active aspect. Cognition is a<br />
passive process to the extent that our representational state is changed<br />
following externally caused impacts on the mind. It is active to the extent<br />
that the mind modifies its representational state through its own activity.<br />
In Living forces the idea is not yet explicitly expressed in this way, but it<br />
is clearly present in a primitive form. Most interesting, perhaps, is the fact<br />
that in his very first published writing Kant is already explaining the<br />
three-dimensionality of space by reference to human activity. The fact<br />
that we represent the world as having three dimensions, and that we<br />
cannot represent it in any other way, he says, is due not just to the<br />
specific way in which substances in our world interact in general, but also<br />
to the fact that we are ourselves part of this interaction. This means not<br />
only that we are affected according to the rules of the world, but also we<br />
also act outside ourselves according to these same rules. 38<br />
As I will argue,<br />
Kant will later claim, for instance in Directions in space and also in his<br />
Anthropology, that our representation of space is constituted by<br />
embodied acts. Even if the present text is too brief and too abstract to<br />
allow us to come to a firm conclusion, the above passage may<br />
nevertheless be read as a precursor to this theory. If so, we have here<br />
found yet another idea that is to stay with Kant for the rest of his life.<br />
Shell goes a step further and argues that Kant’s theory of the<br />
constitution of space through embodied activity in Living forces<br />
anticipates by almost forty years his critical treatment of space and time<br />
38<br />
Ak I: 24.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
as forms of intuitions in the Critique. 39 Schönfeld objects that such a<br />
claim credits the young Kant with greater originality than the text<br />
justifies. 40 In the dispute between Shell and Schönfeld much depends on<br />
how Kant’s critical theory of space is interpreted. I will argue later that in<br />
the Critique Kant sees space, considered as a form of intuition, as<br />
constituted by embodied acts. If this is so, then Shell’s claim is perhaps<br />
better founded than it may at first seem. However, the fact remains that<br />
Kant’s account of the constitution of space in Living forces is very brief<br />
and we should perhaps try not to deduce too much from it.<br />
1.5 New elucidation<br />
In 1755 two works by Kant were published. One of them, New<br />
elucidation, was written as a Latin dissertation and helped him achieve<br />
the status of Privatdozent at the Herzog Albrecht University. As he did in<br />
Living forces eight years earlier, in New elucidation Kant puts forward a<br />
theory according to which the relation between mind and body is<br />
explained in the context of a general theory of interaction between<br />
substances, i.e. the context is cosmology. A world, he argues in New<br />
elucidation, as he did in Living forces, consists of a number of substances<br />
included in the same space and reciprocally conditioning each other<br />
through a dynamic interplay of physical forces. The mind, he maintains,<br />
participates in this interplay of physical interaction.<br />
This is how Kant presents his argument. Substances may only be<br />
changed when in connection with others. So a substance totally isolated<br />
from other substances would be unchanging. This also applies to changes<br />
in the inner condition of a substance.<br />
27<br />
In a world that was free from all motion (for motion is the<br />
appearance of a changed connection), nothing at all in the nature of<br />
succession would be found even in the inner states of substances. 41<br />
Following this, he argues that no change in the mind of a human being<br />
would occur if the mind did not interact with physical (i.e. external)<br />
things.<br />
39<br />
Shell (1996), 21.<br />
40<br />
Schönfeld (2000), 42.<br />
41<br />
Ak 1: 410.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
28<br />
For it follows immediately from what we have demonstrated that, if<br />
the human soul were free from real connection with external things,<br />
the internal state of the soul would be completely devoid of changes. 42<br />
What may we infer from this? First, Kant claims, the above principle<br />
proves that, contrary to what idealism teaches, the body really exists. It<br />
also supports those who claim that a finite mind has to be connected to<br />
an organism:<br />
And should anyone, perchance, seek to provoke a dispute with me, I<br />
should refer the matter to the modern philosophers who unanimously<br />
and as with one voice openly declare that the connection of the soul<br />
with an organic body is necessary. 43<br />
As representatives of this view, he points to those he loosely calls ‘the<br />
moderns’, and Crusius is mentioned as one. According to Crusius, so<br />
Kant tells us, the endeavor of the mind to have representations always<br />
corresponds to an endeavor for outer movement. 44 Here embodied<br />
movement is again associated with cognition.<br />
In a highly interesting passage Kant then faces an imaginary critic<br />
accusing him of being a materialist. 45 It is true, he admits, that his theory<br />
seems to lie close to materialism. Instead of explicitly denouncing<br />
materialism, however, he targets what he takes to be a fatal flaw in a<br />
purely idealist view of the mind. The idealist contends that the mind<br />
operates independently of all physical interaction. But, he asks, would not<br />
this imply the idea of an unchanging mind, or worse, would we not then<br />
deprive the mind of the capacity to represent altogether?<br />
Regardless of what changes Kant’s thinking may have undergone<br />
between Living forces and New elucidation, his theory of how the mind<br />
communicates with the body, and thus, indirectly also with the physical<br />
universe, seems to be more or less the same in the two texts. In both texts<br />
we learn that the mind, conceived as the inner aspect of the human<br />
substance, partakes in the general interaction of substances, because this<br />
is how all substances interact. Moreover, in all such interaction, the inner<br />
as well as the outer aspect of the substance are involved. If this is so, then<br />
it is obvious why the mind has to partake in the general interaction of<br />
42<br />
Ak I: 412.<br />
43<br />
Ak I: 412.<br />
44<br />
Ak I: 412.<br />
45<br />
Ak I: 412.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
substances. It does so in virtue of being the inner aspect of the substance<br />
man.<br />
Let us now proceed to he second work that Kant published in 1755,<br />
Universal natural history.<br />
1.6 Universal natural history<br />
At a general level, the topic of Universal natural history is the same as<br />
that of the other texts examined so far. 46<br />
It deals with the physical<br />
universe. Its aim, more precisely, is to explain the present structure of the<br />
universe without presupposing divine intervention. In a remarkable<br />
appendix, Kant then proceeds to discuss the relation between mind and<br />
body. To most modern readers, his approach in this appendix must seem<br />
exotic as he enters into a hypothetical discussion concerning life on other<br />
planets. If we assume that the other planets of our solar system are<br />
inhabited by intelligent beings, he asks, what would they be like, given<br />
the differences in physical conditions prevailing on those planets?<br />
Regardless of the exotic character of this question, however, and the<br />
hypothetical nature of the discussion, the appendix is worth studying.<br />
What we should look for is what ideas underlie the discussion.<br />
Among these we find the idea of a very intimate integration of mind and<br />
body.<br />
Let us take a closer look at the text. Due to gravitational force,<br />
Kant argues, the planets orbiting near the sun are composed of a<br />
denser and heavier matter than the more distant planets. If thinking<br />
beings exist on all these planets, these differences in material<br />
conditions will probably influence their cognitive processes in a radical<br />
way. 47<br />
More specifically, he argues that the inhabitants of the more<br />
distant planets, being composed of a lighter and finer matter are likely<br />
to surpass the cognitive powers of their neighbors closer to the sun.<br />
Not only will their senses be so constituted that the representations<br />
they receive are clearer and more vivid, but their capacity to think,<br />
that is, to connect and use these representations will also be swifter and<br />
more appropriate than that of their more unfortunate neighbors. Kant<br />
writes:<br />
46 For the story behind the publication of the text, see Vleeshauwer (1962), 17.<br />
47<br />
Ak I: 352.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
29
30<br />
…. we can conclude with more than probable confidence that the<br />
excellence of thinking natures, the promptness in their reflections [die<br />
Hurtigkeit in ihren Vorstellungen] the clarity and vivacity of the<br />
notions [Begriffe] that come to them through external impression,<br />
together with their ability to put them together, finally also the skill in<br />
their actual use, in short, the whole range of their perfection, stands<br />
under a certain rule, according to which these natures become more<br />
excellent and perfect in proportion to the distance of their habitats<br />
from the sun. 48<br />
As we see from this passage, as part of his hypothetical discussion<br />
concerning the cognitive skills of extraterrestrial beings, Kant presents a<br />
radical theory of an intimate integration of mind and body. Despite the<br />
infinite distance between mind and body, he argues, it remains a fact that<br />
the mind receives all its representations and concepts from the<br />
impressions that the universe produces in it through the body. And not<br />
only does the capacity to receive representations depend on the body but<br />
the capacity to connect and compare these representations, he argues, is<br />
also conditioned by the matter of which the body is constituted.<br />
Whatever the infinite distance between the ability to think and the<br />
motion of matter, between the rational mind [Geist] and the body, it<br />
is still certain that man – who obtains all his notions [Begriffe] and<br />
representations through the impressions that the universe through the<br />
mediation of bodies [vermittels des Körpers] evokes in his soul, both<br />
in respect of their meaning [der Deutlichkeit derselben] and of the<br />
readiness to connect and compare them, which man calls the ability<br />
to think – is wholly dependent on the properties of that matter to<br />
which the Creator joined him. 49<br />
The anatomy of the human body is also introduced in the discussion.<br />
The coarse nature of the matter of which the earth is composed is<br />
reflected in human anatomy, Kant argues, making it gross and inflexible.<br />
This, again, affects our cognitive functioning. The nerves and fluids of<br />
the human brain, for instance, and their lack of flexibility, are part of the<br />
reason why most people find it so hard to think clearly:<br />
48 Ak 1: 359.<br />
49 Ak I: 355.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
31<br />
If one looks for the cause of impediments, which keep human nature<br />
in such a deep abasement, it will be found in the crudeness of matter<br />
into which his spiritual [geistiger] part is sunk, in the unbending of<br />
the fibers, and in the sluggishness and immobility of fluids that should<br />
obey its stirrings. The nerves and fluids of his brain deliver to him<br />
only gross and unclear concepts … 50<br />
He thinks this also explains why old age normally leads to a decline in<br />
cognitive functioning.<br />
Because of this dependence, the spiritual [geistigen] faculties<br />
disappear together with the vigor of the body: when owing to the<br />
slackened flow of fluids advanced age cooks only thick fluid in the<br />
body, when the suppleness of the fibers and the nimbleness in all<br />
motions decrease, then the forces of the spirit too stiffen into a similar<br />
dullness. The agility of thought, the clarity of representation, the<br />
vivacity of wit, and the ability to remember lose their strength and<br />
grow frigid. 51<br />
As part of the discussion of mind and body, Kant also discusses whether<br />
our immortal souls are reborn on other planets. 52 Even if the term<br />
‘immortal soul’ may seem to signal an ontological position on his behalf,<br />
it is worth noting that his remarks are here characterized by an explicit<br />
agnosticism. Despite what our senses and consciousness tell us, he argues,<br />
we do not really know what a human being is. And we know even less<br />
about the afterlife:<br />
It is not really known to us what man really is today, however selfawareness<br />
and reason [Bewußtsein und die Sinne] should instruct us<br />
on this point; how much more may we err as to what he is to become<br />
eventually! Still the human soul’s thirst for knowledge reaches out<br />
eagerly after these topics so distant from here and strives to find some<br />
light in such a dark [field of] knowledge. 53<br />
The idea that the mind is perhaps reborn on other planets is nothing but<br />
a fantasy, Kant concludes. When the discussion turns to more earthly<br />
matters, however, and he considers how body and mind are related in a<br />
50<br />
Ak I: 356.<br />
51<br />
Ak I: 357.<br />
52<br />
Ak I: 367.<br />
53<br />
Ak I: 366.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
32<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
living human being, he is more decisive. Psychology teaches us that mind<br />
and body communicate:<br />
It is clear from the principles of psychology that in virtue of the actual<br />
arrangement by which the creation made soul [Seele] and body<br />
dependent on one another, the former not only must obtain all<br />
concepts about the universe through union with the latter and under<br />
its influence, but that also the exercise of the faculty of thinking<br />
depends on the latter's disposition and borrows from its support the<br />
necessary ability. 54<br />
What is the relation between the ideas of mind and body promoted in<br />
this text and the two other texts so far examined? First, it may be worth<br />
noting that in Living forces and New elucidation, Kant presents his ideas<br />
about the communication between mind and body within a more<br />
comprehensive theory dealing with physical interaction in general. In the<br />
appendix to Universal natural history no such context is present. True,<br />
the cosmological context is present in the first main part of the text, but<br />
cosmological arguments, i.e., arguments dealing with the general<br />
interaction of substances, are absent from the appendix. Here we enter a<br />
different context, one more related to that found both in the short text<br />
Maladies of the mind published a few years later, and also in the<br />
Anthropology. In these texts the community of mind and body is not<br />
discussed at a general level, that is, as something in need of a general<br />
explanation. It is simply presupposed as something obvious, and the<br />
discussion revolves instead around the question of how at a very concrete<br />
level the body affects our mental or cognitive processes. On the basis of<br />
the similarity between the three texts, I will argue that Kant’s discussion<br />
in the appendix of Universal natural history belongs within the context of<br />
empirical psychology, or even anthropology. 55 At first sight, this may<br />
escape our attention, due to both the hypothetical character of the<br />
discourse, and also, perhaps, the cosmological nature of the first main<br />
part of the text. Yet, if we look at the basic structure of the ideas present<br />
in the appendix, they are remarkably similar to what we find in Maladies<br />
of the mind and parts of the Anthropology.<br />
That the appendix of Universal natural history belongs within the<br />
theoretical context of empirical psychology or anthropology may also<br />
account for the fact that Kant here expresses an explicit agnosticism, for<br />
54<br />
Ak I: 355, footnote.<br />
55<br />
The medical content of Maladies of the mind may here also be sorted under<br />
the anthropological.
instance when the question of the afterlife is raised. 56 He does not deny<br />
that we, in some way or other, may live on after death, in fact, I think he<br />
most certainly believed that we did. Still, it is remarkable to see how<br />
elusive he is when the matter is discussed. We know neither what man<br />
really is, nor what he will become, he says, not only denying that we have<br />
decisive knowledge of what happens after death but extending his<br />
agnosticism to the question of what man really is, i.e. man considered<br />
ontologically.<br />
How then can he be so confident when it comes to the actual relation<br />
between mind and body in a living human being as we know it? The<br />
answer is that the relation on this level may be studied empirically.<br />
According to its program, the empirical psychology of the eighteenth<br />
century was an empirical discipline, and so was anthropology. Thus Kant<br />
may safely discuss, in the context in which he has now placed himself, for<br />
instance, how the material constitution of the body affects the mental and<br />
cognitive processes of man, being confident that, in doing so, his<br />
statements are (or at least may be) confirmed by observation. As<br />
Nierhaus also points out, Universal natural history promotes the idea<br />
that mind and body are somehow different, 57 but explicit statements<br />
regarding the ontology of mind and body and their community are<br />
avoided. Instead the community of mind and body is simply taken to be<br />
an indubitable fact of the experience [Tatsache der Lebenserfahrung]. 58<br />
As we shall soon see, both the agnosticism and the empiricism of<br />
Universal natural history are more than passing fancies on Kant’s behalf.<br />
Indeed, I shall argue that they combine to form a strong basis for his<br />
subsequent reflections.<br />
1.7 Maladies of the mind<br />
An example of this is found in the small text Maladies of the mind from<br />
1764. I do not want to put too much emphasis on this text, but within the<br />
present context it deserves some attention. In it, Kant develops a<br />
typology of mental illnesses associated with a theory of cognitive<br />
capacities. Mental illnesses may be divided into three main categories<br />
corresponding to the main faculties or powers of the mind, he explains.<br />
Among these he mentions reason [Vernunft] and the power of judgment<br />
[Urteilskraft]. Whenever one of these faculties deteriorates a specific kind<br />
56<br />
Ak I: 366.<br />
57<br />
Cf. e.g. Ak I: 355.<br />
58<br />
Nierhaus (1962), 30.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
33
34<br />
of mental illness results. 59 In his description of the functioning of the<br />
mind, Kant also includes what in other contexts is called imagination<br />
[Einbildungskraft]. He describes the capacity of the mind to ‘paint<br />
pictures of things that are not immediately present’. 60 When this capacity<br />
is disturbed there occurs the mental illness called Verrückung.<br />
What is interesting in all this is not only that we recognize the<br />
perspective from Universal natural history but it is also worth noting how<br />
the cognitive powers of the mind, later to appear in the elevated spheres<br />
of transcendental philosophy, are here discussed within the down-toearth<br />
field of mental diseases. Kant more than suggests that these diseases<br />
are caused by bodily disturbances. 61 He warns against what he takes to be<br />
a common prejudice of his time, namely the assumption that mental<br />
illnesses have only mental causes. Contrary to this common belief, the<br />
causes of mental illnesses are primarily to be sought in bodily<br />
disturbances, he claims. 62<br />
The idea that mental diseases are caused by<br />
bodily disturbances is also implied by his constant shifting between the<br />
notion of a disturbed head [Kopf] or brain [Gehirn] on the one hand<br />
and a disturbed mind [Gemüt] or soul [Seele] on the other, as if it were<br />
obvious and beyond dispute that these corresponded to each other.<br />
Maladies of the mind is a text devoid of any ontological hypotheses.<br />
This does not mean, however, that Kant has now put all interest in<br />
ontology behind him. On the contrary, two years later, in 1766, ontology<br />
again becomes a major topic of discussion. However, the approach is<br />
now more critical and agnostic than ever.<br />
1.8 Dreams of a spirit-seer<br />
Dreams of a spirit-seer from 1766 is one of the most commented on of all<br />
Kant’s works apart from the three Critiques. Its association with the<br />
Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg, its dialectical and ironic style,<br />
and its critical examination of central aspects of traditional ontology have<br />
continued to intrigue readers up until our own time, resulting in a<br />
number of commentaries. 63 It is often seen as heralding a new critical<br />
59<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
Ak II: 264.<br />
60<br />
Ak II: 265.<br />
61<br />
That physical decay may negatively influence our cognitive functioning, was<br />
maintained also in Universal natural history, cf. Ak I: 357.<br />
62<br />
Ak II: 270.<br />
63<br />
For a discussion of Dreams of a spirit-seer and its significance within in Kant's<br />
development, as well as a survey of various interpretations of this text, see for<br />
instance Laywine (1993), 15ff. or Shell (1996), 106ff.
outlook in the development of Kant’s philosophy. On the surface, the<br />
work is written as an examination of the ideas of Swedenborg. Kant lets<br />
it be understood, however, that indirectly the examination also relates to<br />
certain aspects of traditional ontology, more specifically rational<br />
psychology and its claims to possess decisive knowledge about the human<br />
mind or soul.<br />
Among those ascribing a fundamental significance to Dreams of a<br />
spirit-seer in Kant’s intellectual development are Laywine and<br />
Schönfeld. 64 According to them, because Kant’s earlier discussions of the<br />
mind-body problem had been infected by dubious ontological<br />
assumptions, a fact he now realized, the text may also be read as a critical<br />
examination of Kant’s own position before 1766. In fact, they argue, this<br />
was the real aim of the work. The real target of Dreams of a spirit-seer<br />
was neither Swedenborg nor rational psychology in general, but Kant’s<br />
own previously held position. Consequently, Dreams of a spirit-seer<br />
represents a crisis in his pre-critical project. I will return to discuss this<br />
idea of a crisis a little later. First, however, let us take a look at the text.<br />
From the very outset he establishes a sarcastic, critical tone which is<br />
going to characterize large parts of the text. If we add together all that<br />
schoolboys and philosophers have to say about spirits [Geister], he<br />
comments, then it may seem that we possess quite a lot of knowledge in<br />
this field. However, this is hardly the case.<br />
35<br />
If it were to occur to someone to linger for a while over the question<br />
as to what this thing which, under the name of spirit [Geist], people<br />
claim to understand so well, exactly is, all the know-alls would be put<br />
in a very embarrassing position. 65<br />
For his own part, Kant admits, he does not know what a spirit is. He<br />
does not even know what the term ‘spirit’ means. 66<br />
In order to sort out his<br />
thoughts concerning what a spirit is, and also, we must assume, the<br />
thoughts of the reader, he then asks us to perform a thought experiment.<br />
Imagine a cubic foot of space and imagine it to be filled up so that<br />
nothing more can be placed inside it. 67 No one would refer to such an<br />
entity as spiritual as it would obviously be of a material nature. And it<br />
would possess all the properties we typically ascribe to a material object,<br />
64 Cf. Laywine (1993), 8ff. and Schönfeld, (2000), 238ff.<br />
65<br />
Ak II: 319.<br />
66<br />
Ak II: 320.<br />
67<br />
Ak II: 320.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
36<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
such as extension and impenetrability. Imagine now a simple being<br />
endowed with reason, Kant continues, thereby introducing a definition<br />
of spirit well-known to rational psychology. If such a simple being were to<br />
be placed inside this same space, would we then have to remove some of<br />
the matter already in there? And if so, could we then continue to replace<br />
matter with spirits until the whole space was filled with spirits instead of<br />
matter? And if this were possible, what would this cubic foot of space be<br />
like then? Would it still offer resistance if we tried to insert a material<br />
object into it? If that were the case, would it not then be indistinguishable<br />
from a cubic foot of matter?<br />
Between the lines Kant lets it be understood that the whole idea of<br />
replacing matter with spirits is absurd. However, he asks, if it is absurd,<br />
how can we then explain that the human mind, which we assume is a<br />
spirit, interacts with physical entities, such as the human body to which it<br />
belongs? If we subtract from the human mind all the essential features we<br />
ascribe to matter, such as the capacity to fill a space and to offer<br />
resistance, how can we then explain its interaction with the body?<br />
Then the argument takes a somewhat unexpected direction. There<br />
are several features of our experience that it is hard to explain, he tells us.<br />
The impenetrability of matter is one example. Experience teaches us that<br />
matter offers resistance, but we cannot explain how it is possible for it to<br />
do that. The impenetrability of matter is acknowledged [erkannt], but<br />
not understood [begriffen]. 68<br />
We become aware through experience, that those things that exist in<br />
the world, and which we call material, possess such a force; the<br />
possibility of this, however, can never be understood. 69<br />
Kant’s point in the last passage is that there are phenomena in the world<br />
that we experience as real even if we cannot fully comprehend them.<br />
This idea of a limit to the human understanding is then presupposed<br />
when Kant returns to discuss the communion of mind and body: It is<br />
possible that spirits may be present in space and may communicate with<br />
material bodies, even if we cannot understand how this communication<br />
takes place, he states.<br />
68<br />
Ak II: 322.<br />
69<br />
Ak II: 322 (a.t.). My translation here differs from the Cambridge edition. Here<br />
is the original: ‘Denn nur durch die Erfahrung kan mann inne werden, daß<br />
Dinge der Welt, welche wir materiell nennen, eine solche Kraft haben, niemals<br />
aber die Möglichkeit derselben begreifen.’
Is this all there is to say, then? The limit to the human understanding<br />
that Kant has just defined, seems to imply that the answer is yes. We are<br />
therefore in for yet another unexpected turn of the discourse, when Kant<br />
now puts forward a suggestion as to how we may conceive of the<br />
presence of spirits in physical space. They are present in space as activity:<br />
37<br />
Such spirit-natures would be present in space, but present in space in<br />
such a way that they could always be penetrated by corporeal beings;<br />
for the presence of such spirit-natures would involve being active in<br />
but not filling space. 70<br />
The way this observation is phrased might lead us to think that Kant is<br />
here merely putting forward an hypothesis towards which he is himself<br />
neutral or even skeptical, and which is, consequently, of little significance<br />
or relevance to his own thinking. However, we should not rush to<br />
judgment. What he is doing is presenting a theory of how a spirit can be<br />
conceived, without contradiction, to be present in space alongside<br />
physical objects, or even in the same place as them, without interfering<br />
with the repulsive forces offered by such objects due to their material<br />
character. Spirits can do this because they do not exist in space in the<br />
same way as material objects do, that is, as extended objects filling up<br />
space. They exist in space as activity. A few lines later Kant makes a<br />
connection between this idea, which has so far been discussed only at a<br />
general level (i.e. concerning spirits in general), and the question of how<br />
the mind [Seele] may exist in the body. The relevance of this question to<br />
the more general discussion of spirits is clear: if the mind is a spirit in the<br />
sense just suggested, then we can understand how it is possible for it to<br />
inhabit the same space as its body without conflicting with the material<br />
properties of this body. This is possible because the mind is present in the<br />
body not as an entity with its own extension or repulsive forces, but<br />
merely as activity. And even if he does not say so explicitly, I think we<br />
may here add that it is present as the activity of the body, or perhaps<br />
better, as the activity of the embodied self.<br />
It is apparent from the many reservations Kant brings to his<br />
presentation of this theory that he does not wish it to be accorded the<br />
status of hard science. The best we can say in its favor, he seems to be<br />
saying, is that it is not contradicted by experience. From this we might be<br />
tempted to conclude, again, that he attaches little significance to the<br />
theory, but I think that would be a mistake. His reservations tell us<br />
70 Ak II: 322.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
38<br />
something of how he conceived of the epistemic status of the theory. It is<br />
an hypothesis, but, he stresses, one that is not refuted by experience.<br />
Even more important, however, is that associated with this hypothesis is<br />
a particular idea that, I will argue, stands out from the others. This is the<br />
idea that we may use the terms ‘mind’ or ‘soul’ to refer to the activity of<br />
the embodied self. From now on, whenever Kant uses these terms, we<br />
must be aware that this meaning may be part of their meaning. ‘Activity’<br />
is here to be understood in a broad sense, akin to the German<br />
Wirksamkeit, including both the biological processes of the body as well<br />
as the conscious and unconscious behavior of the embodied self. The two<br />
terms, it should be noted, also continue to carry their earlier meanings,<br />
referring to our capacity to sense, feel and think, as well as our<br />
consciousness of this.<br />
When the term ‘soul’ is used a little later in the text, all these<br />
meanings, I believe, are implied. Kant here states, as an irrefutable fact<br />
of experience, that the soul is present wherever its body is:<br />
Where is the place of this human soul in the world of bodies? My<br />
answer runs like this: the body, the alterations of which are my<br />
alterations — this body is my body; and the place of that body is at<br />
the same time my place. 71<br />
What about those who claim that the mind or soul is present only in one<br />
particular place in the body, such as the brain? They are misled by a<br />
certain way of reasoning that is not confirmed by experience, Kant<br />
argues:<br />
But no one is immediately conscious of a particular place in his body;<br />
one is only immediately conscious of the space one occupies relative<br />
to the world around. I would therefore rely on ordinary experience<br />
and say, for the time being, where I feel, it is there that I am. I am as<br />
immediately in my fingertip as I am in my head. It is I myself whose<br />
heel hurts, and whose heart beats with emotion. And when my corn<br />
aches, I do not feel the painful impression in some nerve located in<br />
my brain; I feel it at the end of my toe. No experience teaches me to<br />
regard some parts of my sensation of myself as remote from me. 72<br />
Kant seems to be taking it as an obvious fact, directly confirmed by<br />
experience, that the human mind is present in every part of the body.<br />
However, he denies that we may infer from this that the mind,<br />
71<br />
Ak II: 324.<br />
72<br />
Ak II: 324.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
ontologically considered, is extended, that it has a certain shape, or that it<br />
has other properties in common with a material object. All we can say is<br />
that its domain of activity is congruent with the space of the body.<br />
39<br />
Immediate presence in the totality of a space only proves a sphere of<br />
external activity; it does not prove a multiplicity of internal parts, nor,<br />
therefore, any extension or shape. 73<br />
Instead of delving deeper into the highly fascinating text of Dreams of a<br />
spirit-seer, let us return to the question put forward above. To what<br />
extent does Dreams of a spirit-seer involve a criticism of Kant’s previous<br />
position? And to what extent does Dreams of a spirit-seer represent a<br />
new critical or even skeptical trend in Kant’s way of thinking about mind<br />
and body?<br />
1.9 A crisis?<br />
Both Laywine and Schönfeld claim that Dreams of a spirit-seer<br />
represents a crisis in Kant’s intellectual development, and that its real<br />
target was his own previously held ideas on the mind-body relation. Both<br />
base their argument on the claim that in his pre-critical phase Kant<br />
subscribed to an ontology of a Leibnizian kind. 74 This ontology<br />
committed him to the idea that the mind was an independent monad<br />
present in space in the same way as other monads, Laywine argues, that<br />
is, by exerting attractive and repulsive forces. Actually, he had to<br />
presuppose this, Laywine argues, for only a mind endowed with such<br />
forces would be able to interact with the body. Still, this view also<br />
entailed a serious problem, or even contradiction for if the mind had<br />
repulsive forces, how could it be present in all parts of the body, or<br />
inhabit the same space as the body, as Kant assumed? Would it not<br />
rather produce an irresolvable conflict between its own repulsive forces<br />
and those of the body?<br />
The possibility cannot be absolutely ruled out that in his early years<br />
Kant subscribed to an ontology of a kind that made him face such a<br />
problem, and that this led him into a crisis as the one here suggested.<br />
However, when one examines his explicit remarks on the topic, it is far<br />
from obvious that he did. As I have already pointed out, in the two texts<br />
where he discusses at a general level how it is possible for mind and body<br />
73<br />
Ak II: 325.<br />
74<br />
Cf. Laywine (1993), 1ff. and Schönfeld (2000), 243ff.
40<br />
to communicate, his theory seems to be not that the mind is an<br />
independent monad but rather that a human being must be thought of as<br />
a single substance of which mind and body are nothing but different<br />
aspects or dimensions. It is not obvious that this theory is affected by the<br />
problems that, for instance, Laywine claims Kant was facing.<br />
According to Schönfeld, Kant also struggled with the problem of<br />
combining on the one hand the idea that the mind was part of the<br />
physical universe and on the other the idea that it was immortal. Kant<br />
was committed to the idea that the mind or the soul continued to exist<br />
after it left its mortal body, Schönfeld maintains, and he wanted his<br />
general theory of the world to have room in it for this idea of<br />
immortality. I think there is little reason to doubt that Kant believed in<br />
the afterlife of the soul. However, I do not see it as obvious that he<br />
perceived this idea as a problem in need of a philosophical solution. If he<br />
did, he would surely have raised it and discussed it more explicitly.<br />
However, the immortality of the soul almost never surfaces in Kant’s<br />
explicit discourse, and when it does, for instance in Universal natural<br />
history, it is combined with an explicit agnosticism. Despite what our<br />
senses and consciousness tell us, Kant argues, we do not really know what<br />
a human being is, and we know even less about the afterlife. 75 It may also<br />
be worth noting that he does not seem to find this agnosticism<br />
problematic. On the contrary, he seems to be entirely happy to move the<br />
question of the immortality of the soul out of the realm of philosophical<br />
discourse and into the field of belief. In his critical phase, the idea that<br />
the soul is immortal was explicitly classified as an ‘idea of faith’. Kant’s<br />
explicit agnosticism in Universal natural history may be read as a sign<br />
that this perspective may have been present as early as 1755. If so, the<br />
idea of immortality would hardly have had the force to provoke a<br />
philosophical crisis.<br />
Finally, if Dreams of a spirit-seer is the product of a crisis following<br />
Kant’s previous ontological commitments, one would have expected him<br />
to now abstain from any further excursions into this dubious field of<br />
human enquiry. However, as we have seen, in Dreams of a spirit-seer<br />
Kant does not reject ontology in an absolute sense. The idea that the<br />
mind is present in the body qua activity does not have to be regarded as<br />
an ontological thesis. However, by claiming that this idea is compatible<br />
with the idea that the mind as such is single and without extension, he is<br />
obviously thinking against the background of classical ontology. He even<br />
seems to adopt the above-mentioned idea as his own position within this<br />
75 Ak I: 366.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
field. Does this mean that despite the explicit agnosticism of Dreams of a<br />
spirit-seer, Kant here still puts forward an ontological position? Again,<br />
we must be careful to see what he is actually doing. He does not claim<br />
that it is possible to prove that the mind as such is single and without<br />
extension. All he says is that this idea is compatible with the idea that the<br />
mind is present in the body as activity. Whether the first of these ideas is<br />
true or not, however, he leaves open. Thus, the basic outlook here too is<br />
agnostic. Whether this outlook was new in 1766 is another question. As<br />
already suggested, the explicit agnosticism of Universal natural history<br />
may suggest that it was present as early as 1755. If so, this also<br />
undermines the claim that Dreams of a spirit-seer is somehow the<br />
product of a crisis developing in the years immediately preceding its<br />
publication.<br />
1.10 An embodied empiricism<br />
If Dreams of a spirit-seer is not the product of a crisis in Kant’s<br />
intellectual development, what is it? How does it fit into this<br />
development, especially where his theory of the mind is concerned?<br />
Rather than representing a crisis, I think that Dreams of a spirit-seer may<br />
be read as a text where he sorts out and re-emphasizes perspectives and<br />
ideas that have already been part of his thinking for some time. Let me<br />
elaborate on this point.<br />
I take the basic perspective of Dreams of a spirit-seer to be agnostic<br />
and empirical. Its basic message is that agnosticism is required in all that<br />
cannot be immediately experienced. Nothing in this is new. Empiricism<br />
is present in Kant’s association with empirical psychology in the<br />
appendix to Universal natural history in 1755, and his detailed discussion<br />
of the embodied aspects of cognition in this text, as also in Maladies of<br />
the mind, may be seen as taking place within the context of this<br />
discipline, or even the new discipline of anthropology emerging from it.<br />
Agnosticism is, as we have seen, also present in Universal natural history.<br />
If not new, however, these empirical and agnostic tendencies appear<br />
in Dreams of a spirit-seer in a dramatically more radical form. For<br />
instance, Kant directs his agnosticism now not only at the afterlife of the<br />
soul, but also at any purported explanation of how it is possible for mind<br />
and body to communicate. Actually, even the possibility of explaining the<br />
impenetrability of matter is now claimed to belong to the domain where<br />
decisive comprehension must be given up. Instead the mind-body<br />
communion, along with the impenetrability of matter, are now<br />
maintained as facts immediately experienced. Immediate experience,<br />
moreover, is claimed to represent a knowledge superior to all theoretical<br />
41
42<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
explanations. In the terminology of Dreams of a spirit-seer this point is<br />
expressed in the distinction between that which is experienced as real<br />
[erkannt] and is therefore in some way obvious, and that which it is<br />
impossible to comprehend [begreifen] because it lies beyond the reach of<br />
human knowledge. The facts that mind and body communicate, and that<br />
matter is impenetrable belong to the first. It is something of which we<br />
have an immediate experience, and is therefore obvious. Any attempt at<br />
trying to explain these facts, however, belongs to the second group, and<br />
made subject to agnosticism.<br />
It is worth noting that the epistemic superiority ascribed to immediate<br />
experience as a form of knowledge is maintained in order to establish a<br />
critical or agnostic outlook not only towards ontology, but also, it seems,<br />
towards other kinds of theoretical models or explanations. For instance, if<br />
anyone should try to locate the mind in a specific part of the body, they<br />
are corrected by Kant with his appeal to experience: the soul is present<br />
wherever I can experience (i.e. feel) myself, that is, throughout my body.<br />
Even if this is not made explicit, we can see here an implied criticism of a<br />
materialist science that tries to locate the mind in the brain or the<br />
nervous system.<br />
Although I have argued that the empiricism of Dreams of a spirit-seer<br />
is not new, I think the passages examined so far demonstrate that it is<br />
now more radical and more self-confident than it was earlier. Another<br />
point worth noting is how this empiricism is very explicitly presented as<br />
the empiricism of an embodied subject declaring that its embodied<br />
experience has an epistemic status that no theoretical speculations can<br />
undermine. 76 Thus, it may be called an embodied empiricism, in contrast<br />
with, for instance, Humean empiricism, which is the empiricism of a<br />
mind skeptical towards everything existing in the external world,<br />
including its body. 77<br />
Against Hume, Kant stresses how the space<br />
inhabited by our bodies is also the space in which we immediately feel<br />
ourselves to be present. If I am to base my beliefs on what immediate<br />
experience tells me (and Kant advises that I should) then I have to<br />
conclude that I am where my body is.<br />
Historically, Kant’s radical empiricism and the associated agnosticism<br />
present in Dreams of a spirit-seer may be seen as having a number of<br />
sources. In addition to the scholarly disciplines of empirical psychology<br />
and anthropology (both of which share an empirical approach), which<br />
76<br />
This point is also made by Shell (1996), 128ff.<br />
77<br />
I shall return to discuss the relation between Humean and Kantian empiricism<br />
in part two.
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
seem to have attracted Kant’s attention early on, the influence of Hume,<br />
Crusius and others may have sharpened his awareness of the limits of<br />
human knowledge and made him adopt the idea of the primacy of<br />
experiential knowledge. The influence of Crusius is emphasized by,<br />
among others, Tonelli, 78 pointing to the fact that Crusius, distancing<br />
himself from Leibniz, maintained that the domain of human knowledge<br />
was more limited than the rationalists had assumed. Even if Kant never<br />
became an orthodox follower of Crusius, Tonelli argues, his early<br />
philosophy was clearly influenced by him. I also think that even if Hume<br />
did not influence Kant as much as is often supposed, he may nevertheless<br />
also have contributed to the empiricism of 1766. 79<br />
Looking forward, Dreams of a spirit-seer is sometimes heralded as a<br />
sign of a new critical outlook which will find its full expression in the<br />
Critique. For instance, Nierhaus argues that at this time Kant was<br />
already concerned with what was later to form the centre of his critical<br />
project, establishing the limits of human knowledge through a critical<br />
examination of our cognitive capacities. 80 I think this is largely true. Of<br />
course, as Shell points out, this does not mean that in Dreams of a spiritseer<br />
Kant presents anything like the full scale critical theory found in the<br />
Critique. 81 However, like Nierhaus, Shell sees in the boundary-setting<br />
activity of Dreams of a spirit-seer an anticipation of Kant’s more<br />
developed critical stance. I also think there are other ways in which<br />
Dreams of a spirit-seer points forward to the Critique, as will become<br />
apparent later.<br />
Before that it may be worth noting that Kant’s criticism of ontology<br />
in Dreams of a spirit-seer also has a moral and pragmatic dimension.<br />
Ontology should be avoided because it is a waste of time, taking energy<br />
away from more useful occupations. Neither does it seem to have any<br />
positive effect on public morality, Kant argues. Even people who are<br />
convinced that there is an afterlife, as ontology claims there is, continue<br />
to do wrong. Consequently, rather than waste our time on ontology, we<br />
should focus our energies on doing things that may improve our lives on<br />
earth. This point is dramatically expressed in the last lines of the text:<br />
borrowing words from Voltaire’s Candide, Kant advises the reader to<br />
leave all ontological speculations behind and seek his happiness working<br />
in the garden:<br />
78<br />
Tonelli (1969).<br />
79<br />
Cf. e.g. Borowski’s testimony in Gross (1993), 69.<br />
80<br />
Nierhaus (1962), 116.<br />
81<br />
Shell (1996), 127ff.<br />
43
44<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
Let us attend to our happiness, and go into the garden and work. 82<br />
Even if Kant’s reference is here to Voltaire, he might have conveyed a<br />
similar message with a reference to Rousseau. In Émile, a book that<br />
deeply impressed Kant, the author praises practical work, as well as the<br />
knowledge associated with the skills of the practical worker. A number of<br />
scholars have suggested that Dreams of a spirit-seer was inspired by<br />
Rousseau. 83 Pitte argues that Kant adopted from Rousseau the idea that<br />
the attainment of knowledge is not an end in itself, but that all aspects of<br />
philosophy must be directed toward the comprehension and fulfillment<br />
of the moral nature of man; and that, in general, moral or practical<br />
philosophy takes precedence over speculative. 84 In a later chapter I shall<br />
argue that the influence of Rousseau gave rise to a strong pragmatic<br />
strain in Kant’s philosophy, a strain that is also reflected in his theory of<br />
knowledge, even in the Critique. If this is right, then we have found here<br />
yet another idea that will underlie Kant’s intellectual development for a<br />
long period of time and serve to establish continuity in his thinking.<br />
1.11 Kant’s Inaugural dissertation<br />
In 1770, at the age of 46, Kant composed a Latin dissertation for public<br />
debate to inaugurate the professorship in logic and metaphysics to which<br />
he had recently been appointed. This Inaugural dissertation is often seen<br />
as a distinctive step in the development of the critical perspective which<br />
found its mature form in the Critique eleven years later under the<br />
heading of ‘transcendental philosophy’.<br />
The Inaugural dissertation deserves its place in this chapter for<br />
several reasons. First, in it Kant sets out a terminology that will thereafter<br />
lie at the heart of what might be called his cognitive psychology, which I<br />
prefer to call his cognitive theory, i.e., a theory that aims to describe the<br />
capacities of human cognition, how they function, and how each of them<br />
contributes to the constitution of human experience. Secondly, the<br />
transcendental perspective introduced in the Inaugural dissertation opens<br />
up a radically new way of discussing and evaluating the ontological<br />
mind-body problem. Finally, the text belongs here because it also<br />
discusses the mind-body problem in a way reminiscent of Kant’s earlier<br />
82<br />
Ak II: 373.<br />
83<br />
Cf. Vleeschauwer (1962), 41 and Pitte (1971), 46ff.<br />
84<br />
Pitte (1971), 46.
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
reflections on the topic as he claims that the mind has a virtual presence<br />
in the body. I will return to all of these points later.<br />
Let us first take a look at the cognitive theory of the Inaugural<br />
dissertation. In § 3, Kant draws a distinction according to which all<br />
cognitive functions are organized in a bipolar system, in which<br />
‘sensibility’ belongs on one side and ‘intelligence’ on the other.<br />
‘Sensibility’ is defined as the receptivity of a subject by which its<br />
representational state is affected by the presence of an object.<br />
45<br />
Sensibility is the receptivity of a subject in virtue of which it is possible<br />
for the subject’s own representative state to be affected in a definite<br />
way by the presence of some object. 85<br />
‘Intelligence’, on the other hand, is defined as the faculty by which a<br />
subject may represent that which cannot enter its senses.<br />
Intelligence (rationality) is the faculty of a subject in virtue of which it<br />
has the power to represent things which cannot by their own quality<br />
come before the senses of that subject. 86<br />
Sensibility is described as a passive faculty. Intelligence is said to be<br />
active. 87 With our intelligence we perform certain acts without which<br />
cognition as we know it would never take place. It is by means of these<br />
acts that intelligence adds to our sensible representations its own kind of<br />
representations which cannot enter through the senses. Examples of such<br />
representations are concepts like possibility, existence, necessity,<br />
substance and cause, all required to make experience as we know it<br />
possible. 88<br />
In his Inaugural dissertation Kant also introduces the idea that our<br />
sensible representations do not tell us how the things of the world are in<br />
themselves, only how they appear to our sensibility. Along with this, he<br />
introduces the distinction between the matter and form of a sensible<br />
representation, i.e., intuition. The matter of such an intuition, Kant tells<br />
us, comprises sensations produced by the passive affection of our<br />
85<br />
Ak II: 392.<br />
86<br />
Ak II: 392.<br />
87<br />
The idea that cognition involves activity as well as passivity in the cognitive<br />
subject was, as we have seen, found as early as in Living forces. There, however,<br />
this idea was not explicitly connected to a theory of sensibility and understanding.<br />
88<br />
Ak II: 395.
46<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
sensibility. Its forms are space and time, which are not objective<br />
determinations pertaining to things as they exist in themselves, but<br />
subjective or ideal forms of our intuition, by means of which the manifold<br />
of our sensibility is organized. Time is the form of inner sense, whereas<br />
space is the form of outer sense. 89 The organization of the sensible<br />
manifold in time and space is made possible, he explains, by a law<br />
implanted in our cognitive powers:<br />
… and there is also something which may be called the form, namely<br />
the aspect of sensible things that arises as the various things affecting<br />
the senses are co-coordinated by a certain natural law of the mind. 90<br />
In this process the mind also reveals itself as active. Where for instance<br />
the organization in time is concerned, this is claimed in § 14 to be<br />
performed by an ‘action of the mind in coordinating what it senses’. 91<br />
Later, in the corollary to § 15, both time and space are said to be the<br />
products of the activity of the mind.<br />
But each of the concepts 92 has, without any doubt, been acquired, not<br />
indeed by abstraction from the sensing of objects […], but from the<br />
very action of the mind… 93<br />
89 Ak II: 398ff.<br />
90 Ak II: 392.<br />
91 Ak II: 401.<br />
92 The fact that Kant here talks about concepts may be taken to mean that he<br />
does not speak about space and time as intuitions, however, in the next sentence<br />
he adds that ‘each of the concepts is like an immutable image’ suggesting that<br />
‘concept’ is here not used in the specific sense it typically has in the Kantian<br />
terminology, as opposed to ‘intuition’, but in a sense that actually more or less<br />
conforms to ‘intuition’.<br />
93 Ak II: 406. Even if the Inaugural dissertation represents a milestone in Kant’s<br />
development towards the mature philosophy of the Critique, the terminology and<br />
perspectives which we have now taken a brief look at are not all Kant’s own<br />
doing. Vleeschauwer (1962), 45ff., for instance, points out that Kant’s general<br />
distinction between the matter and form of a representation is also found in the<br />
writings of earlier philosophers, such as Lambert and Leibniz. As for Lambert, a<br />
philosopher well known to Kant, he taught that in all knowledge it is necessary to<br />
consider both the content or matter which is supplied by perception and the form<br />
which is found in the laws of logic and mathematics. In the posthumously<br />
published Noveaux essais of Leibniz, appearing in 1765, and studied with great<br />
interest by Kant, Leibniz defended a model analogous to that of Lambert. The<br />
concepts and principles by which we represent the material content of experience<br />
are the consciousness of intellectual laws or functions. This material content is<br />
represented by the sensible manifestations of things. The intellectual operations,
1.12 A new perspective on the body-mind problem<br />
Now, let us look at how the transcendental perspective suggested by the<br />
Inaugural dissertation opens up a radically new way of discussing and<br />
evaluating the traditional ontological mind-body problem. Kant himself<br />
makes this point when eleven years later he discusses the problem in the<br />
Critique. Let us briefly examine his argument, found in the paralogism<br />
chapter of the A-edition of the Critique.<br />
The argument rests heavily on the distinction between appearances<br />
and things in themselves. From the fact that physical objects appear to us<br />
as extended, he argues, we cannot infer that they are also extended in<br />
themselves. On the contrary, extension is nothing but the form of outer<br />
sense. This insight, he now argues, may be used to show that the old<br />
problem of the community of mind and body [der Möglichkeit der<br />
Gemeinschaft der Seele mit einem organischen Körper] is built on<br />
nothing but a fantasy. 94<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
47<br />
This fantasy, which according to Kant has<br />
haunted rational psychology for far too long, involves the idea that<br />
extension pertains to objects as they exist independently of our sensibility.<br />
At the same time, rational psychology defines the mind as an immaterial<br />
substance without extension. So conceived it is impossible to explain how<br />
mind and body can communicate.<br />
We may escape this dilemma, Kant continues, once we make clear to<br />
ourselves that what we perceive as extension in material objects,<br />
including our own bodies, is nothing but the form of outer sense. How<br />
does this help us to solve the ontological mind-body problem? His point,<br />
as I understand it, is not that this insight solves the problem in itself, but<br />
it sets us free from the problem by making us see that there is no need to<br />
solve it. There is no need to explain how extended, material objects,<br />
including our own bodies, can affect and communicate with immaterial<br />
minds, because, whatever those objects or bodies are, we have no reason<br />
to believe that they, considered in themselves, are extended, material<br />
objects. 95 Here is a summary of his argument:<br />
of which we become aware as they take place, pass into Leibniz’ doctrine of<br />
cognitive forms. As for Kant’s cognitive theory, we have seen that parts of its<br />
terminology were already present in Maladies of the mind from 1764. This<br />
terminology also belongs to a longstanding tradition in philosophy.<br />
94<br />
A 384.<br />
95<br />
Whether Kant’s point is that the things in themselves have no temporal or<br />
spatial determinations, or whether his point is more modest, that our knowledge<br />
of the ultimate nature of the objects of our world is limited, has been much<br />
discussed. I will say more about this in chapter 7.
48<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
Now I assert that all the difficulties one believes he [the dogmatic]<br />
finds in these questions and with which, as dogmatic objections, one<br />
seeks to give the appearance of having a deeper insight into the<br />
nature of things than the common understanding can have, rest on a<br />
mere semblance [Blendwerke], according to which one hypostatizes<br />
what exists merely in thoughts, and — assuming it to be a real object<br />
outside the thinking subject — takes the same quality, namely<br />
extension, which is nothing but appearance, for a property of external<br />
things subsisting even apart from our sensibility, and takes motion for<br />
its effect, which really takes place in itself outside our senses. For<br />
matter, whose community with the soul excites such great<br />
reservations, is nothing other than a mere form, or a certain mode of<br />
representation of an unknown object, through that intuition that one<br />
calls outer sense. Thus there may very well be something outside us,<br />
which we call matter, corresponding to this appearance; but in the<br />
same quality as appearance it is not outside us, but is merely as a<br />
thought in us, even though this thought, through the sense just<br />
named, represents it as being found outside us. (A 384-385)<br />
As we see, this argument leans heavily on the distinction between<br />
appearances and things in themselves. In order to make this point as<br />
clear as possible, the argument may be paraphrased as follows. When I<br />
observe myself, I perceive nothing but appearances. Through my outer<br />
sense, I appear to myself as a body, and as space is the form of outer<br />
sense, this body is extended in space. Through my inner sense, I appear<br />
to myself as a mind, and as time (only) is the form of inner sense, this<br />
mind has no spatial extension. Now, as long as I stay on this level of<br />
appearance, the community between my mind and my body is a mystery.<br />
How can two phenomena that appear to be so different communicate?<br />
However, reminding myself of the distinction between appearances and<br />
things in themselves, and applying this distinction to the present case, I<br />
realize that what I know as my body and mind are nothing but<br />
appearances. They are appearances of an underlying and unknown<br />
reality. And once we move to this level of reality, the above problem<br />
dissolves. It does so, because on this level we have no reason to believe<br />
that mind and body (or whatever corresponds to them at this level) are<br />
different in the way they appear on the level of appearance.<br />
By rephrasing Kant’s argument in this way, I do not mean to say that<br />
Kant suggests that we should move to the level of things in themselves in<br />
order to solve the traditional ontological mind-body problem there. That<br />
would be quite contrary to the spirit of the Critique and its emphasis that<br />
things in themselves lie beyond the reach of human knowledge. Kant’s<br />
appeal to this deep level of reality in the above argument is merely<br />
negative, reminding us that, as we know nothing about mind and body as
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
things in themselves, we also have no reason for believing that their<br />
communion is a problem.<br />
Another way of stating Kant’s point is that by critically examining<br />
our sensibility we understand that the classical ontological mind-body<br />
problem is based on a misinterpretation of the representations of<br />
sensibility. Without noting, we translate cognitive categories (time and<br />
space qua forms of sensibility) into ontological categories pertaining to<br />
things in themselves. Once we give up this misinterpretation, the<br />
traditional problem dissolves. Instead it reappears in another form, Kant<br />
tells us. The problem is now to explain how the representations of the<br />
inner and outer sense, in spite of their heterogeneity, are co-coordinated<br />
so that they constitute one experience.<br />
49<br />
Now the question is no longer about the community of the soul with<br />
other known but different substances outside us, but merely about the<br />
conjunction of representations [Verknüpfung der Vorstellungen] in<br />
inner sense with the modifications of our outer sensibility, and how<br />
these may be conjoined with one another according to constant laws,<br />
so that they are connected into one experience. (A 385-386)<br />
In this passage, the body and its community with the mind is not<br />
explicitly mentioned. However, along with the general problem of the coordination<br />
of outer and inner sense, comes the more specific problem of<br />
how to co-ordinate the two modes of self observation corresponding to<br />
the outer and inner sense. When I observe myself through the outer sense<br />
I perceive what I have learned to call ‘my body’. When I observe myself<br />
through the inner sense I perceive what I have learned to call ‘my mind’.<br />
What is the relation between what I here call my body and my mind?<br />
From the context of the Critique we understand that this question cannot<br />
be answered by means of traditional ontology. It cannot be so answered,<br />
because this would require a knowledge of body and mind as things in<br />
themselves that we can never have. So if it can be solved at all, it has to<br />
be solved at another level, by considering how I co-ordinate the two<br />
modes of self observation corresponding to my outer and inner sense. Let<br />
us call this formulation of the mind-body problem ‘the critical version of<br />
the mind-body problem’. Does Kant solve this specific problem? I cannot<br />
see that he explicitly deals with it anywhere in the Critique. However, he<br />
may have thought that it was solved as part of his general theory of the<br />
unity of experience through transcendental apperception.<br />
I have paid a lot of attention to the paralogism chapter of the Aedition<br />
of the Critique here because I think it represents the position<br />
towards which Kant was heading when he formulated his new theory of
50<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
inner and outer sense, with its corresponding distinction between<br />
appearances and thing in themselves, in the Inaugural dissertation. As<br />
such, it belongs exclusively within the transcendental context established<br />
around 1770. However, in a more general way it also continues a trend<br />
dating further back in Kant’s career. At a general level, there is a clear<br />
link between the agnosticism expressed in Universal natural history, its<br />
radical restatement in Dreams of a spirit-seer, and his analysis of the<br />
ontological mind-body problem in the Critique. In all of these cases the<br />
claim is put forward that there are aspects of ourselves that cannot be<br />
known due to the limited resources of our cognitive capacities. Of course,<br />
there are also differences. The agnosticism of Dreams of a spirit-seer, for<br />
instance, is both more radical and more explicit than that of Universal<br />
natural history, and the agnosticism of the Critique is more radical and<br />
more explicit still, and also more sophisticated. Nevertheless, when we<br />
consider Kant’s agnosticism in these three texts, I think a continuity may<br />
be identified.<br />
1.13 Holism in the Critique<br />
Before returning to the Inaugural dissertation, I shall examine one more<br />
line of argument that Kant brings to the mind-body relation in the<br />
Critique. The argument is found in the A-version of the second<br />
paralogism of this work. I believe this argument implies that in the<br />
Critique Kant still supports a model like the one discussed above,<br />
according to which a human being is one substance, of which mind and<br />
body are nothing but two aspects or dimensions. Before we turn to the<br />
argument, let me add that if my interpretation is correct, it counts against<br />
those who assert that Kant’s theory of the mind in the Critique conforms<br />
to traditional immaterialism. By traditional immaterialism I mean the<br />
view that the mind is an immaterial substance in its own right, a<br />
substance essentially different from the body, and that conscious thoughts<br />
are ascribed to this kind of substance only.<br />
Now let us turn to the A-version of the second paralogism. In an<br />
argument starting at A 357, Kant begins by reminding the reader of the<br />
now well-known idea that bodies [Körper], according to transcendental<br />
philosophy, are nothing but appearances of the outer sense. From this we<br />
may justly conclude that our thinking subject is not a body. However, he<br />
then continues:<br />
Now this is to say in effect that thinking beings, as such, can never<br />
come before us among outer appearances, or: we cannot intuit their<br />
thoughts, their consciousness, their desires, etc. externally; for all this<br />
belongs before inner sense. (A 357)
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
As I understand it, Kant is here making the simple and somewhat trivial<br />
point that, if by a ‘thinking being’ we mean what comes before our inner<br />
sense, then we may also conclude that such a being may never appear<br />
before our outer sense. This does not mean, however, that the idea of a<br />
thinking being should be associated only with what we inwardly intuit as<br />
thoughts, desires, etc. It is possible, Kant argues, to think that the<br />
unknown something that lies behind the outer appearances (that is, the<br />
unknown something that affects our senses so that representations of<br />
space, matter, shape etc. result) also has thoughts.<br />
51<br />
… yet that same Something that grounds outer appearances and<br />
affects our sense so that it receives the representations of space,<br />
matter, shape, etc. – this Something, considered as noumenon (or<br />
better, as transcendental object) could also at the same time be the<br />
subject of thoughts, even though we receive no intuition of<br />
representations, volitions, etc., in the way we are affected through<br />
outer sense, but rather receive merely intuitions of space and its<br />
determinations. (A 358)<br />
Kant here puts forwards the idea of a possible thinking being which, even<br />
if it affects our outer sense so that we represent it as extended in space, is<br />
still a thinking being. Kant further maintains that when we consider this<br />
thinking being as a thing in itself, we cannot say that it is extended.<br />
However, neither are we justified in ascribing the predicates of the<br />
representational content of inner sense to this thing in itself. The most we<br />
can say is that these predicates do not contradict the idea of such a thing<br />
in itself.<br />
Yet the predicates of inner sense, representation and thought, do not<br />
contradict it. (A 359)<br />
What are the predicates of inner sense? As I understand Kant, these are<br />
the predicates we normally ascribe to the immaterial. So his point may<br />
be summarized by saying that it involves no contradiction to think of a<br />
thinking being qua thing in itself as immaterial.<br />
Even if Kant has so far not explicitly stated that a thinking being qua<br />
thing in itself is immaterial, there seems to be a bias in the argument<br />
towards immaterialism. Kant seems to be arguing that while we cannot<br />
ascribe to a thinking being, considered as a thing in itself, extension,<br />
there is no contradiction involved in thinking it to be immaterial. We<br />
may thus feel tempted to regard the argument as having come to its
52<br />
conclusion. Immaterialism seems to be the more rational option after all.<br />
However, let us see how the argument continues.<br />
In returning to discuss the idea of a thinking being, which due to the<br />
constitution of our sensibility appears to us as extended, Kant now says<br />
again that this being (which is now given the status of a substance!) may<br />
well be conceived of as having conscious thoughts, even if we cannot<br />
observe them. This means, he argues, that the very same thing that from<br />
one perspective may be called embodied [körperlich], may from another<br />
be thought of as a thinking being, whose thoughts we cannot observe<br />
even if we may observe the signs [Zeichen] of this thinking.<br />
In such a way the very same thing that is called a body in one relation<br />
would at the same time be a thinking being in another, whose<br />
thoughts, of course, we could not intuit, but only their signs in<br />
appearance. (A 359)<br />
If this line of argument is accepted, Kant concludes, we would no longer<br />
say that it is minds [Seelen], considered as a particular kind of substance,<br />
that think. We would simply say that human beings think.<br />
Thereby the expression that only souls (as a particular species of<br />
substances) think would be dropped; and instead it would be said, as<br />
usual, that human beings think, i.e., that the same being that as outer<br />
appearance is extended is inwardly (in itself) a subject, which is not<br />
composite, but is simple and thinks. (A 359-360)<br />
Kant has now put forward an hypothesis about the ontological nature of<br />
thinking beings, which, even if it is nothing but an hypothesis, 96 is claimed<br />
to be consistent with transcendental philosophy. Exactly what this<br />
hypothesis is, is, I think, not unambiguously clear. However, whatever it<br />
is, it does not seem to point towards traditional immaterialism, i.e. the<br />
idea that the mind is an immaterial substance in its own right, a<br />
substance essentially different from the body, and that conscious thoughts<br />
may be ascribed only to this kind of substance only. In fact, this idea is<br />
explicitly rejected in the above passage. We are asked not to say that<br />
minds [Seelen], considered as a particular sort of substance, think.<br />
Instead he tells us to say simply that human beings [Menschen] think.<br />
What exactly is meant here by the term ‘human being’? What theory<br />
or hypothesis is implied by this term and the way it is used here? This is<br />
still far from clear. What is clear, however, is that the theory implied<br />
96<br />
Cf. A 360.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
seems not to be a dualist theory. Rather, it appears remarkably similar to<br />
the one I suggested was already present in 1747. It involves the idea that<br />
a human is not two substances, but one substance. 97 We now learn that<br />
this substance may appear in various forms depending on the perspective<br />
established. From the perspective characteristic of the outer sense, for<br />
instance, human beings appear as extended in space. From another<br />
perspective, for instance the perspective established when we talk about a<br />
human being as it exists in itself, extension is no longer an issue.<br />
However, the different perspectives do not present different things or<br />
substances to us. In each and every case there is only one substance<br />
present. Only the way we see it, or conceive of it, changes. The same<br />
point is maintained when man is considered as a thinking being. It is not<br />
this or that part or aspect of man that thinks. It is man, considered as a<br />
unity, i.e. as one substance, that thinks. Again, what we may observe<br />
about this thinking being, or how we may conceive of it, changes<br />
according to the perspective taken. From the perspective characteristic of<br />
the outer sense, for instance, we cannot see thoughts as such. However,<br />
we can see the signs of thoughts.<br />
Due to the brief character of Kant’s remarks, it is difficult to elaborate<br />
further the theory implied here. I would also stress that, whatever it is,<br />
what he is putting forward is nothing more than an hypothesis. He does<br />
not claim that it represents proper knowledge. The only explicit<br />
argument given in its favor is that it does not contradict our experience<br />
or transcendental philosophy. Still, there seems to be a strong underlying<br />
message in the passages just examined that thinking is an activity<br />
involving not only a certain hidden or even immaterial part of man. It<br />
involves the whole human being, body and mind included. In the<br />
second part of this work, I shall discuss how Kant further develops this<br />
idea.<br />
1.14 The virtual presence of the mind<br />
Let us now return to the Inaugural dissertation and its claim that the<br />
mind [Seele] is virtually present in the body. How are we to understand<br />
this claim? The idea of the virtual presence of the mind in the body is<br />
introduced in the Inaugural dissertation as part of a more general<br />
discussion of the immaterial [Unstofflichen] and its relation to matter. All<br />
97<br />
Cf. A 359 where Kant says ‘and thus I can also assume that in the substance in<br />
itself to which extension pertains in respect of our outer sense, thoughts may also<br />
be present, which may be represented with consciousness through their own<br />
inner sense.’ (My emphasis.)<br />
53
54<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
matter exists in time and space, Kant argues. When it comes to the<br />
immaterial, however, this is not so. Its presence in the spatio-temporal<br />
world is virtual. 98 In a footnote at the end of the text Kant then describes<br />
the mind and its relation to the body as a special case of the relation<br />
between the immaterial and the material generally understood. 99 In being<br />
immaterial [unstofflich] the mind is not in itself spatial, he explains. That<br />
is, having a spatial location is not part of its original nature. An embodied<br />
mind may still be said to have a spatial location, however, through its<br />
relation with a body.<br />
… the soul is not in interaction with the body because it is detained in<br />
a certain place in the body; a determinate place in the universe is<br />
rather attributed to the soul because it is in reciprocal interaction with<br />
a certain body; and when this interaction is interrupted any position<br />
it has in space is destroyed. 100<br />
What theory of the mind is implied here? As before, this is not easy to<br />
decide. The fact that Kant includes in this passage a remark concerning<br />
the dissolution of the community of mind and body, suggest that he is<br />
taking it for granted that the mind survives the body, and even that it<br />
may have an existence independent of it. The exact status of this idea is,<br />
however, not specified. At present, I will simply draw attention to the<br />
notion of virtual presence. Kant does not say exactly what he means by<br />
saying that the mind’s presence in the body is virtual. The term ‘virtual’<br />
has an equivalent in the German virkungsfähig. 101 Even if the textual<br />
evidence is not unambiguous, I think this suggests that Kant, in the<br />
above passage, puts forward the idea that the mind is present in the body<br />
qua activity in a wide sense.<br />
If this interpretation is right, it seems to point in two directions. First,<br />
it points back to Dreams of a spirit-seer. Here we find the idea expressed<br />
that the mind is present in the body qua activity, and that the mind is<br />
therefore present in every part of the body. It also points forwards to the<br />
Critique, and the argument of the A-version of the second paralogism<br />
examined above. As we saw, Kant there suggests that a thinking being,<br />
which due to the constitution of our sensibility appears to us as extended,<br />
may well be conceived of as having conscious thoughts. Moreover, even<br />
98<br />
Ak II: 414.<br />
99<br />
Ak II: 419.<br />
100<br />
Ak II: 419.<br />
101<br />
Cf. Hofmeisters German dictionary (1955).
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
if we cannot observe these thoughts, we may observe their signs. 102 What<br />
kind of signs might these be? And what kind of theory is implied here?<br />
My guess is that this theory is more or less the same as the one implied by<br />
Kant’s theory of the virtual presence of the mind in Dreams of a spiritseer<br />
and the Inaugural dissertation. While the mind as it exists in itself is<br />
unknown to us, there are other aspects of the mind of a person that are<br />
open to empirical investigation, i.e. facial expressions, gestures, acts, etc.<br />
1.15 Anthropology<br />
The Anthropology was first published in 1798 and a second edition<br />
followed in 1800, but the text was based on lectures Kant had been<br />
delivering since the 1770s. Some of the material in these lectures derived<br />
from even earlier ones. 103 Kant was the first to introduce anthropology as<br />
a branch of study into German universities, and he took pride in the fact<br />
that these lectures were given at no other institution. 104<br />
The Anthropology belongs to the group of Kantian texts generally<br />
regarded as of little or no philosophical interest or significance. Reinhard<br />
Brandt, one of the editors of volume 25 of the Academy edition<br />
containing Kant’s lectures on anthropology, observes that no major<br />
[namhafte] study has ever been dedicated to the Anthropology. Unlike<br />
other Kantian texts, it has also led to no controversy between schools. 105<br />
This does not mean, however, that the work has been totally ignored,<br />
and some have even emphasized its interest. In his introduction to an<br />
English translation of the Anthropology, Pitte argues that even if this text<br />
is written in a popular style full of examples and humorous elements, this<br />
should not cause us to conclude that it is not worthy of serious<br />
attention. 106 The work supplies a rough outline of Kant’s entire system<br />
and thus serves as an excellent introduction to his thought, Pitte argues.<br />
Moreover, in this work we find clues of several kinds that may help us<br />
understand both Kant and his system more completely. 107 This last point<br />
is, I think, significant, and I will return to it later.<br />
102<br />
A 359.<br />
103<br />
Pitte (1971), 11 and 15.<br />
104<br />
Ibid., 3.<br />
105<br />
Brandt (1999), 7.<br />
106<br />
Others signalling a positive attitude towards Kant's Anthropology are Munzel<br />
(1999), Gerhardt (1987) and Zammito (2002).<br />
107<br />
Pitte (1978), xix.<br />
55
56<br />
The Anthropology, which is Kant’s only published work in this field,<br />
is characterized as a pragmatic anthropology. In the preface of this work,<br />
Kant explains that anthropology can be either a physiological or a<br />
pragmatic discipline. In the first case the focus is on what nature has<br />
made of man. In the second case attention is given to what man,<br />
considered as a free being, can and should make out of himself. Kant<br />
uses memory as an illustration, and in doing this, also suggests why he<br />
values the pragmatic version of anthropology above the physiological.<br />
The task of a physiological anthropology is to explore how our memory<br />
depends on and corresponds to processes in the brain. As these processes<br />
are unknown to us, however, we can only speculate about them and this,<br />
he complains, is a waste of time. In pragmatic anthropology, on the other<br />
hand, the task is to observe what either promotes or impedes memory.<br />
This knowledge is directly useful in making it possible to control and<br />
perfect memory. 108<br />
According to Brandt, Kant arrived at his notion of a pragmatic<br />
anthropology at the end of a process of development that had several<br />
phases. Like Klemme, 109 Brandt sees its starting point in the empirical<br />
psychology of the eighteenth century which appeared as a topic in Kant’s<br />
lectures on metaphysics in the winter of 1765/6. 110 In his Announcement<br />
of 1765, Kant says that the lectures will begin with an introduction to<br />
empirical psychology, which he calls ‘the metaphysical science of man<br />
based on experience’ [metaphysische Erfahrungswissenschaft vom<br />
Menschen]. 111 Later, a distinction is drawn between empirical<br />
psychology, which according to Kant deals only with the representations<br />
of inner sense, and an anthropology dealing with the human being as a<br />
unity of mind and body. 112<br />
At about the same time, the notion of an<br />
anthropology distinct from such an empirical psychology appears in<br />
Kant’s reflections. However, at this point it is still considered as only an<br />
empirical science, and not as a pragmatic one as well. 113<br />
The transformation of anthropology into a pragmatic science,<br />
according to Brandt, took place in about 1773, after Kant’s first lectures<br />
on the topic, and was then explicitly contrasted with the former<br />
108<br />
Ak VII: 119.<br />
109<br />
Klemme (1996), 14.<br />
110<br />
Brandt (1999), 10.<br />
111<br />
Ak II: 309.<br />
112<br />
Cf. Ak II: 397.<br />
113<br />
Brandt (1999), 49.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
approach. 114 At the same time, the purportedly useful or pragmatic aspect<br />
of anthropology was declared by Kant to be an ideal for university<br />
studies in general as well. A university education should not only be<br />
theoretical [für die Schule], but it should also be of use in the future<br />
everyday life of the student. 115<br />
Kant’s pragmatic anthropology is a science explicitly dealing with<br />
man as an embodied being. Its object is not mind or body, but both. The<br />
idea that the mind is embodied is one of the most fundamental ideas on<br />
which the discipline is based. This makes the Anthropology a fascinating<br />
source of information for those interested in Kant’s ideas in this field.<br />
The work is divided into two parts. The first is called ‘anthropological<br />
didactic’ and consists of two books, one about the cognitive faculties, and<br />
the other about pleasure and displeasure. The second deals with the<br />
character of a person, the character of the sexes, and so on.<br />
The cognitive theory presented in the Anthropology is expressed in<br />
more or less the same terminology as that used in the Inaugural<br />
dissertation and the Critique. A fundamental distinction is drawn<br />
between sensible and intellectual representations, the first derived from<br />
effects passively received by the mind [Gemüt], the second produced by<br />
the activity of the mind itself. 116 The faculty corresponding to the passive<br />
side of the mind is called ‘sensibility’ [Sinnlichkeit], while the faculty<br />
corresponding to the active side of the mind is called ‘understanding’<br />
[Verstand]. 117 This term is again used in two ways, sometimes as a<br />
general term covering the higher cognitive faculty in general, at other<br />
times in a more limited sense, denoting only the lower part of this faculty,<br />
along with the power of judgment [Urteilskraf] and reason [Vernunft]<br />
which are then defined as superior members of the higher cognitive<br />
faculty. 118<br />
A highly interesting aspect of the Anthropology is that cognition is<br />
here described using the same terminology as that of the Critique. Both<br />
works describe the same cognitive apparatus. However, in the Critique<br />
nothing is said explicitly about how this apparatus relates to the body. It<br />
is otherwise in the Anthropology. Here cognition is explicitly described as<br />
embodied. In the Critique sensation is being described as the affection of<br />
the mind [Gemüt]. However, no mention is made of whether this mind<br />
114<br />
Ibid., 10.<br />
115<br />
Ibid., 10-11.<br />
116<br />
Ak VII: 140, cf. also Ak VII: 196.<br />
117<br />
Ak VII: 196.<br />
118<br />
Ak VII: 196-7.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
57
58<br />
communicates with a body or not, or whether the affection of the mind<br />
also involves the affection of the body. In the Anthropology, in the<br />
chapter entitled ‘On the Five Senses’, Kant describes the outer sense as<br />
the sense by which the body is affected by physical objects. 119 Kant also<br />
offers a detailed theory of the various senses of the body that are involved<br />
in human sensation. Where cognition of external objects is concerned,<br />
there are five senses involved, he argues. These are touch, sight, hearing,<br />
taste and smell. Each sense corresponds to a certain organ; sight to the<br />
eyes, hearing to the ears, etc. In each organ a specific sort of sensation is<br />
produced by the effect on the organ:<br />
There are exactly five senses that have specific organs. Three of them<br />
are more objective than subjective, that is, as empirical intuitions they<br />
contribute to our knowledge of the external object rather than arouse<br />
our consciousness of the organ affected. The other two are more<br />
subjective than objective, that is, the idea they give us is more an idea<br />
of our enjoyment of the object than knowledge of the external object.<br />
[…] The more objective senses are 1) touch (tactus), 2) sight (visus), 3)<br />
hearing (auditus). 120<br />
It is also worth noting that, having defined the higher cognitive faculties<br />
and described their functioning, as in Maladies of the mind of 1764,<br />
Kant continues by discussing how they sometimes degenerate, and how<br />
this degeneration may result in mental diseases. 121 Due to the limited<br />
insight of contemporary physiology, he says, he will not venture to offer<br />
physiological explanations of this degeneration. However, he does not<br />
exclude the possibility that such explanations might one day be found. In<br />
support of this idea he notes that a certain mental illness, Verrückung,<br />
has been observed to be inherited, and often emerges at the time when a<br />
youth reaches puberty. This clearly suggests a physiological explanation.<br />
The fact that Kant describes cognition as radically embodied here is<br />
not sufficient to justify the claim that he does the same thing in the<br />
Critique. That requires a separate discussion that will come later.<br />
Furthermore, the few passages that have been considered from the<br />
Anthropology here cannot fully convey the significance of the work.<br />
However, I will return to discuss the Anthropology in more detail in later<br />
chapters. In the next chapter, I will discuss Kant’s theory of space, that is,<br />
how, according to the Anthropology, our experience of space is<br />
119<br />
Ak VII: 153.<br />
120<br />
Ak VII: 154.<br />
121<br />
Ak VII: 202ff.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D<br />
constituted by embodied acts. In the third chapter I will deal with Kant’s<br />
discussion of the higher cognitive faculties as it is found in the<br />
Anthropology, and how this implies a theory of embodied rationality.<br />
1.16 Conclusion<br />
In this chapter I have explored Kant’s ideas about the mind-body<br />
relation in works published over a period that covers most of his<br />
intellectual career. We have seen that not only does he put forward in all<br />
of them the idea that the mind, as we know it, is embodied, but he also<br />
discusses, down to the minutest detail, how the workings of the mind<br />
presuppose and are conditioned by the constitution and functioning of<br />
the human body. We have also seen that in a variety of contexts he put<br />
forward what might be called a holistic model of man, according to<br />
which mind and body should not be conceived as two independent<br />
entities, monads or substances, but rather as different sides, aspects or<br />
dimensions of one being or substance. In human beings as we know<br />
them, he seems to be saying, mind and body form a whole so complete<br />
that the one cannot be understood in abstraction from the other.<br />
Above I raised the question whether Kant conceived of this as an<br />
ontological model that was meant to compete with the theories put<br />
forward by the rational psychology of his time. To answer this question<br />
decisively lies outside the scope of this study. My guess is, however, that<br />
the answer is negative. In brief, my reason for saying so is twofold. First,<br />
most of the time when he is addressing the questions of rational<br />
psychology, he adopts an agnostic attitude. Instead of entering into a<br />
discussion with the rational psychologists of his time on their own terms,<br />
he emphasizes how limited our cognitive resources are. From early on,<br />
his attitude seems to be that the questions of rational psychology must be<br />
left unanswered.<br />
Secondly, it is also worth noting that when he actually addresses the<br />
mind-body relation, he does so within theoretical disciplines other than<br />
rational psychology. The context is, for instance, cosmology, empirical<br />
psychology or anthropology. In spite of their internal differences, all these<br />
disciplines aim to describe the world as we know it, not to disclose some<br />
hidden dimension of reality. They do not reach out to try and grasp the<br />
essential nature of God or of the soul in its assumed afterlife. This also<br />
applies to the eighteenth-century version of cosmology. While cosmology<br />
in the Kantian sense is not an empirical science in the modern sense of<br />
the term, nevertheless the world it aims to describe is still the physical<br />
universe. And to the extent to which man appears as a topic for<br />
consideration in the field of cosmology, it is as an inhabitant of this<br />
59
60<br />
universe. The human being that Kant discusses within the context of the<br />
three disciplines mentioned is man as we know him, man as a living,<br />
biological being; in short, the embodied self.<br />
It may be that the young Kant also held more substantial beliefs in<br />
the field of ontology, such as when in Dreams of a spirit-seer and even in<br />
the Inaugural dissertation 122<br />
he echoes the rational psychology of his time<br />
in suggesting that the mind as such is without extension and may have an<br />
existence independent of the body. However, it is difficult to decide upon<br />
this question due to the fact that he says so little about it. As also Laywine<br />
remarks:<br />
Kant was not especially interested in the nature of the soul as such –<br />
so little interested that his rational psychology was very impoverished<br />
indeed. 123<br />
What remains beyond doubt, however, is that regardless of what<br />
ontological ideas he may or may not have been committed to,<br />
throughout his life Kant took it as a basic fact that man as we know him<br />
is a unity of mind and body. Also, as we have seen and will see again, in<br />
his cognitive theory this is one of the basic premises that he begins with,<br />
such as when in Universal natural history he maintains as a fact that the<br />
mind receives all its representations and concepts from the impressions<br />
that the universe produces in it through the body. 124 In part two of this<br />
work, my aim will be to demonstrate that the idea of the embodied mind<br />
is also a basic premise of the Critique. Before that, however, come two<br />
chapters that explore in greater detail how Kant saw our experience and<br />
thinking to be conditioned by the constitution and functioning of the<br />
human body.<br />
122<br />
Ak II: 419.<br />
123<br />
Laywine (1993), 7.<br />
124<br />
Ak I: 355.<br />
THE EMBODIED M<strong>IN</strong>D
2. <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
The sense of touch is located in the fingertips and<br />
their nerve papillae, so that by touching the<br />
surface of a solid body we can find out what<br />
shape it has. Nature seems to have given this<br />
organ only to man, so that by feeling all the sides<br />
of a body he could form a concept of its shape.<br />
[…]Touch is also the only sense in which our<br />
external perception is immediate, and for this<br />
reason it is the most important and the most<br />
certain in what it teaches us.[…] Without this<br />
sense organ we should be unable to form any<br />
concept at all of the shape of a body.<br />
From Kant’s Anthropology 1<br />
In this passage from the Anthropology, Kant claims that the tactile sense<br />
located in the tips of our fingers is essential for our capacity to explore the<br />
spatial form of physical objects. Actually, he claims, without this sense we<br />
would have no concept of such a form at all. The body, or, more<br />
precisely, our capacity for embodied action together with the awareness<br />
accompanying this action, is here given the status of an essential<br />
condition without which our concept of the spatial form of an object<br />
would not exist. The aim of this chapter is to explore this idea of the<br />
body as a condition of spatial experience as it is found in some Kantian<br />
texts.<br />
As we have seen, this idea is suggested as early as 1747 in Living<br />
forces. 2<br />
Rather than staying with this early text, however, in this chapter I<br />
shall explore three texts belonging to the more mature phase of Kant’s<br />
intellectual development. They are Directions in space from 1768,<br />
Orientation from 1786 and the Anthropology from 1798, the first<br />
published thirteen years prior to the Critique, the second five years after<br />
its first publication, while the third, as we have seen, is based on lectures<br />
1<br />
Ak VIII: 155.<br />
2<br />
Ak I: 22.
62<br />
dating back to the 1770s. It is interesting to see that in all of these texts<br />
covering this long period of time there is one aspect of Kant’s theory of<br />
space that seems to remain unchanged; our representation of space<br />
presupposes the body and our capacity for embodied action along with<br />
the awareness accompanying this action. I will call this ‘Kant’s theory of<br />
the embodied constitution of spatial representations’, or, more briefly,<br />
‘Kant’s embodied theory of space’. The claim just made is not meant to<br />
imply that Kant did not develop or revise his theory of space in other<br />
ways, because he certainly did. However my main emphasis will be on<br />
what I claim did not change, which is the basic idea that the body is a<br />
condition of spatial experience. I believe that exploring this part of<br />
Kant’s philosophy is valuable in its own right as it is not too often<br />
discussed. However, I will also use the conclusions of this chapter in the<br />
second part of my work where I argue that his theory of space in the<br />
Critique may be seen as an abstract version of his embodied theory of<br />
space.<br />
If we look for the origins of Kant’s embodied theory of space, I think<br />
that they may in part be found in his own philosophy in that it follows as<br />
the logical consequence of some basic ideas he put forward. One such<br />
idea is that the spatiality of the mind derives from its association with its<br />
body, as he claims for instance in Dreams of a spirit-seer and in the<br />
Inaugural dissertation. 3<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
From this it follows that there would be no<br />
awareness of space, and consequently no representation of space, without<br />
the body. Or at least this representation would then be hard to explain.<br />
Moreover, if we maintain that the domain of the activity of the mind is<br />
congruent with the space inhabited by its body, and that our immediate<br />
awareness is therefore restricted to this domain, as is implied by Kant’s<br />
embodied empiricism, it follows that experience or knowledge of the<br />
spatial form of other objects can only be achieved by means of the body. 4<br />
There is no way in which the mind can go outside its body to explore the<br />
spatial properties of things. It has to take its body with it and use this<br />
body as its tool, for instance by using its fingertips to explore the<br />
3<br />
Ak II: 325 and Ak II: 419.<br />
4<br />
Kaulbach (1960), 97 argues along a similar path when he contends that Kant’s<br />
embodied empiricism, found for instance in Dreams of a spirit-seer, makes<br />
embodied movement accompanied by self-awareness a condition of spatial<br />
experience.
spatial form of a given object, or other such acts. I shall consider this<br />
argument again later.<br />
2.1 The European discussion of space in the 18 th century<br />
Kant’s embodied theory of space should also be seen in the context of the<br />
general discussion of space taking place in Europe in the eighteenth<br />
century. Most frequently discussed today, perhaps, is the controversy<br />
between Leibniz and Newton on the nature of space, discussed in the so<br />
called Leibniz-Clarke correspondence, published in 1711, in which<br />
Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) acted as a spokesman for Newton. Very<br />
roughly, the Newtonian view holds that space is an absolutely real, selfsubsistent<br />
‘container’ and would exist even if no physical objects were<br />
contained in it. The opposite Leibnizian view maintains that space exists<br />
as relations between objects. To say that objects exist in space is to say<br />
that they stand in certain relations to one another. Statements about<br />
space may therefore be reduced to statements about objects and their<br />
relations. 5<br />
The publication of the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence provoked a<br />
lively discussion among European scholars, a discussion followed with<br />
great interest by Kant when it re-emerged with some intensity in the<br />
1760s and 1770s. 6<br />
He also involved himself in the debate and his theory<br />
of space and time as subjective forms of intuition in the Critique may be<br />
seen as his alternative to both the Newtonian and the Leibnizian views.<br />
Alongside this discussion concerning the Newtonian and the Leibnizian<br />
conceptions of space, however, another kind of discussion relating to<br />
space was going on, focusing more on the embodied aspect of spatial<br />
cognition. Kant also took an interest in this discussion, which will be<br />
considered in more detail later, and I shall argue that the historical<br />
origins of his embodied theory of space are primarily to be found there.<br />
Of course, the discussion of space in Directions in space and Orientation<br />
also relates to the Leibniz-Clarke controversy. However, I will generally<br />
ignore these connections as they do not relate to what is my main topic<br />
5<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
For a more detailed discussion of the Leibniz-Clarke controversy, cf.<br />
Vleeschauwer (1962), 47, Tonelli (1959), Kaulbach (1960), Martin (1969), Caygill<br />
(1995), 367ff. and Allison (1983), 108ff.<br />
6<br />
Cf. Vleeschauwer (1962), 47.<br />
63
64<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
here which is Kant’s view on the embodied basis of spatial<br />
experience. 7<br />
A central problem for those interested in the embodied basis of spatial<br />
experience was to explain the fact that we experience visual space as<br />
three-dimensional. The seventeenth and eighteenth-century natural<br />
philosophers understood the internal structure of the eye very well and<br />
knew that visual images were produced by rays of light affecting the<br />
retina. But as the retina is two-dimensional, how can rays of light<br />
affecting it produce three-dimensional visual images? Berkeley presents a<br />
version of this problem in his Essay towards a new theory of vision from<br />
1709 thus:<br />
It is, I think, agreed by all that Distance of it self, and immediately<br />
cannot be seen. For Distance being a Line directed end-wise to the<br />
Eye, it projects only one Point in the Fund of the Eye. Which Point<br />
remains invariably the same, whether the Distance be longer or<br />
shorter. 8<br />
A ray of light will always hit the retina at one point only, Berkeley argues,<br />
and whether the ray originates from near or far makes no difference.<br />
How, then, do we see things to be either near or far away? How do we<br />
visually perceive distance, and so three-dimensional space?<br />
In suggesting solutions to this problem, most natural philosophers in<br />
one way or another resorted to our capacity for moving our bodies. A<br />
famous example is supplied by Étienne Bonnet de Condillac (1715-1780)<br />
in his work Traité des sensations from 1754. Here he imagined a marble<br />
statue internally constituted like a living human being, but having a mind<br />
deprived of all ideas, and with all its senses closed, so that it would be<br />
possible to open them one at a time and to analyze their relationship.<br />
Condillac argued that hearing, taste, and sight would produce in the<br />
statue no idea of exteriority. To show how the perception of<br />
phenomenological exteriority arises, he therefore added to the statue the<br />
sense of touch. The term le toucher used by Condillac includes a number<br />
of elements, such as the awareness we have of processes internal to the<br />
7 I do not intend to give anything like a complete account of the discussion taking<br />
place between philosophers and scientists of the eighteenth century focusing on<br />
the embodied aspect of spatial experience, but only enough to serve as a<br />
background. A brief but still excellent survey of some main lines of this debate is<br />
found in Kitcher, which also serves as a basis for the following exposition, cf.<br />
Kitcher (1990), and also Herrnstein (1968).<br />
8 Quoted from Herrnstein (1968), 118.
ody, as well as the experience we have when we connect with external<br />
objects. By opening the sense of touch, he also permitted the statue to<br />
move itself, emphasizing that in doing this, it was aware of the<br />
contractions of its muscles. Through all of this, he argued, the statue<br />
would finally arrive at consciousness of phenomenological exteriority,<br />
and by way of attention, judgment, and reasoning it would also be<br />
capable of transforming its findings into the notions of space and matter. 9<br />
The significance of movement, touch and awareness of muscle<br />
movements was also emphasized by other writers such as Descartes and<br />
Berkeley. Even if these writers disagreed on a number of points, they<br />
nevertheless agreed that the movements of the body and our awareness<br />
of these movements are essential for producing ideas of spatial distance<br />
and shape.<br />
Even Descartes, despite his strong metaphysical dualism, explored<br />
how embodied movements contribute to our representation of threedimensional<br />
space. In La Dioptrique from 1638, he claims, for instance,<br />
that there is no essential difference between perception through the eyes<br />
and perception by means of the hands. 10 In both cases, parts of the body<br />
are involved and impulses are produced in them that are then carried<br />
through the nerves to the brain where they are processed.<br />
In elaborating this point, Descartes asks the reader to imagine a blind<br />
person holding a stick in each hand. Lacking sight, blind people may use<br />
sticks to investigate distant objects, he argues. The case is meant to work<br />
as an analogy in which the hands play the role of the eyes and the sticks<br />
play the role of the rays of light connecting a distant object with<br />
our eyes. Descartes points to the fact that even a small movement of one<br />
of the arms of the blind person will produce an effect in the brain, telling<br />
it not only the relative distance between the limbs of the body, but also,<br />
when these limbs are artificially extended to external objects by means of<br />
sticks or another physical medium, the position, size and shape of these<br />
objects. As visual observation takes place, in principle, in the same way,<br />
the same explanation may also account for the fact that we visually<br />
perceive objects in space.<br />
9<br />
Hallie (1967), 180-182.<br />
10<br />
Cf. Herrnstein (1968), 113.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
65
66<br />
As to the way in which each part of an object is placed with respect to<br />
our body, we perceive it no differently through our eyes than with our<br />
hands. Moreover, our knowledge of it does not depend on an image<br />
or on any action by the object, but only on the arrangement of the<br />
small parts of the brain where the nerves originate – for this<br />
arrangement, which changes so little with each shift in disposition of<br />
the members reached by the nerves, is of such a nature as not only to<br />
make known to the soul where each part of the body it animates is in<br />
relation to the other parts but also to enable the soul to shift its<br />
attention to the entire area that lies within such straight lines as we<br />
might imagine drawn from the end of each of these parts and<br />
extended to infinity. 11<br />
Descartes also draws special attention to the movements of our muscles:<br />
Likewise, when our eye or our head is turned toward one side, our<br />
soul is alerted by the change that the nerves leading from the muscles<br />
used for these movements cause in our brain. 12<br />
In a parallel argument, in his Essay towards a new theory of vision<br />
Berkeley draws attention to the sensations aroused by the movements of<br />
the pupils as one of the many sensations from which we gain information<br />
on the spatial distance between objects and ourselves.<br />
It is certain by Experience, that when we look at a near Object with<br />
both Eyes, according as it approaches, or recedes from us, we alter<br />
the Disposition of our Eyes, by lessening or widening the Interval<br />
between the Pupils. This Disposition or Turn of the Eyes is attended<br />
with a Sensation, which seems to me, to be that which in this Case<br />
brings the Idea of greater, or lesser Distance into the Mind. 13<br />
The idea of spatial properties of objects in the first place, however,<br />
according to Berkeley, is produced by touch. The idea that objects do not<br />
change in size, contrary to what seems to be the fact from our visual<br />
impressions of them as we either approach or recedes from them, is also<br />
derived from touch, he argues:<br />
11 Quoted from Herrnstein (1986), 113-14.<br />
12 Ibid., 114.<br />
13 Ibid., 120.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
67<br />
The Magnitude of the Object which exists without the Mind, and is<br />
at a Distance, continues always invariably the same. But the Visible<br />
Object still changing as you approach to, or recede from the Tangible<br />
Object, it hath no fixed and determinate Greatness. Whenever<br />
therefore, we speak of the Magnitude of any thing, for Instance a<br />
Tree or a House, we must mean the Tangible Magnitude, otherwise<br />
there can be nothing steady, and free from Ambiguity spoken of it. 14<br />
There is little doubt that Kant was acquainted with the discussion carried<br />
out along the lines here suggested, at least in its main features. One of his<br />
sources was Johann Nicolaus Tetens’ book Philosophishe Versuche über<br />
die Menschliche Natur und ihre Entwickelung from 1777 where Tetens<br />
promotes ideas similar to those of Condillac and the other authors<br />
discussed above. According to Tetens, the idea of space cannot be<br />
abstracted from the alterations and impressions that objects inflict on our<br />
senses. Rather, it is abstracted from the act of seeing. When, for example,<br />
I see that a tower is further from me than a tree, I move my eyes, and<br />
that is felt as something present and absolute. Kant is reported to have<br />
had Tetens book open on his desk as he worked with his Critique, that is,<br />
in the 1770s. 15<br />
2.2 Rousseau and space<br />
Kant also found similar ideas in Rousseau's Émile, a book that, as we<br />
know, deeply impressed him when he first read it in the early 1760s. 16<br />
In<br />
explaining how a child first acquires knowledge of space, Rousseau points<br />
to the basic significance of the tactile sense and embodied action. The<br />
tactile sense is important not only because it gives us immediate and first<br />
hand knowledge of the objects of the world, he argues, but it is also<br />
important because it accompanies the movements of the body. Through<br />
these movements and the awareness it has of them the child acquires a<br />
unique knowledge of space, a knowledge that cannot be acquired in any<br />
other way. As part of this, it learns also for the first time to distinguish<br />
between itself and that which is not itself.<br />
14<br />
Ibid., 124.<br />
15<br />
Kitcher (1990), 34 and 238, footnote.<br />
16<br />
Rousseau’s ideas are here most probably inspired by Condillac. In Émile<br />
Rousseau tells about his personal acquaintance with this man, who, he said,<br />
would one day be regarded among ‘the greatest thinkers and the profoundest<br />
metaphysicians’ (Rousseau (1979), 71).
68<br />
It is only by movement that we learn that there are things which are<br />
not us … 17<br />
Continuing this reflection, Rousseau tries to imagine what it would be<br />
like to be an oyster. Without the capacity to move, he imagines, the<br />
whole world must appear to the oyster as nothing but a point. Even if we<br />
ascribed to the oyster a human mind, whatever this would mean, it<br />
would not help. Neither would it help to give the oyster sight. In order to<br />
acquire an idea of space, it needs to be able to move around in the world.<br />
Without touch, without progressive movement, the most penetrating<br />
eyes in the world would not be able to give us any idea of extension.<br />
The entire universe must be only a point for an oyster. It would not<br />
appear to it as anything more even if a human mind were to inform<br />
this oyster. It is only by dint of walking, feeling, counting, of<br />
measuring dimensions that one learns to estimate them. 18<br />
Thus the capacity to receive impressions from without is but a first<br />
requirement for spatial experience. Just as important, and absolutely<br />
essential, is the capacity to move, originating in the spontaneity of the<br />
subject. This is Rousseau’s point.<br />
Of the various authors who may have inspired Kant in the<br />
formulation of his embodied theory of space, I will put particular<br />
emphasis on Rousseau, not only because we possess definite information<br />
that Kant was acquainted with Rousseau’s ideas well before he published<br />
Directions in space in 1768, but also because we know the deep impact<br />
that Émile made on him. I will discuss this impact and what it meant to<br />
Kant in more detail later. For now, I will try to set out the salient points<br />
of the ideas examined above.<br />
First, all those mentioned ascribed to the body a basic and<br />
indispensable role in spatial cognition, and in the most detailed and<br />
concrete way. Emphasis is placed on the way we sense the various parts<br />
of our bodies, their positions relative to each other and the way we move<br />
them, as well as how we experience the impact of physical influences on<br />
the body from the outside. Attention is drawn, for instance, to the pupils<br />
of the eyes and the muscles directing their movements, and the muscles<br />
directing the movements of the head and shoulders as we turn to look in<br />
a specific direction. All of these movements, along with the subtle<br />
17<br />
Rousseau (1979), 64.<br />
18<br />
Rousseau (1979), 143.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
awareness we have of them, contribute to the constitution of our spatial<br />
representations.<br />
Secondly, priority is ascribed to touch. It is by means of touch that<br />
the first, basic ideas of space are formed in the observer, that is, by<br />
touching, grasping and holding objects we form our first and most basic<br />
ideas of their spatial form. Visual perception is claimed to work in a way<br />
analogous to touch. When we look at a distant object, the light reflected<br />
from the object exerts a felt influence on the pupil, just as when we feel<br />
the resistance of an object when we touch it. And just as we become<br />
aware of the size of an object, for instance, by holding our hands on<br />
either side of it and noting the relative distance between our hands, so we<br />
become aware of the size of a distant object by means of the subtle<br />
awareness of the position of our pupils as we direct them towards the<br />
object.<br />
Finally, even if the above ideas seem to belong to the context of a<br />
purely scientific investigation of man, they also imply a more<br />
philosophical perspective. Most importantly, they presuppose the idea<br />
that man is an embodied being, with an awareness that is also fully<br />
embodied. We have seen that two years before he wrote Directions in<br />
space, in Dreams of a spirit-seer Kant advanced a very similar kind of<br />
embodied empiricism. On this matter, his views lie close to those of<br />
Condillac, Tetens and Rousseau. It is scarcely surprising, then, if Kant<br />
incorporated aspects of their ideas of the embodied constitution of spatial<br />
representations into his own reflections on space.<br />
2.3 Directions in space<br />
This text, published 1768, two years after Dreams of a spirit-seer and two<br />
years before the Inaugural dissertation, is often seen as signaling Kant’s<br />
conversion to Newtonianism, after having earlier supported the<br />
Leibnizian side of the Leibniz-Clarke controversy. 19 However,<br />
commentators have also noticed how the text calls attention to the body<br />
and its significance with regard to our capacity for spatial orientation. 20<br />
Below I will argue that even if Kant appears to be a Newtonian in<br />
Directions in space, in that he defends the idea of absolute space, I do not<br />
think this is all there is to be said on the matter. Amongst other things,<br />
the text may also be seen as his attempt to incorporate within his theory<br />
of space ideas taken from Rousseau and others, as well as the<br />
19<br />
Cf. e.g. Vleeschauwer (1962), 48.<br />
20<br />
Cf. e.g. Caygill (1995), 367, Rossvær (1974), 41 and Kaulbach (1960).<br />
69
70<br />
implications of his own embodied empiricism. As I shall argue, the text<br />
may also be seen as representing one of Kant’s first attempts to express<br />
the position that has come to be called Copernican.<br />
Like so many other Kantian texts, Directions in space is an intriguing<br />
piece of work. He opens the discussion by announcing that his aim is to<br />
prove that there is an absolute space, independent of all matter.<br />
My purpose in this treatise is to see whether there is not to be found<br />
[…] [a] clear proof that: Absolute space, independently of the<br />
existence of all matter and as itself the ultimate foundation of the<br />
possibility of the compound character of matter, has a reality of its<br />
own. 21<br />
This opening, no doubt, appears as a powerful argument for those<br />
arguing that he sides with the Newtonian party of the Leibniz-Clarke<br />
controversy here. After having introduced the idea of absolute space,<br />
however, he continues, somewhat surprisingly, by arguing that without<br />
our bodies we would not be able to orient in space.<br />
He begins this new line of argument by imagining three planes<br />
intersecting each other at right angles in space. He then imagines that<br />
these planes stand in a certain relation to our body. This relation, now, is<br />
the ground making it possible for us to produce [erzeugen] the concept of<br />
locations [Gegenden] in space:<br />
Because of its three dimensions, physical space [in dem körperlichen<br />
Raume] can be thought of as having three planes, which all intersect<br />
each other at right angles. Concerning the things which exist outside<br />
ourselves: it is only in so far as they stand in relation to ourselves that<br />
we have any cognition of them by means of the senses at all. It is,<br />
therefore, not surprising that the ultimate ground, on the basis of<br />
which we form [erzeugen] our concept of directions [Gegenden] in<br />
space, derives from the relation of these intersecting planes to our<br />
bodies. 22<br />
Kant does not say that I produce [erzeuge] space as such, but what he<br />
says is something not very far from this: I produce the concept of spatial<br />
locations. And this concept-production, he argues, is directly dependent<br />
on my body and the imaginary planes crossing it.<br />
21<br />
Ak II: 378.<br />
22<br />
Ak II: 379.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
One of the planes is placed so that the length of the body stands at a<br />
right angle to it, he explains. This may be called the horizontal. By<br />
means of this plane we distinguish between up and down. The two other<br />
planes are placed in a position so that the line constituted by the upright<br />
position of the body stands at their intersection. One of these divides the<br />
body into two equal parts and is the ground for our distinction between<br />
left and right. The other gives us the concept of in front of and behind. 23<br />
Kant not only focuses on the body and its relation to an imaginary<br />
system of co-ordinates when explaining how we produce the basic<br />
concept (or concepts) of spatial locations, he also refers to our intuitive<br />
capacity, based on immediate feeling, to distinguish between the location<br />
of the different parts of our body, such as its left and right side.<br />
71<br />
And thus it is that the two sides of the body are, in spite of their great<br />
external similarity, sufficiently distinguished from each other by a<br />
clear feeling. 24<br />
Without this awareness, Kant argues, we would not be able to distinguish<br />
between spatial locations. So, the whole body participates in this essential<br />
concept formation.<br />
I think that it is particularly here, in the reference to our immediate<br />
awareness of the various parts of our bodies, that a connection can be<br />
seen with Rousseau and the other authors mentioned above who place<br />
the body in the center of their theory of space. Like them Kant points to<br />
the body in order to explain the origin of some very basic spatial<br />
concepts. Like them he draws attention to the awareness we have of the<br />
body and its parts. He will later add that embodied acts are also essential<br />
for the constitution of spatial concepts.<br />
Now, let us return to the spatial concepts originating in the<br />
immediate awareness of the body, such as up and down, right and left, in<br />
front of and behind. These concepts, Kant suggests, are also the ground<br />
for other kinds of spatial determinations. When, for instance, we<br />
distinguish between the front and back of a piece of paper, we use the<br />
same concepts as those grounded in the immediate awareness of the<br />
body. Even if he moves away from the body here, by discussing spatial<br />
relations pertaining to objects outside us, the human body remains the<br />
center of the theory. The concepts we use in order to determine the<br />
23<br />
Ak II: 379.<br />
24<br />
Ak II: 381.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
72<br />
spatial locations of such objects and their parts derive from the intuitive<br />
body-awareness examined above.<br />
Let us now return to how Kant begins the essay. He states that his<br />
aim is to prove the existence of absolute space, then he proceeds to<br />
present a theory of the embodied grounding of some basic spatial<br />
concepts. Is there any connection here? At first sight it is difficult to see<br />
one. The introductory claim and the following theory seem to be<br />
seriously mismatched. The first suggests the idea of a space totally<br />
independent of human intervention while the other seems hardly to<br />
extend beyond the limit of the human body.<br />
But perhaps these two perspectives are not incongruent. Perhaps<br />
Kant’s theory of the embodied basis of basic spatial concepts is in fact<br />
also a theory of the constitution of the concept of what he calls absolute<br />
space. It is worth noting that whatever ideas the notion of absolute space<br />
leads us to consider, Kant emphasizes that absolute space is not an object<br />
of the outer sense. It cannot be observed. Rather; it is a fundamental<br />
concept.<br />
… absolute space is not an object of outer sensation; it is rather a<br />
fundamental concept … 25<br />
How do we arrive at this fundamental concept? Does it have anything to<br />
do with the basic concepts just discussed, i.e. those originating in the<br />
body? Kant does not say but his silence allows us to suggest that it has.<br />
More precisely, it is possible that the concept of absolute space is based in<br />
some way or another on our primitive capacity to determine spatial<br />
locations relative to our body, and that this is how Kant conceives of the<br />
matter in Directions in space.<br />
How does this conceptual movement from the body to the idea of<br />
absolute space take place? As Kant does not supply the answer to this<br />
question, we can only guess. We have seen that according to Kant the<br />
basic spatial concepts of up and down, right and left, in front of and<br />
behind originate in our immediate awareness of the body and its parts.<br />
Later, he argues, these concepts are also used to decide the spatial<br />
relations of external objects and their parts, for instance the front and<br />
back of a piece of paper. Somehow he seems to think that these concepts,<br />
with their subjective origin, may be used to decide the objective relations<br />
between objects and their parts. Metaphorically, we may speak here of a<br />
movement from a subjective origin towards a more objective use of the<br />
25 Ak II: 383.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
concepts, and perhaps the idea of absolute space lies at the end of this<br />
movement. Whether or not this corresponds to Kant’s view is hard to say<br />
but it is at least a possible interpretation. A version of this interpretation<br />
is also put forward by Kaulbach. He argues that, contrary to how it may<br />
seem, the term ‘absolute space’ as Kant uses it in Directions in space does<br />
not refer to a Newtonian conception of space. The term ‘absolute’ refers,<br />
Kaulbach argues, to the unconditional basis of spatial orientation in the<br />
embodied reality of the cognitive self. 26<br />
2.4 A Copernican position?<br />
According to Viggo Rossvær, Directions in space is the first text in which<br />
Kant operates with what may be called a Copernican perspective. 27 I<br />
shall return to discuss the notion of this Copernican perspective in<br />
chapter four. At present I will define this perspective in a very general<br />
sense as involving the idea that all experience is conditioned by the<br />
subjective position of the observer and/or the observer’s cognitive<br />
resources. Most clearly, I think, such a perspective is expressed in the last<br />
section of Directions in space. Our determinations [Bestimmungen] of<br />
space are not the result of the spatial position of matter, it is the other<br />
way around. The spatial position of matter is the result of our spatial<br />
determinations. 28<br />
73<br />
Our considerations make it plain that the determinations of space are<br />
not consequences of the positions of the parts of matter relative to<br />
each other. On the contrary, the latter are the consequences of the<br />
former. 29<br />
Due to the brevity of the argument, we should be careful not to put too<br />
much weight on it. However, I think that Rossvær is right to say that a<br />
Copernican perspective is present here. In claiming that our judgments<br />
[Bestimmungen] of space determine the spatial position of matter, Kant<br />
ascribes to the cognitive subject a capacity going far beyond the passive<br />
role of an observer. Actually, he seems here to be approaching the theory<br />
promoted in the Inaugural dissertation, where space (and also time) is<br />
said to be the product of the activity of the subject. 30 As the Inaugural<br />
26<br />
Kaulbach (1960), 95.<br />
27<br />
Rossvær (1974), 43.<br />
28<br />
Cf. also Kaulbach (1960), 95.<br />
29<br />
Ak II: 383.<br />
30<br />
Ak II: 405f.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
74<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
dissertation lies only two years ahead, this interpretation is, I think, not<br />
improbable. If this is so, it may be worth noting that the first hint of a<br />
Copernican perspective in the Kantian corpus is found in a theoretical<br />
context in which the body has also a prominent position. Exactly what<br />
this means is perhaps not fully evident at this stage but should become<br />
clearer later.<br />
2.5 Orientation<br />
The small text Orientation was published in 1786, five years after the<br />
publication of the first edition of the Critique in 1781, and a year before<br />
the publication of its second edition. 31 Here Kant returns to the question<br />
of space and again the body is said to have an essential significance in<br />
much the same way as in Directions in space. In order to orient ourselves<br />
in space, he argues, it is necessary to have a body and to be able to feel its<br />
parts.<br />
In the proper meaning of the word, to orient oneself means to use a<br />
given direction (when we divide the horizon into four of them) in<br />
order to find the others – literally, to find the sunrise. Now, if I see the<br />
sun in the sky and know it is midday, then I know how to find south,<br />
west, north, and east. For this, however, I also need the feeling of a<br />
difference in my own subject, namely, the difference between my<br />
right and left hands. 32<br />
Even if the passage is brief, it seems to represent more or less the same<br />
theory of space as the one put forward in Directions in space. My body<br />
and its parts, along with my awareness of them, are claimed to be<br />
necessary conditions of my capacity to orient myself in space. It is<br />
interesting to see that in this text written after the Critique, Kant presents<br />
roughly the same ideas about the embodied basis of spatial orientation as<br />
he did in one written before it. It is as if this perspective has been with<br />
him all the time.<br />
The capacity to distinguish between different parts of the body is also<br />
essential when I need to find my way through a dark room or a dark<br />
street:<br />
31 It belongs to the group of small texts published by Kant in the Berlinische<br />
Monatschrift. In it he adresses the so-called pantheism controversy of the time.<br />
However, in the first few pages he also addresses the question of spatial<br />
orientation, and it is this first part to which I refer in the following.<br />
32 Ak VIII: 134.
75<br />
In the dark I orient myself in a room that is familiar to me if I can<br />
take hold of even one single object whose position I remember. But it<br />
is plain that nothing helps me here except the faculty for determining<br />
position according to a subjective ground of differentiation: for I do<br />
not see at all the objects whose place I am to find... [...] But I can<br />
soon orient myself through the mere feeling of a difference between<br />
my two sides, the right and the left. That is just what happens if I<br />
need to walk and take the correct turns on streets otherwise familiar<br />
to me when I cannot distinguish any of the houses. 33<br />
The text also has more to offer. In the following passage the term a priori<br />
(by this time a well-established one) is explicitly associated with the<br />
movement of the body and the awareness of this movement.<br />
If I did not have this faculty of distinguishing, without the need of any<br />
difference in the objects, between moving from left to right and right<br />
to left and moving in the opposite direction and thereby determining<br />
a priori a difference in the position of the objects, then in describing a<br />
circle I would not know whether west was right or left of the<br />
southernmost point of the horizon, or whether I should complete the<br />
circle by moving north and east and thus back to south. 34<br />
Without the capacity to draw a circle, and in doing this to recognize<br />
whether the direction is from left to right or the opposite, we would not<br />
be able to determine a priori the different locations of objects in space,<br />
Kant argues. The possibility of distinguishing a priori between locations<br />
in space presupposes the body, the awareness of its parts, and the<br />
movements of these parts. Given the standard interpretation of Kant’s<br />
theory of the a priori, it may be difficult to see why the term ‘a priori’ is<br />
introduced here. This will be considered in part two of this work.<br />
2.6 Anthropology<br />
In our examination of the theories of Condillac, Tetens, Rousseau and<br />
others at the beginning of this chapter, we saw that embodied acts were<br />
accorded an essential role in the formation of spatial concepts. Rousseau,<br />
for instance, argued that only by moving around does a child acquire<br />
knowledge of the spatial properties of the world. Special emphasis is<br />
given to the sense of touch, i.e. various acts through which we explore the<br />
shape of an object by touching and grasping it.<br />
33 Ak VIII: 135.<br />
34 Ak VIII: 135.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
76<br />
From what has been seen so far, Kant did not emphasize such<br />
embodied acts or movements very clearly. An exception is found in the<br />
last part of Orientation. Here the capacity to determine a priori spatial<br />
locations is said to presuppose the capacity to move the hands, and to be<br />
aware of the direction of this movement. The movements of the hands<br />
and the awareness we have of them are also emphasized in the<br />
Anthropology:<br />
The sense of touch is located in the fingertips and their nerve<br />
papillae, so that by touching the surface of a solid body we can find<br />
out what shape it has. – Nature seems to have given this organ only<br />
to man, so that by feeling all the sides of a body he could form a<br />
concept of its shape … […] Touch is also the only sense in which our<br />
external perception is immediate, and for this reason it is the most<br />
important and the most certain in what it teaches us… […] Without<br />
this sense organ we should be unable to form any concept at all of the<br />
shape of a body. 35<br />
Without the capacity to grasp and feel an object, Kant argues, we would<br />
never arrive at the concept of the shape of an object. Here, like<br />
Rousseau, Condillac and others, he believes the sense of touch has an<br />
essential function in the formation of the concept of spatial form.<br />
The significance of the sense of touch is also testified elsewhere in the<br />
Anthropology. Kant discusses how a person without sight can<br />
compensate for this loss by using other senses. He could for instance use<br />
the tactile sense, and explore the shape of an object with his hands:<br />
If a man is born without one of the senses (sight, for example), he<br />
cultivates another sense, as far as possible, to serve as a substitute for<br />
it, and uses his productive imagination to a great extent. So he tries to<br />
make the shapes of external bodies apprehensible by touch, and when<br />
touch fails because the body is too large (a house), he tries to grasp<br />
extension by still another sense – perhaps by listening to the echo of<br />
voices in a room. 36<br />
The passage just quoted also contains an interesting remark about the<br />
sense of hearing. When an object is too large to be explored by holding<br />
and grasping it, a blind person may explore its shape by listening to the<br />
echo produced by his own or another persons voice.<br />
35 Ak VIII: 155.<br />
36 Ak VII: 172-3.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE<br />
Above I argued that, according to the theory of Rousseau, Tetens<br />
and the other authors examined at the beginning of this chapter, touch is<br />
not only taken to be essential because it is the sense by which our first<br />
and most basic concepts of space are formed but it is also taken to be<br />
essential in being the sense on which the functioning of all the other<br />
senses is modeled. I think that the last example examined may be used as<br />
evidence that Kant’s thoughts on the matter followed the same lines, at<br />
least where hearing is concerned. In hearing, we do not touch objects<br />
directly, but in Kant’s analysis what happens is structurally similar to an<br />
act of touching. When I touch an object with my hand, this is an active<br />
movement. The resulting concept of the spatial form of the object is in<br />
part caused by this movement. However, just as important as my own<br />
movement is the resistance offered by the object. Without this resistance,<br />
I should not be able to form a concept of its form.<br />
The structure of this event, I think, is also present in the example of<br />
the blind person. Standing in the room, not knowing where its walls are,<br />
he uses his voice, and by noting how it is echoed by the room’s walls, he<br />
understands where they are relative to himself. What is the structure of<br />
this event? First the blind person acts by making a sound with his voice.<br />
Secondly, due to the resistance of the walls, this sound is reflected back to<br />
his ears. And once again the resulting concept of the spatial dimensions<br />
of the room is the result of both. Both the initial act and the resistance of<br />
the object, in this case the walls, are required.<br />
Metaphorically speaking, we might say that the sound in the above<br />
example is like a hand. By means of the sound, the observer reaches out<br />
for an object. When the sound hits the object, it is like the moment of<br />
touch, and the resistance causing the reflection of the sound is like the<br />
resistance felt when he literally touches an object, only now it is<br />
experienced indirectly, mediated by the sounds reflected back to his ear. I<br />
have found no evidence to suggest that Kant conceived of the act of<br />
seeing in an analogous way, but by arguing along the same lines as<br />
Descartes did in his example of the man with the sticks, he could well<br />
have extended the above model to include this sense as well.<br />
2.7 Summary<br />
In this chapter I have given a brief outline of what I have called Kant’s<br />
embodied theory of space and I have argued that this theory, at least in<br />
part, may be seen as inspired by authors such as Condillac, Tetens and<br />
Rousseau. However, I have also argued that it may be seen as the logical<br />
consequence of some basic Kantian ideas. If, for instance, we start out<br />
from the idea expressed explicitly both in Dreams of a spirit-seer and the<br />
77
78<br />
Inaugural dissertation that the mind in itself has no extension and that its<br />
spatiality is only derived (caused by its association with the body), then it<br />
follows that we would have no awareness of space, and consequently no<br />
representation of space, without the body. Moreover, when we<br />
remember that in these texts Kant suggests that the mind is present in the<br />
body both as immediate awareness and as its activity, it is no wonder that<br />
he locates the first origin of our spatial concepts in the body, i.e. in our<br />
immediate awareness of its different parts.<br />
If Kant is to remain faithful to this perspective, however, he also has<br />
to contend that the body is indispensable when we wish to explore the<br />
spatiality of the world. It is not possible for the mind to go outside its<br />
body in order to explore the spatial properties of things. It has to take its<br />
body with it and use this body as its tool of investigation. As we have<br />
seen, this is exactly what Kant says. Without the sense of touch, he<br />
argues, that is, without our capacity for grasping, holding and feeling<br />
objects, we would never acquire knowledge of their spatial form.<br />
However, other senses (such as our sense of hearing) may be used in an<br />
analogous way with the same results.<br />
So far, I think, Kant is roughly in line with Condillac, Rousseau and<br />
the others mentioned above. In Directions in space and in Orientation,<br />
however, he goes beyond them. In Directions in space he does so by<br />
approaching what will later be known as his Copernican perspective,<br />
arguing that the spatial locations in which we perceive objects are the<br />
product of our determinations [Bestimmungen] concerning these<br />
locations. 37 In Orientation 38 he does so by suggesting that our capacity to<br />
draw a circle, and by doing so to recognize whether the direction is from<br />
left to right or the other way around, is a necessary condition of our<br />
capacity to determine a priori the different locations of objects in space.<br />
I think it is extremely interesting to see how this Copernican<br />
perspective and the notion of the a priori are associated here with a<br />
theory of the embodied origin of spatial awareness and spatial concepts.<br />
Kant’s Copernican perspective and his notion of the a priori are<br />
normally seen as constitutive of his transcendental philosophy, which is<br />
typically thought to have no connection with reflections such as the one<br />
explored in this chapter. In part two I shall claim, however, that there is<br />
such a connection after all and that the body is central to Kant’s mature<br />
transcendental philosophy and its corresponding theory of space.<br />
37<br />
Ak II: 383.<br />
38<br />
Ak VIII: 135.<br />
<strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> SPACE
3. RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
A spirit is a being endowed with reason. No<br />
miraculous powers are needed, therefore, to see<br />
spirits; for, whoever sees human beings sees<br />
beings endowed with reason.<br />
From Dreams of a spirit-seer 1<br />
With these words Kant mocks those rational psychologists who invoke<br />
the existence of invisible spirits to explain human rationality. Human<br />
beings are rational beings, he reminds us. So, if by ‘spirit’ we mean<br />
simply ‘rational being’, then no supernatural endowment is required for a<br />
person who wants to see a spirit. He can just look at a human being.<br />
Kant’s criticism of rational psychology should come as no surprise by<br />
now. We have seen how in texts published both before and after the<br />
Critique he generally avoids entering into the traditional ontological<br />
discourse about the mind. Instead, we have seen how he embraces a<br />
more empirical or pragmatic perspective in these texts, and how, within<br />
this perspective, he advances a theory of an intimate integration of mind<br />
and body, an integration that also includes the higher cognitive faculties.<br />
In Universal natural history, for instance, he claims that the capacity to<br />
connect and compare concepts is influenced by the physical constitution<br />
of the body of the thinking subject. Consequently, the reason why human<br />
rationality in general is so imperfectly developed is to be sought in the<br />
crudeness of the matter of which our bodies are composed.<br />
It may be worth noting, however, that while in Universal natural<br />
history he stresses a causal connection between the internal constitution<br />
of our bodies and our rational capacities, 2<br />
later he downplays this part of<br />
his theory. He never seems to have given up completely the idea that<br />
insight into the nervous system or other organs may disclose important<br />
knowledge about human rationality, but alongside this he develops<br />
another perspective that increasingly dominates his theory of rationality.<br />
The entire human being as a totality of mind and body, that is as an<br />
embodied agent, is now the main focus, and human rationality is<br />
1<br />
Ak II: 319.<br />
2 Ak I: 356.
80<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
analyzed at the level of the behavior of this agent. The new theory of<br />
rationality resulting from this change in perspective is found in texts such<br />
as On the common saying from 1793, Anthropology from 1798, Logic<br />
from 1800 and On pedagogy from 1803. I will refer to these texts as<br />
Kant’s writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic. This way of<br />
referring to them is also meant to indicate that each text covers more<br />
than its title suggests and that they overlap thematically. For instance, he<br />
approaches pedagogical topics not only in On pedagogy, but also in<br />
Anthropology, and his published writings on both pedagogy and logic<br />
include passages relevant to our understanding of his anthropology.<br />
In Kant’s writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic, human<br />
rationality is discussed with reference to human acts and behavior, or<br />
more specifically, to the human capacity for handling rules and to act<br />
according to rules. Acts that take place according to rules, or sets of rules,<br />
he calls ‘practice’. So if we are going to give a rough initial<br />
characterization of Kant’s new theoretical outlook, we may say that it<br />
associates the concept of rationality with that of practice. In the above<br />
mentioned texts he gives a number of examples of practices associated<br />
with rationality. In all of these practices, the human agent is evidently an<br />
embodied agent, and the practices may consequently be qualified as<br />
embodied practices. So we can also say that Kant now promotes the idea<br />
of an association between the concepts of embodied practice and human<br />
rationality. Embodied practices, moreover, are not seen merely as<br />
expressions of underlying rational processes taking place, for instance, in<br />
the brain or on a mental level. They are seen as the medium in which<br />
human beings realize themselves in a very basic sense as rational beings.<br />
The term ‘rationality’ is here used in a broad sense and includes all the<br />
skills and capacities through which man appears as a rational animal in<br />
the Aristotelian sense of the term. I will say more about this later.<br />
Kant takes a practice to be a set of acts having a goal. When we<br />
participate in a practice, we do it for a purpose, because we want to<br />
achieve something. This means there is also a pragmatic aspect to Kant’s<br />
definition of a practice. This pragmatic aspect is also transferred to his<br />
theory of rationality, or so I shall argue. I will refer to this theory as<br />
Kant’s ‘pragmatic theory of embodied rationality’. I do not claim that<br />
this pragmatic theory of embodied rationality exhausts all Kant has to<br />
say about human rationality but I think that it occupies a central position<br />
within his general theory of rationality. I shall return to this in due<br />
course.<br />
Exactly when Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality<br />
emerged is hard to say. Even if the above-mentioned texts were<br />
published towards the end of his life, they are based for the most part on
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
lectures given over a long period of time. On pedagogy, for instance, was<br />
based on lectures he began to give in 1776, while the lectures on which<br />
Anthropology was based date back to 1772 or even earlier. He gave his<br />
first lectures on logic in the early 1760s. 3 My guess is that Kant’s new<br />
ideas on rationality emerged during the 1760s, inspired by his reading of<br />
Rousseau's Émile, amongst other things. I will return to this point again<br />
and in a later chapter I shall argue that Kant espoused this pragmatic<br />
theory of embodied rationality in 1781 when he published his first<br />
Critique, and that it influenced both the cognitive theory and the<br />
epistemology of the work.<br />
That Kant puts forward a pragmatic theory of embodied rationality<br />
in his writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic is, as far as I know, a<br />
fact that has been almost completely ignored. 4 I think this overwhelming<br />
lack of recognition may be due to a number of reasons. One possible<br />
explanation is that what I call Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied<br />
rationality is found in passages scattered throughout a number of texts<br />
none of which contains an explicit and comprehensive formulation of it.<br />
Secondly, the texts in which these passages are found belong to a group<br />
of texts, such as his writings on anthropology and pedagogy, that are<br />
typically not very highly valued in the Kant research. A third, and by no<br />
means trivial reason, may be that the theory is overlooked either because<br />
it does not fit into what the interpreters regard as philosophy proper, or<br />
simply that it does not correspond to what they expect to find in an<br />
eighteenth-century philosopher. I will return to this point later.<br />
Earlier I mentioned how Kant’s anthropological writings were<br />
generally regarded as having little or no philosophical relevance. This, I<br />
think, is even more the case where his pedagogical writings are<br />
concerned. They have typically been regarded as little more than a<br />
collection of practical and didactic bits of advice containing little of any<br />
originality. Weisskopf even claims that On pedagogy cannot be regarded<br />
as an authentic work by Kant at all and should therefore be removed<br />
from the corpus. 5 Even if it may very well be the case that not all parts of<br />
On pedagogy (which was compiled by Brink, a contemporary of Kant)<br />
are authentic, 6<br />
the general estimation of Kant’s writings on pedagogy<br />
3<br />
Cf. Oberhausen (1997), 108.<br />
4<br />
The only exception I am aware of is Svendsen (1999). As for the Critique,<br />
however, a number of authors have commented upon the pragmatic strains of<br />
this text, e.g. Bennett (1966).<br />
5<br />
Weisskopf (1970).<br />
6<br />
Cf. e.g. Beck (1979).<br />
81
82<br />
seems to be about to change. For instance Munzel argues, in terms<br />
similar to those I have used concerning Kant’s anthropology, that Kant’s<br />
pedagogical theory contains important philosophical insights, moreover,<br />
it may also help us achieve a better understanding of other parts of his<br />
philosophy, such as his ethics. 7<br />
Before I say more about Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied<br />
rationality and how it developed, let me present some general remarks<br />
concerning the terms ‘practice’, ‘embodied practice’ and ‘pragmatic’.<br />
3.1 Practice<br />
In contemporary philosophy the term ‘practice’ is central to the tradition<br />
following the late Wittgenstein, who in his Philosophical investigations<br />
ascribes a basic significance to human practices. 8 He argues that the<br />
meaning of a term is defined by its use, and that this use is not arbitrary,<br />
but directed by the language games in which it appears. A language<br />
game, in turn, is typically seen as embedded in a more comprehensive,<br />
practical enterprise. One of Wittgenstein’s well known examples is a<br />
group of carpenters building a house. Their language game is in this case<br />
embedded in their project of building the house. If we define ‘practice’ in<br />
a preliminary way, as a set of acts serving to realize a goal, then building<br />
a house may be characterized as a practice, and what Wittgenstein calls a<br />
language game may be seen as a part or aspect of such a practice. The<br />
notion of a game also implies the presence of rules, so a Wittgensteinian<br />
practice may be seen as a set of acts taking place according to rules and<br />
aiming at the realization of a goal.<br />
This, I think, is also more or less the notion implied by Rawls when in<br />
his Theory of justice he defines a practice as an activity taking place<br />
according to rules.<br />
I use the word ‘practice’ throughout as a sort of technical term<br />
meaning any form of activity specified by a system of rules [...] and<br />
which gives the activity its structure. 9<br />
MacIntyre also adheres to a conception close to the Wittgensteinian one,<br />
defining ‘practice’ as:<br />
7<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
For a further discussion of Kant’s On pedagogy and its reception, see Munzel<br />
(1999), 258. Cf. also Pleines (1985), Hufnagel (1988) and Stark (2000).<br />
8<br />
Wittgenstein (1984).<br />
9<br />
John Rawls (1955), 3, footnote.
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
83<br />
… a coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative<br />
human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity<br />
are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of<br />
excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that<br />
form of activity. 10<br />
MacIntyre’s definition seems to rest on a distinction between a set of acts<br />
on the one hand, and these acts when they are embedded in a more<br />
comprehensive cultural and social structure on the other. Moreover, he<br />
seems to want to restrict the meaning of ‘practice’ to the latter case. Tictac-toe,<br />
for instance, is not a practice according to MacIntyre, nor is<br />
throwing a football with skill; but the game of football is, and so is chess.<br />
And whereas bricklaying and planting turnips are not practices,<br />
architecture and farming are. So also are the enquiries of physics,<br />
chemistry and biology, and the creation and sustaining of human<br />
communities in the Aristotelian sense. A practice, he concludes, involves<br />
standards of excellence and obedience to rules as well as the achievement<br />
of goods (also in the Aristotelian sense).<br />
MacIntyre’s reference to Aristotle suggests that his notion of practice<br />
has a Greek equivalent and if we look at Aristotle, I think we may find<br />
two concepts more or less closely related to the modern notion of a<br />
practice; praxis and poiesis. In his Metaphysics Aristotle introduces his<br />
well known division of the human sciences into three classes; the<br />
theoretical, the practical and the productive. 11 The theoretical sciences<br />
give us knowledge that is true and necessary, i.e. episteme. Praxis is the<br />
Aristotelian term associated with the second class of sciences; ethics and<br />
politics. These both have their goals in themselves, Aristotle explains.<br />
Their goal is the good life or eupraxia, i.e. ‘good praxis’. 12<br />
Poiesis is the<br />
Aristotelian term associated with the third class of sciences. These<br />
sciences have their goals outside themselves, i.e. in their products. 13<br />
Central to the last class of sciences is also the concept of techné. Techné<br />
is a Greek term not easily translated, however, it refers to a system of<br />
practical knowledge, or skills. In English the term is often translated by<br />
‘art’.<br />
In the Aristotelian model, both praxis and poiesis refer to sets of acts<br />
having a goal, whether this goal is seen as internal to the activity or not.<br />
10<br />
MacIntyre (1984), 180-203.<br />
11<br />
1025b25ff.<br />
12<br />
1098b22<br />
13<br />
Cf. e.g. 980b25ff., and also 1140a1ff.
84<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
Moreover, there are specific standards according to which these acts are<br />
to be performed, which according to Aristotle typically exist as a sort of<br />
tacit knowledge in the community of agents performing them. Thus, I<br />
think that the activities corresponding to the Aristotelian terms praxis<br />
and poiesis may both be seen as falling under the concept of a practice<br />
suggested above.<br />
In what follows I shall mainly be using the definition of ‘practice’<br />
found in Kant’s short work On the common saying from 1793. This is<br />
how he defines it there.<br />
A sum of rules, even of practical rules, is called theory if those rules<br />
are thought as principles having a certain generality, so that<br />
abstraction is made from a multitude of conditions that yet have a<br />
necessary influence on their application. Conversely, not every doing<br />
is called practice, but only that effecting of an end which is thought as<br />
the observance of certain principles of procedure represented in their<br />
generality. 14<br />
Not just any kind of activity [Hantierung] deserves to be called ‘practice’,<br />
Kant argues, but only acts following some sort of general rules or<br />
principles for behavior. Even if he does not say so explicitly here, his<br />
examples also imply that people involved in a practice do it in order to<br />
attain an end. Hence it may be defined as a set of actions performed<br />
according to a set of rules to attain an end. In what follows this is the<br />
definition I shall use.<br />
In his examples of practices, which will be considered again later,<br />
Kant often refers to medicine, law and agriculture, i.e. the practices<br />
corresponding to these sciences. This may suggest that his notion of<br />
practice lies close to the MacIntyrian conception. However, I cannot see<br />
that the text as a whole supports this conclusion. Accordingly, I will take<br />
the Kantian concept of practice to refer to any set of acts taking place<br />
according to rules or principles 15 and aiming at some goal. This means<br />
that contrary to MacIntyre, I will count bricklaying, for example, as a<br />
practice in a Kantian sense, as well as activities like walking, swimming<br />
or riding a bicycle.<br />
As a general rule, I shall let any activity associated with the notion of<br />
a skill count as a practice in the Kantian sense. The concept of skill<br />
signals that the activity in question may be judged according to explicit<br />
14<br />
Ak VIII: 275.<br />
15<br />
As we shall soon see, these rules do not have to be made explicit. They may be<br />
present simply as tacit knowledge.
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or tacit standards or rules. Moreover, if we examine these standards or<br />
rules, they typically relate to the achievement of an end. Walking is a<br />
practice, according to this, as walking is typically done for a purpose (in a<br />
minimal sense the purpose is to move from one place to another) and as<br />
there are tacit rules or standards by which we may evaluate the quality of<br />
the walking taking place. When we do not generally make these rules<br />
explicit, it may be because we (or most of us) are skilled walkers for whom<br />
these rules are tacitly understood. This does not exclude the fact that we<br />
may sometimes make them explicit, for instance when comparing and<br />
evaluating the walking of two children who are learning to walk for the<br />
first time.<br />
Let me now specify what I mean by an ‘embodied practice’. In using<br />
this expression I do not mean to imply that the participants of an<br />
embodied practice participate only with their bodies. They participate<br />
with the whole of themselves, body and mind. It is the fact that both are<br />
involved that gives the practice status as embodied. The examples given<br />
by MacIntyre are all examples of what I shall call embodied practices. So<br />
are Kant’s examples, which will be further considered below. In some<br />
cases, an embodied practice may also involve various instruments. The<br />
doctor, for instance, in his medical practice, which, according to my<br />
definition is embodied, uses a number of instruments.<br />
It may be objected that all practices are embodied, and thus, that the<br />
term ‘embodied practice’ is a pleonasm. The response to such a criticism<br />
may depend on the philosophical outlook of the respondent. One might,<br />
for instance, claim that there are acts that are purely mental, and that<br />
such acts may be performed according to a set of rules in order to attain<br />
some end. Following our definition, these acts would then count as a<br />
practice. According to some interpretations of Kant, this is how his<br />
theory of the human employment of the categories is to be understood.<br />
The categories are then conceived as rules directing our mental<br />
operations so that objective knowledge is produced. According to this<br />
model, and our definition of practice, our employment of the categories<br />
is then a practice taking place solely at the mental level. Other such<br />
practices may also be imagined. The term ‘embodied practice’ signals<br />
that such practices, if we accept that they exist, are not to be included<br />
within the extension of the term.<br />
3.2 Pragmatism<br />
In contemporary philosophy the term ‘pragmatism’ is often associated<br />
with what was around the beginning of the twentieth century the most<br />
85
86<br />
influential school in American philosophy, represented by such as<br />
Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), William James (1842-1910) and John<br />
Dewey (1859-1952). In this school, a pragmatic theory of truth evolved<br />
according to which the truth of a theory does not lie in its structural<br />
similarity with the world, or in its correspondence with the world in some<br />
other way, but in its use or instrumental value. According to the<br />
pragmatist, if it is useful or satisfying to the person having it, then it is<br />
true.<br />
In the following I will be using the term ‘pragmatic’, if not exactly in<br />
this sense, then in a related one. I will use the term to qualify a certain<br />
view of rationality according to which a person is said to be rational not<br />
on account of the possession of abstract concepts, principles or theories,<br />
but because of the capacity to perform certain practices. We shall soon<br />
see how this fits in with Kant’s theory of rationality, even if he does not<br />
use the term ‘pragmatic’ to describe it. In addition to this, I shall also be<br />
using the term in a somewhat looser sense. The term will then be used to<br />
qualify those who evaluate theories, things or activities by their<br />
usefulness, which is close to Kant’s explicit use of it. 16<br />
Before looking more closely at the details of what I have called Kant’s<br />
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality and how it is expressed in<br />
various texts, I shall make some observations concerning its origin and<br />
development. Just as was the case with his theory of the embodied<br />
constitution of spatial representations, I think its origin is twofold. It may<br />
in part be viewed as the logical outcome of some basic ideas and<br />
assumptions he espoused, but in working out these consequences, he may<br />
also have been influenced by other philosophers and scholars, as well as<br />
by the general cultural climate of the eighteenth century.<br />
If we start by looking at the internal logic present in the development<br />
leading to Kant’s new conception of rationality, one central starting point<br />
is his growing discontent with the approach that he himself pursued in his<br />
younger years when, for instance in Universal natural history, he<br />
suggested that the key to understanding human rationality was to gain<br />
insight into the internal constitution of the human body, especially the<br />
nervous system. Even if he probably did not altogether give up hope that<br />
insight into the nervous system or other organs might one day disclose<br />
16<br />
Cf. e.g. Zammito (2002), 297.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
3.3 The historical origin of Kant’s pragmatism
important knowledge about human rationality, he realized that given the<br />
actual state of eighteenth-century physiology, the prospects of success in<br />
this field were poor. Another approach was needed.<br />
In the Anthropology there are two passages confirming that the lines<br />
of thought here suggested were actually entertained by Kant. A first<br />
example is found in the first part of the book, where as we have seen he<br />
discusses the difference between what he calls a physiological and a<br />
pragmatic anthropology. Kant’s example is memory. The task of a<br />
physiological anthropology is to explore how our memory depends on<br />
and corresponds to processes in the brain. As these processes are<br />
unknown to us, however, we can only speculate about their character,<br />
which, he complains, is a waste of time. In pragmatic anthropology, on<br />
the other hand, the task is to observe what either promotes or impedes<br />
memory. This knowledge is directly useful in making it possible to<br />
control and perfect memory. 17<br />
Where are we to direct our attention if we are to pursue this project?<br />
One answer is that we have to study human behavior in context.<br />
Exploring what either promotes or impedes memory, we have to look at<br />
the practices entertained by people trying to learn, for instance, a certain<br />
method or technique. Or we may look at the pedagogical institutions<br />
where the art of making students remember what is being taught is<br />
cultivated in the form of didactic practices.<br />
Even if Kant does not explicitly draw this last connection there are<br />
arguments in support of the idea that he did so implicitly. This, further,<br />
puts us in a position to understand his strong interest in pedagogy.<br />
Pedagogy is important because within this discipline didactic measures<br />
are developed that make it possible to influence the skills of the students<br />
so that they become more qualified participants in practices that are<br />
useful. Furthermore, through the mastery of these practices the students<br />
also become more rational.<br />
A second passage conveying a similar message is found in the<br />
Anthropology where Kant discusses the human capacity for making<br />
associations between ideas. A physiological explanation of this capacity<br />
will never be found, he claims, and the hypotheses that do exist in this<br />
field do not qualify as pragmatic because they do not help us improve the<br />
art of association:<br />
17<br />
Ak VII : 119.<br />
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88<br />
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To try to explain this in physiological terms is futile; we are free to use<br />
some principle that will always remain a hypothesis (which is itself,<br />
again, a construction), such as Descartes’ so-called material ideas in<br />
the brain. But in any case, no explanation of this kind is pragmatic:<br />
that is, we cannot use it in practicing the art of association, because<br />
we have no knowledge of the brain and of the places in it where the<br />
traces of impressions made by ideas might enter into sympathetic<br />
harmony with one another, insofar as they touch one another (at least<br />
mediately), so to speak. 18<br />
The impotence of the physiological sciences is here contrasted with the<br />
art of association. Kant does not specify what is here meant by ‘art’, but I<br />
think we may safely assume that this art is somehow connected to what<br />
he elsewhere defines as practice. 19<br />
Another part of the internal logic leading Kant to form a new<br />
conception of rationality may be found by focusing on the idea that the<br />
mind is virtually present in the body, combined with the widespread idea,<br />
shared by most philosophers at the time, that human rationality is a skill<br />
or capacity that may be ascribed to a certain part of the mind. In Kant’s<br />
own terminology, human rationality is associated with the three higher<br />
cognitive faculties; reason, power of judgment and understanding.<br />
Typically, these faculties are perceived to be inner, mental faculties, for<br />
instance of a Cartesian mind, hidden and not subject to external<br />
18 Ak VII: 176.<br />
19 According to Sturm (2001), 175ff., Kant’s emphasis on practice, i.e. behavior,<br />
in his Anthropology may be seen as constituting a third way between the<br />
physiological approach of some natural philosophers, and the introspectionist<br />
approach of empirical psychology. In the second part of the eighteenth century,<br />
he says, the empirical psychology of Wolff and Baumgarten was challenged by<br />
scholars like Charles Bonnet, David Hartley and Ernst Platner, all promoting the<br />
idea that the human mind should be explored by investigating the human brain.<br />
This physiological approach, however, soon came under attack, resulting in a<br />
strengthened position of introspectionist psychology, represented by, among<br />
others, Johann Nicolas Tetens, whose work Kant knew well. Against both of<br />
these trends, Kant promoted a behavior-oriented approach arguing that the state<br />
of a person’s mind may be explored through attention to their externally<br />
observable activity. He advised Johann Caspar Lavater that if his aim was to<br />
know his own soul or state of mind, he ought to look at what he was doing rather<br />
than observe his inner states. According to Kant, so Sturm’s argument goes, our
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
observation. However, if we replace the notion of a Cartesian, mental or<br />
hidden mind with the notion of a mind present as the general activity of<br />
an embodied self, then the image changes. Even the simplest movement<br />
of the body may then also be seen as a movement of the mind. The mind<br />
is not positioned somewhere else, directing the movement from afar. The<br />
mind is the origin of the movement, it is true, but it is also in the<br />
movement. This again opens up for the idea that acts ascribed to the<br />
higher cognitive faculties of the mind, which within a Cartesian or<br />
mentalist context will be interpreted as mental acts, need no longer be<br />
perceived in that way. Acts of reason, power of judgment and<br />
understanding may just as well be identified with external acts and<br />
practices. I would not go so far as to claim that Kant’s thinking actually<br />
did develop along these lines, but the possibility certainly lay open to<br />
him. And whether he did so or not, there is evidence to support the claim<br />
that he ended up with an idea of rationality like the one suggested here.<br />
However, before we go further into this, let us examine also some<br />
historical influences that may have been significant in the development of<br />
his new conception of rationality.<br />
3.4 Rousseau’s influence<br />
Among these influences, Rousseau’s central position is unassailable. In<br />
Émile, published in 1762, he combines a vigorous pragmatism with a<br />
thoroughly embodied perspective. In the previous chapter I argued that<br />
Kant’s theory of space may have been inspired by Émile. I think the<br />
same applies to Kant’s general theory of rationality.<br />
Written as the story of the growth and development of Émile, the<br />
work gives a genetic account of human rationality; that is, it describes<br />
how the rational skills and capacities of the child develop over time.<br />
According to Rousseau, this development involves the whole body and<br />
consists in the development of embodied skills:<br />
vocabulary of representations, thoughts, feelings, passions, traits of personal<br />
character, and so on, is intimately connected to a careful observation of human<br />
practices and human life as it occurs and can be observed, especially in society.<br />
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90<br />
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To exercise an art one must begin by procuring for oneself the<br />
instruments for it; and, to be able to employ these instruments<br />
usefully, one has to make them solid enough to resist wear. To learn<br />
to think, therefore, it is necessary to exercise our limbs, our senses,<br />
our organs, which are the instruments of our intelligence. And, to get<br />
the greatest possible advantage from these instruments, the body<br />
which provides them must be robust and healthy. Thus, far from<br />
man’s true reason being formed independently of the body, it is the<br />
body’s good constitution which makes the mind’s operations easy and<br />
sure. 20<br />
In order to learn to think we must exercise our limbs, Rousseau argues.<br />
Our limbs, our senses and other organs are the tools of the intellect.<br />
As for cognition and rationality in general, he defends the radical idea<br />
that every aspect of it has to be learned. The newborn baby has<br />
sensations in a primitive sense, but it neither sees nor hears. Actually, it<br />
recognizes nothing outside itself, Rousseau maintains. It does not even<br />
know that it has a body. The only primitive idea the child has at this<br />
point is the idea of itself, to which it also ascribes all its sensations. 21<br />
Thus,<br />
cognition has to be learned. The child has to learn both to see and to<br />
hear. 22 That is, it has to learn to apply its senses so that they may be used<br />
to perceive objects in the external world. This learning process starts long<br />
before the child has anything like language or understanding, Rousseau<br />
argues; that is, it begins on a pre-linguistic and pre-reflexive level. Still,<br />
the learning taking place at this level is most significant. Here the<br />
foundations are laid for every skill that is to be developed later:<br />
The education of man begins at his birth; before speaking, before<br />
understanding, he is already learning. 23<br />
In this original learning process, each and every sense is important. A<br />
special significance, nevertheless, is ascribed to touch and the direct<br />
physical manipulation of objects. The child wants to touch and handle<br />
everything, and thus it learns to know the basic properties of the physical<br />
world; that is, heat, cold, hardness, softness, etc. It learns to know the<br />
weight or lightness of bodies, and to judge their size and shape.<br />
20 Rousseau (1979), 125.<br />
21 Rousseau (1979), 143. The same point was promoted by Condillac in his Traité<br />
des sensations, cf. Copleston (1985), vol. IV, 32.<br />
22<br />
Rousseau (1979), 62ff.<br />
23 Ibid., 62.
According to Rousseau, embodied activity is also essential to the<br />
further development of the cognitive and rational abilities of the child.<br />
Thus, rather than giving the child books to read, or make it listen to<br />
lectures, he promotes the principle of learning by doing. More<br />
specifically, he advises that the child partakes in certain embodied<br />
practices by which basic skills are acquired. These skills have a double<br />
significance. In addition to being useful, they further develop and refine<br />
the cognitive and intellectual capacities of the child. Thus, for instance,<br />
Rousseau advises that the child is encouraged to make drawings of the<br />
objects of its environment. By doing this, it learns to estimate the shape<br />
and size of these objects, and also develops a deeper understanding for<br />
the laws of perspective.<br />
91<br />
One could not learn to judge the extension and the size of bodies well<br />
without also getting to know their shapes and even learning to imitate<br />
them; for, at bottom this imitation depends absolutely only on the<br />
laws of perspective, and one can estimate extension by its<br />
appearances only if one has some feeling for these laws. Children,<br />
who are great imitators, all try to draw. I would want my child to<br />
cultivate this art, not precisely for the art itself but for making his eye<br />
exact and his hand flexible. 24<br />
If the child is normally talented, it may also acquire the principles of<br />
geometry in this way, that is, by drawing figures, combining them, and<br />
comparing them, Rousseau argues.<br />
I have said that geometry is not within the reach of children. But it is<br />
our fault. We are not aware that their method is not ours, and that<br />
what becomes for us the art of reasoning, for them ought to be only<br />
the art of seeing... […] Make exact figures, combine them, place<br />
them on one another, examine their relations. You will find the whole<br />
of elementary geometry in moving from observation to observation,<br />
without there being any question of definitions or problems or any<br />
form of demonstration other than simple superimposition. 25<br />
The principle of learning by doing may also be illustrated by what<br />
Rousseau says about language. The best way to teach a child the proper<br />
use of language is simply to speak correctly before it. In this way, without<br />
any further instruction, it will soon have acquired a grammar. The same<br />
24 Ibid., 143.<br />
25 Ibid., 145.<br />
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92<br />
principle holds concerning map-making. By letting the child make simple<br />
maps of well-known places, it not only learns to understand what a map<br />
is, it also learns to find its way from one position to another better.<br />
When the child is to have its first lessons in experimental physics,<br />
embodied action is also emphasized. The child should be encouraged to<br />
partake in the construction of the apparatus involved in the experiments.<br />
Not only does it then learn to use its hands skillfully, which may be useful<br />
later in life, but this way of learning also gives the child the chance to<br />
further perfect its senses.<br />
The most palpable advantage of these slow and laborious researches<br />
is that they keep the body active and the limbs supple during<br />
speculative studies and continuously form the hands for the work and<br />
the practices useful to man. All the instruments invented to guide us<br />
in our experiments and to take the place of accuracy of the senses<br />
cause the senses to be neglected. 26<br />
I introduced this paragraph by claiming that in Émile Rousseau puts<br />
forward an embodied pragmatism, but what exactly is this embodied<br />
pragmatism? The pragmatic aspect of Rousseau’s theory is most easily<br />
seen, perhaps, by the fact that in all his learning, Émile is encouraged to<br />
become master of practical skills useful in his daily life. Also, Rousseau<br />
vehemently attacks the traditional knowledge of the schools and the<br />
abstract knowledge of books. This knowledge is, in the end, next to<br />
useless.<br />
Even if he does not coin a separate term for it, I think Rousseau, in<br />
his emphasis on practical skills, may be said to promote a pragmatic<br />
theory of rationality. In this theory, not only do the practical skills of<br />
everyday life count as forms of knowledge, but this knowledge is<br />
conceived of as a form of knowledge superior to the theoretical<br />
knowledge of the schools. If we are to express the same point in<br />
Aristotelian terms, we may say that Rousseau turns the Aristotelian<br />
hierarchy of the sciences upside down. The episteme of the theoretical<br />
sciences is no longer regarded as a superior form of knowledge. Its<br />
superior position is now taken by the techné of the productive sciences.<br />
As for Rousseau’s embodied perspective, it is present not only as the<br />
trivial idea that education should include the cultivation of the body, but<br />
I think Rousseau’s idea of embodiment goes much deeper, signaled by<br />
his tendency to equate embodied and rational development. The child’s<br />
26 Ibid., 176.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
ational powers are not developed in silent reflection, they are developed<br />
in practice. Its whole body appears as an organ of rationality, a<br />
rationality exercised in and through the acts corresponding to the<br />
practices constituting its education.<br />
A number of authors have commented upon Rousseau’s influence on<br />
Kant. It is well known that Kant was so fascinated by Émile when he first<br />
read it in 1764 that he abandoned his daily walks in order to continue<br />
reading it. Kant was also familiar with Rousseau’s other works, as one of<br />
his first biographers, Ludwig Ernst Borowski, testifies. 27 A possible sign of<br />
Kant’s admiration is also the fact that the only work of art in his home<br />
was a portrait of the French philosopher. 28<br />
Even more conspicuous are a number of statements in which Kant<br />
declares his admiration for Rousseau. One example may be found in his<br />
Announcement written just after he had read Émile. Kant announces<br />
that in his next lectures on ethics he will proceed according to the<br />
method by which man is studied, not in the varying forms in which his<br />
accidental circumstances have molded him, nor in the distorted form in<br />
which even philosophers have almost always misconstrued him, but by<br />
focusing on that which is enduring in human nature. Kant speaks of this<br />
new approach as a ‘brilliant discovery of our time, which, when<br />
considered in its full scheme, was completely unknown to the ancients’. 29<br />
Even if Rousseau is not explicitly mentioned here, I agree with Pitte 30<br />
that he is the originator of the brilliant discovery that Kant celebrates.<br />
This is clear when we turn to comments made in Kant’s notes. There he<br />
explicitly mentions that just as the theories of Newton had brought order,<br />
regularity, and great simplicity into our conception of the universe, so<br />
Rousseau had provided the key that would permit a neat and orderly<br />
philosophy of man. 31 In a recent publication, Zammito characterizes the<br />
intensity in Kant’s admiration for Rousseau by claiming that he was<br />
never so enthusiastic in his reading of any other thinker. 32<br />
If Kant’s admiration of Rousseau is a well-established fact, the nature<br />
of Rousseau’s influence is more debated. Most authors emphasize the<br />
ethical aspect of this influence. They see Rousseau as responsible for<br />
what is often characterized as Kant’s ethical turn. According to Cassirer,<br />
27<br />
Cf. Gross (1993), 69.<br />
28<br />
Cf. e.g. Cassirer (1991), 3.<br />
29<br />
Cf. Pitte (1978), xiv.<br />
30<br />
Op. cit.<br />
31<br />
Cf. Cassirer (1991), 20.<br />
32<br />
Zammito (2002), 93.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
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94<br />
Kant saw in Rousseau’s philosophy a model of character building, and in<br />
the author of this philosophy a proponent of human rights and dignity,<br />
ideas that later came to fruition in his ethics. 33 The philosophy of religion<br />
is also singled out as a field in which the influence on Kant of Rousseau<br />
was decisive. 34 However, even if this is accepted, I do not think it by any<br />
means exhausts what there is to say about the influence of Rousseau on<br />
Kant. For my own part I want to stress Kant’s interest in pedagogy, and<br />
the strong Rousseauan tone of his own pedagogical works, documented<br />
for instance by Niethammer. 35 I want to call attention to Rousseau’s<br />
disparagement of scholarly knowledge and the high esteem he accords<br />
the practical skills of ordinary people, adopted, at least in part, by Kant,<br />
enhancing the pragmatic and empiricist tendencies of his philosophy, as<br />
commented upon by e.g. Vleeschauwer and others. 36 First and foremost,<br />
however, I want to emphasize how all these ideas and ideals are founded<br />
in a unified conception of man, a conception recognized and adopted by<br />
Kant. It is a conception according to which man is basically an embodied<br />
being whose first development is mediated by his free interaction with his<br />
physical environment. Here human rationality has its basis, Rousseau<br />
argues, a rationality that is later developed through the embodied<br />
practices the child learns to master.<br />
When Kant, like Rousseau, denounces Dressieren in the education of<br />
children, and advises instead that the educational process should be<br />
characterized by freedom, including freedom of movement, fiercely<br />
attacking artificial inventions inhibiting such movement, the reason is not<br />
only that it impedes the physical development of the child. It also<br />
negatively affects the healthy development of man considered as a<br />
rational being. 37<br />
I think that when Kant ascribes to Rousseau the brilliant<br />
discovery of how man must be studied with an eye for that which is<br />
enduring in human nature, he also has in mind the idea that human<br />
rationality is embodied, and that reflection on human rationality has to<br />
33<br />
Cf. Cassirer (1991), 12ff. Similar ideas have been promoted by e.g. Pitte (1971<br />
and 1978), Dieterich (1878) and most recently by Zammito (2002). According to<br />
Zammito, however, Kant’s enthusiasm for Rousseau lasted only for a while.<br />
From around 1770 Kant began to distance himself from Rousseau. Dieterich also<br />
emphasises Rousseau’s influence in the fields of social theory and the philosophy<br />
of history.<br />
34<br />
Cf. e.g. Cassirer (1991), 44 and Klemme (1996), 56.<br />
35<br />
Niethammer (1980), 129.<br />
36<br />
Cf. Vleeschauwer (1962), 41, Makkreel (2001), 187 and Zammito (2002), 113ff.<br />
37<br />
Cf. Ak IX: 463.<br />
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e based on this idea, i.e. it requires that we direct our attention to the<br />
embodied aspects of man and to his embodied acts and practices. 38<br />
3.5 Basedow and Crusius<br />
Similar influences to those just mentioned may also have come through<br />
the writings of Johann Bernhard Basedow, whose pedagogical ideas Kant<br />
eagerly supported. In 1774 Basedow opened a radical educational<br />
institution in Germany, an initiative backed by Kant. In the same year,<br />
pedagogy was introduced as a subject at the University at Königsberg,<br />
and in the following year pedagogy was added to the topics on which<br />
Kant lectured. 39<br />
Less radical, and theoretically not as interesting as Rousseau's Émile,<br />
Basedow nevertheless ascribes a basic significance to practice.<br />
Concerning the education of the young gentleman, he suggests in his<br />
Elementarwerk that he should spend time with experienced artisans and<br />
craftsmen in order to learn to use their tools to perform simple<br />
operations. 40 He also recommends regular studies in practice on a wellrun<br />
farm. 41 By being part of such practical contexts, the student acquires<br />
his first concepts of the relevant arts and of agriculture. Basedow, like<br />
Rousseau, ascribes to embodied participation a highly significant role in<br />
the education of practical skills, skills, moreover, valued more highly than<br />
mere theoretical reflections.<br />
A third source of influence may have been Christian August Crusius<br />
who in his Anweisung vernünftig zu leben promoted a cognitive theory<br />
with pragmatic strains, based on an anthropology in which the human<br />
mind was seen as radically embodied. 42 As Tonelli points out, Crusius<br />
was an eclectic whose position was not always consistent. 43<br />
95<br />
Thus, his<br />
pragmatism is perhaps not as clear cut as the pragmatism of e.g.<br />
Rousseau. I still, however, see him as a possible influence on Kant. He<br />
introduces his Anweisung vernunftig zu leben with a chapter on<br />
Thelematologie, or a theory of the will. ‘Will’ is here defined as the<br />
38<br />
That Kant saw Rousseau as an inspiration within the field of rational theory is<br />
suggested also by a remark found in the Blomberg Logic of 1771. Here Rousseau<br />
is heralded as supplying a ‘grammar of the understanding’. Cf. Ak XXIV: 300.<br />
Cf. also Ak XXIV: 495 and Zammito (2002), 260-261.<br />
39<br />
Cf. Munzel (1999), 266ff.<br />
40<br />
Basedow (1965), 192.<br />
41<br />
Ibid., 192.<br />
42<br />
For Crusius’ influence on Kant, cf. also Heimsoeth (1971), 127ff.<br />
43<br />
Tonelli (1969).<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
96<br />
power of a spirit to act according to its representations. 44 A spirit [Geist]<br />
is defined as a living substance which has ideas, or which thinks. 45<br />
The fact that Crusius introduces his work with a chapter on the will is<br />
no coincidence. He ascribes to the will a basic role in human life. This<br />
may not be evident at first sight. He operates with a rather traditional<br />
distinction between understanding [Verstand], defined as the power that<br />
makes it possible for us to find the truth, and will, defined as the capacity<br />
to act, and he argues that they are different Grundkräfte. 46 However, he<br />
immediately undermines this distinction by claiming the will to be an allpervasive<br />
power, permeating the understanding as well as the body. It<br />
affects the understanding, for instance, by making it possible for it to<br />
direct its attention towards a certain topic over time. Also, in order to<br />
develop a proper understanding, we have to use it, which requires<br />
practice, which again presupposes an enduring will, he argues. 47 Finally,<br />
he explains the existence of certain basic concepts by referring to what he<br />
calls ‘basic desires’ [Grundbegierden], which are also expressions of the<br />
will. Thus, for instance, the concept of an object [der deutliche Begriff<br />
des Objectes] is based on such a desire. 48 How far this undermines his<br />
distinction between the understanding and the will, I shall not say.<br />
However, it certainly gives the will an essential function in the cognitive<br />
process.<br />
The will, Crusius suggests, also permeates all parts of the body and its<br />
functions. He distinguishes between various classes of embodied acts;<br />
actiones animales, which are embodied acts driven by desires of which<br />
we are conscious; and action vitales and action naturales which are<br />
unconscious. An example of the latter is the process of digestion. These<br />
acts, he argues, probably have their origin in the will, even if we are not<br />
aware of doing them, and even if they do not require a deliberate<br />
decision. 49<br />
In addition to this the will is, of course, also involved in<br />
embodied acts deliberately performed.<br />
The ideas investigated so far do not in themselves constitute a<br />
pragmatic theory of rationality. However, by making the will an allpervasive<br />
power, a theoretical basis is laid on which such a theory may be<br />
constructed. If we look at the will as the active principle in man, and if<br />
44<br />
Crusius (1969), 5.<br />
45<br />
Ibid., 5.<br />
46<br />
Ibid., 9.<br />
47<br />
Ibid., 33.<br />
48<br />
Ibid., 116-117.<br />
49<br />
Ibid., 39.<br />
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RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
we accept that this will exists as an omnipresent force, directing even our<br />
rational capacities, it is not far from this to the idea that our rationality<br />
realizes itself through acts initiated by this will. If, further we assume that<br />
these acts have a goal, and that their rational status is decided on the<br />
basis of whether they reach this goal or not, then we are close to a<br />
pragmatism of a Kantian sort.<br />
I think there are passages in Crusius’ work suggesting that he may<br />
have approached such a position. One is found in the first part of the<br />
Thelematologie, where he announces that he regards thinking as<br />
involving more than just the possession of abstract concepts. 50 In § 73 he<br />
continues by discussing various practices such as writing, composing<br />
verses and chopping wood. 51 These practices, he explains, come into<br />
existence through the regular repetition of certain acts. In this process,<br />
the will acquires gradually a better control of the practice. And the<br />
concepts required for the practice come ever more easily to the soul, as it<br />
remembers how it has proceeded in the same situation earlier. Finally,<br />
along with this, the body becomes a proper instrument of the soul. 52<br />
Rather than being seen as isolated opposites, concept and action,<br />
mind and body are here all viewed as part of an integral whole. Man is<br />
not a being who first calculates the steps of future actions which are then<br />
implemented. The concepts directing the practice are formed and<br />
reinforced through the practice itself. This implies a pragmatic<br />
conception of conceptual knowledge, or so I will argue. The person<br />
exercising the art of writing, composing verses and chopping wood,<br />
moreover, also does so in order to become good at making use of these<br />
arts. Thus, the context in which his concepts evolve is also the context in<br />
which certain practical ends are realized.<br />
I will not claim that Crusius’ work had a decisive impact on Kant’s<br />
thought. However, together with Rousseau, Basedow and perhaps other<br />
like-minded philosophers, he helped to form a background of pragmatic<br />
or quasi-pragmatic ideas that may well have influenced Kant’s thinking.<br />
A final source of inspiration may have been an idea shared by both<br />
the empiricists and the rationalists of his time, namely that thinking<br />
involves certain mental operations like comparison and judging. 53<br />
An<br />
50<br />
Ibid., 5.<br />
51<br />
Crusius uses here the Latin term habitus, cf. Crusius (1969), 92.<br />
52<br />
Ibid., 92-93.<br />
53<br />
For a discussion of the Aristotelian roots of this idea, see Forschner (1986), 82ff.<br />
Forschner also more specifically compares the notions of synthesis and action in<br />
Aristotle and Kant.<br />
97
98<br />
expression of this idea is found in the Port-Royal Logic first published in<br />
1662, which was well known to Kant. 54 Here the mind is ascribed four<br />
basic operations; conceiving, judging, reasoning, and ordering. The last<br />
of these functions is described as follows:<br />
Here we call ordering the mental action in which different ideas,<br />
judgements, and reasonings are arranged on the same subject, such as<br />
the human body, in the manner best suited for knowing the subject.<br />
This is also called method. All this is done naturally and sometimes<br />
better by those who have never studied any rules of logic than by<br />
those who have. 55<br />
Notice, first, how in the first part of this passage, the mental operation of<br />
ordering is called ‘method’. If by ‘method’ we mean acts performed in a<br />
regular way in order to achieve a goal, then ‘method’ is here equivalent<br />
in meaning to ‘practice’ as defined by Kant. 56 Notice, secondly, how, in<br />
the last part of the above passage, this method or practice is associated<br />
with the rules of logic, and finally, how it is said to be sometimes better<br />
performed by a person who has never studied these rules than by a<br />
person who has done so.<br />
Here two things are implied. First, we find implied the idea that what<br />
logic studies, i.e. the rules of human rationality, exist originally as<br />
something people do. That is, these rules exist at a pre-reflective level in<br />
the practices of ordinary people. Secondly, the text implies that what we<br />
set up as the rules of logic are nothing but abstractions derived from this<br />
practice. Shortly thereafter this point is also explicitly stated: logic does<br />
not invent its rules, we are told, its task is merely to reflect on what nature<br />
makes us do. 57<br />
Due to the rationalist outlook of the Port-Royal Logic, there is no<br />
suggestion there that the practices described are embodied practices.<br />
Rather they seem to be conceived of as practices taking place only in<br />
some inner mental realm. Still, there is a sort of pragmatism implied by<br />
this theory that is worth noting, a pragmatism locating the origin of<br />
rationality more in the successful performance of practices than in the<br />
abstract principles of books. Along with the more embodied pragmatism<br />
of Rousseau, Basedow and Crusius, this pragmatism may well have<br />
54<br />
Cf. Caygill (1995), 280.<br />
55<br />
Arnauld (1996), 23.<br />
56<br />
Cf. Ak VIII: 275.<br />
57<br />
Arnauld (1996), 23.<br />
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RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
served as a further inspiration for what I have called Kant’s pragmatic<br />
theory of embodied rationality.<br />
3.6 Kant’s theory of the understanding<br />
It is time to return to Kant’s theory of rationality. I will first give a brief<br />
recapitulation of what I have called his cognitive theory, that is, his<br />
theory of the cognitive faculties and processes of man as it is found in his<br />
writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic. Special emphasis will be<br />
given to two of the higher cognitive faculties; the understanding and the<br />
power of judgment. I shall then explore some passages in which these<br />
faculties are discussed in a context suggesting that their domain of<br />
activity is not restricted to the inner mental realm only, but that they are<br />
also present in embodied practices. These practices are not merely<br />
expressions of underlying rational processes taking place elsewhere,<br />
directed by the understanding and the power of judgment. They are a<br />
medium in which these faculties have an immediate and direct presence<br />
in and through the practices themselves. Finally, we shall see how this<br />
interpretation leads us to what I call Kant’s pragmatic theory of<br />
embodied rationality, and we shall examine the basic principles of this<br />
theory.<br />
In the tradition of eighteenth-century philosophy it was usual,<br />
whenever a certain part or aspect of the cognitive process was identified,<br />
to regard it as corresponding to a specific cognitive power or faculty of<br />
the mind. Kant conforms to this tradition when, as part of his cognitive<br />
theory, he introduces a comprehensive theory of cognitive powers and<br />
capacities. As we have seen, in this cognitive theory a fundamental<br />
distinction is drawn between sensibility and understanding; sensibility<br />
belonging to the passive and receptive side of human cognition,<br />
understanding to its active side. Let us take a closer look at what Kant<br />
has to say about the understanding.<br />
Of the texts examined in this chapter, his cognitive theory is<br />
presented most comprehensively in the Anthropology. In the section<br />
entitled ‘On sensibility as contrasted with understanding’, Kant describes<br />
the faculty of understanding, or the intellectual faculty as it is also called,<br />
as follows:<br />
99
100<br />
When our mind conducts itself passively toward ideas [Vorstellungen,<br />
in Ansehung deren sich das Gemüt leidend verhalt], so that we are<br />
affected by them (whether we affect ourselves or are affected by an<br />
object), these ideas belong to our sensuous cognitive power. But ideas<br />
that consist in a mere activity (thinking) belong to our intellectual<br />
cognitive power. Accordingly, the sensuous cognitive power is called<br />
the inferior cognitive power, and the intellectual, the superior<br />
cognitive power. 58<br />
Not only is the understanding here described as an active faculty, but<br />
Kant also suggests that what we refer to by the term ‘thinking’ is the acts<br />
performed by this faculty. The understanding then reappears as a topic<br />
in the section entitled ‘On the cognitive power insofar as it is based on<br />
understanding’. It is here defined as ‘the capacity of thinking’. 59 Thinking,<br />
Kant further explains, is the capacity to represent something through<br />
concepts. His way of making the point may suggest that he takes thinking<br />
to involve merely the possession of mental representations, perhaps even<br />
mental images of some kind. However, we must bear in mind that he has<br />
just defined thinking to be an activity. What kind of activity is it? In<br />
language highly reminiscent of the Critique, he now tells us that the<br />
understanding has the function of producing unity in the manifold of our<br />
empirical representations so that the cognition of objects is made<br />
possible. Moreover, the understanding is associated with rules, which are<br />
said to inhere in the concepts with which the understanding works:<br />
Understanding, taken as the power of thinking (representing things to<br />
ourselves by concepts), is also called the higher cognitive power (as<br />
distinguished from sensibility, the lower); for the power of intuition<br />
(pure or empirical) is limited to objects in their singularity, whereas<br />
the power of concepts contains the universal element of ideas.<br />
Understanding contains, in other words, the rule to which the<br />
manifold of sensuous intuitions must be submitted in order to<br />
produce the unity essential to knowledge of objects. 60<br />
So far Kant has used the term ‘understanding’ in a general sense,<br />
referring to the higher cognitive faculty in general. At this point,<br />
however, he introduces a model according to which this higher cognitive<br />
faculty has three parts, forming a hierarchy of levels. In the terminology<br />
58 Ak VII: 140.<br />
59 Ak VII: 196.<br />
60 Ak VII: 196.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
101<br />
corresponding to this new model, ‘understanding’ is used in a more<br />
limited sense than before, referring to the lowest level of the threefold<br />
hierarchy only. Reason [Vernunft] is the term associated with the highest<br />
level, while at the intermediate level we find what he calls the power of<br />
judgment [Urteilskraft].<br />
But we also take the word ‘understanding’ in a particular sense,<br />
namely, when we subordinate it to understanding in the general<br />
sense, as one member of a division that has two other members. In<br />
this case the higher cognitive power (considered materially - that is,<br />
not merely in itself but with respect to knowledge of objects) consists<br />
in understanding, judgment [Urteilskraft] and reason [Vernunft]. 61<br />
Now, how are we to characterize the understanding, considered in this<br />
new and more limited sense? In an explanatory passage Kant defines this<br />
understanding as ‘the faculty of rules’ [Vermögen der Regeln]. 62 The<br />
power of judgment is defined as the capacity to identify the particular<br />
insofar as it falls under a rule. Reason, finally, is defined as the capacity<br />
to deduce the particular from the general so that it is seen as conforming<br />
to a principle, and necessarily so.<br />
Now if understanding is the power of rules [Vermögen der Regeln],<br />
and judgment the power of discovering the particular insofar as it is<br />
an instance of these rules, reason is the power of deriving the<br />
particular from the universal and so representing it according to<br />
principles and as necessary. 63<br />
This passage may be criticized for not being too clear in explaining what<br />
distinguishes the three higher cognitive faculties. To say that the<br />
understanding is a capacity for rules may not seem very illuminating.<br />
What is meant here by rules, and in what way is the understanding their<br />
capacity? And what is the distinction between the power of judgment and<br />
reason? Here they are both associated with a movement from the general<br />
to the particular. So what is the difference between them? We need,<br />
obviously, to inquire further into the text.<br />
61<br />
Ak VII: 196-7.<br />
62<br />
Ak VII: 199.<br />
63<br />
Ak VII: 199.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
102<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
3.7 Concepts and rules<br />
In what follows I shall generally be using ‘understanding’ in the more<br />
limited sense indicated above, that is, as a term referring to the lower<br />
part of the higher cognitive faculty in general. And I will be focusing on<br />
Kant’s proposition that the understanding is a capacity for rules. How<br />
are we to understand this proposition? What are these rules? And what<br />
may these rules tell us about the understanding?<br />
First, we may note that in a number of his writings Kant treats<br />
‘concept’ and ‘rule’ as closely related or even interchangeable terms. The<br />
following passage from On the common saying from 1793, may serve to<br />
illustrate this. As we have seen, the text starts by defining a theory as<br />
something based on rules. Even practical rules, Kant points out, may<br />
combine to form a theory.<br />
A sum of rules, even of practical rules, is called theory if those rules<br />
are thought as principles having a certain generality, so that<br />
abstraction is made from a multitude of conditions that yet have a<br />
necessary influence on their application. 64<br />
So far, Kant has not equated rules and concepts, but he has taken a step<br />
in this direction by saying that a theory is a systematic collection of rules.<br />
Ordinarily theories are thought to consist of concepts, and he often says<br />
this. In fact, he does so only a few lines after the passage just quoted.<br />
Here, also, an explicit link is made between concepts and rules by the<br />
claim that concepts contain rules.<br />
It is obvious that between theory and practice there is required,<br />
besides, a middle term connecting them and providing a transition<br />
from one to the other, no matter how complete a theory may be; for,<br />
to a concept of the understanding, which contains a rule, must be<br />
added an act of judgment… 65<br />
By saying that concepts contain rules, Kant may seem to be making a<br />
conceptual distinction between concepts and rules. I would not put too<br />
much emphasis on this, however. Rather I take this passage as<br />
confirming that the meaning of these terms converge in his terminology. 66<br />
64<br />
Ak VIII: 275.<br />
65<br />
Ak VIII: 275, my emphasis.<br />
66<br />
This is most evident in the Critique where e.g. the categories are described<br />
both as transcendental concepts, and as rules.
103<br />
The basic question still remains, however. What are the<br />
concepts/rules of the understanding? And what is the understanding<br />
itself? In pursuing these questions further, I shall now turn to some<br />
passages in which Kant discusses the understanding and its rules in the<br />
context of the human life-world. The term ‘life-world’ is here used to<br />
characterize everything in our lives as human beings that belongs to our<br />
everyday existence as embodied agents taking part in the standard<br />
practices of everyday life as well as the more specialized procedures of<br />
various professions. The term will also be used to characterize a certain<br />
perspective under which the world is observed when these aspects are<br />
included. This life-world perspective may be contrasted with the more<br />
abstract perspective of scientific and philosophical theories, in which<br />
what is irrelevant to the theories has been abstracted away.<br />
Characteristic of (parts of) the Anthropology, and also of the other texts<br />
examined in this chapter, is the discussion of human rationality from<br />
what I have here called the life-world perspective.<br />
A somewhat exotic, but still, I think, illustrative example, is the<br />
following, in which the three higher cognitive faculties are associated<br />
with three social roles of a hierarchical society; reason with a general, the<br />
power of judgment with an officer, and finally, the understanding with a<br />
servant.<br />
A domestic or civil servant who is under express orders needs only<br />
understanding. An officer, who is given only the general rule for<br />
discharging his duties and left to decide for himself what to do in<br />
cases that come up, needs judgment. A general, who has to evaluate<br />
all contingencies and think up the rule for them, must have reason. 67<br />
It may be objected that this is simply an illustration and that the passage<br />
does not contain any genuine theory. This is true, but I think the passage<br />
can still be seen to contain some interesting suggestions on how to<br />
understand Kant’s theory of the higher cognitive faculties. First, let us<br />
note that the understanding is associated with the bottom of the social<br />
hierarchy. It is placed at the ground level, where the manual labor is<br />
done, labor carried out with the body, involving simple, but basic<br />
practices essential to human life. Here, in the performance of these<br />
embodied practices, is the place to look, so the passage suggests, if we are<br />
to identify the defining characteristics of the understanding.<br />
67 Ak VII: 198.<br />
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104<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
No space for individual judgment is left for the servant. This is a<br />
privilege allowed only to the inhabitants of the two higher levels. As for<br />
the first of these, the level corresponding to the power of judgment, we<br />
find rules prescribed, but individual judgment is needed in order to<br />
decide how the rules are to be applied in particular cases. At the highest<br />
level, the level of reason, there is also a certain creativity at play. Here,<br />
new rules are designed. Thus, one of the functions of reason, the passage<br />
suggests, is to be a producer of rules.<br />
We should take care not to draw premature conclusions based on a<br />
passage that is perhaps only meant as a metaphorical illustration. For<br />
instance, Kant defines reason in various ways in different places, and it is<br />
not always easy to see how these descriptions match the image just<br />
sketched. As for the understanding, however, the above passage contains<br />
a recurring motif in Kant’s writings on anthropology, pedagogy and<br />
logic. As we shall soon see, these texts contain a number of passages in<br />
which the understanding is associated with the performance of embodied<br />
practices. Moreover, as in the above passage, these practices are<br />
conceived of as rule-governed activities. What does this tell us about the<br />
understanding and its rules/concepts? Before we attempt to answer this<br />
question, let us examine another passage discussing the relation between<br />
rules/concepts and practices.<br />
3.8 Rules and practices<br />
This passage is found in Kant’s Logic published in 1800. The notion of<br />
rule here has a very central role to play with regard not only to logic but<br />
also to Kant’s idea of a world at large. He introduces the entire work by<br />
stating that everything in nature changes according to rules. The exercise<br />
of human powers also takes place according to rules, he maintains, but in<br />
the beginning this regular exercise of powers takes place without<br />
consciousness. Only gradually, through a process of hard labor, do we<br />
start to think more abstractly about the rules according to which we act.<br />
Here is the passage:
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
105<br />
The exercise of our own powers also takes place according to certain<br />
rules which we first follow without being conscious of them, until we<br />
gradually come to cognize them through experiments and long use of<br />
our powers, and finally make them so familiar to us that it costs us<br />
great effort to think them in abstraction Thus, for example, general<br />
grammar is the form of a language as such. One also speaks,<br />
however, without knowing grammar, and he who speaks without<br />
knowing it actually does have a grammar and speaks according to<br />
rules, even though he is not conscious of them. 68<br />
Let us take a closer look at the passage and what it implies. The example<br />
chosen is grammar [allgemeine Grammatik] which is, according to Kant,<br />
the set of rules according to which we speak when we master a language.<br />
Now, he stresses, a person may very well master a language without<br />
being conscious of the rules according to which he speaks. However, he<br />
still has a grammar. As a grammar is a set of rules, this is equivalent to<br />
saying that the person possesses a set of rules even if not conscious of<br />
having them.<br />
What general theory may be derived from this example? First, we<br />
may notice that speaking a language is an activity taking place according<br />
to a set of rules, i.e. the rules of grammar. Thus, it counts as an example<br />
of what Kant defines as a practice. 69<br />
As speaking a language is something<br />
we perform as embodied agents, it may also be used as an example of an<br />
embodied practice. The general theory derived from this example may<br />
therefore be stated like this: a person may possess a rule solely through<br />
the successful performance of a certain embodied practice. The person<br />
does not have to be conscious of the fact that she acts according to a rule.<br />
She still possesses it. Above I argued that ‘rule’ and ‘concept’ are<br />
convergent or even equivalent terms in Kant’s terminology. Thus, the<br />
point just made may also be expressed by saying that a person may<br />
possess a concept solely through the successful performance of an<br />
embodied practice.<br />
We may also notice that in the above passage Kant seems to be<br />
operating at two levels. First we have the level where a person possesses a<br />
rule/concept solely through the performance of a certain embodied<br />
practice. Then we have the second level where the person has also<br />
learned to think of these rules/concepts abstractly [in abstracto zu<br />
denken]. Kant does not specify the process taking us from the first to the<br />
second level, except that it requires experiments [Versuche] and hard<br />
68<br />
Ak IX: 503.<br />
69<br />
It also has an end, i.e. communication.
106<br />
labor. What he does suggest, or more than suggest, however, is that the<br />
first level is ontologically prior to the second. It is ontologically prior due<br />
to the fact that the second level in a basic way depends on the first. If<br />
there were no embodied practices, there would be nothing from which to<br />
abstract the rules present on the second level. 70<br />
Is this a general principle for Kant? It is perhaps premature to draw<br />
this conclusion after having examined only one passage. Let us,<br />
therefore, continue by examining other passages relevant to his ideas<br />
about the relation between rules/concepts and practices. In doing this I<br />
will take ‘rule’ and ‘concept’ to be equivalent terms. Thus, when the<br />
German term Regel appears in the text, I will take it to mean both rule<br />
and concept and I will usually translate it as ‘concept’.<br />
3.9 Learning by doing<br />
In a passage in On pedagogy, Kant discusses the role of abstract concepts<br />
in education. To what extent should students be confronted with such<br />
abstract concepts? And to what extent may such concepts be useful in the<br />
educational process? He begins the discussion by stressing that concepts<br />
are necessary in order to cultivate the understanding of young people. He<br />
also advises that the concepts in question should be made abstract as part<br />
of the educational process. This is to prevent the students from<br />
performing their skills mechanically, or without consciousness, and to<br />
help them better remember what they have learned.<br />
Rules must be present in all that which is to cultivate the soul. It is<br />
very useful also to make these rules abstract, so that the<br />
understanding proceeds not only mechanically, but with<br />
consciousness of a rule. 71<br />
Even if the text here points to the virtue of abstract knowledge, it also<br />
contains an implicit gesture pointing beyond such knowledge. It is useful,<br />
Kant tells us, also to abstract the concept involved in the educational<br />
process. The little term ‘also’ here discloses that there is more to this<br />
process than just the abstract concepts. What is more, we learn, is<br />
practice.<br />
70<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
This does not mean that each and every individual must first establish a<br />
practice from which a concept is then abstracted, only that on a general level the<br />
practice is fundamental.<br />
71 Ak IX: 474, a.t.
107<br />
This is made explicit in what follows immediately after the above<br />
passage when Kant discusses whether it is better to have students first<br />
learn concepts abstractly, and then later have them learn the practice<br />
[Gebrauch] corresponding to these concepts, or whether it is better to<br />
combine the two. According to Kant, the latter is better.<br />
The question is: should the abstract rules come first... […] or should<br />
the rule and its application go along with each other? Only the latter<br />
is advisable. 72<br />
So far, nothing has been said about the actual practices to which the text<br />
is referring. What kind of practices are they? A few pages later, Kant<br />
discloses that the practices he has in mind involve, for instance, the<br />
practice of speaking a language or making a map. The capacities of the<br />
mind [Gemütskräfte] are best cultivated when the student does for<br />
himself what is to be learned, he advises. For instance, when he learns a<br />
rule of grammar, he should immediately also use it in speaking. And for a<br />
student to understand what a map is, it is best for him to learn how to<br />
make one.<br />
The capacities of the mind are better cultivated when one does for<br />
oneself what one wants to achieve, for instance, when one<br />
immediately applies the rules of grammar that have been taught. One<br />
understands a map better when one is capable of producing it oneself.<br />
Production is the best aid of the understanding. One learns most<br />
thoroughly and remembers best that which one learns by oneself. 73<br />
At first sight it may, perhaps, not be evident that these passages are<br />
relevant to Kant’s theory of rationality. However, if we try to identify<br />
some of the assumptions on which the above didactic advice is founded,<br />
we arrive, I think, at ideas similar to the one we found to be implied by<br />
the passage from Logic considered earlier.<br />
First, let us notice that in the above text, as in the Logic, Kant seems<br />
to be giving a sort of priority to practice. However, while he gives a<br />
number of reasons why it is profitable for students to learn to know<br />
concepts in abstracto he also more than suggests that a topic cannot<br />
really be learned if the students do not learn to master the practices<br />
corresponding to the concepts. The capacities of the mind are best<br />
cultivated when the student does for himself what is to be learned, he<br />
72<br />
Ak IX: 475, a.t.<br />
73<br />
Ak IX: 477, a.t.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
108<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
insists, reminding us here of Rousseau’s didactic in Émile. If the topic, for<br />
instance, is map-making, then an optimal learning situation is not<br />
established just by letting the students learn the principles of map-making<br />
in abstracto, but also by letting the students partake in the practice of<br />
map-making.<br />
Secondly, Kant uses the notion of Regeln in abstracto. The very<br />
notion of abstraction implies that the concepts here referred to, before<br />
they are abstracted, exist as part of a richer and more comprehensive<br />
context. This context, obviously, is a practice.<br />
Finally, let us recall that when Kant advises that the rules or concepts<br />
corresponding to a certain practice are presented to the students in<br />
abstracto, it is to prevent, their understanding from proceeding<br />
‘mechanically’. Even if he explicitly advises against it, he also implies that<br />
a mechanical employment of the understanding is actually possible.<br />
What does it mean for the understanding to proceed mechanically? I<br />
suggest that Kant has in mind the same unconscious mastering of a<br />
practice as the one described in Logic. 74<br />
If my interpretation is on the right track, then we may conclude that<br />
the passage just examined implies or presupposes the same basic ideas as<br />
those in Logic. Very briefly, these are:<br />
1) A person may possess a concept solely through the successful<br />
performance of an embodied practice.<br />
2) Such a concept may also be possessed in abstracto, that is, in<br />
abstraction from its corresponding practice.<br />
3) In such a case the practice has ontological priority over the<br />
abstract concept. 75<br />
As suggested at the beginning of this chapter, I do not claim that these<br />
three points exhaust all Kant has to say about concepts. I do not claim,<br />
for instance, that he held all concepts to be abstracted from practices. I<br />
will claim, however, that the three points just stated represent more than<br />
just a passing fancy on his behalf. They represent a lasting theory,<br />
presupposed or implied by a number of passages in his writings on<br />
anthropology, pedagogy and logic, some of which will be examined<br />
below. These three points, I maintain, are also central to what I have<br />
called Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.<br />
Before continuing, however, let us turn briefly to the second question<br />
asked above. If concepts are rules that may be possessed solely through<br />
the successful performance of an embodied practice, what does this tell us<br />
74<br />
Cf. Ak IX: 503<br />
75<br />
Below I will slightly modify this third point.
109<br />
about the understanding as a human capacity? Let me suggest the<br />
following answer. If concepts are rules that may be possessed solely<br />
through the successful performance of an embodied practice, and if the<br />
understanding is our capacity for rules, as Kant states for instance in the<br />
Anthropology, 76 then the understanding may be considered as a human<br />
capacity both more basic and more omnipotent than is commonly<br />
allowed. Whenever a person partakes in a practice, the understanding is<br />
active. The understanding is that in us, whatever it is, that makes it<br />
possible for us to partake in such practices. From the very first moment<br />
when a child starts to acquire the practices necessary for mastering the<br />
world, the understanding is active and develops along with the<br />
development of these practices.<br />
As far as I know, Kant never says this explicitly. However, I see it as<br />
implied by his more general ideas about concepts and practices. In what<br />
follows I shall assume this more comprehensive account of the<br />
understanding to be part of Kant’s rational theory. This interpretation<br />
may also be seen as supported, I think, by the passage from the<br />
Anthropology examined above, where the understanding is associated<br />
with the role of a servant. 77 This servant, Kant tells us, makes no<br />
individual judgments but simply carries out the duties assigned to him.<br />
He lives his life at the ground level where manual labor is done, involving<br />
simple but basic practices essential to human life. The fact that Kant uses<br />
this servant to illustrate what characterizes the understanding, as<br />
contrasted with the higher cognitive faculties, strongly suggests, I think, a<br />
conception of the understanding like the one I have suggested: the<br />
understanding is that in us that makes it possible for us to partake in<br />
embodied practices.<br />
3.10 The unconscious employment of the understanding<br />
We have seen that Kant espouses the idea that a person may possess a<br />
concept solely through the successful performance of an embodied<br />
practice, sometimes even without being aware of possessing these<br />
concepts. I have also contended that Kant holds the understanding to be<br />
that in us that makes it possible for us to partake in such practices. From<br />
this we may infer that, according to Kant, there is a mode in which the<br />
understanding proceeds unconsciously.<br />
76<br />
Ak VII: 199.<br />
77<br />
Ak VII: 198.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
110<br />
The idea of an understanding proceeding without awareness or<br />
consciousness may seem strange. However, it conforms well to the<br />
general idea of the mind found in Kant’s writings on anthropology,<br />
pedagogy and logic. In the following passage from the Anthropology, for<br />
instance, he states that he does not take everything existing in the mind<br />
to be conscious. On the contrary, consciousness pertains only to a few<br />
and limited parts of the mind:<br />
And he continues:<br />
In man (and in beasts too) there is an immense field of sensuous<br />
intuitions and sensations we are not conscious of, though we can<br />
conclude with certainty that we have them. In other words, the field<br />
of our obscure [dunkeler] ideas is immeasurable, while our clear ideas<br />
are only the infinitesimally few points on this map that lie open to<br />
consciousness: our mind is like an immense map with only a few<br />
places illuminated. This fact can inspire us with admiration for our<br />
own being; for a higher power need only say ‘let there be light’ and,<br />
without the least co-operation on our part, set half a world before our<br />
eyes, so to speak. 78<br />
So the field of obscure ideas is the largest in man. 79<br />
Also where the activities of the mind are concerned, most of it escapes<br />
our conscious attention. This is argued, for instance, in Negative<br />
Magnitudes from 1763:<br />
78<br />
Ak VII: 135.<br />
79<br />
Ak VII: 136.<br />
80<br />
Ak II: 191.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
But what an admirably busy activity is concealed within the depths of<br />
our minds which goes unnoticed even while it is being exercised. And<br />
it goes unnoticed because the actions in question are very numerous<br />
and each of them is represented only very obscurely. Everybody is<br />
familiar with the facts which prove that this is the case. One need<br />
only consider, for example, the actions which take place unnoticed<br />
within us when we read. 80
111<br />
Thus, the idea of an understanding proceeding without consciousness is<br />
not in conflict with Kant’s general ideas of the mind as put forward<br />
before or after the Critique. 81<br />
3.11 Judgments cannot be learned<br />
Now, let us return to Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.<br />
So far this theory of rationality has been discussed primarily in<br />
connection with his theory of the understanding, but he also discusses<br />
practice in relation to another higher cognitive faculty, that is, the power<br />
of judgment [Urteilskraft]. Let us take a look at some of these passages in<br />
which this is done and try to find out whether these passages add<br />
something new to Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality, or<br />
whether they only express the theory in a somewhat different form.<br />
Let us start our examination with a passage from the Anthropology.<br />
Instruction can enrich natural understanding [Der natürliche<br />
Verstand] with many concepts and equip it with rules. But the second<br />
intellectual power, judgment (judicium) – the power of deciding<br />
whether or not something is an instance of the rule – cannot be<br />
instructed; it can only be exercised [geübt]. This is why we speak of a<br />
growth in judgment as maturity, and call judgment the kind of<br />
understanding that comes only with years. 82<br />
Kant opens this passage by arguing that what he calls the natural<br />
understanding may be enriched by a multitude of concepts and rules.<br />
However, where the second intellectual capacity is concerned, the power<br />
of judgment, the task of which it is to decide whether something is an<br />
instance of a concept or not, this cannot be taught but can only be<br />
developed through practice. This is why we refer to its development as a<br />
process of maturation, and why this maturation is not normally found in<br />
people below a certain age.<br />
He then proceeds to explain why proper judgments cannot be taught,<br />
but only learned through practice.<br />
81 We shall see later that Kant promotes similar ideas in the Critique.<br />
82 Ak VII: 199.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
112<br />
We readily see that it could not be otherwise: to instruct [Belehrung]<br />
is to impart rules, and if judgment could be taught there would have<br />
to be general rules by which we could decide whether or not<br />
something is an instance of the rule; and this would involve a further<br />
inquiry to infinity. So judgment is, as we say, the understanding that<br />
comes only with age, that is based on our own long experience; it is<br />
the understanding whose judgment the French Republic seeks in the<br />
assembly of the so-called Anciens. 83<br />
To teach a person a rule [Belehrung], Kant argues, involves making the<br />
rule explicit to him [Mitteilung]. Now, suppose that it was also possible to<br />
teach the person to apply this rule in the same way. This would require a<br />
second rule saying how the first rule was to be applied. This, however,<br />
would require a third rule saying how the second rule was to be applied,<br />
and so for every rule we would need a new one, ad infinitum. This is<br />
clearly impossible so something else is required and this is practice<br />
[Übung].<br />
What does Kant mean when he describes the function of the power of<br />
judgment as deciding whether something is an instance of a concept or<br />
not? I think he has two related cases in mind. The first might be<br />
exemplified by a student in an educational setting being asked by her<br />
teacher to give examples of objects falling under a certain concept. The<br />
student may answer by pointing at objects in the room, or by verbally<br />
referring to such objects. The second case might be exemplified by a<br />
professional, for instance a doctor, examining a patient and deciding on<br />
the basis of the symptoms exhibited and her knowledge of diseases what<br />
illness this particular patient suffers from and what treatment to give.<br />
Both cases exemplify what I would call embodied practices. Kant’s point<br />
then, is that both these kinds of activity require a well developed power of<br />
judgment, and also that this require practice [Übung].<br />
What then does Kant mean when he talks about an understanding<br />
enriched by a multitude of concepts and rules? Such a superficial<br />
enrichment is brought about through Belehrung, that is, by making the<br />
concepts explicit to the students. I take Kant here to be referring to the<br />
didactic practice of making students memorize abstract concepts and/or<br />
theories without learning what these concepts/theories mean or how to<br />
apply them. When asked to give examples falling under a concept a<br />
student with this kind of knowledge would not be able to give an answer<br />
either by pointing at objects in the room or verbally referring to such<br />
objects. Neither would she be able to use a theory to successfully deal<br />
83<br />
Ak VII: 199.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
113<br />
with actual problems. Even if the theory prescribed ways of handling the<br />
problem, she would not be able to use these prescriptions in practice<br />
If this is so, then the above passages may be seen as expressing views<br />
very similar to the ones identified above, for instance in the didactic<br />
advice given in On pedagogy, that there is no use in teaching students<br />
abstract concepts if they do not also learn how to apply them; i.e.<br />
students should do for themselves in practice what is to be learned. The<br />
above passages may also be seen as implying the two-level model<br />
suggested there, according to which conceptual knowledge may be<br />
present in two ways. First we have the level where a person knows how to<br />
apply a concept in practice, then we have the second level where the<br />
person possesses the concept in abstracto. Finally, Kant may in the above<br />
passages, as in On pedagogy, be seen to express the idea that the second<br />
kind of concept possession is of no use if it is not also converted into<br />
practice.<br />
Seen in the context of this interpretation, however, there is one way<br />
in which these passages are confusing. Above we identified the<br />
understanding as the human capacity that makes it possible to partake in<br />
embodied practices. Now, the understanding seems to be ascribed a<br />
much more limited function. The understanding, so Kant suggests, is a<br />
faculty that is only able to deal with concepts in a superficial way through<br />
memorizing them. The capacity involved in the practical employment of<br />
these concepts is the power of judgment. If this is so, then our previous<br />
interpretation is challenged. How are we to meet this challenge?<br />
The best way, I think, is by noting that Kant’s use of ‘understanding’<br />
and ‘power of judgment’ is far from unambiguous. One possible source<br />
of ambiguity is found in the fact that ‘understanding’ is used in two<br />
senses. Sometimes it is used to denote the higher cognitive faculty in<br />
general, but at other times it is used to denote only the lower member of<br />
this faculty. 84 This, again, opens up an ambiguity in our description of the<br />
relation between the understanding and the power of judgment. In one<br />
respect they are distinct members of the general intellectual faculty, but<br />
when ‘understanding’ is used in its general sense, then the power of<br />
judgment is more properly described as a part or modus of the<br />
understanding. If this lays the ground for a certain interpretative<br />
confusion, then this is further increased by passages in which the two<br />
terms seems to converge in meaning.<br />
84<br />
Ak VII: 196-7.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
114<br />
A brief digression via the Critique provides us with one such example.<br />
Here Kant defines the understanding as the capacity for judging. 85<br />
However, if the understanding is our capacity for judging, then the<br />
distinction between the two capacities is no longer easy to see. On the<br />
contrary, the meanings of the two terms converge here. Such a<br />
convergence is also suggested by the passage quoted above where Kant,<br />
after having presented his idea of a properly developed power of<br />
judgment, says that a person with such a judgment is often referred to as<br />
a person with a mature understanding. And then, finally, we have all the<br />
passages examined above in which the understanding is not equated with<br />
the superficial possession of abstract concepts, but with the successful<br />
performance of practices. In addition to the passages explored in the first<br />
part of this chapter, we have another such passage in the Anthropology,<br />
for example. Here Kant discusses the notion of a ‘proper understanding’.<br />
To have a proper understanding requires more than just having a wide<br />
repertoire of concepts, he argues. A proper understanding also has to be<br />
functional, that is, it has to direct our cognition of objects in a proper<br />
way.<br />
A right understanding is not the same as one that glitters by the<br />
multitude of its concepts. It is, rather, one that, by the adequacy of its<br />
concepts for knowledge of an object, is able and ready to apprehend<br />
truth. 86<br />
There are many people, he continues, whose heads are full of concepts,<br />
but who still lack a proper understanding of the world. A proper<br />
understanding is the one that ‘suffices for the house’, i.e. for the practical<br />
tasks that have to be carried out in a household. 87 Among the intellectual<br />
capacities, it is the first and most eminent. 88 The understanding, or the<br />
proper understanding, is here described not as a capacity to memorize<br />
and reproduce abstract concepts, but as a capacity with a function highly<br />
reminiscent of the one accorded to the power of judgment in passages<br />
considered above. In both cases the practical abilities of the performer is<br />
emphasized, in contrast to the person who only possesses abstract<br />
concepts in a superficial manner.<br />
85<br />
B 94/A 69.<br />
86<br />
Ak VII: 197.<br />
87<br />
Ak VII: 197.<br />
88<br />
Ak VII: 198.<br />
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RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
115<br />
The outcome of all this, I think, is that we should not lay too much<br />
weight on Kant’s use of terminology where the distinction between<br />
understanding and power of judgment is concerned. More importantly,<br />
the passages examined all point to the devaluation of a merely theoretical<br />
or abstract knowledge, and the demand that such knowledge has to be<br />
accompanied by practical skills and abilities in order to count as useful.<br />
3.12 Pragmatic priority<br />
I have argued that, according to Kant’s embodied pragmatic theory of<br />
rationality, a person may possess a concept solely through the successful<br />
performance of an embodied practice. Such a concept may also be<br />
possessed in abstracto, that is, in abstraction from its corresponding<br />
practice. However, in that case the practice has ontological priority over<br />
the abstract concept. In a number of the passages that have been<br />
examined, I think that a second sort of priority is also suggested, which I<br />
will call ‘pragmatic’. As the term suggests, pragmatic priority has to do<br />
with usefulness. When I say that Kant ascribes pragmatic priority to<br />
practice, I do not mean that he promotes a one-sided recognition of<br />
practice only; ideally, theory and practice should go hand in hand.<br />
However, when theory and practice are isolated and opposed to each<br />
other, Kant’s preferences are clear. Abstract knowledge that stands in no<br />
connection with practice is utterly useless, whereas the opposite is not the<br />
case. In this respect, practice is superior to abstract knowledge. Let us<br />
take a look at a passage in which this idea is explicitly expressed. It is<br />
found in On the common saying from 1793. Kant starts by presenting his<br />
by now well-known definition of a theory as a system of concepts (i.e.<br />
rules). He then discusses how a theory may be used to guide the<br />
professional [Praktiker] in his daily work. In addition to knowing the<br />
theory qua theory, the professional needs to have good judgment, that is,<br />
he needs to be able to decide when a concept is to be applied to a specific<br />
situation and when not. This capacity for judgment is irreplaceable, he<br />
stresses. The theory may be complete but if the professional is unable to<br />
judge properly, it is of no use. This is why there are doctors and lawyers<br />
who, even if they have passed their exams, do not know how to behave in<br />
a practical setting.
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… there can be theoreticians who can never in their lives become<br />
practical because they are lacking in judgment, for example,<br />
physicians or jurists who did well during their schooling but who are<br />
at a loss when they have to give an expert opinion. 89<br />
Kant draws a dark picture of the person who lacks a proper capacity for<br />
judgment. All the theoretical knowledge of the world is of no help to such<br />
a person. The opposite is the case when a person has a normally<br />
developed capacity for judgment. Such a person may approach a<br />
situation with an incomplete theory, and still be of use. 90 And not only<br />
this, he is also able to make the theory more complete. From his<br />
experiences in the field, he will abstract new rules, thereby extending and<br />
developing the theory by which he works.<br />
But even where this natural talent is present there can still be a<br />
deficiency in premises, that is, a theory can be incomplete and can,<br />
perhaps, be supplemented only by engaging in further experiments<br />
and experiences, from which the recently schooled physician,<br />
agriculturalist, or economist can and should abstract new rules for<br />
himself and make his theory complete. In such cases it was not the<br />
fault of theory if it was of little use in practice, but rather of there<br />
having been not enough theory, which the man in question should<br />
have learned from experience and which is true theory even if he is<br />
not in a position to state it himself and, as a teacher, set it forth<br />
systematically in general propositions … 91<br />
What exactly is the point here? Even if it is not explicitly stated, I take<br />
Kant’s argument to imply again what I have called his pragmatic theory<br />
of embodied rationality. First, even if the term ‘practice’ is not used, the<br />
passages may be read as yet another expression of the point formerly<br />
stated that concepts are abstracted from practices. The examples of<br />
practices given are the practical field work of the agriculturist, the doctor<br />
and the civil servant. These are all what I have called embodied<br />
practices. Thus, the concepts abstracted all have their origin in embodied<br />
practices. If, further, we assume that the practices represent a sort of<br />
conceptual knowledge before the abstraction process takes place, then by<br />
89<br />
Ak VIII: 275.<br />
90<br />
This idea is found in a number of Kantian texts, also in the Critique, which will<br />
be discussed below.<br />
91<br />
Ak VIII: 275.
117<br />
implication we end up with the three principles defining Kant’s<br />
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality:<br />
1) A person may possess a concept solely through the successful<br />
performance of an embodied practice.<br />
2) Such a concept may also be possessed in abstracto, that is, in<br />
abstraction from its corresponding practice.<br />
3) In such a case the practice has ontological and pragmatic<br />
priority over the abstract concept.<br />
The third point has now been extended, as pragmatic priority has been<br />
added to ontological priority. Together with my above definitions of<br />
‘practice’ and ‘pragmatic’, we have now reached what I consider to be<br />
the final formulation of Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.<br />
Before we leave these passages, we may notice that Kant, echoing the<br />
advice from On pedagogy, also demands that we make explicit the<br />
concepts corresponding to our practices. No one can claim to be a real<br />
professional without knowing in abstracto the concepts according to<br />
which his practice takes place. For one thing, only a person capable of<br />
presenting his knowledge systematically in general propositions would be<br />
able to function as a teacher. Also, only on the basis of such knowledge<br />
may the professional carry out effective new experiments and thereby<br />
expand his theory. Here is the relevant passage:<br />
Thus no one can pretend to be practically proficient in a science and<br />
yet scorn theory without declaring that he is an ignoramus in his field,<br />
inasmuch as he believes that by groping about in experiments and<br />
experiences, without putting together certain principles (which really<br />
constitute what is called theory) and without having thought out some<br />
whole relevant to his business (which, if one proceeds methodically in<br />
it, is called a system), he can get further than theory could take him. 92<br />
Far from inviting a hostile attitude towards theoretical knowledge, Kant<br />
advises the professional to reflect consciously on his practice, or, to use<br />
Kant’s own expression, abstract from his practice the concepts according<br />
to which this practice is performed.<br />
3.13 Some modern parallels<br />
Earlier I mentioned some possible explanations as to why Kant’s<br />
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality has been so little noticed. The<br />
above discussion may perhaps serve as an illustration of one of the<br />
92<br />
Ak VIII: 275-6.<br />
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118<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
explanations suggested. The theory is never explicitly stated. It is only<br />
implied by passages; passages, moreover, that can be easily overlooked.<br />
Another explanation suggested was that the theory is overlooked because<br />
either it does not fit with what scholars regard as philosophy proper, or, it<br />
does not fit in with what they expect to find in the text. I will now<br />
consider this and present some more recent approaches to rationality,<br />
practice and embodiment that may serve as a useful background to our<br />
interpretation of Kant.<br />
It is a well-known fact in the theory of interpretation that what an<br />
interpreter finds in a text to some extent at least depends on her general<br />
presuppositions as well as her more specific expectations concerning what<br />
the text has to offer. An interpreter primarily interested in the philosophy<br />
of language, for instance, is likely to give more emphasis to those aspects<br />
of Kant’s philosophy that may be interpreted in the context of such a<br />
philosophy than those that may not. An interpreter interested primarily<br />
in phenomenology is likely to see Kant more as a phenomenologist. The<br />
growing recognition that Kant’s philosophy includes reflections on the<br />
embodied aspects of human life is no doubt enhanced by the general<br />
trend in modern philosophy towards giving more attention to the body<br />
and including embodiment on the list of topics on which a philosopher<br />
may reflect without jeopardizing her professional status.<br />
I do not think that a general predisposition to pragmatism or a<br />
general interest in embodiment is an absolute prerequisite for<br />
acknowledging Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality. I do<br />
think, however, that a certain familiarity with modern parallels to this<br />
theory, or aspects of this theory, may make it easier for us to identify his<br />
excursions into these fields of philosophy when they occur, and also<br />
supply us with some concepts and models that may, perhaps, be<br />
applicable to Kant if we want to rephrase aspects of his philosophy in<br />
more modern language. There are several possible relevant philosophies<br />
and philosophers. One of my starting points below is the philosophy of<br />
Wittgenstein. Also relevant are scholars who include embodied practices<br />
in their analysis of human rationality, such as Jean Piaget, Mark Johnson<br />
and John Campbell. I will discuss Piaget’s theory of embodied rationality<br />
in a later chapter. In this chapter I will take a brief look at John<br />
Campbell and his theory of working concepts. However, let me first<br />
introduce some Wittgensteinian perspectives.<br />
Wittgenstein is relevant to the present discussion, I think, due to his<br />
reflections on the relation between rules and practices and also for his<br />
general theory of conceptual knowledge. Rather than seeing conceptual<br />
knowledge as belonging to an inner, hidden, mental realm, he claims it to<br />
be present on the level of what we have defined as embodied practice. As
119<br />
for the rules governing our practices, he argues that they exist in and<br />
through these practices.<br />
Let us start by examining the last point. Wittgenstein discusses the<br />
relation between rules and practices in §§143-242 of his Philosophical<br />
investigations. According to Baker’s summary of this discussion,<br />
Wittgenstein’s aim is to help us free ourselves from a false mythology of<br />
normativity that has prevailed for a long time in philosophy. 93 In order to<br />
illustrate Wittgenstein’s criticism, we may take as an example a<br />
mathematical calculation. Assume that an agent is asked to calculate the<br />
outcome of the following formula when x is replaced by the series of<br />
natural numbers.<br />
1 + x =<br />
Such a calculation, according to Wittgenstein, may well be carried out<br />
silently, or as we say, ’in the head’. And referring to such an event, the<br />
agent may well tell us that she has a feeling of being inwardly guided by<br />
some rule directing the calculation. Such an observation may easily lend<br />
support to the idea that calculating is essentially a mental activity, and<br />
that the guidance taking place in such a case is basically carried out on a<br />
mental level.<br />
In our culture, Baker argues, this way of thinking is typically<br />
embedded in our propensity to draw a distinction between the mind,<br />
understood as something inner mental, and overt behavior. We consider<br />
what is inner as inaccessible and hidden from all but its owner, whose<br />
access to it, through introspection, is direct and infallible. From this we<br />
infer that only I can know whether I am doing a particular calculation or<br />
following a given rule, or whether what I am doing only looks like it.<br />
Others, it seems, can only speculate on what I am doing based on<br />
observation of my behavior. 94 A proponent of this view may argue that<br />
calculating a term in a series does not consist in merely writing down a<br />
number after contemplating an algebraic formula. For a person to<br />
calculate, she must produce a particular number because of the formula<br />
generating the number series. This launches a search for some special<br />
connecting experience or mental mechanism that will serve to distinguish<br />
coincidental conformity with a calculation-rule from genuine calculation.<br />
93<br />
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See Baker (1981) for an extended and illuminating interpretation of the<br />
relevant paragraphs of Philosophical investigations.<br />
94 Cf. Baker (1981), 51.
120<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
Something must make this difference, and so we postulate an<br />
intermediate explanatory link. 95<br />
Against this Wittgenstein reminds us that the criteria we actually use<br />
in order to decide whether a person follows a rule or not are not found<br />
by looking into the inner, mental world of this person, which is of course<br />
impossible, but at her overt acts, including her citing of rules as a<br />
justification for what she has done. Also, rather than ascribe to our inner,<br />
mental powers the capacity to direct our calculations, Wittgenstein asks<br />
us to view them as inner experiences accompanying these overt acts. 96<br />
What is it then that guides us in the calculation? Rather than pointing at<br />
inner, mental mechanisms, Wittgenstein refers to socialization and<br />
practice.<br />
Wittgenstein, according to Baker, also critically examines another<br />
myth of rationality, a myth based on the metaphorical distinction<br />
between the ‘rule of law’ and the ‘rule of man’, where the first is held up<br />
as an ideal of impartiality. Wittgenstein’s point is that we are easily<br />
seduced by this metaphor into canceling out mankind altogether. The<br />
idea of the ‘rule of law’ seems to be grounded in the belief that rules, if<br />
properly drafted, determine their own applications quite independently<br />
of how we apply them, as if verdicts in particular cases were already<br />
foreshadowed in the rules. In the resulting mythology, rules are viewed as<br />
absolutely rigid bodies, and systems of rules as peculiarly adamantine<br />
machines. In the context of this mythology, performing a calculation is<br />
like constructing and activating a machine which inexorably grinds out<br />
the correct answers without any further intervention from us. 97<br />
As an alternative to this metaphor, Wittgenstein suggests the<br />
metaphor of the signpost. 98<br />
A signpost may serve to guide a walker along<br />
a footpath, but not by dragging him along an invisible set of tracks. Its<br />
power to guide is parasitic on the existence of a practice, he argues.<br />
Erecting a signpost would be pointless unless there were in the<br />
community at large a general disposition to respond to its presence in a<br />
particular way. 99 By this metaphor he suggests that the application of<br />
rules presupposes a practice. For a person to be able to correctly follow a<br />
95<br />
Ibid., 51.<br />
96<br />
Philosophical investigations, § 152, cf. Baker (1981), 51-52.<br />
97<br />
Philosophical investigations, §§ 189-194, cf. Baker (1981), 52.<br />
98<br />
Philosophical investigations, § 85.<br />
99<br />
Ibid., § 87.
121<br />
rule presupposes this person is first socialized into the practice directing<br />
its application. 100<br />
As far as I can see, there are striking parallels between Wittgenstein’s<br />
theory of rules and practices as sketched here and Kant’s pragmatic<br />
theory of embodied rationality. For instance, both theories explore<br />
rationality at the level of what we have defined as embodied practice. In<br />
the example above the focus was on mathematical calculation; however,<br />
it is consistent with Wittgenstein’s perspective to generalize this point out<br />
into a general theory of rationality. This means that conceptual<br />
knowledge and conceptual skills should always, according to<br />
Wittgenstein, be examined at the level of embodied practice. Also, both<br />
theories tend to see rules as something inherent in embodied practices.<br />
Not only does the correct application of a rule presuppose that the agent<br />
is first socialized into the relevant practice of application, but the rule<br />
itself exists in and through this practice.<br />
The parallels between the two philosophers are perhaps most evident<br />
if we re-examine Kant’s example of grammar. The rules of grammar, he<br />
suggests, are present in the practice of a person speaking the language<br />
corresponding to this grammar, even before they are abstracted from this<br />
practice and formulated. From this we may infer that he sees rules as<br />
existing in and through practices. Kant also promotes as a general<br />
principle that practices are best learned by doing them, reminding us of<br />
Wittgenstein’s theory that the proper employment of a rule presupposes<br />
the larger context of a practice into which the agent is socialized.<br />
It may be objected that comparing Kant and Wittgenstein in this way<br />
may easily lead us to see more of Wittgenstein in Kant than the text may<br />
justify. What may happen is that we project a Wittgensteinian<br />
perspective back in time, creating a sort of optical illusion, making us<br />
misinterpret the Kantian text. However, I do not think that the above<br />
parallel is based on such a projection. What we are doing is simply<br />
comparing two theoretical perspectives. I do not claim that they are<br />
similar in all respects. I do think, however, that a certain familiarity with<br />
Wittgenstein may help us recognize in Kant what might otherwise easily<br />
be overlooked. Taking into account Wittgenstein’s reflections on the<br />
relation between rules and practices, for instance, and seeing how,<br />
through this, such reflections achieve the status of philosophy proper,<br />
100<br />
Baker (1981), 55.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
122<br />
may without doubt help us recognize and positively evaluate passages in<br />
which Kant approaches the same sort of reflections. 101<br />
Beyond Wittgenstein, the broader Wittgensteinian tradition forms a<br />
context in which concepts and practices are discussed in ways that may<br />
also help us in our interpretation of Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied<br />
rationality. Here I will focus on John Campbell and the notion of<br />
working concepts introduced in his book Past, space, and self. 102 Here he<br />
reflects on our most primitive physical thinking, that is, our<br />
understanding of the physics of our environment. This physics is first and<br />
foremost a practical knowledge, he argues, a knowledge that we exercise<br />
in our everyday interaction with the physical world, such as in lighting a<br />
fire, throwing a rock, or putting up an umbrella. 103 Central to the idea of<br />
this physics, qua practical knowledge, is the notion of working concepts.<br />
A working concept is a concept typically present at a pre-linguistic level,<br />
more specifically, it is present as a certain skill performed in our physical<br />
interaction with the world. As such skills are found not only in human<br />
beings, working concepts may be ascribed even to animals. 104<br />
One of Campbell’s examples is causality. One way to think of this<br />
concept is that it makes possible our ability to make explicit causal<br />
judgments of the form ‘x caused y’. But there are cases in which one's<br />
grasp of causality does not have to do with such explicit judgments but<br />
rather consists in one’s practical grasp of its implications for one’s actions,<br />
he argues. Here causality appears as a working concept. According to<br />
Campbell, Aristotle gives some early examples of working concepts in the<br />
Physics. We can contrast the theoretical understanding of the causal<br />
properties of particular types of wood, for example, or different metals,<br />
such as iron or silver, with the understanding possessed by the carpenter<br />
or metalworker. The artisan’s grasp of causal properties is not a matter of<br />
having a detached picture of them. It has to do rather with the structure<br />
101 Let me also add, however, that I see the similarities between Kant and<br />
Wittgenstein just indicated to be so explicit, that some sort of historical influence<br />
may legitimately be hypothesized from Kant to Wittgenstein. On a general level,<br />
Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin (1973) have contended that Wittgenstein’s<br />
philosophical project belongs within a Kantian tradition as both philosophers are<br />
critical towards metaphysics. For a more detailed discussion of the relation<br />
between Kant and Wittgenstein, cf. Engel (1970). Engel here argues convincingly<br />
that Wittgenstein must have been well acquainted with Kant's Logic, cf.<br />
especially Engel (1970), 494ff.<br />
102<br />
Campbell (1994).<br />
103<br />
Ibid., 41.<br />
104 Ibid., 46ff.<br />
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RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
123<br />
of his practical skills, the particular way in which he deals with various<br />
types of wood or how he uses different metals. 105<br />
I find Campbell’s theory of working concepts interesting because he<br />
uses the term ‘concept’ to account for the practical skill of a craftsman, or<br />
even an animal, to interact successfully with the physical environment.<br />
Even if this idea has no explicit parallel in Kant, I think that Campbell’s<br />
term may be used to paraphrase a basic Kantian point. What I have in<br />
mind is the idea, which I take to be central to his pragmatic theory of<br />
embodied rationality, that a person may possess a concept solely by<br />
means of the successful performance of an embodied practice. So far, we<br />
have had no term to signify the possession of concepts on this level.<br />
Inspired by Campbell, I think we may say that a person with this kind of<br />
knowledge possesses this knowledge in the form of working concepts.<br />
3.14 More about Kant’s theory of concepts<br />
As I have said more than once, I do not think that Kant’s pragmatic<br />
theory of embodied rationality exhausts all he has to say about concepts.<br />
Nor do I claim that whenever he uses the term ‘concept’ it should always<br />
be understood in the context of this theory. In a number of places he<br />
discusses concepts using a terminology suggesting a perspective that is<br />
rather different from the one examined in this chapter. A typical idea<br />
promoted by Kant, for instance, is that a concept is defined by its marks<br />
[Merkmale], and that the number and quality of these marks may be<br />
explored or analyzed through an act of introspection. 106 The idea that<br />
concepts are defined by their marks, may also be seen as implied by<br />
Kant’s theory of the constitution [Erzeugung] of concepts as found in<br />
Logic. The constitution of concepts, he tells us, takes place in a process of<br />
comparison, reflection and abstraction. 107 To explain this he gives the<br />
example of the constitution of the empirical concept of a tree. I see a<br />
pine, a willow and a lime. When I compare them I notice that they have<br />
different trunks, branches and leaves, etc. Then I reflect upon only what<br />
they have in common, that is they all have trunks, branches, and leaves.<br />
Finally, I abstract from their size, figure etc. The result is the concept of a<br />
tree. 108<br />
Kant seems to present here a rather traditional theory of concepts,<br />
105<br />
Ibid., 47.<br />
106<br />
For a discussion of this point, see for instance Bennett (1966), 54 and<br />
Stuhlmann-Laeisz (1976).<br />
107<br />
Ak IX: 94.<br />
108<br />
Ak IX: 95.
124<br />
according to which a concept is defined by its marks. These marks,<br />
moreover, may be understood as referring to the common properties of a<br />
class of objects.<br />
This notion of a concept, along with Kant’s suggestions that concepts<br />
may be analyzed through acts of introspection, seems to point to a<br />
mentalist conception of concepts according to which concepts exist and<br />
are handled on the mental level. And perhaps Kant at some point or at<br />
some level does espouse such a conception. However, the idea that this is<br />
his general theory of concepts is challenged not only by the passages<br />
discussed earlier in this chapter, but also by a number of passages in<br />
which conceptual thinking is claimed to presuppose linguistic behavior.<br />
In the Anthropology, he contends that spoken language is the best<br />
medium for communicating thoughts:<br />
Hearing is one of the senses of merely mediate perception. Through<br />
and by means of the air that surrounds us, we can know far distant<br />
objects. And it is by this medium, when it is put in motion by the<br />
vocal organ, the mouth, that we can most readily and fully share in<br />
one another’s thoughts and sensations, especially when the sounds we<br />
make to others are articulated and, being combined by understanding<br />
according to laws, form a language. 109<br />
He then continues by claiming that a person who is born deaf and unable<br />
to learn to speak will arrive at something only imperfectly similar to<br />
reason [Vernunft].<br />
So a man who, because he was deaf from birth, must also remain<br />
dumb (without speech) can never achieve more than an analogue of<br />
reason. 110<br />
Later in the same text, this idea is expressed even more pointedly:<br />
109 Ak VII: 155.<br />
110 Ak VII: 155.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
125<br />
Language signifies [the presence of] thought and, on the other hand<br />
the means par excellence of intellectual signification is language, the<br />
most important way we have of understanding ourselves and others. –<br />
Thinking is talking with ourselves (the Indians of Otahiti call thought<br />
‘speech in the belly’); so it is also listening to ourselves inwardly (by<br />
reproductive imagination). For a man born deaf, his own speaking is<br />
the feeling of his lip, tongue, and jaw movements; and we can hardly<br />
conceive that in talking he does anything more than carry on a play<br />
of these feelings, without really having and thinking concepts. 111<br />
A person born deaf and who is unable to learn to speak will never attain<br />
concepts in the proper sense of the term, Kant claims.<br />
Not only does Kant claim that conceptual thinking presupposes<br />
language, he also seems to promote the stronger thesis that conceptual<br />
thinking is embedded in the verbal speech acts constituting human<br />
communication. If this is so, then it undermines the idea suggested above<br />
that Kant took concepts to exist and to be handled on a mental level<br />
only. His emphasis on linguistic behavior rather seems to imply the idea<br />
that possession of concepts presupposes practice, i.e. linguistic practice<br />
understood as embodied behavior.<br />
Are the various ways in which Kant talks about concepts founded on<br />
a unified theory of concepts, or do they represent diverging theories? As<br />
Kant does not discuss this question, it is not easily answered. For my own<br />
part, I think that it is possible to interpret what he says about concepts as<br />
representing a unified conception. According to this conception, a<br />
concept is a rule, which, moreover, exists as an aspect of an embodied<br />
practice in the way suggested above. Conceptual knowledge is present<br />
whenever a person successfully performs a practice according to this rule.<br />
Within this perspective, Kant’s theory of conceptual marks may be<br />
understood as referring to the idea that concepts are rules defining what<br />
we may legitimately say about a phenomenon. To be more specific,<br />
within this perspective, what we refer to as the marks of the concept are<br />
the terms by which we produce statements by which we describe what we<br />
take to be the essential features of the phenomenon referred to by the<br />
concept, and the concept as such is the rule regulating this statement<br />
production, present in and through the practice of the members of the<br />
language community.<br />
Kant’s emphasis on linguistic behavior may seem to jeopardize my<br />
claim that concepts may also be present on a pre-linguistic level, i.e. as<br />
working concepts, and that this idea is part of Kant’s general theory of<br />
111 Ak VII: 192.<br />
RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong>
126<br />
rationality. For instance, in the Anthropology he states that a person<br />
without linguistic behavior will never attain concepts in the proper sense<br />
of the term [eigentliche Begriffe]. 112 However, this is not incompatible<br />
with the idea that something analogous to these concepts may also exist<br />
on a pre-linguistic level. It may even be that Kant would have agreed to<br />
call them concepts, but concepts of a different kind from those referred to<br />
by the German term eigentliche Begriffe.<br />
Whether this attempt to harmonize the various claims made by Kant<br />
on the topic of concepts really works, I leave open for further<br />
investigation. In the present context the issue does not need be decided.<br />
All that is required is acceptance of the idea that among Kant’s various<br />
approaches there is one conforming to what I have called Kant’s<br />
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.<br />
3.15 Summary<br />
In this chapter I have explored how Kant’s idea of the embodied mind<br />
affects his theory of rationality in texts published both before and after<br />
1781. From early on he puts forward the idea that our rational capacities<br />
depend on the body. In Universal natural history, for instance, he claims<br />
that the capacity to connect and compare concepts is influenced by the<br />
constitution of the body of the thinking subject. Later he downplays this<br />
part of his theory. The mature Kant emphasizes instead the entire<br />
human being as a totality of mind and body, that is as an embodied<br />
agent, as the rational subject. Human rationality is now analyzed at the<br />
level of the behavior of this agent. This new perspective is found in texts<br />
such as On the common saying from 1793, Anthropology from 1798,<br />
Logic from 1800 and On pedagogy from 1803, and may be summarized<br />
as follows:<br />
1) A person may possess a concept solely through the successful<br />
performance of an embodied practice.<br />
2) Such a concept may also be possessed in abstracto, that is, in<br />
abstraction from its corresponding practice.<br />
3) In such a case the practice has ontological and pragmatic<br />
priority over the abstract concept.<br />
This theory I have called Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied<br />
rationality. As for its historical roots, I have argued that it may in part be<br />
viewed as the logical outcome of some basic ideas and assumptions held<br />
by Kant. However, in working out their consequences, he may also have<br />
112<br />
Ak VII: 192.<br />
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RATIONALITY <strong>AND</strong> EMBODIED <strong>PRACTICE</strong><br />
127<br />
been influenced by other philosophers and scholars, such as Rousseau,<br />
and the new pedagogical movement in Germany, represented, for<br />
instance, by Basedow.<br />
3.16 A short summary of the first part of the book<br />
In this first part, I have examined some aspects of Kant’s intellectual<br />
development as it finds its expression in some of his published works from<br />
Living forces in 1747 up to near the end of his life. The account given<br />
does not intend to be exhaustive but I have drawn attention to some<br />
trends that I believe to be significant. Among these are Kant’s growing<br />
empiricism and pragmatism, associated with his orientation towards the<br />
new science of anthropology with its study of man as a unity of mind and<br />
body. And even if he was influenced by a wide range of philosophers, I<br />
have especially stressed the importance of Rousseau and his idea that<br />
man learns to know and master the world only through embodied acts<br />
and practices. All this led Kant to accord an increasing significance to<br />
human behavior as a domain of human rationality, or so I claim. Not<br />
only does he claim that a basic part of our concept-formation (i.e., the<br />
part having to do with the concept of shape) originates in our capacity to<br />
use our hands to grasp and hold objects but he also promotes the idea<br />
that concepts exist originally as the rules according to which practices are<br />
performed. As a result these practices are essential to human rationality.<br />
I have underlined these aspects of Kant’s philosophy not only because<br />
they deserve attention in themselves but also because they form the<br />
context in which Kant’s critical philosophy developed. In the second part<br />
I shall put forward my ideas on how this context influenced the<br />
philosophical reflections of the Critique.
4. THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
The field of philosophy in this cosmopolitan<br />
meaning may be summed up in the following<br />
questions:<br />
l) What can I know?<br />
2) What ought I to do?<br />
3) What may I hope?<br />
4) What is man?<br />
The first question is answered by metaphysics, the<br />
second by morality, the third by religion, and the<br />
fourth by anthropology. At bottom all this could<br />
be reckoned to be anthropology, because the first<br />
three questions are related to the last.<br />
From Kant’s Logic 1<br />
In this passage Kant defines the task of what he calls a cosmopolitan<br />
[weltbürgerlichen] philosophy through four questions. What can I know?<br />
What ought I to do? What may I hope? What is man? These questions<br />
are said to define metaphysics, ethics, religion and anthropology.<br />
However, the last question stands in a particular position relative to the<br />
others, he claims, because it is more basic than all the rest. Before we can<br />
answer the others, we have to know what man is.<br />
In this second part, I will look at passages from the Critique. More<br />
than any other of his texts, this work relates to the first of the four<br />
questions: ‘What can I know?’ But Kant says that answering this question<br />
presupposes a thorough reflection upon the anthropological question of<br />
what a human being is. The passage also suggests that Kant based his<br />
epistemological enquiries on such reflections, i.e. reflections in the field of<br />
anthropology. Is that really so? And what happens if we take this idea of<br />
the primacy of anthropology seriously? How does it affect our<br />
interpretation of the Critique? In what follows I will attempt to give the<br />
beginning of an answer to this question. That is, my interpretation will be<br />
based on the assumption that Kant’s anthropology is part of the context<br />
1 Ak IX: 25
130<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
in which the reflections of the Critique proceed. As suggested by authors<br />
such as Munzel and Pitte, 2 I will take this anthropology to be present not<br />
only in the Anthropology and in Kant’s unpublished lectures in this field,<br />
but also in passages found in his writings on pedagogy and logic, and<br />
even in some other texts discussing man and his position in the world,<br />
such as On the common saying, Directions in space and Orientation. A<br />
basic idea of this interpretative approach is that parts of the Critique may<br />
be read as a series of reflections based on the idea that the mind is<br />
embodied in the sense suggested in the first part of this work.<br />
First, however, I will discuss some preliminary questions concerning<br />
Kant’s intellectual development and the perspective under which his<br />
critical reflections took place. I will also briefly discuss some of the main<br />
trends in the interpretation of the Critique and locate my own position<br />
relative to them. As a rule, decisive arguments in favor of my position will<br />
be left for the following chapters.<br />
4.1 The Critique – a brief presentation<br />
The Critique is a notoriously difficult book, and today, more than two<br />
hundred years after its first publication, we are still far from reaching an<br />
agreement on how best to interpret it. As numerous commentators have<br />
pointed out, in content as well as in style, the text represents a<br />
tremendous challenge to the philosophical scholar.<br />
First a brief outline of the book itself. Even if Kant is not<br />
unambiguously clear about the main purpose of the book, 3 he more than<br />
once announces that its aim is to answer the question ‘How is synthetic a<br />
priori knowledge possible?’ The Kantian notion of synthetic a priori<br />
knowledge refers to a knowledge that is necessarily true and universal<br />
and which is concerned not with conceptual or analytic knowledge but<br />
the basic structure of experience. Examples of synthetic a priori<br />
knowledge are, according to Kant, found in Euclidean geometry and<br />
Newtonian physics. Thus, one way to paraphrase the basic question of<br />
the Critique is ‘How is the knowledge represented by these sciences<br />
possible?’<br />
‘Knowledge’ in these questions means objective knowledge, so as<br />
Kant also explicitly stresses, the main task of the Critique is not to<br />
2<br />
Cf. Munzel (1999) and Pitte (1971 and 1978). Cf. also Mengüsoglu (1966), 109.<br />
3<br />
Noting how Kant’s statements in this field often diverge Pippin (1992), 286<br />
complains that this text suffers perhaps more than any other of Kant’s texts from<br />
numerous, varied, and not always consistent characterizations of its central<br />
purpose, or fundamental problem.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
131<br />
explore the origin of knowledge, but its objectivity or validity. According<br />
to the definition given in chapter one above, its project is epistemic.<br />
Another explicitly stated purpose of the Critique, which also concerns the<br />
validity of knowledge, is to offer a basic critique of traditional<br />
metaphysics.<br />
Kant uses the term ‘transcendental philosophy’ to characterize the<br />
general project of the Critique. The term refers, among other things, to<br />
the project of answering how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. In<br />
answering this question he develops a number of so-called transcendental<br />
arguments, most famous of which are the transcendental deductions of<br />
the categories. An integral part of Kant’s transcendental philosophy is<br />
also his transcendental idealism, involving the idea that all our<br />
experience is representational, that space and time are nothing but forms<br />
of our experience, and that we have to distinguish between the objects of<br />
the world as we experience them, and those objects as they are in<br />
themselves, which lie beyond the reach of human knowledge.<br />
Even if Kant underlines the epistemic perspective of the Critique, the<br />
work also contains an elaborate cognitive theory explaining the origin or<br />
genesis of experience. Very briefly, this is the theory of a self endowed<br />
with a mind [Gemüt]. This self is typically referred to by means of the<br />
term ‘subject’ or by first person pronouns such as ‘I’, ‘we’ and equivalent<br />
terms. Further it is a theory of how this subject is affected by objects<br />
outside it, and also how, along with such effects, it performs various<br />
cognitive acts, resulting in what Kant calls experience [Erfahrung] or<br />
knowledge [Erkenntnis]. In the Critique these are typically used as<br />
equivalent terms (cf. e.g. B1), and in the following I shall normally use the<br />
term ‘experience’ to cover both.<br />
4.2 Phases, perspectives and continuities<br />
The interpretative approach to be followed in the following chapters is<br />
based on the assumption that there is a continuity between the Critique<br />
and some of the texts examined in the previous chapters. More<br />
specifically, I argue that some of the reflections in the Critique<br />
presuppose or imply ideas developed and held in these other texts, ideas<br />
that may be associated with Kant’s anthropology understood in a wide<br />
sense.<br />
A possible objection to such a claim is that it is inconsistent with the<br />
often expressed idea that Kant’s intellectual development may be divided<br />
into distinct phases, and that the Critique belongs to a phase essentially<br />
different from the others. Perhaps a more sophisticated version of this<br />
argument is that the Critique represents a critical and/or transcendental
132<br />
perspective that has to be kept separate from the perspectives<br />
characterizing the writings published prior to the Critique, as well as<br />
later publications such as the Anthropology or On pedagogy. A<br />
proponent of this kind of criticism may, for instance, claim that the<br />
critical perspective is to be contrasted with the dogmatic perspective of<br />
Kant’s pre-critical period, as well as the empirical perspective of, for<br />
instance, his writings on anthropology and pedagogy. Moreover, she may<br />
claim that texts written under such different perspectives have little or no<br />
reciprocal relevance.<br />
Kant may himself be seen as fuelling such claims through his frequent<br />
denunciations of his early writings. He publicly claimed his early<br />
investigations to be metaphysical and thus untenable, and he discouraged<br />
his students from reading them. He also urged his publisher to exclude<br />
them from a collection of his works. 4 By doing so he himself contributed<br />
to the idea that among his publications the Critique is vital for every<br />
student of philosophy and may be understood on its own terms, but the<br />
works preceding it are relevant for antiquarians at best.<br />
It is well known that an author is not always the best guide for an<br />
interpreter and even if the superior status of the Critique is unchallenged,<br />
many scholars have maintained that, contrary to what Kant suggests, it<br />
may well be interpreted in the light of his earlier works. As for his<br />
intellectual development, there is a growing awareness that ideas and<br />
perspectives central to the Critique are also present in texts published<br />
much earlier, even prior to the Inaugural dissertation of 1770. This has<br />
typically been claimed to be the year of Kant’s critical turn, leading<br />
eventually towards the fully developed critical position of the Critique. 5<br />
Even if the Inaugural dissertation represents a decisive step in his<br />
intellectual development, its significance should not be over-emphasized.<br />
Schmucker argues, for instance, that in texts published as early as in the<br />
1760s Kant was developing ideas that to some extent corresponded to<br />
the critical position of the 1780s. 6 Schmucker refers to his skepticism<br />
regarding metaphysical proofs of the immateriality of the human mind,<br />
4<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
In a letter to Tieftrunk he recommended that nothing before the Inaugural<br />
dissertation should be included, cf. Zammito (2002), 257 and also Schönfeld<br />
(2000), 6.<br />
5<br />
The turning point is then typically associated with Kant’s denouncement of the<br />
doctrine that time and space are objective things or features of things, arguing<br />
instead that time and space are subjective forms of intuition, cf. e.g. Falkenburg<br />
(2000), 134.<br />
6<br />
Schmucker (1981), 1ff.
133<br />
and his refutation of the three traditional proofs of God. There is a<br />
similarity in structure between the arguments raised against these ideas in<br />
those early texts and the ones found in the Transcendental Dialectic of<br />
the Critique, he argues. He also notes that at an early stage Kant was<br />
putting forward the idea that mathematics is a synthetic discipline.<br />
Hartmut und Gernot Böhme, pointing at the fact that Kant’s critical<br />
perspective involves a reflection on the relation between our cognitive<br />
powers and the objects of our experience, maintain that such a<br />
perspective is present already in 1766 in Dreams of a spirit-seer. 7<br />
Kaulbach recognizes a critical attitude as early as 1747 in Kant’s first<br />
publication. Kant here critically distinguishes between Erkenntniszielen,<br />
Kaulbach claims, and by doing this anticipates the critical examinations<br />
of the Critique. 8 As we have seen in an earlier chapter, Rossvær also<br />
contends that Kant’s Copernican perspective is first advanced in<br />
Directions in space from 1768. 9<br />
Such examples all serve to undermine the idea of an absolute dividing<br />
line between the critical project of the 1770s and 1780s and the<br />
preceding period. On a general level this point has also been put forward<br />
by Schönfeld who contends that there is more continuity in Kant’s<br />
philosophizing than appears at first sight. Contrary to what Kant himself<br />
claims in the Critique, 10 Schönfeld argues, the inception of the critical<br />
philosophy was not an abrupt conceptual breakthrough, but rather a<br />
series of incremental steps that began with Kant’s growing<br />
disenchantment with the pre-critical project in the 1760s. 11 Scott-Taggart<br />
denounces the contrast between Kant’s pre-critical and critical views as<br />
‘an exegetical fiction’. 12<br />
Even if I shall not evaluate these various claims about continuity in<br />
detail here, I am generally sympathetic towards the idea that there is a<br />
continuity in Kant’s intellectual development in the way that ideas and<br />
perspectives central to the Critique are found in texts published both<br />
before and after it. I am also sympathetic towards those who argue that<br />
our understanding of the Critique is enhanced by interpreting it in the<br />
context of these other writings. Trying to understand a text in its context<br />
is, I think, always a profitable interpretative strategy, and where the<br />
7<br />
Böhme and Böhme (1983), 253.<br />
8<br />
Kaulbach (1960), 68.<br />
9<br />
Rossvær (1974), 43.<br />
10 Cf. B xvi and B xxii.<br />
11<br />
Schönfeld (2000), 7.<br />
12<br />
Scott-Taggart (1969), 3.<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE
134<br />
Critique is concerned, I maintain that this context should especially<br />
include Kant’s writings on anthropology, pedagogy and logic with their<br />
broad anthropological approach. These texts are relevant, I think, not<br />
only for representing ideas and perspectives that will find a more mature<br />
elaboration in the Critique, but also because in these texts he develops<br />
and defines ideas that are later present as a tacit background to, or<br />
horizon of, the Critique. As such they may give us hints and suggestions<br />
regarding how the text at large may or should be interpreted.<br />
The idea that the reflections taking place in the Critique proceed<br />
within a horizon of ideas that are explicitly discussed in other texts, but<br />
which in the Critique are merely presupposed, has been proposed by<br />
more than one commentator. As for Kant’s metaphysics of the mind in<br />
the Critique, Ameriks argues that unless interpreters properly appreciate<br />
what Kant left unsaid in this work but discussed elsewhere, they will not<br />
be able to see how much of it frames what is said in the Critique. 13<br />
Extending the perspective even further, Oberhausen suggests that Kant’s<br />
doctrine of the acquisitio originaria of a priori representations refers to a<br />
tacit background of ideas Kant shared with other philosophers of the<br />
Enlightenment, but which he did not deal with systematically in the<br />
Critique because he assumed them to be generally known. They are<br />
present as a tacit background to his philosophy, or as what Oberhausen<br />
calls Hintergrundstheorien. 14<br />
My idea is that some of Kant’s basic ideas of man promoted within or<br />
implied by his anthropology may also be seen as part of the horizon of<br />
mostly tacit ideas forming the background against which the Critique was<br />
written, ideas Kant knew and acknowledged but did not care, for reasons<br />
to be discussed below, to make explicit. As interpreters, it is our task to<br />
bring these tacit ideas into light and take them into account when trying<br />
to understand the Critique.<br />
As for Kant’s anthropology (the term ‘anthropology’ is here still to be<br />
understood in the wide sense suggested above), it may be claimed that it<br />
is basically an empirical science, and as such irrelevant to the<br />
transcendental perspective of the Critique. I will discuss the relation<br />
between Kant’s empirical and transcendental perspectives below. At this<br />
point, let me remind the reader that even if Kant’s anthropology may in<br />
part be characterized as an empirical science, it is not merely so.<br />
According to Kant, it is also characterized by its pragmatic perspective.<br />
Also, as we have seen, from the early 1770s Kant declares that the<br />
13<br />
Ameriks (2000), xxx.<br />
14<br />
Oberhausen (1997), 247.<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
135<br />
pragmatic perspective of his anthropology is from now on to form a<br />
superior perspective under which he wants to subordinate his whole<br />
academic enterprise. Exactly what this says about the relation between<br />
his anthropology and his transcendental philosophy is not evident.<br />
Brandt argues that there are no systematic relations between these two<br />
branches of his philosophy, 15<br />
while Pitte, Munzel and others insist that<br />
there are, citing as evidence, for instance, the passage from the Logic<br />
quoted at the beginning of this chapter. 16 Munzel argues specifically that<br />
there is a connection between Kant’s anthropology and pedagogy and his<br />
critical ethics as found in the Critique of practical reason. In his<br />
anthropology and pedagogy Kant discusses the means and strategies by<br />
which man realizes his true vocation as a citizen of the moral world<br />
order. The second Critique, she maintains, cannot be properly<br />
understood in abstraction from these means and strategies. 17<br />
I will argue that a parallel argument may also be advanced where the<br />
first Critique is concerned, i.e., its cognitive theory, epistemology and<br />
transcendental idealism. This I also take to be the basic intuition<br />
underlying Pitte’s attempt at a positive re-evaluation of Kant’s<br />
anthropology. 18 However, like Munzel he ends up emphasizing the<br />
connection between Kant’s anthropology and his critical ethics, and does<br />
not quite succeed in integrating other parts of Kant’s transcendental<br />
philosophy into his interpretative approach. 19<br />
His position may at best be<br />
described as ambiguous. For instance, at one point he claims that Kant’s<br />
critical analysis of cognition provides little occasion for the introduction<br />
of anthropological elements. 20 In his introduction to an English<br />
translation of Kant’s Anthropology, however, he argues that Kant’s<br />
theory of cognition, as we find it in this work, may also help us to better<br />
15<br />
Brandt (1999), 50.<br />
16<br />
Pitte (1971 and 1978), Munzel (1999).<br />
17<br />
Cf. Munzel (1999), 8ff. Recently other scholars have also developed a similar<br />
perspective. For a brief survey, cf. Zammito (2002), 347ff. Zammito himself<br />
seems also to be sympathetic towards this view.<br />
18<br />
Cf. Pitte (1971), 32.<br />
19<br />
Referring to the last part of the Critique, and interpreting the text as a whole in<br />
the light of this part, Pitte argues that its orientation is basically practical (Pitte<br />
(1971), 33). From this Pitte further concludes that Kant intended the Critique to<br />
be a part of a comprehensive philosophy, the aim of which was to help realize the<br />
good life for the human race (Pitte 1971), 36. Within this system, Pitte argues,<br />
Kant considered his ethics to be the highest discipline.<br />
20<br />
Pitte (1971), 32.
136<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
understand the corresponding theory of the Critique. 21 However, this is<br />
not followed up by a more comprehensive analysis.<br />
4.3 Some trends and positions in the interpretation of the Critique<br />
The aim of this section is to give a brief outline of where I locate myself<br />
relative to some existing interpretations of the Critique. As has been<br />
pointed out, in content as well as in style, the Critique represents a<br />
tremendous challenge to the philosophical scholar. 22 This may account<br />
for the exuberant manifold of interpretations produced in its aftermath.<br />
The following is intended not as a comprehensive presentation of the<br />
various interpretations offered, but only as a rough outline of some<br />
representative trends. 23<br />
The disagreement surrounding the Critique concerns a number of<br />
questions. An initial question is whether the text constitutes a coherent<br />
piece of philosophy, or whether it is more like a patchwork of fragments<br />
loosely combined. A well-known representative of the last position is<br />
Norman Kemp Smith who argues that the Critique is a collection of<br />
argumentative fragments belonging to different phases of Kant’s<br />
intellectual development, more or less loosely connected. 24 Paul Guyer is<br />
often presented as a modern representative of this view. 25 Numerous<br />
interpreters have also complained that the Critique contains serious<br />
inconsistencies, thereby questioning the coherence and unity of the work<br />
from a somewhat different angle. 26<br />
I belong to those who see the Critique as a fundamentally coherent<br />
and unified work. However, I also believe it to be a text extremely rich in<br />
21<br />
Pitte (1978), xx.<br />
22<br />
As a curiosity, it may be noted that in the Anthropology (Ak VII: 137) Kant<br />
espouses the idea that a certain level of obscurity [ein gewisser Grad des<br />
Rätselhaften] in a text may have a positive effect on the reader. It allows him to<br />
become aware of his own skills in bringing to light the hidden message of the text.<br />
If Kant is right, then the obscurity of the Critique may perhaps explain some of<br />
the fascination exerted by it upon the philosophic community since its<br />
publication.<br />
23<br />
Some general aspects of the history of the interpretation of the Critique are<br />
found in e.g. Kitcher (1990), 3ff and Gardner (1999), 30. Zoeller (1993) discusses<br />
more recent developments.<br />
24<br />
Kemp Smith (1918).<br />
25<br />
Cf. Guyer (1987).<br />
26<br />
Cf. e.g. Bennett (1966), 4, 29 and 142; Strawson (1973), 16 and Neujahr<br />
(1995), 2.
137<br />
perspectives, and I hold its theoretical reflections to operate at more than<br />
one level. I think it is also obvious that Kant struggled to give his<br />
transcendental philosophy form, evidenced among other things by the<br />
famous ‘silence’ prior to its publication in 1781 27 and the revisions<br />
undertaken in its second edition, the so called B-edition. 28 Due to the<br />
complexity of the work, I also think that there are ideas and arguments in<br />
the text that are not completely worked through, in part perhaps<br />
intentionally so, because Kant chose to give priority to other parts or<br />
aspects of the work.<br />
Another central question among Kant’s interpreters concerns what is<br />
meant by the term ‘experience’ in the Critique. Kant announces that he<br />
uses the term in the same sense as ‘knowledge’ [Erkenntnis], but that<br />
does not solve the problem. An idea vigorously promoted by some<br />
German neo-Kantians is that the term refers to scientific knowledge only,<br />
and, consequently that the Critique in its essence is a theory of science<br />
the task of which is to supply a philosophical foundation for the exact<br />
sciences. 29 On the other hand we have those who argue that the Critique<br />
may be read as a theory of human experience in a more general sense,<br />
what Hoppe refers to as the Haben von einem Welt. 30 For my own part, I<br />
think that both sides are on the right track. In the present work, however,<br />
I will emphasize the perspective of the second position.<br />
A major disagreement in the interpretation of the Critique concerns<br />
the status of its cognitive theory, often referred to as its transcendental<br />
psychology. Kitcher distinguishes between those who accept the<br />
psychology of the Critique as part of a tenable transcendental philosophy<br />
and those who do not. 31 Although Kant’s transcendental psychology early<br />
became a target of criticism, interpretations accepting it as a legitimate<br />
part of transcendental philosophy were not uncommon in nineteenth-<br />
century Germany, according to Kitcher. 32<br />
However, a turning point<br />
came with Frege and his claim that the psychological should be sharply<br />
separated from logic, and, moreover, that psychology had nothing to<br />
27<br />
Cf. Carl (1989).<br />
28<br />
According to Reinhold Bernhard Jachmann, a student and friend of his, Kant’s<br />
talent lay primarily in the analysis of concepts. To combine concepts into systems<br />
was more difficult for him, cf. Gross (1993), 114.<br />
29<br />
Cf. e.g. Falkenburg (2000), 310. For a general discussion of the neo-Kantians,<br />
cf. also Köhnke (1991).<br />
30<br />
Hoppe (1983), 5.<br />
31<br />
Kitcher (1990), 3ff.<br />
32<br />
Ibid, 6.<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE
138<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
contribute to the field of arithmetic. With the help of Russell, Carnap<br />
and the early Wittgenstein, logic, philosophy of mathematics and a<br />
Fregean philosophy of language were then established as paradigms for<br />
the philosophical enterprise. This enterprise was carried on by the<br />
analytic tradition in philosophy, dominating most of the twentieth<br />
century, also giving birth to an analytic school of Kant interpreters.<br />
Within this analytic school, Kant’s transcendental psychology had no<br />
room. Those analytically-oriented interpreters who still saw in the<br />
Critique a text worth defending therefore had to try to find a way of<br />
defining the transcendental project without including what they were<br />
now convinced was a mistaken psychologism.<br />
In the Anglo-American tradition, Strawson stands out as a major<br />
representative of this analytic school when in The bounds of sense, he<br />
argues:<br />
... there is no doubt that this doctrine [about our cognitive faculties] is<br />
incoherent in itself and masks, rather than explains, the real character<br />
of [Kant’s] inquiry.... 33<br />
Instead of reading the Critique as a book on human powers and<br />
capacities, it should be read as an analytical argument, Strawson<br />
contends.<br />
A major characteristic of the analytic Kant interpretation is the<br />
distinction that it draws between what it takes to be a legitimate core of<br />
Kant’s transcendental philosophy and its illegitimate or ‘bad’<br />
metaphysics. 34 As the legitimate core it sees the transcendental arguments<br />
of the text. Transcendental psychology, on the other hand, is seen as<br />
belonging to the ‘bad’ metaphysics of the text which has to be<br />
disentangled from the legitimate part and then dismissed. 35<br />
For those who accept that the cognitive psychology of the Critique is<br />
legitimate, other questions emerge. Who or what is the cognitive subject<br />
or the ‘I’ of this psychology? Also, when Kant as part of this cognitive<br />
psychology describes events in which this subject is involved and activities<br />
33<br />
Strawson (1973), 16.<br />
34<br />
Cf. e.g. Zoeller (1993), 450.<br />
35<br />
Despite internal differences, both Henry Allison, Paul Guyer and Dieter<br />
Henrich may be seen as operating within the context. As for Allison, however, as<br />
Zoeller points out, he may also be seen as representing a trend within the analytic<br />
tradition to give an increasing amount of attention to the structure and activities<br />
of the cognitive subject, cf. Zoeller (1993), 451. Also a more historically oriented<br />
study of Henrich (1989) goes beyond a mere analytical approach.
139<br />
performed by the subject, what kind of activities and events does the<br />
theory refer to? Here I think three positions may be distinguished. 36 The<br />
first claims that the cognitive subject is an ordinary embodied human<br />
being and that the events and activities associated with this subject are<br />
open to empirical investigation. A scholar approaching such a view in the<br />
nineteenth century was Hermann von Helmholz. 37<br />
According to the<br />
second position, the cognitive subject is a transcendental subject, to<br />
which no empirical knowledge applies. Strawson claimed that this was<br />
Kant’s position, and argued that this made Kant’s transcendental<br />
psychology untenable. 38 Not all representatives of the second position<br />
draw this negative conclusion, however. The second position is also<br />
represented by scholars contending that Kant’s transcendental<br />
psychology is a valuable piece of philosophy, but claiming too that the<br />
events and activities associated with the subject of this psychology belong<br />
to an inner mental domain or some non-empirical, transcendental<br />
domain only accessible by a certain kind of philosophical reflection. 39 The<br />
third position involves the idea that the cognitive subject of Kant’s<br />
transcendental psychology is not a subject at all, at least, not in the usual<br />
sense of the term. Instead the term ‘subject’ is seen as referring to some<br />
transpersonal entity, such as the human species, or even some sort of<br />
Hegelian World-Spirit. A modern version of the trans-personal view is<br />
found in Gerhardt. He claims that Kant’s so called Copernican<br />
revolution should be interpreted as a radical anthropological turn [eine<br />
universelle Hinwendung zum Menschen]. More specifically, it represents<br />
a philosophical reflection evolving from the idea that human existence is<br />
limited in time and space. Gerhardt’s claim focuses not on the finite<br />
existence of the individual, however, but on humanity at large. 40<br />
36<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
These are also discussed in Martin (1969), 207, cf. also Kitcher (1990), 3ff. A<br />
closely related discussion concerns how to understand Kant’s distinction between<br />
the empirical and the transcendental subject. This will be discussed below.<br />
37<br />
Cf. Martin (1969), 207. Typical of this position is that the distinction between<br />
the empirical and transcendental subject is challenged.<br />
38<br />
I will return to discuss this in chapter 7.<br />
39<br />
Cf. e.g. Brook (1994), 19.<br />
40<br />
Gerhardt (1987), 140ff. Gerhardt emphasizes the fact that human life is limited<br />
to the planet on which we live: ‘Was immer der Mensch über die Welt und über<br />
sich selbst in Erfahrung bringen kann, verdankt er den Lebensbedingungen auf<br />
diesem kleinen Planeten, der ihm, selbst wenn es gelingen sollte, perfekte<br />
Erkenntnisinstrumente zu entwickeln, stets nur einen Begrenzten Weltausschnitt<br />
eröffnet.’ (Gerhardt (1987), 142).
140<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
Following a somewhat different line of argument, Neujahr contends that<br />
the cognitive subject of the Critique is transpersonal. 41<br />
Identifying which of these positions Kant interpreters belong to is not<br />
always easy. Falkenstein, 42 for instance, conforms to the second position<br />
relative to Kant’s theory of the intellectual synthesis. However, where<br />
Kant’s theory of sensibility is concerned, he claims that this theory<br />
contains references to man as an embodied being, and in that respect his<br />
position is closer to the first of the three. Even Allison argues that in<br />
Kant’s theory of sensibility the term ‘affection’ refers to the affection of<br />
the body. 43<br />
My own position lies near the first one. I think the subject of Kant’s<br />
transcendental psychology is man as we know him as an embodied being<br />
and I also accept transcendental psychology as a legitimate part of<br />
transcendental philosophy. Contrary to those who claim that the events<br />
and activities associated with this subject belong to an inner or even nonempirical<br />
domain, however, I think that the events are embodied events<br />
and that the acts are embodied acts or practices. So Kant’s<br />
transcendental psychology is not a psychology in the usual sense of the<br />
term, referring to inner mental or otherwise hidden processes. It is the<br />
psychology of a philosopher who was as critical of introspection as he was<br />
of neurology, a philosopher who emphasized that the human mind was<br />
radically embodied and present in and through the embodied selfawareness<br />
and the embodied activity of the subject. This is also why I<br />
prefer not to use the term ‘transcendental psychology’, with its<br />
connotations of inner mental or hidden processes, but the more neutral<br />
term ‘cognitive theory’.<br />
That Kant’s cognitive theory in the Critique, or that his<br />
transcendental philosophy in a more general sense, refers in some way or<br />
41 Neujahr contends that in the Critique Kant was committed not to one but two<br />
views of the subject. He started by seeing the subject as an individual entity.<br />
Then, in order to escape solipsism, he was forced to introduce a new theory<br />
according to which the subject is a transpersonal mind, cf. Neujahr (1995), 98ff.<br />
Neujahr sees these two views as incompatible and an example of the general<br />
inconsistency of the Critique.<br />
42 Falkenstein (1995).<br />
43 This, at least is how I interpret the following remark: ‘Kant not only can but<br />
does speak about the mind as affected by empirical objects. For example, he<br />
speaks unproblematically of colors as ‘modifications of the sense of sight which is<br />
affected in a certain way by light’ (A28). [...] Kant can perfectly well characterize<br />
human sensibility in this way because, on the empirical level, the human mind is<br />
itself considered as part of nature.’ Allison (1983), 249.
141<br />
another to human behavior is also maintained by Kaulbach, Kambartel,<br />
Melnick and Saugstad. Kaulbach suggests that Kant’s transcendental<br />
philosophy may be interpreted as a theory referring to the self-conscious<br />
movements of an embodied subject. These movements have a<br />
transcendental function and are thus a legitimate part of transcendental<br />
philosophy. 44<br />
Kambartel argues that Kant’s theory of the categories may<br />
be seen as referring to embodied practices. 45 Melnick defends the idea<br />
both that the Kantian notions of space and time refer to embodied acts,<br />
and that the categories are forms of embodied behavior. 46 Saugstad has<br />
argued in a series of papers that the notion of embodied practices has a<br />
central place in Kant’s transcendental philosophy, and defends what he<br />
calls an ‘externalist’ interpretation of Kant. 47 This interpretation is<br />
contrasted with what he calls an ‘internalist’ interpretation, which he says<br />
has been the dominant trend in traditional Kant interpretation. He<br />
describes his externalist view as follows:<br />
On this reading, Kant’s position is that human knowledge depends,<br />
ultimately, upon our ability to perform a fixed set of overt actions<br />
essentially involving the movement of the human body. 48<br />
Saugstad emphasizes that he does not intend to transform Kant into<br />
some kind of behaviorist and so admits a place for inner mental<br />
experiences in Kant’s theory. However, these are not given any<br />
privileged significance. I will return to Saugstad’s interpretation later.<br />
That the notion of embodied acts or practices is implied by certain<br />
passages of the Critique, whether Kant was aware of it or not, is also<br />
suggested by Aquila, 49 Caygill, 50 Rossvær, 51 and Gibbons. 52 Brook and<br />
44<br />
Cf. e.g. Kaulbach (1968), 258 and 285, and also Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and<br />
1968).<br />
45<br />
Cf e.g. Kambartel (1976), 117.<br />
46<br />
Melnick (1989).<br />
47<br />
Saugstad (1982, 1986, 1992, 1993a, 1993b, 2000 and 2002).<br />
48<br />
Saugstad (1992), 381.<br />
49<br />
Cf. e.g. Aquila (1992), 162ff.<br />
50<br />
In his Kant Dictionary Caygill claims that the idea of embodied experience is<br />
presupposed in the more abstract analyses of the Critique. He writes: ‘Thus the<br />
analysis of the experience of the human body is implied through the more<br />
technical theoretical analyses of CPR.’ Cf. Caygill (1995), 96.<br />
51<br />
Rossvær (1974).<br />
52<br />
Gibbons (1994).<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE
142<br />
Hoppe may also be mentioned here, as both point out how easily Kant’s<br />
transcendental theory may be read as a theory of human behavior. 53<br />
Both, however, deny that Kant himself meant his theory to be<br />
interpreted in this way.<br />
4.4 Transcendental philosophy<br />
Commenting upon his philosophical project in the Critique, Kant is<br />
quite explicit in seeing it as representing a new kind of philosophy, which<br />
he terms ‘transcendental’. In the Critique he gives his first definition of<br />
transcendental philosophy at A 14/B 25. Transcendental philosophy is a<br />
system of transcendental knowledge [Erkenntnis] that deals with the<br />
specific manner in which we achieve knowledge of objects [Erkenntnisart<br />
von Gegenständen] as far as this is possible a priori.<br />
I call all cognition transcendental that is occupied not so much with<br />
objects but rather with our mode of cognition of objects insofar as this<br />
is to be possible a priori. A system of such concepts would be called<br />
transcendental philosophy. (A 11/B 25)<br />
At B 19 Kant also states what he takes to be the main question of<br />
transcendental philosophy. How are synthetic a priori judgments<br />
possible? A further characteristic of transcendental philosophy is that all<br />
its concepts are pure a priori concepts (B 28). And finally, while most<br />
cognitive theories deal only with the origin and history of knowledge, the<br />
main question of transcendental philosophy is not the origin, but the<br />
validity of knowledge (A 84/B 116). Thus, according to the distinction<br />
drawn in chapter one above, Kant’s main project in the Critique belongs<br />
to the discipline of epistemology and not cognitive theory.<br />
Part of the discussion revolving around the Critique concerns what<br />
kind of project Kant’s transcendental philosophy is. We have already<br />
touched upon some aspects of this question above. Here I want to focus<br />
on his own presentation of his project as we have just encountered it.<br />
The claim that all the concepts of transcendental philosophy are pure<br />
a priori concepts has induced interpreters to argue that Kant’s<br />
transcendental philosophy cannot contain any concepts referring to<br />
empirical objects or phenomena or concepts with an empirical origin. If<br />
so, however, where do these transcendental concepts come from? One<br />
possible answer is to see them as concepts similar to what the rationalist<br />
tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries called innate ideas.<br />
53 Brook (1994), 18 and Hoppe (1969), 19.<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE
143<br />
Even if Kant himself distanced himself from the metaphysics of the<br />
rationalist tradition, some scholars still see the Kantian notion of pure a<br />
priori concepts as belonging within this tradition. A paradigmatic<br />
example of this position is found in Bonevac. He sees Kant as a<br />
rationalist working within what is ultimately a Platonist tradition.<br />
According to Bonevac, Kant maintained that ‘we can deduce pure<br />
concepts from the understanding a priori, independently of experience,<br />
and moreover that there are synthetic a priori truths that we can know<br />
independently of experience.’ 54 Bonevac may here be seen as a radical<br />
representative of a view that is quite common in a more moderate form.<br />
It sees Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a reflection taking place<br />
within some sort of pure conceptual space involving nothing but pure<br />
concepts.<br />
Against this I will maintain what I will call a life-world approach to<br />
Kant’s transcendental philosophy. According to this approach, his<br />
transcendental philosophy is a philosophical reflection taking place<br />
within the human life-world as we know it. It is a reflection taking as its<br />
starting point man as an embodied being living in a physical and social<br />
world. Within this context, it reflects upon questions having to do with<br />
human experience and the origin, status and validity of this experience. I<br />
see Kaulbach, Kambartel and Saugstad as representing various versions<br />
of such a life-world perspective. In his Philosophie als Wissenschaft, for<br />
instance, Kaulbach emphasizes that the transcendental theory of the<br />
Critique should not be seen as a foundationalist theory trying to deduce<br />
its doctrines from a single principle. It is a theory of man as an embodied<br />
being totally immersed in his world. It is here, within this world,<br />
reflecting upon worldly human activities, in particular the scientific<br />
enterprise, that the transcendental discourse emerges, he argues. 55<br />
Also relevant in this context is Hartmut and Gernot Böhme’s work<br />
Das Andere der Vernunft. 56 The authors claim that aspects of Kant’s<br />
transcendental philosophy are derived from observations and reflections<br />
entertained by him upon the methods and practices of the scientists of his<br />
54<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
Bonevac 1998), 42.<br />
55<br />
He writes: ‘Daher geht Kant in Wahrheit nicht von der künstlichen und<br />
fingierten Situation aus, in der das Subjekt angeblich zunächst von der Welt<br />
abgeschnitten ist und erst die Werkzeuge seines Erkennens prüft, bevor es aufs<br />
neue darangeht ... […] sondern [er] läßt es inmitten der Geschichte seiner<br />
Auseinandersetzung mit der Welt zum Selbstbewußtsein und zur<br />
erkenntniskritischen Selbstnormierung kommen.’ (Kaulbach (1981), 70.)<br />
56 Böhme and Böhme (1983).
144<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
time. Since the Renaissance, profiting from the technical advances of<br />
artisans, scientists had gradually developed more sophisticated and more<br />
complex instruments for the investigation of nature. These instruments,<br />
they argue, significantly changed the production of knowledge inside the<br />
new sciences. 57 From observing the work of artisans and scientists, Kant<br />
learned that knowledge of nature is produced by active intervention, that<br />
is, by actively using specific instruments, methods and procedures, and<br />
also that the product of this, scientific knowledge, is constituted by such<br />
methods and procedures. His theory of knowledge in the Critique, they<br />
conclude, reflects this insight. 58<br />
Even though I think Hartmut and Gernot Böhme are basically right<br />
on these points, I am less sympathetic towards their claim that Kant’s<br />
transcendental philosophy should be seen as a theory of scientific<br />
knowledge only. 59 As will be further argued below, I read his<br />
transcendental philosophy first and foremost as a theory of human<br />
experience in general. I also think that the two authors are fundamentally<br />
mistaken in their claim that Kant was alienated from his body and that<br />
embodied experience is disparaged in his transcendental philosophy. 60 As<br />
I will argue, I see the notion of the body as central in Kant’s<br />
transcendental philosophy. A basic insight of this philosophy, and a basic<br />
premise from which its reflections proceed, is that we are radically<br />
dependent on our bodies in our everyday exploration of the world, and<br />
that all experience and all knowledge is in an ultimate sense based on our<br />
immediate awareness of our embodied interaction with this world.<br />
Further, I will argue that Kant’s transcendental philosophy involves an<br />
attempt to identify the basic structure of this interaction, i.e. the<br />
interaction that makes experience possible. This is the idea that I see<br />
abstractly expressed at A 11/B 25 when Kant states that transcendental<br />
philosophy deals with our way of attaining knowledge of objects, as far as<br />
this is a priori possible.<br />
57<br />
Ibid., 284.<br />
58<br />
This idea may also have been conveyed to him by Francis Bacon, to whom<br />
Kant respectfully refers in the preface to the second edition of the Critique (B<br />
XII). Kambartel (1976), 93 suggests strong parallels between Kant and Bacon in<br />
the preface to the second edition of the Critique, even that Kant may have<br />
copied some of Bacon’s expressions.<br />
59<br />
Böhme and Böhme (1983), 289.<br />
60<br />
According to the two authors, Kant reduces the body to a mere instrument,<br />
which involves a radical disparagement of our immediate embodied awareness<br />
(Böhme and Böhme (1983), 17).
145<br />
Even if Kant does not make this distinction himself, I will distinguish<br />
between a general and a specific aspect of Kant’s transcendental<br />
philosophy in the way it is defined here. According to the first,<br />
transcendental philosophy deals with our way of attaining knowledge of<br />
objects in general. According to the second, transcendental philosophy<br />
deals with our way of attaining knowledge of objects in so far as it<br />
supplies a priori synthetic knowledge of these objects. Common to both<br />
these aspects is the fact that they direct our attention not at human<br />
experience as such, but towards our way of attaining this experience, as<br />
well as the epistemic status of this experience. I will return to discuss the<br />
epistemic question below. At present, I want to emphasize the first point,<br />
that Kant’s transcendental philosophy in general directs our attention not<br />
at the world, but at the subject exploring it. One of my basic theses is that<br />
Kant saw this subject as an embodied being, and that he saw its ways of<br />
attaining experience as consisting in the embodied acts and practices of<br />
this subject. This is also how I suggest we understand the notion of a<br />
Copernican turn or a Copernican perspective in the Critique.<br />
4.5 Kant’s Copernican perspective<br />
As a number of scholars have commented, the notion of a Copernican<br />
perspective in philosophy is never explicitly formulated by Kant himself. 61<br />
It is, however, suggested when in the first Critique he suggests that a<br />
proper philosophical position may be found by following the example of<br />
Copernicus:<br />
61 E.g. Hanson (1992).<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition [Erkenntnis]<br />
must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something<br />
about them a priori through concepts that would extend our<br />
cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us<br />
once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of<br />
metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our<br />
cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of<br />
an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about<br />
objects before they are given to us. This would be just like the first<br />
thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in<br />
the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire<br />
celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not<br />
have greater success if he made the observer revolve and left the stars<br />
at rest. (B XVI)
146<br />
Gerhardt dates the tradition among Kant interpreters comparing Kant’s<br />
critical perspective with the astronomical accomplishment of Copernicus<br />
back to Kuno Fisher in the 1880s. 62 From the beginning, however, there<br />
was confusion about how this comparison should best be understood.<br />
Fisher himself saw the comparison as constituting a rather loose analogy.<br />
Just as the Copernican transition from a geocentric to a heliocentric<br />
perspective involved a transition to a more advanced scientific stance, so<br />
Kant’s transcendental perspective is more advanced than the position he<br />
superseded. 63 Gerhardt himself denies that Kant’s Copernican<br />
perspective has anything to do with Copernicus’ transition from a<br />
geocentric to a heliocentric perspective as such. The analogy concerns<br />
rather the relation between the moving objects of the skies to the<br />
observer, he claims. Instead of assuming these objects to be revolving<br />
around an unmoving observer, Copernicus based his theory on the<br />
assumption that it was the observer who was moving. 64<br />
The point of the moving observer is also emphasized by Hanson. 65<br />
When we observe the universe, we constantly move in this universe along<br />
with the earth we inhabit, and we have to take into account this<br />
movement in our interpretation of what we observe. In presenting his<br />
new theory of the universe, Copernicus emphasized the novelty of this<br />
idea and explained how essential it was to the development of his theory.<br />
The idea of the moving observer is also essential to what we may call<br />
Kant’s Copernican perspective in philosophy, Hanson argues. Like<br />
Copernicus, Kant sought to explain the properties of observed<br />
phenomena by postulating activity in the subject.<br />
I agree with this. So far, however, the question of what or who this<br />
observer is, and in what way she moves or is active, has not been raised.<br />
Some possible answers to this have already been discussed in connection<br />
with Kant’s transcendental psychology. My position is clear. The<br />
observer is an embodied human being, and her movements or acts are<br />
likewise embodied. Kant’s Copernican perspective thus involves the idea<br />
that attention should be directed away from the world and its objects to<br />
the embodied observer and her way of exploring these objects, and that<br />
this way of exploring has to be taken into account when we reflect upon<br />
the epistemic status and validity of our experience. As I have argued<br />
62<br />
Gerhardt (1987).<br />
63<br />
For a further discussion of the meaning ascribed to the notion of a Copernican<br />
perspective in Kant, see Gerhardt (1987).<br />
64<br />
Ibid., 135.<br />
65 Hanson (1992), 36ff.<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE
147<br />
above, this is also what I see as the basic move constituting Kant’s<br />
transcendental perspective.<br />
That this move also involves a critical reflection is a point aptly<br />
expressed by Kaulbach. By redirecting attention from the world to the<br />
observer, it becomes possible for us to critically distinguish between the<br />
elements of our experience that originate in the objects and those that<br />
originate in our specific subjective way of approaching these objects.<br />
This, again, makes it possible for us to free ourselves from some illusions<br />
that threaten to cloud our understanding when this subjective aspect of<br />
our experience is not taken into account. Kaulbach, moreover, also<br />
contends that the subject of this reflection is embodied. 66<br />
4.6 Some further remarks on the transcendental and the empirical<br />
I have argued that Kant’s transcendental philosophy is a philosophical<br />
reflection taking place within the human life-world as we know it, what<br />
might also be called the empirical world. An argument in favor of this<br />
idea is that there is no need to leave this world in order to solve the task<br />
defined at A 11/B 25, i.e. to explain how synthetic a priori knowledge is<br />
possible, or at least that is what I shall argue. By examining the embodied<br />
practices developed by man in his physical interaction with the world,<br />
and by examining how such practices make possible certain aspects of<br />
our knowledge of this world, we discover that such practices may be seen<br />
as a priori conditions of knowledge, i.e., a priori and synthetic in the way<br />
defined at A 11/B 25ff. 67 A first suggestion that this idea is recognized by<br />
Kant is found in Orientation when Kant tells us that without the capacity<br />
to draw a circle, and by doing this to recognize whether the direction is<br />
from left to right or the other way around, we would not be able to<br />
determine a priori the different locations of objects in space. 68 The body,<br />
i.e. our way of using it and our awareness of this, is here declared to be a<br />
condition of a priori knowledge. Below I shall argue that the same is the<br />
case with other embodied acts and practices.<br />
What has been said so far is intended to be understood only as brief<br />
suggestions. All the topics touched upon above will be discussed more<br />
extensively in the following chapters. At this point I will maintain only<br />
that I do not take Kant’s transcendental philosophy to involve reflections<br />
that, metaphorically speaking, take us out of the world as we know it.<br />
66<br />
Kaulbach (1968), 251.<br />
67<br />
This claim will be developed more fully in the following chapters.<br />
68<br />
Ak VIII: 135.<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE
148<br />
They do not, as the term ‘transcendental’ might suggest, transcend this<br />
world. They all take place within this world, i.e. within the world as we<br />
know it through empirical observation. This does not mean, however,<br />
that the perspective is empirical. According to Kant, the empirical<br />
perspective is the one established when, for instance, we ask what the<br />
world is like, and we ask for a causal explanation of events in it. In his<br />
transcendental philosophy he does not ask how the world is or how we<br />
may explain its events. He asks how our experience of this world is<br />
constituted. He asks on what grounds we may claim that this experience<br />
represents objective knowledge of the world. And, in the specific<br />
terminology that he employs, he asks how it is possible for us to have<br />
synthetic a priori knowledge of it. Through these questions a new<br />
perspective is established which is no longer empirical but transcendental<br />
in the sense defined above. This perspective, however, does not make<br />
invalid or irrelevant the empirical knowledge we have of the world and<br />
ourselves. On the contrary, I think Kant both needs and presupposes this<br />
knowledge in order to solve his transcendental problem. This is why, for<br />
instance, the cognitive theory defined in the anthropology is, roughly, the<br />
same as the one we find in the Critique. It is in part empirical; 69 however<br />
Kant still needs it and uses it in his transcendental project. Actually, I<br />
take this cognitive theory to be a strong sign of the continuity that exists<br />
between the empirical and pragmatic perspective of the Anthropology<br />
and the transcendental perspective of the Critique. This does not mean<br />
that everything Kant says in the published Anthropology is relevant to<br />
our understanding of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. At this point I<br />
agree with Brandt: with its somewhat chaotic collection of ideas and<br />
anecdotes, this text contains a lot that today has only historical interest. 70<br />
What I do take to be relevant in Kant’s anthropology (the term is still to<br />
be understood in a wide sense here) is his theory of sensibility, his theory<br />
of the embodied constitution of spatial experiences, and his pragmatic<br />
theory of embodied rationality. All these theories, I shall argue, are<br />
implicitly present also in the Critique.<br />
4.7 Transcendental idealism<br />
Kant’s transcendental idealism is an integral part of his transcendental<br />
philosophy which has so far not been discussed. His transcendental<br />
69<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
The ‘in part’ is here meant to express that the cognitive theory of the<br />
Anthropology is also discussed under a pragmatic perspective.<br />
70 Brandt (1999), 50.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
149<br />
idealism involves the idea that all our experience is representational, that<br />
space and time are nothing but forms of our experience, and that we<br />
have to distinguish between the objects of the world as we experience<br />
them and these objects as they are in themselves, which lie beyond the<br />
reach of human knowledge.<br />
Among Kant’s doctrines, his transcendental idealism has represented<br />
a major interpretative challenge, having given rise to a number of<br />
ingenious hypotheses and corresponding criticisms. The idea that space<br />
and time are nothing but forms of human experience, having their origin<br />
in the subject and not in the world an sich, have led some interpreters to<br />
see in Kant’s idealism the doctrine that the world of our experience is de<br />
facto ‘the artwork of the mind’. 71 Ultimately Kant’s idealism therefore<br />
ends in subjective relativism, they claim. 72 Underlying this kind of<br />
criticism is the idea that his transcendental idealism involves a two-world<br />
theory, on the one hand there is the real world of things in themselves<br />
and then there is the world as it appears to us. These are two worlds,<br />
different in nature and quality, and as Kant continuously maintains that<br />
we have no knowledge of the first, one might ask why we should talk<br />
about it at all. His doctrine of things in themselves seems to sit within his<br />
system as an outdated piece of mysticism. No wonder, then, that within<br />
the analytic tradition his transcendental idealism has come under heavy<br />
attack.<br />
In recent years, however, the trend has been towards demystifying<br />
Kant’s transcendental idealism. Gerold Prauss’s 1974 Kant und das<br />
Problem der Dinge an sich was significant in this development. Prauss<br />
remarks that Kant does not normally use the expression ‘thing in itself’<br />
[Ding an sich] but the adverbial expression ‘things considered in<br />
themselves’ [Ding an sich selbst betrachtet] or something similar. 73 Prauss<br />
deplores the fact that commentators have failed to acknowledge this<br />
properly, and that instead the term Ding an sich has come to occupy a<br />
central role in the discussion. Having the form of a quasi-noun [Quasi-<br />
71<br />
Cf. e.g. Neujahr (1995), 96-98. He concludes: ‘The critical position is not<br />
merely idealist, but solipsist.’<br />
72<br />
Cf. e.g. Quinton (1997), 5 who writes: ‘It is the account he gives of the way the<br />
common world of experience is constructed or synthesized by applying some<br />
piece of mental apparatus – the forms of intuition or categories – to what he calls<br />
the manifold of sensation. The rather elementary question I want to raise about<br />
this theory is that of how the claim can be made good that the outcome of this<br />
process is just one, single world?’<br />
73<br />
Prauss (1974), 13ff.
150<br />
Eigennahme] it suggests that there exists a separate class of unknown<br />
things in addition to the things we perceive. 74 Instead of this metaphysical<br />
interpretation (or misinterpretation) Kant’s point is purely epistemic<br />
according to Prauss. When Kant talks about a thing considered in itself,<br />
‘thing’ is used in its everyday sense, referring to an object in the empirical<br />
world, the German adverbial an sich selbst betrachtet means only that<br />
this thing is now conceived as it is when we abstract away the forms of<br />
human cognition, such as time and space. 75<br />
Prauss concludes that it is the things of our experience that are basic<br />
within Kant’s theory. The notion of a thing in itself has only a secondary<br />
or derived significance, it is what we arrive at when we perform the<br />
suggested abstraction, or transcendental reflection. 76 I see Allison<br />
approaching a similar point of view in stressing that Kant’s idealism is<br />
formal in the sense that it is not a theory about two incompatible worlds<br />
but an epistemic theory of the nature and the scope of the conditions<br />
under which objects can be experienced or known by the human mind. 77<br />
The term ‘representation’ as used by Kant means only that an object for<br />
us is by its very nature something represented, and in that sense a<br />
reference to the mind and its cognitive apparatus is built into the<br />
definition of the term. 78<br />
This trend in the interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism<br />
underlines a point already made, that his transcendental idealism should<br />
be seen as a reflection taking place within the empirical domain. Prauss’<br />
point that the things of our experience are basic within Kant’s theory<br />
while the notion of a thing in itself has only a secondary or derived<br />
significance is especially relevant here. Kant’s transcendental idealism<br />
does not establish a perspective according to which the empirical world is<br />
examined from a position lying outside this world, a position somehow<br />
claimed to be more real or Eigentlich than the world we live in. I shall<br />
say more about this in chapter 7.<br />
74<br />
Ibid., 24.<br />
75<br />
Ibid., 38. Prauss does not, however, draw the same conclusion where the<br />
cognitive subject is concerned. This subject, he contends, is not empirical. It is<br />
‘etwas Nichtempirische’, cf. Prauss (1974), 220.<br />
76<br />
Ibid., (1974), 38.<br />
77<br />
Allison (1983), 26.<br />
78<br />
Ibid., 30.<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE
4.8 What did Kant mean?<br />
151<br />
If I am right that the human subject referred to in the transcendental<br />
theory of the Critique should be understood as an embodied human<br />
being and if I am right that this has the interpretative consequences<br />
suggested above, why then does Kant not discuss the body and its place<br />
in his transcendental theory more explicitly? And is the fact that he does<br />
not prima facie evidence that my interpretation is wrong?<br />
First, it is not the case that Kant never explicitly deals with the<br />
human subject as embodied in the Critique. In fact, in a number of<br />
passages where he puts forward central aspects of his transcendental<br />
theory, he includes explicit references to the body and/or to embodied<br />
acts and practices. 79 Nevertheless although such passages occur, they are<br />
infrequent. Why is that? Several explanations are possible. One is that<br />
the embodied aspect of human life was so obvious that he did not bother<br />
to include it as an explicit topic of reflection in the Critique to any extent.<br />
This means, for instance, that when the term ‘subject’ appears in the<br />
Critique, in the sense of human subject, he takes it for granted that this is<br />
an embodied human being, and that it should be understood as such.<br />
The same applies when he describes the acts of this subject, for instance<br />
when in his cognitive theory he describes the human subject as ‘active’.<br />
Even if this is not made explicit in the Critique, these acts are to be<br />
understood as embodied acts, and to Kant this was so obvious that he did<br />
not feel the need to say it. After all, he had promoted such ideas before.<br />
He had explicitly maintained that the mind and its cognitive operations<br />
presupposed the body. He had also emphasized the cognitive and<br />
rational aspects of certain embodied acts and practices. So why waste<br />
energy on making explicit all these points again?<br />
Sometimes, when reading the Critique, I get the impression that this<br />
explanation works. This is the case whenever Kant, in the middle of an<br />
abstract line of argument, suddenly introduces an explicit reference to<br />
embodied human life, as if the idea of such a life had been tacitly<br />
presupposed all the time as the obvious context in which the reflection<br />
took place. Such an example is found e.g. in the third analogy of the<br />
Transcendental analytic (A 213/B 260). The task of the analogy is to<br />
prove the sentence that all substances, insofar as they can be perceived to<br />
coexist in space, stand in thoroughgoing reciprocity. As in the rest of the<br />
79<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
Cf. e.g. B 15-16 and A 240/B 299. The first passage refers to the practice of<br />
counting on the fingers, the second to the construction of geometrical figures by<br />
means of embodied acts.
152<br />
Critique, most of the proof is presented in a highly abstract language. He<br />
starts by stating that our experience presupposes that we think of<br />
substances as standing in dynamic, reciprocal relations. This is easily<br />
confirmed by experience, he claims. Had it not been for the dynamic<br />
relations of our world, we would never have been able to direct our<br />
senses from one object to another. So far, the style of the passage is<br />
abstract. The dynamic reciprocal relations under consideration are<br />
described as involving substances and our senses, but without specifying<br />
what these objects or senses are.<br />
Then it is as if the text moves to a completely different level. In the<br />
middle of a sentence, as if what follows is the most natural way of<br />
continuing, Kant starts to talk about eyes and light, and how the light<br />
plays between our eyes and the heavenly bodies. 80<br />
From our experiences it is easy to notice that only continuous<br />
influence in all places in space can lead our sense from one object to<br />
another, that the light that plays between our eyes and the heavenly<br />
bodies effects a mediate community between us and the latter and<br />
thereby proves the simultaneity of the latter, and that we cannot<br />
empirically alter any place (perceive this alteration) without matter<br />
everywhere making the perception of our position possible; and only<br />
by means of its reciprocal influence can it establish their simultaneity<br />
and thereby the coexistence of even the most distant objects (though<br />
only mediately). (A 213/B 260)<br />
What is remarkable in this passage is the ease with which it passes from<br />
the abstract level of transcendental discourse to the level of physical<br />
objects, and even more than this, how the subject or self who is all along<br />
abstractly present is suddenly disclosed as an embodied self with eyes and<br />
other organs. This ease more than suggests, I think, that this domain of<br />
physical objects and embodied selves is tacitly presupposed all the time as<br />
the obvious context in which the reflection proceeds.<br />
Another possible explanation, compatible with the first, of why the<br />
embodied aspect of human existence is not dealt with more explicitly in<br />
the Critique, is that Kant deliberately chose to keep this aspect in the<br />
background. Perhaps his conception of the ideal form of a philosophical<br />
work induced him to formulate his reflections in an abstract language in<br />
80<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
The heavenly bodies, i.e the moon and the earth, were also mentioned some<br />
pages earlier at A 211/B 257.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
153<br />
which explicit references to the body had no place. 81 Perhaps he excluded<br />
such references because he wanted to stress the logical structure of his<br />
transcendental arguments and feared that too many and explicit<br />
references to the body would distract attention from this structure. Or<br />
perhaps he omitted them simply in order to prevent the text from<br />
becoming too voluminous.<br />
A further possibility is that Kant’s transcendental philosophy derives<br />
its structure, or parts of it, from reflections centered on the body and<br />
embodied acts and practices, but that he was not fully aware of this.<br />
Sometimes, when examining certain passages in the Critique, I also feel<br />
this to be the case; I read passages that seem to demand an interpretation<br />
referring to embodied acts or practices but Kant’s way of expressing<br />
himself seems to resist this reading. In such cases, it is as if the text reflects<br />
a struggle between two perspectives, one based on the insight that<br />
embodied acts and practices are indispensable to our experience of the<br />
world, the other based on some alternative conception. It is, however, as<br />
if this struggle does not really catch Kant’s attention, leading to a<br />
disturbing ambiguity in the text. 82<br />
If the idea of an unconscious struggle between ideas seems<br />
unattractive, we may perhaps instead return to the idea that Kant did not<br />
succeed in working through all parts of his system. The ideas emphasized<br />
in my interpretation of the Critique may be seen, then, as belonging to<br />
the ideas that he did not have the time, interest or energy to make fully<br />
explicit, and this may then account for the relative absence of references<br />
to the body or to embodied acts and practices.<br />
Which of the above explanations is to be preferred, I will not try to<br />
decide here. My reason for suggesting them is only to argue that, from<br />
the fact that explicit references to the body and to embodied acts and<br />
practices are so few in the Critique, we cannot conclude that such acts<br />
81 Henrich (1989), 34 notices that the juridical Deduktionsschriften that may have<br />
represented Kant’s stylistic ideal when writing the Critique, were ‘brief, solid and<br />
perspicuous’. The term Deduktionsschrift refers to a genre originally used by<br />
lawyers to justify controversial legal claims. If Henrich is right, it may explain the<br />
abstract and dry style of the Critique.<br />
82<br />
That there is more to be found in the Critique than both the reader, and even<br />
its author, may be aware of, is also suggested by Bennett (1966), 4. He maintains<br />
that Kant’s style is often confused, and his philosophical points badly expressed,<br />
however, they may still contain hints leading to useful and interesting insights:<br />
‘Kant has a natural, subliminal sensitivity to philosophical problems, so that even<br />
where he argues badly his writing is rich in hints and suggestions which can lead<br />
one to insights which Kant himself did not have.’
154<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
and practices are irrelevant to the transcendental discourse. There are<br />
several ways of explaining the relative absence of such references and<br />
some are compatible with the interpretation promoted here, that the<br />
body and embodied acts and practices are after all essential to Kant’s<br />
transcendental reflections.
5. SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE<br />
CRITIQUE<br />
The reason for practicing throwing, whether<br />
trying to throw things as far as possible or at a<br />
target, is also to exercise the senses, in particular<br />
the capacity to see things in their right<br />
perspective. Playing ball is one of the best games<br />
for children, as running is also good for the<br />
health. In general those games are best that not<br />
only make children exercise their bodily skills but<br />
also make them better at using their senses, for<br />
instance, using the visual sense to make accurate<br />
judgments about distance, size and proportion,<br />
and with the help of the sun, to find the main<br />
points of the compass; these are all good exercises.<br />
From Kant’s On pedagogy 1<br />
Kant says that ballgames are good for children not only because of the<br />
healthy effects of running, but also because they exercise their senses.<br />
More specifically, through the game they can learn to judge distance, size<br />
and spatial proportions better. Like Rousseau, Kant may be seen here as<br />
a proponent of the idea that man is not born with a fully developed<br />
capacity to orient himself in three-dimensional space, that is, to decide<br />
the location of an object in space relative to other objects and/or himself.<br />
He has to learn to do so, and in this learning process the body is essential.<br />
Earlier, in texts like Directions in space, Orientation and Anthropology,<br />
we have seen that Kant explains the presence of basic spatial concepts by<br />
1<br />
Ak IX: 467, a.t. Here is the German original: ‘Die Übung im Werfen, teils weit<br />
zu werfen, teils auch zu treffen, hat auch die Übung der Sinne, besonders des<br />
Augenmaßes, mit zur Absicht. Das Ballspiel ist eines der besten Kinderspiele,<br />
weil auch noch das gesunde Laufen dazu kommt. Überhaupt sind diejenigen<br />
Spiele die besten, bei welchen, neben den Exerzitien der Geschicklichkeit, auch<br />
Übungen der Sinne hinzukommen, z.E. die Übung des Augenmaßes, über<br />
Weite, Größe und Proportion richtig zu urteilen, die Lage der Örter nach den<br />
Weltgegenden zu finden, wozu die Sonne behülflich sein muß, u.s.w. das alles<br />
sind gute Übungen.’
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SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
reference to the body and to embodied acts and practices. For instance,<br />
we have seen him argue that our capacity to grasp an object is a<br />
condition of our capacity to form a concept of its shape. In this passage<br />
emphasis is placed on acts involving the whole body, such as running,<br />
throwing, trying to hit a target, etc. In an earlier chapter, I called the<br />
ideas underlying this way of thinking Kant’s ‘theory of the embodied<br />
constitution of spatial representations’, or his ‘embodied theory of space’<br />
for short.<br />
In this and the following chapter I will argue that the theory of space<br />
and spatial experience as it is found in the Critique, or Kant’s ‘critical<br />
theory of space’, for short, is remarkably similar in structure to his<br />
embodied theory of space. It is true that in his critical theory there are no<br />
explicit references made to the body, at least, not in the way we see them<br />
in Directions in space, Orientation, Anthropology and On pedagogy. At<br />
the centre of the critical theory of space stands the abstract notion of a<br />
mind [Gemüt], the relation of which to the body is not specified, and the<br />
abstract notion of space, defined as the a priori form of intuition. This<br />
form is claimed to have its source a priori in the mind. To be more<br />
specific, it is said to have its origin in the activity of the mind, or so I shall<br />
argue. At no point, however, is this activity said to be embodied in the<br />
way we have seen in the texts examined above. The absence of explicit<br />
references to the body is especially noticeable in the Transcendental<br />
aesthetic, the part of the Critique dedicated to Kant’s critical<br />
examination of sensibility, which is also the part where space is first<br />
discussed in the Critique. Despite this absence, I will maintain that his<br />
critical theory of space is remarkably similar in structure to his embodied<br />
theory of space. Based on this similarity, and based also on other<br />
theoretical reflections, I shall put forward the thesis that the former<br />
theory may be read, in part, as an abstract version of the latter. The task<br />
of this and the following chapter is to provide evidence for this claim.<br />
The reason why Kant’s critical discussion of space is allowed to<br />
occupy two whole chapters should come as no surprise. Alongside time,<br />
space is one of the main topics of the Critique, and he returns to discuss it<br />
from various angles throughout the text. I also hope that by discussing his<br />
critical theory of space at some length the foundations will be established<br />
to support my interpretation of other parts of the Critique, namely his<br />
critical theory of time and the categories.<br />
By claiming that Kant’s critical theory of space is, in part, an abstract<br />
version of his embodied theory of space, I mean that the abstract<br />
character of the former is, in part, due to the fact that explicit references<br />
to the body have been removed from the latter. More specifically, I claim<br />
that the abstract notion of the mind, found in the Critique should be
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE 157<br />
interpreted as referring to a mind that is thoroughly embodied, meaning,<br />
amongst other things, that both its domain of activity and its domain of<br />
immediate awareness are congruent with that of the body. Secondly, I<br />
claim that what in the Critique is abstractly described as ‘affection’ (the<br />
term is not further defined) is to be understood as the affection of the<br />
body, or better, the embodied self. Kant’s theory of affection is relevant<br />
to the present discussion because it is part of his critical theory of<br />
sensibility, forming the context within which his critical notion of space is<br />
first explored. Finally, I claim that Kant’s critical theory of space, in<br />
which space is defined as the form of intuition and the claim is advanced<br />
that this form originates in the activity of the mind, should be read as a<br />
theory of how our experience of space is constituted through embodied<br />
acts and practices.<br />
Even if I stress the similarities between Kant’s two theories of space<br />
here, I do not claim that they are similar in all respects. Kant’s theory of<br />
space, as found in the Critique, is both more complex and more<br />
sophisticated than the theory of space found in or implied by other<br />
Kantian texts. In the Critique we find highly sophisticated arguments,<br />
ideas and perspectives that are found nowhere outside it, or if they are<br />
found, only as fragments or suggestions. Nowhere except in the Critique<br />
are these arguments, ideas and perspectives presented as part of a unified<br />
and comprehensive theory. But when we turn our attention to some<br />
essential features of the basic structure of his critical theory of space,<br />
these are the same as those we find in his embodied theory of space. In<br />
this sense the former theory may be regarded as the abstract version of<br />
the latter. This is what I am going to argue below.<br />
The idea that Kant’s critical theory of space contains implicit<br />
references to the body in some of the ways suggested above has also been<br />
put forward by others. 2<br />
In an argument similar to mine, Kaulbach points<br />
to the connection between Kant’s theory of space in Directions in space<br />
and Orientation, where our experience of space is claimed to be<br />
grounded in the awareness of embodied movement, and Kant’s critical<br />
theory of space. Even if Kant does not explicitly say so, we have to<br />
conceive of the human self of the Critique as an embodied self, Kaulbach<br />
contends, and as such, as inhabiting the same spatio-temporal world as<br />
the things of its experience. 3 Moreover, as a spatial being it has no means<br />
of experiencing the spatiality of this world other than by moving around<br />
2 Cf. e.g. Falkenstein (1995), Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and 1968), Rossvær (1974),<br />
Melnick (1989), Saugstad (1992) and Wyller (2000), cf. especially p. 162.<br />
3 Kaulbach (1965), 150.
158<br />
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
in it. 4 Falkenstein’s discussion of the connection between space and<br />
embodiment in the Critique will be discussed separately in a later<br />
chapter.<br />
5.1 A brief remark about the structure of my argument<br />
The claim that Kant’s critical theory of space may be thought of in part<br />
as the abstract version of his embodied theory of space will be supported<br />
by more than one line of argument. In this chapter I shall present a<br />
rather lengthy argument focusing on the similarity in structure between<br />
the two theories, emphasizing the following similarities: In both theories<br />
the cognitive subject is said to arrive at experience of spatially extended<br />
objects in three-dimensional space through a process in which the subject<br />
is both passive and active. Moreover, there is a characteristic reciprocity<br />
between these active and passive aspects. This, I will refer to as the<br />
‘active-passive character’ of the process. This is present, I will argue, in<br />
both Kant’s critical and embodied theories of space. This demonstration<br />
of a parallel structure is not intended to constitute a decisive proof that<br />
the former theory is an abstract version of the latter in the way specified.<br />
Similarity of structure between two theories alone does not prove that the<br />
one is an abstract version of the other. Thus, the similarity-in-structureargument<br />
is intended as nothing but the first step in a line of arguments<br />
that will continue in the next chapter.<br />
Even if I do not want to put too much emphasis on the similarity-instructure-argument,<br />
I think it merits a place here. For one thing, it is not<br />
obvious that the two theories I compare really are similar in the way I<br />
claim. For instance, not all interpreters agree that Kant’s critical theory<br />
of space qua form of intuition involves the idea that space is constituted<br />
by the activity of the cognitive self. 5 As part of the argument to be<br />
presented in this chapter, I will also examine central parts of the<br />
Transcendental aesthetic and the Transcendental logic. This<br />
4 He writes: ‘Der Mensch als leibliches Wesen [...] bringt sich selbst als Körper<br />
mit im Bereich des Weltraumes unter.’ (Kaulbach (1960), 114). A similar point is<br />
also made by Melnick (1989), 5ff. From Kant’s idea that space is a continuum, he<br />
argues that to Kant only the flowing nature of spatial production or construction<br />
by an embodied agent may account for this character of a continuum.<br />
5 Cf. e.g. Falkenstein (1995), 4 and 99, and also Obergefell (1985), 200. In general<br />
I think that all those who reject Kant’s transcendental psychology would have to<br />
meet with suspicion the idea that space is constituted by the activity of the<br />
cognitive self, cf. chapter 4 of this work.
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE 159<br />
examination will introduce us to concepts and perspectives central to the<br />
further discussion of my thesis.<br />
5.2 The architectonic of the Critique<br />
The first part of the Critique, the Transcendental doctrine of elements, is<br />
divided into two parts. The first part, the Transcendental aesthetic, is<br />
dedicated to a critical examination of sensibility. Within this context<br />
Kant gives a first basic introduction to his critical theory of space,<br />
according to which space is defined as a form of intuition. The second<br />
part, the Transcendental logic is also divided into two parts, the first of<br />
which is the Transcendental analytic, dedicated to Kant’s critical<br />
examination of the understanding. Here we also find the part of the<br />
Critique that has perhaps received more attention than any other, the socalled<br />
transcendental deductions of the categories or in short, the<br />
transcendental deductions. The Transcendental analytic also contains<br />
what is commonly referred to as Kant’s theory of schematism. The<br />
architectonic of the text suggests a neat division between the topics<br />
discussed: for a proper understanding of Kant’s critical theory of<br />
sensibility and space we only have to look at the Transcendental<br />
aesthetic. A closer inspection of the text, however, reveals that the matter<br />
is more complicated than this. Kant argues that in the constitution of<br />
human experience, sensibility and understanding never operate alone.<br />
Even if these two faculties of the mind may be distinguished<br />
conceptually, they always work together in an integrated way.<br />
My argument in this chapter is based on the assumption that in order<br />
to arrive at a thorough understanding of Kant’s critical theory of<br />
sensibility and space, one has to include not only what he says in the<br />
Transcendental aesthetic, but also what he says in the Transcendental<br />
analytic. Consequently, this chapter will examine parts of both, including<br />
the two versions of the transcendental deduction. 6 The literature on both<br />
the Transcendental aesthetic and the transcendental deductions is vast.<br />
As for the Transcendental aesthetic, the literature typically examines the<br />
various arguments Kant presents in order to prove the a priori character<br />
of time and space qua forms of intuition. As for the transcendental<br />
deductions, the focus is usually on their logical structure and how this<br />
6<br />
That the Transcendental aesthetic can only be understood properly in light of<br />
later parts of the Critique, is also argued by commentators like Rossvær (1974),<br />
100, Schaper (1992), 312, and Kaulbach (1965), 104.
160<br />
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
structure differs in the two versions found in the A- and B-edition of the<br />
Critique. 7<br />
In the Kant-scholarship so much energy has gone into discussing the<br />
transcendental deductions that it may seem almost impossible to reflect<br />
on Kant’s transcendental philosophy without getting caught up in this<br />
debate. However, I will avoid this. Neither will I examine the various<br />
arguments that Kant presents in the Transcendental aesthetic in order to<br />
prove the a priori character of time and space qua forms of intuition.<br />
This is not because I think these arguments are irrelevant or without<br />
interest, but they are not relevant in the present context. Here my aim is<br />
to put forward the similarity-in-structure-argument and this does not<br />
require an analysis of Kant’s transcendental arguments.<br />
5.3 The cognitive theory of the Critique<br />
In an earlier chapter I made a distinction between cognitive theory and<br />
epistemology. According to my definition, cognitive theory is the theory<br />
that aims at describing how our experience of the world is constituted,<br />
that is, what human capacities are involved, how they work and how they<br />
contribute to the constitution of our experience. Cognitive theory,<br />
further, is to be distinguished from epistemology, understood as the<br />
theory discussing whether our beliefs are true and justified. Kant’s<br />
transcendental theory is basically an epistemic project. However, as we<br />
have seen, he also includes a cognitive theory in this enterprise. This<br />
theory is centered on the notion of a mind [Gemüt] endowed with a<br />
variety of capacities and faculties.<br />
Kant introduces the cognitive theory of the Critique by drawing the<br />
by now well known distinction between what he claims to be two basic<br />
faculties of the mind, sensibility [Sinnlichkeit] and understanding<br />
[Verstand]. As we have seen, this distinction is also reflected in the basic<br />
architecture of the Critique. In the first part of the text, the<br />
Transcendental aesthetic, Kant professes to explore sensibility in<br />
abstraction from the understanding (A 22/B 36). In the following part,<br />
the Transcendental logic, he professes to explore the understanding in a<br />
parallel way, that is, abstracting away all that does not belong to it (A<br />
62/B 87).<br />
7<br />
For a standard interpretation of the Transcendental aesthetic and the<br />
transcendental deduction, see e.g. Gardner (1999). For a survey on recent<br />
publications on the transcendental deduction, see Zoeller (1993), 452. A<br />
noteworthy analysis of the B-deduction is found in Allison (1983), 133ff.
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE 161<br />
At the beginning of the Transcendental aesthetic, ‘sensibility’ is<br />
defined as the capacity to be affected.<br />
The capacity (receptivity) to acquire representations through the way<br />
in which we are affected by objects is called sensibility. (A 19/B 33) 8<br />
At A 19/B 33 sensibility is also defined as the origin of our intuitions<br />
[Anschauungen]. All intuitions have two aspects, Kant further explains,<br />
one is the immediate effect of an object affecting the mind and is called<br />
sensation [Empfindung] (A 19-20/B 34). The other is what he refers to as<br />
the pure form of intuition. This term refers to the Kantian idea that the<br />
empirical content of cognition is intuited in certain temporal and spatial<br />
relations, which are claimed to exist a priori in the mind (A 20/B 34). In<br />
the Critique the notion of sensibility [Sinnlichkeit] includes both these<br />
aspects, both sensation, which is also called the matter of an intuition,<br />
and its a priori form or forms, namely time and space. In the<br />
Transcendental aesthetic both aspects are paid due attention.<br />
Does this theory also include the notion of an active mind? This<br />
seems to be clearly refuted by Kant’s definition of sensibility at A 19/B<br />
33. Here, the defining character of sensibility seems to be receptivity<br />
alone. This seems to exclude the idea that having intuitions presupposes<br />
activity. This interpretation also seems to be supported by the fact that at<br />
this point Kant seems to ascribe all activity and spontaneity to the<br />
understanding. And as sensibility and understanding are described as<br />
heterogeneous faculties, this seems to exclude the idea that our intuitions,<br />
which originate in sensibility, presuppose activity. However, rather than<br />
being the final truth, this is, I will argue, no more than an initial<br />
approach to a more comprehensive theory of intuition. As we read more<br />
of the text, the idea that having intuitions presupposes the activity of the<br />
mind becomes gradually more explicit.<br />
A first indication of this idea is found in Kant’s claim that the form of<br />
an intuition is supplied by the mind. By stating the point in this way,<br />
using the term ‘to supply’, a weak suggestion is made that the form of an<br />
intuition does in fact presuppose some kind of activity. A more<br />
explicit reference to activity is found at A 20/B 34 where Kant<br />
introduces the concept of an ‘appearance’ [Erscheinung], defined as ‘the<br />
8 This definition, or equivalents to it, is also found at other places in the Critique,<br />
cf. e.g. A 44/B 61 and A 51/B 75.
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SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
undetermined object of an empirical intuition’. 9 Like an intuition, an<br />
appearance is said to have two aspects, called its form and matter. In an<br />
appearance we may discern its matter, described as a manifold<br />
originating from sensation, and its form. In order to explain why this<br />
matter has this form, Kant uses the verb ‘to order’:<br />
I call that in the appearance which corresponds to sensation its<br />
matter, but that which allows the manifold of appearance to be<br />
intuited as ordered in certain relations I call the form of appearance.<br />
(A 20/B 34)<br />
Here, by talking about ordering, some sort of activity is suggested. The<br />
text is strangely elusive, that is right, referring to a process in which<br />
something is ordered but without containing any explicit reference to an<br />
ordering act or an ordering subject. But the suggestion is still there.<br />
5.4 Synthesis<br />
Leaving the Transcendental aesthetic behind and moving forward to the<br />
Transcendental logic, reference to the activity of the mind is no longer<br />
merely hinted at here. Our representations of time and space are now<br />
explicitly said to originate in the spontaneous activity of the mind. More<br />
precisely, they are said to be the product of synthesis. In what follows I<br />
will explore how this idea is presented in the A- and B-versions of the<br />
transcendental deduction.<br />
First, it should be noted that in reading the first paragraphs of the<br />
Transcendental logic there are few hints of what is to come. On the<br />
contrary, the text seems again to explicitly exclude the idea that time and<br />
space are produced by the activity of the mind. The Transcendental logic<br />
begins by repeating the now well known dichotomy between sensibility<br />
and understanding, and sensibility is associated only with receptivity. The<br />
spontaneous production of representations, on the other hand, is ascribed<br />
to the understanding (A 51/B 75). True, Kant emphasizes that sensibility<br />
and understanding have to work together in order to produce experience<br />
(Erkenntnis) but he argues that they still have to be distinguished as<br />
essentially different (A 51/B75, cf. also A 68/B 93).<br />
So far, we have been presented with a simple, unambiguous model of<br />
cognition. On the one hand we find sensibility, which, even if it is<br />
associated with a priori elements, seems to presuppose no activity. On<br />
9 In order to determine an object as an object one has to use the categories. These<br />
are however not introduced in the Transcendental aesthetic.
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the other we find the understanding, to which all activity and spontaneity<br />
of the mind seems to be ascribed. This model still seems to be implied<br />
when we reach what in the B-edition of the Critique is called § 10,<br />
entitled ‘On the pure concepts of the understanding or categories’. Time<br />
and space, we are now told, contains a manifold. However, the<br />
spontaneity of our thinking demands that this manifold is gone through,<br />
taken up, and connected. Only in this way is experience [Erkenntnis]<br />
produced. This, Kant states, is synthesis.<br />
Now space and time contain a manifold of pure a priori intuition, but<br />
belong nevertheless among the conditions of the receptivity of our<br />
mind, under which alone it can receive representations of objects,<br />
and thus they must always also affect the concepts of these objects.<br />
Only the spontaneity of our thought requires that this manifold first<br />
be gone through, taken up, and combined in a certain way in order<br />
for a cognition [Erkenntnis] to be made out of it. I call this action<br />
synthesis. (A 77/B 102)<br />
I have said that the now well-established dichotomy between sensibility<br />
and understanding seems still to be implied at this point, a dichotomy<br />
defining sensibility as passive and the understanding as active. It is<br />
somewhat confusing, therefore, that a few sentences later Kant claims<br />
that synthesis in general is the product of the imagination. The<br />
imagination, he tells us, is a blind, but indispensable function of the soul<br />
of which we are rarely conscious, but without which we would have no<br />
experience [Erkenntnis].<br />
Synthesis in general is, as we shall subsequently see, the mere effect of<br />
the imagination, of a blind though indispensable function of the soul,<br />
without which we would have no cognition at all, but of which we are<br />
seldom even conscious. (A 78/B 103)<br />
This sudden introduction of the imagination is confusing for a number of<br />
reasons. First, up to this point Kant seems to have been taken it for<br />
granted that there are only two basic faculties of the mind, sensibility and<br />
understanding. No mention has been made of any others. Further, while<br />
up to this point Kant has ascribed spontaneity only to the understanding,<br />
now he seems to be arguing that spontaneity originates not there but in<br />
the imagination. So it seems we have now been taken into a totally new<br />
theoretical context in which the function of the understanding seems to<br />
have been dramatically limited. While synthesis in general is ascribed to<br />
imagination, the task of the understanding, Kant tells us now, is the more<br />
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<br />
model according to which the mind is organized into sensibility and<br />
understanding does not tell the whole story. This is further confirmed at<br />
A 94. We have now reached the part of the transcendental deduction<br />
that was rewritten in the B-edition. In what follows I will first examine<br />
the A-version of this part of the deduction, and then the B-version.<br />
At A 94 Kant tells us that there are three original faculties [Quellen,<br />
Fähigkeiten oder Vermögen] of the mind forming the conditions of the<br />
possibility of experience. These are sense, imagination and apperception<br />
(A 94). The understanding, surprisingly, is not mentioned among the<br />
three original faculties of the mind. A bit later in the A-deduction the<br />
understanding is, somewhat vaguely, said to be produced by the three<br />
original ones. Then, at A 119, he argues that the understanding is<br />
nothing but the unity of apperception in relation to the synthesis of<br />
imagination (A 119).<br />
I include these notes on Kant’s cognitive theory in order to<br />
demonstrate how the meaning of his terminology undergoes constant<br />
development and modification throughout the first part of the Critique.<br />
No satisfactory interpretation of his theory of cognition can ignore these<br />
modifications. 10 It is also worth noting, that, while he initially proceeds as<br />
if it is possible to draw a sharp dividing line between sensibility and<br />
understanding, a line also dividing the passive side of the mind from the<br />
active side, the new threefold model seems to undermine this division.<br />
5.5 The syntheses of imagination<br />
At A 94, where Kant introduces his model of the three original faculties<br />
of the mind, synthesis is associated with the imagination. At A 97 he<br />
10<br />
The fact that Kant often uses the same term in different senses is commented<br />
on by a number of authors. Thus, for instance, Falkenstein (1995), 31 writes:<br />
‘Kant was forced, by the internal dynamics of his project and the arguments<br />
needed to establish his conclusions, to twist the traditional meanings of his terms.<br />
Often, however, he is not aware that he has done so and he reverts to traditional<br />
definitions, which continue to exist uneasily in his work alongside the revised<br />
ones.’ Bennett (1966), 135 attacks Kant’s elusive use of terms as a weakness:<br />
‘Worse, instead of choosing one label and keeping to it, Kant shifts restlessly from<br />
one set of technical terms to another, making no attempt to relate them.’<br />
Whether this is a weakness or not, I will not discuss here, however, Kant’s<br />
inconstancy suggests that it is well worth paying attention to this terminology,<br />
and also to search for the logic underlying the various ways in which terms are<br />
used, if such a logic exist. As will soon become clear, I think it does.
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE 165<br />
elaborates further on his theory of the syntheses of the imagination. Here<br />
the notion of a threefold synthesis is introduced:<br />
If therefore I ascribe a synopsis to sense, because it contains a<br />
manifold in its intuition, a synthesis must always correspond to this,<br />
and receptivity can make cognitions possible only if combined with<br />
spontaneity. This is now the ground of a threefold synthesis, which is<br />
necessarily found in all cognition: that, namely, of the apprehension<br />
of the representations, as modifications of the mind in intuition; of the<br />
reproduction of them in the imagination; and of their recognition in<br />
the concept. Now these direct us toward three subjective sources of<br />
cognition, which make possible even the understanding and, through<br />
the latter, all experience as an empirical product of understanding. (A<br />
97) 11<br />
This passage is loaded with information. The threefold synthesis, we are<br />
told, is a necessary condition of all cognition. What does this mean? I will<br />
try to answer this question, with the emphasis still on the A-edition of the<br />
text.<br />
5.6 Apprehension<br />
Apprehension is the first of the three syntheses mentioned at A 97. At A<br />
99 it is defined as a process creating a unity of the manifold of intuition.<br />
In order to do this, we have to go through and put together this<br />
manifold, Kant explains, and this is apprehension.<br />
Now in order for unity of intuition to come from this manifold (as,<br />
say, in the representation of space) it is necessary first to run through<br />
and then to take together this manifoldness, which action I call the<br />
synthesis of apprehension. (A 99)<br />
Kant’s way of describing apprehension is interesting, not only in that it<br />
exemplifies how important the activity of the mind is in cognition. It also<br />
expands the theory of the a priori forms of intuition that was presented in<br />
the Transcendental aesthetic. There the a priori forms of intuition were<br />
described as a priori and ascribed to the mind with only vague references<br />
to activity. Now time and space are clearly associated with activity and at<br />
11<br />
In this passage Kant also uses the term ‘synopsis’. This is one of the more<br />
obscure notions of the Critique. It is mentioned explicitly only twice in the whole<br />
Critique and only in the first edition, and I will not discuss it here. For a brief<br />
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<br />
space presuppose the synthesis of apprehension:<br />
Now this synthesis of apprehension must also be exercised a priori,<br />
i.e., in regard to representations that are not empirical. For without it<br />
we could have a priori neither the representations of space nor of<br />
time, since these can be generated [erzeugt] only through the<br />
synthesis of the manifold that sensibility in its original receptivity<br />
provides. (A 99, my emphasis)<br />
Without the activity of the mind, that is, without the synthesis of<br />
apprehension, no a priori representation of time and space would exist,<br />
Kant claims.<br />
5.7 Reproduction<br />
That the a priori representations of time and space presuppose activity is<br />
further emphasized by the section beginning at A 100. This paragraph<br />
concerns what Kant calls the reproductive synthesis of imagination. One<br />
of the examples he uses to explain this kind of synthesis is the drawing of<br />
a line in thought. Here is the relevant passage:<br />
Now it is obvious that if I draw a line in thought, or think of the time<br />
from one noon to the next, or even want to represent a certain<br />
number to myself, I must necessarily first grasp one of these manifold<br />
representations after another in my thoughts. But if I were always to<br />
lose the preceding representations (the first parts of the line, the<br />
preceding parts of time, or the successively represented units) from<br />
my thoughts and not reproduce them when I proceed to the following<br />
ones, then no whole representation and none of the previously<br />
mentioned thoughts, not even the purest and most fundamental<br />
representations [Grundvorstellungen] of space and time, could ever<br />
arise [entspringen können]. (A 102)<br />
Kant seems to presuppose here that no object is ever presented to us qua<br />
object by the senses. What is presented to us is nothing but a manifold.<br />
He does not tell us exactly how we are to conceive of this manifold.<br />
However, let us, like him, use a line as our example, and let us assume<br />
that the manifold of the line consists of the infinite number of points by<br />
which the line is formed. 12 His point then seems to be something like this.<br />
12<br />
This does not mean that I want to turn Kant into a kind of sense impression<br />
atomist. Considered transcendentally, the line is not the sum of an infinite
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE 167<br />
To recognize that these points form a line, we have first to go through<br />
them and put them together. This is done through the synthesis of<br />
apprehension. This is one of the functions of the imagination, as we<br />
learned in the previous section. However, we now learn that this going<br />
through and putting together presupposes another function of the<br />
imagination. When we go through the points constituting the line, we<br />
must constantly reproduce before the mind the points we went through a<br />
moment ago, while proceeding to the remaining points. This<br />
reproduction is what Kant refers to as ‘the reproductive synthesis of<br />
imagination’.<br />
This reproductive synthesis cannot be isolated from the synthesis of<br />
apprehension, he emphasizes. More interesting for the present discussion,<br />
however, after having introduced the synthesis of reproduction, Kant<br />
again returns to discuss time and space. Without the reproductive<br />
synthesis no whole representation would ever come into being, he argues,<br />
not even the pure and original representation of time and space (A 102).<br />
Kant uses the German term ‘entspringen’ to account for what is here<br />
taking place, which may be translated as ‘originate’. The claim, thus, is<br />
that both time and space, considered as fundamental representations, has<br />
synthesis as their source. The fact that everything appears in time and<br />
space, the fact that all experiences have a temporal and spatial form, is<br />
due to our own activity.<br />
5.8 The B-deduction<br />
Does the idea that time and space are products of synthesis also occur in<br />
the B-version of the transcendental deduction? When we start to read the<br />
B-version of the deduction at § 15 we seem once more to be confronted<br />
with a clear refutation of this thought. Sensibility is here again described<br />
as a receptive faculty. Time and space, further, are said to lie a priori in<br />
our representative faculty, but only, Kant adds, as the mode [Art] in<br />
which the subject is affected (B 129). Connection, on the other hand, can<br />
never reach us through the senses and so has nothing to do with the pure<br />
plurality of infinitely small points. It is the embodied act by which the line is<br />
apprehended, i.e. the consciousness of this act. I will say more about this below.<br />
Arthur Melnick (1989), 5 expresses this point beautifully when he writes: ‘When I<br />
sweep out a line, say, there is a flow to my construction ... […] In this sense, the<br />
sweeping out of a line is a non-discrete performance, not composed of a series of<br />
pointings or a series of anything ... […] In this regard the whole (the extensive<br />
sweep) is prior to the parts (the further elaboration of parting and segmenting)<br />
and is not composed out of them.’
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form of an empirical intuition, that is, time and space. All connection<br />
originates in the spontaneity of the representative faculty, he maintains,<br />
that is, the understanding. Thus, all connection, or synthesis, is an act of<br />
the understanding.<br />
The understanding seems here to have regained some of its central<br />
significance, compared with, for instance, the passage at A 78/B 103<br />
discussed above. While synthesis in general was there ascribed to the<br />
imagination, it is here ascribed to the understanding. What does this<br />
mean? Is Kant unable to decide which faculty is the origin of synthesis?<br />
Or worse, is he unaware of the fact that he seems to contradict himself?<br />
Neither conclusion is required. One way of escaping the charge of<br />
contradiction is by assuming that the understanding and the imagination<br />
are connected so that both are involved in synthesis, and that this is the<br />
point Kant is making by shifting between the two terms. That would also<br />
be my view. However, as we shall see when we look at § 16 of the Bdeduction,<br />
there is more to be said on this question as well.<br />
5.9 Transcendental apperception<br />
In § 16 Kant defines the notion of ‘pure’ or ‘original’ apperception.<br />
Original apperception, he explains, is a sort of self-consciousness,<br />
however, it must not be confused with our empirical apperception or selfconsciousness.<br />
While empirical apperception is a constant flux of<br />
changing representations or our awareness of these representations,<br />
transcendental apperception is always the same.<br />
I call it the pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from the<br />
empirical one, or also the original apperception, since it is that selfconsciousness<br />
which, because it produces the representation I think,<br />
which must be able to accompany all others and which in all<br />
consciousness is one and the same, cannot be accompanied by any<br />
further representation. (B 132)<br />
As readers of Kant are well aware, the notion of transcendental<br />
apperception lies at the very heart of the B-deduction of the categories. I<br />
will not go into the structure of this deduction here, but Kant argues that<br />
it must be possible for transcendental apperception to accompany all<br />
other representations. 13 In being connected to all other representations, at<br />
13 Allison (1983), 137 comments: ‘… this principle affirms only the necessity of the<br />
possibility of attaching the “I think”, not the necessity of actually doing so. In
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE 169<br />
least potentially, and at the same time being one and the same,<br />
transcendental apperception is the fundamental principle of unity that<br />
keeps our consciousness together. 14 As such, it is also the principle on<br />
which all synthesis depends, Kant argues. And, finally, it is the principle<br />
under which all use of the understanding takes place. Actually, Kant<br />
concludes, this synthetic unity of apperception is the understanding.<br />
And thus the synthetic unity of apperception is the highest point to<br />
which one must affix all use of the understanding, even the whole of<br />
logic and, after it, transcendental philosophy; indeed this faculty is the<br />
understanding itself. (B 134, note)<br />
How is this new modification of the meaning of ‘understanding’ to be<br />
understood? Let us return for a moment to the A-version of the<br />
transcendental deduction. At A 94 we saw that Kant stated there are<br />
only three original faculties of the mind, sense, imagination and<br />
apperception. Within this model, the understanding lacks the status of<br />
being an independent basic faculty but is said to be produced by the<br />
three original ones. Is this any help here? I think it is. If the<br />
understanding is a derived faculty, originating in the interplay of (all or<br />
some of) the three more basic faculties, then it should come as no surprise<br />
that the term ‘understanding’ is sometimes associated with imagination,<br />
and sometimes, as in B 134, with transcendental apperception. 15<br />
Kant’s use of the term ‘understanding’ in the B-deduction is an<br />
indication, I believe, that he operates with a threefold model of the mind<br />
not only in the A-deduction, but here as well. That this is actually so is<br />
confirmed a little later in the B-deduction where he introduces the notion<br />
of a ‘figurative synthesis’, which is also called the transcendental synthesis<br />
of the imagination (B 151). Here Kant also defines imagination for the<br />
first time in the B-deduction: imagination is the capacity to represent an<br />
object also when it is not present.<br />
It is sometimes maintained that the B-deduction differs from the Adeduction<br />
in that the imagination is ascribed a more limited function<br />
here, but I do not agree. On the contrary, I think that up to this point in<br />
the B-deduction the presence of the imagination has been presupposed,<br />
other words, it does not affirm that I must actually perform a reflective act in<br />
order to represent (think) anything.’<br />
14<br />
For a further and highly interesting discussion of transcendental apperception,<br />
cf. Brook (1994), 55ff.<br />
15<br />
It might be useful here to remind oneself of the ambiguous use of the term<br />
‘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<br />
part of what Kant has referred to as the understanding. Even more<br />
significant, however, is that after the imagination has been explicitly<br />
introduced at B 151, it is also given a most important function relative to<br />
sensibility. That is, the imagination stands in a relation not only to<br />
transcendental apperception but also to sensibility. This is confirmed by<br />
Kant’s description of the figurative synthesis [synthesis speciosa]:<br />
figurative synthesis is the synthesis of the imagination (B 152). In<br />
figurative synthesis, moreover, the form of sensibility is determined a<br />
priori. That is, time and space, considered as the forms of sensibility, are<br />
determined through the figurative synthesis of the imagination.<br />
Kant does not further define the notion of a figurative synthesis. It is<br />
simply defined as the synthesis of the imagination, in contrast to the<br />
synthesis of the understanding, which is also called the intellectual<br />
synthesis [synthesis intellectualis]. In the A-deduction a similar opposition<br />
was set up between the syntheses of apprehension and reproduction on<br />
the one hand and what was called ‘recognition in the concept’ on the<br />
other (A 97). My guess is that what in the B-edition is called figurative<br />
synthesis corresponds more or less with the combination of what in the<br />
A-deduction were called the syntheses of apprehension and reproduction.<br />
What, then, does this say about the a priori form of space and<br />
whether it requires activity, i.e. synthesis? First let us notice that at this<br />
point (B 152) Kant does not say that time and space, considered as the<br />
forms of sensibility, are produced by a synthesis. All he says is that time<br />
and space are determined by a synthesis. By stating the point in this way,<br />
he seems to be implying that time and space, considered as the form of<br />
sensibility, exist prior to our determination of them. Their existence does<br />
not presuppose synthesis, only their determination does. If this is so, the<br />
claim in the B-deduction is weaker than the one in the A-deduction.<br />
There Kant argued that time and space, considered as basic<br />
representations [Grundvorstellungen] originate [entspringen] through<br />
the synthesis of the imagination. Now he seems to be arguing that only<br />
the determination of these representations requires synthesis, not their<br />
production. 16<br />
However, the last word on time and space in the Bdeduction<br />
has not yet been said. Let us now proceed to § 26.<br />
16<br />
This point seems also to be confirmed in other parts of the B-deduction, such as<br />
at B 137-138 (space) and at B 154 (time).
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5.10 § 26 of the B-deduction<br />
The aim of § 26 of the B-deduction is to explain how it is possible for the<br />
categories to be the concepts by which the objects of our senses become<br />
objects for us. In order to explain this, Kant first introduces the notion of<br />
a synthesis of apprehension, well known from the A-edition, but not<br />
previously mentioned in the B-deduction. 17<br />
Synthesis of apprehension, he<br />
explains, is the synthesis by which the manifold of an empirical intuition<br />
is put together so that a perception [Wahrnehmung] is produced.<br />
First of all I remark that by the synthesis of apprehension I<br />
understand the composition of the manifold in an empirical intuition<br />
through which perception, i.e., empirical consciousness of it (as<br />
appearance), becomes possible. (B 160)<br />
In order for us to have a perception an imaginative synthesis is required.<br />
This reminds us of the argument of the A-deduction in which perception<br />
was likewise said to require imagination (A 120). Then in a footnote at B<br />
161 Kant returns to discuss space. Space considered as an object, that is,<br />
space as we deal with it in geometry, contains more than just the pure<br />
form of intuition. It also contains the synthesis of the manifold given<br />
according to this form in an intuitive representation [anschauliche<br />
Vorstellung]. He then proceeds by drawing a distinction between space,<br />
considered as the form of intuition, and ‘formal space’. While space,<br />
considered as the form of intuition, contains nothing but a manifold,<br />
formal space also contains unity (B 161, note). As I understand it, what is<br />
here called formal space is space determined by the categories, i.e., by<br />
the synthesis of the understanding. If this is right, then the distinction<br />
between the form of space and formal space is not new. Then the passage<br />
just quoted is just another example of what seems to be Kant’s basic<br />
point in the B-deduction, that only the determination of time and space<br />
requires synthesis, not their production.<br />
Then, however a conceptual shift is announced. The unity of formal<br />
space, Kant tells us, was ascribed to sensibility in the Transcendental<br />
aesthetic, and rightly so. This unity, namely, is prior to all concepts.<br />
However, he continues, it presupposes a synthesis that does not belong to<br />
the senses. And only through this synthesis is the concept of time and<br />
space possible.<br />
17<br />
If my interpretation above was right, however, it was indirectly referred to by<br />
the term’ figurative synthesis’
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In the Aesthetic I ascribed this unity merely to sensibility, only in<br />
order to note that it precedes all concepts, though to be sure it<br />
presupposes a synthesis, which does not belong to the senses but<br />
through which all concepts of space and time first become possible. (B<br />
161-162, note)<br />
The passage has to be read slowly in order to not miss what is said. Time<br />
and space has a unity that is prior to all concepts. As such, the idea of this<br />
unity belongs within the context of the Transcendental aesthetic where<br />
sensibility is described in abstraction from the understanding. Still this<br />
unity presupposes a synthesis that does not belong to the senses. What is<br />
to be inferred from this? What may be inferred, I think, is that the theory<br />
of sensibility in the Transcendental aesthetic does presuppose activity, i.e.<br />
synthesis, after all. How? This question is answered in two steps in the<br />
footnote at B 161-162.<br />
First Kant states that the concepts of time and space are made<br />
possible through synthesis, then he goes a step further. Through the<br />
synthesis by which the understanding determines sensibility, space and<br />
time, considered as intuitions, are originally given.<br />
For since through it (as the understanding determines the sensibility)<br />
space or time are first given as intuitions, the unity of this a priori<br />
intuition belongs to space and time, and not to the concept of the<br />
understanding (B 162, note, my emphasis)<br />
The passage comes late in the B-deduction in a footnote and the point is<br />
made only once. It is therefore possible to argue that it should not be<br />
given much weight. It might be a mistake or not express an idea that<br />
Kant really wanted to put forward.<br />
I think the opposite. I think the position stated in the passage at B 162<br />
represents Kant’s final position. Kant does not specify, that is right,<br />
which of the previously mentioned syntheses that he has in mind at this<br />
point, and given the rather complex taxonomy of syntheses that he has<br />
offered, I will for the moment abstain from making a guess. The<br />
significant point, however, is that he now, as he did in the A-deduction,<br />
explicitly states that space (and) time are first given as intuitions through<br />
our own synthesizing activity. In this sense, our basic representation of<br />
space presupposes the activity of the mind, or of the cognitive self. And<br />
this was what I set out to prove here.
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE 173<br />
5.11 Problems of comparison<br />
At the beginning of this chapter I said that I was going to compare<br />
Kant’s critical theory of space with his embodied theory of space. My<br />
account of the latter theory is based mainly on four sources; the<br />
Anthropology, Directions in space, Orientation and On pedagogy. It<br />
may be objected that in these texts, space is discussed under a perspective<br />
and with a terminology very different from the Critique, making<br />
comparison difficult. While in the Critique space is discussed qua form of<br />
intuition, and in the context of a comprehensive and complex cognitive<br />
psychology, in the other texts it is not so. This is especially true of On<br />
pedagogy, Directions in space and Orientation. Here there are few, if<br />
any, references to cognitive psychology. Despite these differences,<br />
however, I think a comparison is still possible. In both theories space is a<br />
topic, and in neither case is it discussed as a separately existing thing or<br />
phenomenon, i.e. in abstraction from the human observer. What is<br />
discussed is this human observer and his capacity to experience objects in<br />
space. Borrowing a critical expression, we may say that the discussion<br />
deals not with space as such [an sich], but space for us. Kant uses a<br />
number of terms to signal this perspective. In the Anthropology and<br />
Directions in space space is discussed as a concept [Begriff]. In Directions<br />
in space it is also called a basic representation [Grundvorstellung].<br />
In the Critique Kant presents a taxonomy according to which<br />
concepts and intuitions are all subspecies of representations in general.<br />
From this we may say that in both theories he discusses the<br />
representation of space, that is, he discusses how it is possible for a<br />
human being to represent objects in space. Or, as the point is expressed<br />
in the Critique, the aim is to explain how it is possible for us to represent<br />
objects as being outside ourselves, i.e. in space, each object with a certain<br />
size, shape, and relation relative to other objects:<br />
By means of outer sense (a property of our mind) we represent to<br />
ourselves objects as outside us, and all as in space. In space their<br />
form, magnitude, and relation to one another is determined, or<br />
determinable. (A 22/B 37, my emphasis)<br />
Compare this to the passage from On pedagogy where Kant tells us that<br />
through playing ballgames a child learns to improve its judgment of<br />
distance, size and spatial proportion. Or notice, for instance, how in the<br />
Anthropology he argues that without the capacity to grasp and feel we<br />
would never arrive at the concept of the shape of an object. In all these<br />
cases the focus is on a human subject endowed with skills making it<br />
possible for it to experience the world in which it lives as a spatially
174<br />
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
extended world with objects likewise extended, i.e. with shape and size,<br />
and standing in spatial relations to each other.<br />
A further comparison lies in the fact that in the exercise of these skills,<br />
the subject is typically 18 both active and passive. That this idea is part of<br />
Kant’s critical theory of space was established above. Expressed in the<br />
critical terminology, his point is that while the content or matter [Stoff]<br />
of an empirical intuition, what he also refers to as ‘sensation’<br />
[Empfindung], originates in the passive affection of the subject, i.e. its<br />
outer sense, its form emerges through certain acts performed by this<br />
subject.<br />
Now, how does Kant describe the active-passive character of spatial<br />
experience within his embodied theory of space? If we look at the<br />
Anthropology, we see how Kant explicitly describes the outer senses as<br />
part of the body, and, moreover, that our sensations originate in the<br />
physical affection of these senses. However, in order to experience a<br />
spatially extended object, being passively affected is not enough. The<br />
subject also has to act, for instance by reaching out for the object and<br />
grasping it. This act gives us a concept of its shape. In order to get a<br />
more comprehensive grasp of the spatially extended world around us,<br />
other activities are also required: we have to walk or run or move around<br />
in other ways.<br />
Within the perspective of Kant’s embodied theory of space, the<br />
active-passive character of spatial experience is best seen, I think, if we<br />
focus on the act of grasping an object. Such an example also makes<br />
explicit the characteristic reciprocity between the active and passive<br />
aspects of the act. Imagine a person exploring an object with her hands.<br />
In moving her hands along the surface of the object, she is active. At the<br />
same time, in the very same act, however, her hands are also passively<br />
affected by the object, by its texture, its weight, its shape etc. Thus, at one<br />
and the same time, she is both active and passive. This activity and<br />
passivity, moreover, are different aspects of the same event. They may be<br />
distinguished conceptually, but they cannot be separated in the real<br />
world.<br />
5.12 Two versions of the same theory?<br />
We have seen that both in his critical and embodied theory of space<br />
Kant puts forward the idea that in spatial experience, the subject is<br />
18<br />
I will later discuss whether within Kant’s theory of space there are any<br />
exceptions to this general idea.
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE 175<br />
typically both passive and active. This similarity in structure, I argue,<br />
may be used as an argument in support of the idea that the two theories<br />
are, roughly speaking, versions of the same theory, or more precisely,<br />
that the critical theory of space may be read in part as giving an abstract<br />
account of his embodied theory of space.<br />
The fact that Kant describes the subject as being typically both<br />
passive and active in both theories, is of course, not conclusive evidence<br />
for this. However, if we look at the details of each theory, the<br />
resemblances are remarkable. Notice, for instance how our basic<br />
representation of space within both theories is claimed to be produced by<br />
the activity of the subject. Notice also how the active and passive aspects<br />
of this process are typically described as occurring together. However.<br />
while this passivity and activity are explicitly said in the one theory to<br />
involve the body, no explicit references to the body are found in the<br />
other, at least not in the same way. For instance, while in the first theory<br />
Kant describes a human agent that is obviously a unity of mind and<br />
body, the subject of his critical theory is typically referred to by the term<br />
‘mind’ [Gemüt] only. Moreover, when Kant is describing the activity of<br />
this subject he employs a psychological terminology, suggesting that, far<br />
from referring to outer, embodied acts like grasping, walking, running<br />
etc, the theory refers to acts carried out deep down in the mind of the<br />
subject, at an inner or mental level. Whatever these acts are, they are not<br />
identical with the overt acts we perform with our bodies. Similarly at first<br />
glance it seems unlikely that the syntheses of apprehension and<br />
reproduction have anything to do with embodied activity given the way<br />
he describes them.<br />
This apparent dilemma persists only as long as we insist that the mind<br />
of the Critique works independently of the body, but we have seen that<br />
throughout his career Kant vigorously advanced another view according<br />
to which the mind is thoroughly embodied. In Dreams of a spirit-seer<br />
and the Inaugural dissertation the mind is said to be virtually present<br />
wherever the body is. As I have argued, this opens up for the idea that<br />
even the simplest movement of the body may also be seen as the<br />
movement of the mind, and vice versa. The mind is not positioned<br />
somewhere else, directing the movement from afar. The mind is the<br />
origin of the movement, but it is also in the movement. Within this<br />
perspective it is no longer obvious that the acts that according to the<br />
Critique are carried out by the understanding, the imagination or other<br />
faculties of the mind have necessarily to be interpreted exclusively as<br />
inner mental acts. On the contrary, within this context it is even possible
176<br />
SPATIAL EXPERIENCE <strong>AND</strong> THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>IN</strong> THE CRITIQUE<br />
to see the term ‘synthesis’ as referring to embodied activity in one way or<br />
another. 19 In the next chapter I shall argue that this is not just a possible<br />
interpretation. There are theoretical considerations belonging to the very<br />
center of the critical discourse that require the notion of synthesis is<br />
interpreted in this way, at least to some extent. This point will be put<br />
forward along with an examination of Kant’s theory of schematism.<br />
5.13 Summary<br />
In this chapter I have compared what I take to be two theories of space<br />
discernible in Kant’s writings, his theory of the embodied constitution of<br />
spatial experience and his critical theory of space. I have argued that at a<br />
basic level and in a basic sense they are versions of the same theory in the<br />
way that the latter may be read as giving, in part, an abstract account of<br />
the former.<br />
Before concluding this chapter, let me remind the reader once again<br />
that when I say that Kant’s critical theory of space may be read, in part,<br />
as an abstract version of his embodied theory of space, I do not claim<br />
that the former is nothing but an abstract replica of the latter, that is, a<br />
replica from which the body has been abstracted away. It is partly this<br />
(and that is the point I have stressed in this chapter), but it is also more.<br />
The theory of space found in the Critique is both more complex and<br />
more sophisticated than the reflections Kant presents on this topic<br />
elsewhere. Nowhere is the cognitive process analyzed in more detail than<br />
here. And nowhere is the transcendental perspective more fully<br />
developed. This complexity and sophistication does not imply, however,<br />
that the cognitive processes referred to by the theory should no longer be<br />
interpreted as embodied, or so I argue. What the critical theory does, I<br />
think, is to give us an idea of the conditions required of an embodied self<br />
whose mind is to have sensations in time and space. Very briefly,<br />
according to the Critique, such a mind has to be endowed with senses,<br />
imagination and apperception and the capacity to synthesize its<br />
representations in the way specified above. 20 However, it also has to have<br />
a body, and in most of its cognitive operations, the movements of this<br />
body are involved.<br />
19<br />
That the term synthesis in the Critique may sometimes refer to embodied acts<br />
is an idea also espoused by Kaulbach (1968), 285.<br />
20<br />
In addition to this, the Critique is also concerned with the validity of our<br />
knowledge of time and space.
6. SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
One could not learn to judge the extension and<br />
the size of bodies well without also getting to<br />
know their shapes and even learning to imitate<br />
them; for, at bottom, this imitation depends<br />
absolutely only on the laws of perspective, and<br />
one can estimate extension by its appearances<br />
only if one has some feeling for these laws.<br />
Children, who are great imitators, all try to draw.<br />
I would want my child to cultivate this art, not<br />
precisely for the art itself but for making his eye<br />
exact and his hand flexible.<br />
From Rousseau’s Emile 1<br />
In this passage from Émile, Rousseau advises that children practice the<br />
art of drawing in order to learn how to recognize the size and shape of<br />
objects. He justifies his advice by arguing that drawing or copying the<br />
shape of objects enhances our grasp of the laws of perspective. The art of<br />
drawing is not merely a playful game, it is also an activity with an<br />
important cognitive function. In the Critique, too, the notion of drawing<br />
appears in the context of cognitive theory. For instance, when I perceive<br />
a house, Kant tells us at B 162, it is as if I draw its shape. Especially in his<br />
theory of schematism, references to constructive acts like drawing<br />
abound. How are we to understand these references? In this chapter I<br />
will argue that these constructive acts may be understood as acts<br />
involving the body, acts in which we somehow recreate the shape of<br />
external objects by moving parts of our bodies, as when we draw an<br />
image of them. I do not claim that this idea, in exactly this form, is found<br />
in Émile. At a more general level, however, I hold it to represent yet<br />
another example of a perspective shared by Rousseau and Kant, a<br />
perspective emphasizing that embodied acts and practices have a<br />
significant cognitive function.<br />
1<br />
Rousseau (1979), 143.
178<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
My main emphasis in this chapter is Kant’s theory of schematism as it<br />
is found in the Critique. This theory is officially presented in what I shall<br />
call the schematism chapter, a chapter covering fewer than ten pages and<br />
constituting the first part of the Analytic of principles, which comes<br />
shortly after the transcendental deduction. However, I think that<br />
passages representing this theory may also be found in other parts of the<br />
Critique, as I shall show later. My main thesis, however, is that in Kant’s<br />
theory of schematism the cognitive agent must be perceived as an<br />
embodied agent, and the cognitive acts ascribed to this agent as<br />
embodied acts or practices. Moreover, I will argue that only if these acts<br />
or practices are perceived in this way does the theory solve the problem it<br />
purports to.<br />
The term ‘schema’ has a history dating back to ancient Greece where<br />
it was used to refer to the outer appearance of something or someone. In<br />
a narrower sense it signified geometrical shape. 2<br />
Kant’s use of the term<br />
precedes the Critique by several years. In New elucidation, for instance,<br />
he talks about ‘the schema of the divine understanding’. This pre-critical<br />
use of the term will not be discussed further here. Neither will I discuss<br />
how the term is used in the second and third Critiques. My aim is<br />
primarily to examine the kind of schematism theory that Kant promotes<br />
in the first Critique.<br />
As I see it, the task of this theory is to explain how concepts apply to<br />
objects intuited in time and space. 3 Or to state the question in more<br />
Kantian terms: How is it possible to subsume appearances, which are<br />
undetermined intuited objects in space and time, under concepts? How,<br />
given the radical difference thought to prevail between concepts and<br />
intuitions, may the one be applied to the other? Also, even if Kant<br />
himself is not always explicit on this point, I will claim that it is possible<br />
to distinguish two parts in his answer to this question, one having to do<br />
with temporal schematism (time) and one with spatial schematism<br />
(space). Leaving the question of temporal schematism to a later chapter, I<br />
will focus here on spatial schematism, i.e. the question of how concepts<br />
apply to spatially extended intuited objects. My claim is that within his<br />
2<br />
For a further overview of the history of the term and its use, cf. Stegmaier<br />
(1992), 1252-1259 and also Obergefell (1985), 58.<br />
3<br />
Officially the task of this theory is to explain how the transcendental concepts,<br />
i.e., the categories, applies to the spatio-temporal world of objects, cf. e.g. A 137-<br />
138/B 176-177, however, if we look at the actual discussion taking place in the<br />
schematism chapter and in other related passages, we find that the scope of the<br />
discussion is wider, and may be defined as I just did in the main text.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 179<br />
theory of schematism Kant answers this question by establishing a theory<br />
of embodied practice. In order to subsume a spatially extended object<br />
under its concept, we have, by means of our body or part of our body, to<br />
copy or recreate its shape in an act similar to drawing. More specifically,<br />
such an embodied practice is what he calls a schema. A possible<br />
objection to this idea is that even if he admits that the notion of a schema<br />
refers to a kind of activity [Verfahren], this activity, according to Kant,<br />
takes place in the imagination. This seems to exclude the possibility that<br />
the notion of a schema can be interpreted as referring to embodied<br />
practices. However, this depends on how the term ‘imagination’ is<br />
understood. I will argue that in the context of Kantian philosophy, the<br />
term refers to the human capacity for image production in general. This<br />
means that the imagination is active also when a person uses her body to<br />
create images or image-like structures.<br />
Several authors have suggested that Kant’s theory of schematism is a<br />
key to understanding his theory of space as it is found, for instance, in the<br />
Transcendental aesthetic. 4 In a previous chapter I argued that Kant’s<br />
critical theory of space repeats on an abstract level the basic structure of<br />
the theory found in texts like Directions in space, Orientation,<br />
Anthropology and On pedagogy. That is, our experience of spatially<br />
extended objects presupposes that we perform certain embodied acts, as<br />
when we grasp and feel an object with our hands. Kant’s theory of spatial<br />
schematism in part addresses the same topic, i.e. spatial experience, and<br />
so in a certain sense the present chapter continues the argument of the<br />
previous one. Thus, I will argue that if we establish that Kant’s theory of<br />
spatial schematism needs to be interpreted as a theory of an embodied<br />
self performing certain embodied practices, then his critical theory of<br />
space in general should be interpreted along the same lines.<br />
Kant himself said that the chapter on schematism was one of the<br />
most important chapters in the Critique. 5 Not everyone agrees with him<br />
on this point and T. E. Wilkerson goes as far as to suggest that it serves<br />
no useful purpose at all and can be ignored without loss. 6 At the other<br />
end of the scale we find Heidegger claiming that it is the real heart of the<br />
Critique. 7<br />
A positive evaluation of Kant’s theory of schematism has also<br />
4<br />
Cf. e.g. Schaper (1992), 312 and Rossvær (1974), 100.<br />
5<br />
Cf. Prolegomena, § 34.<br />
6<br />
Wilkerson (1976), 94.<br />
7<br />
Heidegger (1976), 358.
180<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
been advanced by others. 8 Somewhere in the middle we find Bennett<br />
arguing that, even if he does not find Kant’s schematism theory totally<br />
convincing, it is more promising than most theories that link concepts<br />
with images. Instead of associating each concept with a single image or<br />
with a set of exactly similar images, Kant’s theory associates each concept<br />
with a rule for image-production. This, Bennett argues, saves him from<br />
difficulties that are fatal to other theories. 9<br />
The perspective developed in this chapter is indebted to a number of<br />
earlier studies. I would like to draw particular attention to Rossvær’s<br />
highly inspiring work Kant og Wittgenstein 10 and its discussion of Kant’s<br />
constructivism in mathematics. On a general level my perspective is also<br />
structurally similar to the one found in a number of works by Kaulbach. 11<br />
Even if he admits that the Critique is not unambiguous, he maintains<br />
that the cognitive self of this work is also an embodied self. As such it is<br />
part of the same spatio-temporal world as the objects of its experience. Its<br />
immediate presence in this world is located in the specific here-and-now<br />
of its body. And Kant’s transcendental philosophy, Kaulbach contends,<br />
may be read as a theory of how this embodied self confronts the world.<br />
In Kaulbach’s interpretation self-conscious movement is a basic<br />
principle. By moving about in the world and being aware of his own<br />
movement, man explores its spatio-temporal structure. Such movement,<br />
Kaulbach argues, may also be seen as a transcendental condition of<br />
experience. 12 The perspective here established is also applied to Kant’s<br />
theory of spatial schematism, which, according to Kaulbach, is a theory<br />
of an embodied self performing constructive operations by means of its<br />
body. 13<br />
8<br />
Cf. Pippin (1982), 222, Paton (1936), 17ff., Guyer (1987), 157, Shaper (1992)<br />
and Obergefell (1985), to mention but a few names. Also Rossvær (1974) and<br />
Svendsen (1998), 11 have argued that the schematism chapter is central to a<br />
proper understanding of the Critique.<br />
9<br />
Bennett (1966), 141.<br />
10<br />
Rossvær (1974).<br />
11<br />
Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and 1968).<br />
12<br />
Cf. Kaulbach (1960), 99.<br />
13<br />
He writes: ‘Ohne daß sich der Konstruierende in den Raum und in die Zeit<br />
hinein ausdehnt, indem er sich eine Raumgestalt entlang bewegt, gibt es keine<br />
Konstruktion einer Figur. Das konstruierende Bewusstsein muss sich bewegen<br />
und damit den begangenen Weg, d. i. die Konturen der konstruierten Figur<br />
markieren.’ (Kaulbach (1965), 122). For Kaulbach’s discussion of Kant’s theory<br />
of schematism, cf. also Kaulbach (1960), 117 and 127 and Kaulbach (1968), 285.<br />
Cf. also Saugstad (1982), 24ff.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 181<br />
Although I think that Kaulbach’s interpretation is basically right, I<br />
feel it could have been supported by more explicit references to the<br />
actual text of the Critique. Kaulbach articulates his interpretation of the<br />
Critique in impressive and poetic language, but it is not always evident<br />
how it applies to what Kant actually says. I also feel that his discussion<br />
often becomes too general, leaving unresolved a number of more specific<br />
problems: How does the schema (understood as self-conscious, embodied<br />
movement) mediate between concept and intuited object, as Kaulbach<br />
claims it does? What is the exact relation between concept, movement<br />
and object? In my own discussion I shall try to give a more detailed<br />
answer to these questions than the one supplied by Kaulbach, and in<br />
doing so also stay close to Kant’s text.<br />
6.1 The production of images<br />
Now, back to the thesis to be defended in this chapter. My claim is that<br />
within his theory of schematism, Kant maintains that in order to<br />
subsume a spatially extended object under its concept, we have, by<br />
means of our body or part of our body, to copy or recreate its shape in an<br />
act similar to drawing. More specifically, such an embodied practice is<br />
what he calls a schema.<br />
My first argument in favor of this thesis is that Kant, in explaining<br />
what a schema is, introduces the term ‘procedure’ [Verfahren] (A 140/B<br />
179). That this procedure must be understood as a practice, moreover, is<br />
confirmed by the following example dealing with the schema of number.<br />
Suppose I put five points one after another. Then these points would be<br />
an image of the number five. The procedure by which this image is<br />
produced is the schema corresponding to the concept of the number five.<br />
The schema of a number in general, Kant then concludes, is the<br />
procedure according to which an image is constructed so that this image<br />
represents the number:<br />
… if I place five points in a row, . . . . . , this is an image of the<br />
number five. On the contrary, if I only think a number in general,<br />
which could be five or a hundred, this thinking is more the<br />
representation of a method for representing a multitude (e.g., a<br />
thousand) in accordance with a certain concept than the image itself,<br />
which in this case I could survey and compare with the concept only<br />
with difficulty. Now this representation of a general procedure<br />
[Verfahren] of the imagination for providing a concept with its image<br />
[einem Begriff sein Bild zu verschaffen] is what I call the schema for<br />
this concept. (A 140-141/B 179)
182<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
The procedure, or schema, here described is obviously a practice in the<br />
Kantian sense of the term. We have an agent performing a set of<br />
embodied acts resulting in the production of an image. These acts are<br />
directed by a concept, i.e., the concept of the number five. And they have<br />
a purpose, which is the already mentioned production of the number.<br />
The example is followed by two more examples, one concerning<br />
triangles and one concerning dogs. The triangle example is only<br />
incompletely given. The schema of a triangle, says Kant, is a rule for the<br />
construction of a triangle.<br />
The schema of the triangle can never exist anywhere except in<br />
thought, and signifies a rule of the synthesis of the imagination with<br />
regard to pure shapes in space. (A 141/B 180)<br />
Following this model, however, we may again distinguish between three<br />
levels. We have the concept of the triangle, its schema and, finally, the<br />
image of a triangle. The schema of the concept would then be the<br />
practice according to which this image is constructed.<br />
The last example concerns the empirical representation of a dog.<br />
The concept of a dog signifies a rule in accordance with which my<br />
imagination can specify [verzeichnen] the shape of a four-footed<br />
animal in general, without being restricted to any single particular<br />
shape that experience offers me or any possible image that I can<br />
exhibit in concreto. (A 141/B 180)<br />
Interpreted according to the now established model, we should again<br />
make a threefold distinction, between the concept of a dog, the schema of<br />
this concept (that is, the practice according to which an image of a dog is<br />
produced), and finally the image itself. In both of the two last examples,<br />
Kant’s point seems to be that a schema is the practice according to which<br />
an image corresponding to a concept is produced.<br />
6.2 The construction of geometrical figures<br />
According to my interpretation of the second example in the schematism<br />
chapter, the schema of a triangle is the practice according to which an<br />
image of a triangle is constructed. Stated thus simply the example seems<br />
straightforward. We know that triangles, like other geometrical figures,<br />
are constructed. Moreover, this is what geometers do all the time, when,<br />
for instance, by means of a pair of compasses, a ruler and a pencil a<br />
triangle is constructed on a piece of paper. Could we interpret Kant’s
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 183<br />
theory of geometrical schematism, suggested by the triangle example, as<br />
referring simply to these well known practices of geometers?<br />
At first glance the answer appears negative. From the context in<br />
which the example is stated, we seem forced to conclude that the<br />
construction in question is different in kind from the one used by a<br />
geometer constructing a triangle on a piece of paper. Kant says, namely,<br />
that the construction in question is performed in the mind, i.e. by the<br />
imagination (cf. e.g. A 141/B 180). Kant’s association of schematism and<br />
imagination seems to demand an internalist interpretation of the<br />
schematism theory: whatever constructions the theory refers to, they<br />
cannot be conceived of as external constructions.<br />
I will argue that the constructions referred to in the schematism<br />
chapter must after all be conceived of as external, embodied practices. A<br />
key point of my argument concerns the question of how to understand<br />
the term ‘imagination’ as used in Kant’s theory of schematism. I will<br />
argue that, contrary to how it may seem, the Kantian term ‘imagination’<br />
does not refer exclusively to an inner mental realm. First, however, let us<br />
take a brief look at some general positions developed relative to Kant’s<br />
terminology of construction, such as when he associates a schema with<br />
the act of drawing. 14<br />
6.3 Mental constructions?<br />
Hardly any reader of the Critique, not even the most hard-headed<br />
proponent of an analytic interpretation, has failed to notice that in the<br />
cognitive theory of this text Kant develops and applies a wide repertoire<br />
of terms that in everyday use refer to acts of manipulation and<br />
construction, and not only in the schematism chapter but also in other<br />
parts of the Transcendental logic. Several interpretative strategies have<br />
been developed in response.<br />
One sees these terms as referring to mental acts or other kind of<br />
cognitive processes taking place in the mind. In this group we find<br />
Kitcher, Ros, Wolff and others, who read Kant’s terminology as<br />
expressing a transcendental psychology which, far from being outdated,<br />
still has important insights to offer. 15<br />
Ros represents a version of this<br />
position when, discussing the schematism chapter, he argues that it is<br />
14<br />
Other terms which in ordinary language likewise refer to overt acts of<br />
construction will be discussed below.<br />
15 Cf. Kitcher (1990), Ros (1990) and Wolff (1963).
184<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
putting forward the idea that a concept is the capacity to perform a<br />
certain operation that results in the production of a mental image. 16<br />
According to Ros, a person possesses a concept when she is capable of<br />
producing a representation or mental image according to a rule, i.e., a<br />
concept. 17 According to Wolff, one of the theoretically most significant<br />
innovations of the Critique compared with the Inaugural dissertation is<br />
that in the Critique Kant no longer sees concepts as mental contents or<br />
objects of consciousness, but as ‘ways of doing things’. 18 This way of<br />
doing things, which Wolff sees as central to Kant’s new theory, is here,<br />
however, interpreted in terms of ‘forms of mental activity’.<br />
Another strategy involves interpreting Kant’s terminology of<br />
manipulation and construction in a more metaphorical sense. It does not<br />
refer to actual acts or processes, but to transcendental conditions in a<br />
more abstract sense. Forschner and Obergefell may be said to represent<br />
this strategy through their criticism of Kant’s language of action. 19<br />
Forschner and Obergefell both read Kant’s language of action as a<br />
metaphorical language incapable of conveying his real message.<br />
A third strategy, which is also the one adopted below, is represented<br />
by those contending that Kant’s terminology of manipulation and<br />
construction may be understood as referring in some way or other to<br />
embodied acts and practices. At a general level, this position is advanced<br />
by, among others, Kaulbach, Kambartel, Rossvær and Saugstad. 20<br />
Emphasizing that man exists in the same space as the objects of his<br />
experience, Kaulbach contends that self-conscious embodied movement<br />
is a transcendental condition of having experience of these objects.<br />
Kant’s terminology of manipulation and construction, therefore, refers,<br />
at least to some extent, to embodied acts. Discussing the first example of<br />
the schematism chapter (the arithmetic example) Kambartel notices that<br />
Kant exemplifies the schema of number by referring to practices<br />
belonging to our ordinary life-world. 21 In the next section I will briefly<br />
consider some aspects of Rossvær’s contributions to this field. Amongst<br />
other things, it will help us get a deeper understanding of the Kantian<br />
16<br />
Ros (1990), 67.<br />
17<br />
Op. cit.<br />
18<br />
Wolff (1963), 70.<br />
19<br />
Cf. Forschner (1986), 83 and Obergefell (1985), 200.<br />
20<br />
Cf. e.g. Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and 1968), Kambartel (1976), Rossvær (1974)<br />
and Saugstad (1982). Cf. also Rudisill (1996).<br />
21<br />
Kambartel (1976), 117. A somewhat modified and less radical position is found<br />
in Kambartel (1986).
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 185<br />
term ‘imagination’ and how it is used within Kant’s theory of<br />
schematism. I think it is absolutely necessary to do this if we are to arrive<br />
at a proper understanding of Kant’s schematism theory.<br />
6.4 Rossvær’s anti-mentalist approach<br />
A key point made by Rossvær is that some Kantian terms that at first<br />
sight appear to refer exclusively to an inner domain in fact do not do so<br />
after all. Rossvær gives special attention to the terms ‘intuition’ and<br />
‘imagination’. Central to his discussion of the term ‘intuition’ are some<br />
remarks on mathematics made by Kant in the Transcendental doctrine<br />
of method (A 729-30/B757-8). Kant here discusses what he calls ‘the<br />
construction of mathematical concepts in the intuition’. What kind of<br />
construction is this, Rossvær asks? One possible answer is that Kant is<br />
referring to constructions taking place in an inner mental space, or some<br />
abstract or ideal mathematical space other than the space we inhabit as<br />
embodied beings. 22<br />
Rossvær argues, however, that this interpretation is<br />
far from obvious. On the contrary, Kant presents a number of examples<br />
suggesting that the constructions in question are ordinary, external<br />
constructions taking place, for instance, by constructing geometrical<br />
figures on a piece of paper. If this is the case, then ‘intuition’ cannot be<br />
given a merely mental interpretation.<br />
Rossvær also discusses Kant’s claim that the apodictic nature of a<br />
geometrical proof is derived from the fact that such a proof is led by the<br />
intuition. Again he asks whether ‘intuition’ is here to be understood in a<br />
mental sense. At least one example, he argues, suggest that it should not.<br />
In a passage at A 716-17/B744-45. Kant discusses the Euclidean proof<br />
that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. For a<br />
philosopher limited to conceptual analysis this is impossible to prove, he<br />
argues. For the geometer, however, the case is different. He simply<br />
constructs a triangle and then he proceeds by a series of constructive<br />
steps to prove his point. Kant gives a detailed account of these steps, and<br />
there is no doubt, Rossvær argues, that he is referring to overt<br />
constructions performed by an embodied agent. If this is what Kant<br />
means by a proof led by intuition [von der Anschauung geleitet], then<br />
‘intuition’ cannot be understood in a mental sense. Rather it seems to<br />
refer simply to the act of seeing what is immediately present before one’s<br />
22<br />
See Rossvær (1974), 92 for a further discussion of this view.
186<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
eyes, or more generally, what is immediately given before one’s senses. 23<br />
A similar point is made with regard to Kant’s notion of imagination.<br />
When in his theory of schematism Kant ascribes to the imagination the<br />
capacity to produce images, ‘image’ should not be given a mentalist<br />
interpretation, Rossvær contends. 24 I shall say more about ‘imagination’<br />
and ‘image’ as used by Kant, according to this interpretation, in due<br />
course.<br />
6.5 Kant’s theory of mathematical construction<br />
The above remarks are not intended to give a complete account of<br />
Rossvær’s interpretation of Kant. I do, however, share Rossvær’s belief<br />
that Kant’s discussion of mathematical construction in the<br />
Transcendental doctrine of method sheds interesting light on an earlier<br />
part of the Critique. I find it particularly relevant for our understanding<br />
of the schematism chapter. In fact, I take Kant’s theory of mathematical<br />
construction in the Transcendental doctrine of method to be a part of the<br />
same schematism theory as the one found in the schematism chapter. We<br />
find here the same tripartite structure of concept, constructive procedure<br />
and image as in the schematism chapter. Also, in On a discovery from<br />
1790, in another discussion of the construction of mathematical concepts<br />
similar to the one found in the Transcendental doctrine of method, this<br />
construction is explicitly called schematic. 25<br />
Let us therefore take a closer look at Kant’s theory of mathematical<br />
construction in the Transcendental doctrine of method in order to get an<br />
even clearer conception of his theory of schematism. And let us start with<br />
his claim that to define a mathematical concept means to construct it in<br />
the intuition (A 729f/B757f). An argument found some pages earlier<br />
suggests that what he has in mind is spatio-temporal construction<br />
performed by an embodied agent. Here it is:<br />
23 Ibid., 79ff.<br />
24 Ibid., 217.<br />
25 Ak VIII: 191, footnote. I will return to discuss this passage below.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 187<br />
Philosophical cognition [Erkenntnis] is rational cognition from<br />
concepts, mathematical cognition that from the construction of<br />
concepts. But to construct a concept means to exhibit a priori the<br />
intuition corresponding to it. For the construction of a concept,<br />
therefore, a non-empirical intuition is required, which consequently,<br />
as intuition, is an individual object, but that must nevertheless, as the<br />
construction of a concept (of a general representation), express in the<br />
representation universal validity for all possible intuitions that belong<br />
under the same concept. Thus I construct a triangle by exhibiting an<br />
object corresponding to this concept, either through mere<br />
imagination, in pure intuition, or on paper, in empirical intuition, but<br />
in both cases completely a priori, without having had to borrow the<br />
pattern for it from any experience. The individual drawn figure is<br />
empirical, and nevertheless serves to express the concept without<br />
damage to its universality, for in the case of this empirical intuition<br />
we have taken account only of the action of constructing the concept,<br />
to which many determinations, e.g., those of the magnitude of the<br />
sides and the angles, are entirely indifferent, and thus we have<br />
abstracted from these differences, which do not alter the concept of<br />
the triangle. (A 713f./B741f.)<br />
The example of the passage is a triangle. To construct the concept of a<br />
triangle, so we learn from the text, means to produce [darstellen] a priori<br />
an intuition corresponding to the concept. Kant then says that this<br />
requires an intuition that is not empirical, but that still qua intuition is<br />
both an individual object, and at the same time, exhibits the general<br />
features of all objects falling under the concept, that is, all triangles. Let<br />
us stop here to reflect on what Kant is saying.<br />
First, Kant seems to say that the general features of the triangle are<br />
not found in the triangle as such, but in the procedure by which the<br />
triangle is constructed, a procedure, moreover, that is common to all<br />
triangles. I will return to discuss this point below. Further, we are told<br />
that the product of the construction just referred to is an intuition that is<br />
not empirical. This may seem to suggest that the construction in question<br />
does not include empirical elements such as our hands, a pencil or a<br />
piece of paper, but is performed in some other way, outside the empirical<br />
or even the spatio-temporal domain, and Kant’s remark that the<br />
construction is a priori may seem to support this interpretation. The<br />
notion of the a priori is typically seen as opposed to the notion of the<br />
empirical.<br />
I think we would be wise, however, to refrain from reaching such a<br />
conclusion just yet. Kant continues by distinguishing between two ways<br />
of constructing a triangle: it may be constructed either through the pure<br />
imagination, or on a piece of paper. In the second case the construction
188<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
takes place in the empirical intuition. In both cases, however, the<br />
construction is a priori. The last point is, I think, highly significant. The<br />
notion of the a priori can now no longer be seen to exclude the spatiotemporal<br />
constructions of an embodied agent. The term ‘a priori’ seems<br />
now rather to be referring to the constructive process itself, or some<br />
aspect of this process. Kant himself suggests that what qualifies the<br />
construction as a priori is the fact that we perform it without depending<br />
on some pattern borrowed from experience.<br />
Also relevant to the present discussion is a passage in On a discovery<br />
from 1790 containing a clear parallel to the above passage. Kant here<br />
discusses the notion of an a priori construction of a concept in the pure<br />
[bloße] imagination. 26 Now he uses the concept of a circle to illustrate the<br />
point. In order to explain how this concept is constructed a priori in the<br />
pure imagination, he refers to a person drawing a circle in the sand.<br />
The following may serve to secure against misuse the expression<br />
‘construction of concepts’ of which the Critique of Pure Reason<br />
speaks several times, and has thereby first made an accurate<br />
distinction between the procedure of reason in mathematics and in<br />
philosophy. In a general sense one may call construction all<br />
exhibition of a concept through the (spontaneous) production of a<br />
corresponding intuition. If it occurs through mere imagination in<br />
accordance with an a priori concept, it is called pure construction<br />
(such as must underlie all the demonstrations of the mathematician;<br />
hence he can demonstrate by means of a circle which he draws with<br />
his stick in the sand, no matter how irregular it may turn out to be,<br />
the properties of a circle in general, as perfectly as if it had been<br />
etched in copperplate by the greatest artist). If it is carried out on<br />
some kind of material, however, it could be called empirical<br />
construction. The first can also be called schematic, the second<br />
technical construction. Now the latter construction, which is really<br />
improperly so-called, (because it belongs not to science but to art and<br />
is done by means of instruments) is either the geometrical, by<br />
compass and ruler, or the mechanical, for which other instruments<br />
are necessary, as for example, the drawing of the other conic sections<br />
besides the circle. 27<br />
This is far from easy to understand. What I would like to draw attention<br />
to, however, is the example Kant gives us in order to explain his notion<br />
of an a priori pure construction in the imagination [bloße<br />
26<br />
Thanks to Rossvær (1974) for bringing my attention to this passage.<br />
27<br />
Ak VIII: 191.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 189<br />
Einbildungskraft]. The example is a mathematician drawing a circle in<br />
the sand with a stick. Now, why does he use this particular example? If<br />
he took the term ‘construction in the imagination’ to refer exclusively to<br />
inner mental constructions, then the example seems badly chosen. One<br />
possible way of solving this problem, is to explain away what Kant has<br />
just said as slip of the pen: but I will not do that. Rather, I think that this<br />
passage opens up a more comprehensive understanding of the Kantian<br />
term ‘imagination’. I suggest that we take it to refer to the general<br />
capacity of a human agent to create images. The term ‘image’ is used in<br />
a highly general sense here, so all these can be seen as examples of image<br />
making: a person drawing a circle on a piece of paper; a person drawing<br />
a circle in the sand, and a person drawing a circle in the air by making a<br />
circular movement with is hand. Even if in the last case no material<br />
image is produced, I will include this as an example of image making<br />
because an alert observer would be able to see the image of an<br />
(imaginary) circle being produced (in the air). 28 I will shortly explain why<br />
I regard this interpretation as preferable.<br />
First, however, I want to draw attention to the last part of the<br />
passage. Here Kant seems to be contrasting a priori constructions in the<br />
imagination and constructions involving material elements [an irgend<br />
einer Materie ausgeübt]. The latter are also called empirical. This seems<br />
to jeopardize my interpretation, at least if the contrasted alternatives are<br />
conceived as mutually exclusive. If this is so, however, why does Kant use<br />
a person drawing a circle in the sand as an example of an a priori<br />
construction in the imagination? I readily admit that the passage taken as<br />
a whole now seems rather confusing. Let us, therefore, take a fresh look<br />
at it. There are two points relating to what Kant calls an a priori<br />
construction in the imagination that we have so far not discussed. The<br />
first point relates to the construction of concepts in general, and Kant’s<br />
emphasis that such constructions originate in the agent. Kant uses the<br />
German term selbsttätig to make this point. 29 The second point is a<br />
remark concerning the example of the person drawing a circle in the<br />
sand. The circle may be very irregular but it may still be used to prove<br />
the qualities of a circle. Notice also that the second kind of construction<br />
discussed above is also called technical and is claimed to be not a<br />
construction in the same sense as the first kind. In German Kant says<br />
28<br />
I am here close to the interpretation offered by Rudisill (1996), 135. Discussing<br />
not the schema, but the concept of a circle, he argues that this concept is the rule<br />
for the production of, for instance, a circle in the air by moving the hand.<br />
29 Ak VIII: 191.
190<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
that it is an uneigentlich so genannte Konstruktion. In contrast with the<br />
first kind, it makes use of instruments.<br />
Given all this, it is possible to argue that Kant’s distinction between<br />
the two types of construction described in the above passage is not meant<br />
to distinguish between inner and outer constructions. What is essential to<br />
the first kind of construction (the one described as an a priori<br />
construction in the imagination) is rather that the agent performs the<br />
operation independently [selbsttätig] without depending on some pattern<br />
borrowed from experience, or as Kant expresses the point in German;<br />
ohne das Muster dazu aus irgend einer Erfahrung geborgt zu haben (A<br />
713/B741). A second point may be derived from Kant’s claim that the<br />
circle may be used to prove the qualities of a circle even if it is irregular.<br />
How can it be used as such a proof? My guess is that it is because it is the<br />
product of a procedure that is a universal procedure for producing<br />
circles, and as long as we focus on this procedure rather than its product,<br />
the general qualities of the circle remains intact. Why does the<br />
construction of a circle with instruments not count as a construction in<br />
the same sense? My guess is that the agent in this case does not prove<br />
unequivocally that she is really a master of this universal procedure. The<br />
production of the circle might in this case be the product of mere luck,<br />
the fact that she incidentally bumped into the instrument so that a circle<br />
was produced. If so, there is an essential connection between the first and<br />
second points above and we may conclude that the basic point of Kant’s<br />
theory of a priori construction in the imagination is not to say anything<br />
decisive about the image being produced, nor to say anything decisive<br />
about the medium in which it is produced. The focus is the productive<br />
procedure in which a free and autonomous agent exhibits the capacity to<br />
produce an image corresponding to a concept.<br />
If I am right, the reason why Kant refers to this kind of construction<br />
as an a priori construction in the imagination is not in order to deny that<br />
it may result in the production of real images (as circles in the sand), but<br />
because this aspect of the process is not the focus here. Or to put it<br />
differently, the theory of an a priori construction in the imagination is<br />
neutral with regard to the specific status of the image and its medium.<br />
This will be a premise in the further development of my interpretation.<br />
6.6 Further remarks on the imagination<br />
In ordinary language the term ‘imagination’ typically refers to the<br />
capacity of a human agent to have inner, mental images. I see no point in<br />
denying that Kant may have taken the term to also have this sense. A<br />
number of remarks in e.g. the Anthropology seem to demand such an
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 191<br />
interpretation, for instance, when Kant describes a person with a vivid<br />
imagination who believes he is seeing before him what is actually only in<br />
his head.<br />
The illusion caused by the strength of our imagination often goes so<br />
far that we think we see and feel outside us what is only in our mind<br />
[Kopf]. 30<br />
My point is, however, is that when ‘imagination’ refers to the mental<br />
domain, this is only part of the meaning it has in the Kantian corpus at<br />
large. In its broader sense, it refers to the human capacity for image<br />
production in general. This means that the imagination is at play<br />
whenever a person uses her body to create images or image-like<br />
structures. As for Kant’s theory of schematism, I think ‘imagination’<br />
should be understood here in this extended sense. 31 So the fact that in the<br />
schematism chapter Kant associates schematism and imagination does<br />
not exclude the notion of embodied practices from the theory. On the<br />
contrary, in the geometry example I take the term ‘schema of the<br />
triangle’ to refer to any practice by which a triangle is constructed, such<br />
as the drawing of a triangle on a piece of paper, on the blackboard, in the<br />
sand, or perhaps even in the air, as when a person draws an imaginary<br />
triangle in the air with his hand. I shall also argue that only if we<br />
understand ‘schema’ in this way is Kant capable of solving the question<br />
he opens the schematism chapter with.<br />
30 Ak VII: 178.<br />
31 Kaulbach (1968) comes close to the same conclusion. When ‘imagination’ is<br />
used by Kant in an epistemic context, it corresponds to the capacity of embodied<br />
image production. To Kaulbach, this insight follows immediately from Kant’s<br />
thesis of the emboidied self: ‘Daß das Subjekt, welches beschreibend seine<br />
ursprüngliche Einbildungskraft ins Werk setzt, ein leibliches Wesen sein muss,<br />
resultiert aus dem Gedanken, daß Beschreibung, die mit seinsbildendem<br />
Anspruch auftritt, eine die Figuren produzierende Kraft aufbieten muss. Das<br />
beschreibende Subjekt muß die ursprungliche Kraft haben, durch eine Handlung<br />
des Ausdehnens den Raum figürlich zu bestimmen, ihn zu ‘beschreiben’, wie<br />
man eine bisher leere Tafel beschreibt. Kraft bedeutet hier wie auch anderwärts<br />
dasjenige Vermögen des Subjekts, sich als unausgedehntes Wesen raumbildend<br />
auseinanderzulegen, dadurch erst einen figurierten Raum hervorzubringen.’<br />
(Kaulbach (1968), 285.)
192<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
6.7 Construction and subsumption<br />
We are now ready to return to that question. How is it possible to<br />
subsume appearances, i.e. undetermined intuited objects that are<br />
spatially extended, under concepts? Kant presents a theory of how<br />
certain practices are used to construct images corresponding to concepts<br />
and these practices he calls ‘schemata’. What does this theory of<br />
construction have to do with the subsumption of spatially extended<br />
appearances under concepts? The question is intriguing because in most<br />
standard theories of subsumption under concepts, subsumption is seen as<br />
something different from construction; these are seen as different kinds of<br />
acts. According to one such standard theory, also advanced by Kant<br />
elsewhere, 32 a concept is a collection of marks referring to certain<br />
properties found in objects, and when we observe an object with these<br />
properties, we may subsume it under the concept.<br />
The intriguing nature of Kant’s association of subsumption and<br />
construction is also noted by Bennett:<br />
Kant’s theory says that to be able to apply a concept one must know<br />
how to make something, namely images; which is, on the face of it,<br />
peculiar. Recognition is clearly relevant, but where does making<br />
come in? 33<br />
I think a first step towards a solution to this problem may be found by<br />
assuming that the schematism chapter is not meant to supply a general<br />
theory of the subsumption of objects under concepts. It deals only with a<br />
certain aspect of such a theory. This aspect, however, is a highly<br />
significant one, at least within the theoretical context of the Critique. It<br />
concerns the spatial and temporal forms of the objects in question. This<br />
means that Kant is operating here on a level that is both more general<br />
and more basic than most theories that deal with the subsumption of<br />
objects under concepts. Such theories require us to take into account a<br />
wide repertoire of marks. In the schematism chapter Kant directs his<br />
attention towards two types of ‘marks’ only, relating to the spatial and<br />
temporal form of intuited objects. These marks are, however, more<br />
fundamental than any other, as without them any intuition of objects<br />
would be impossible for us.<br />
The basic idea of Kant’s theory of spatial schematism, as I see it, is<br />
that in order to subsume an object under a concept we need to take into<br />
32<br />
Cf. e.g. A 68/B 93.<br />
33<br />
Bennett (1966), 142.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 193<br />
account the spatial form of this object, i.e. its shape, and this is done, by<br />
means of an act similar to an act of construction. Now, how does this<br />
help us towards a better understanding of the relation between<br />
subsumption and construction in Kant’s theory of schematism? As the<br />
theory needed to answer this question is only hinted at in the schematism<br />
chapter, we have to try to deduce it from the little that is said. Let us try<br />
to do so, however, and in order not to stray too far, let us concentrate on<br />
the triangle example.<br />
Following the example of the triangle, Kant tells us that his theory of<br />
schematism may be used to solve the old problem of the generality of<br />
concepts, namely how can a concept be general and still apply to<br />
particulars which, moreover, are not congruent? If we think of the<br />
concept as an image, or something like an image, the required generality<br />
would never be attained, he argues.<br />
No image of a triangle would ever be adequate to the concept of it.<br />
For it would not attain the generality of the concept, which makes<br />
this valid for all triangles, right or acute, etc., but would always be<br />
limited to one part of this sphere. (A 141/B 180)<br />
If we instead think of the concept of a triangle as a rule-governing<br />
practice through which all existing triangles may be produced, the<br />
problem of generality is solved. Let us represent the rule of this practice<br />
linguistically like this: ‘Draw three straight lines in a plane. Each line<br />
must intersect the other two. The triangle is the figure constituted by the<br />
lines connecting the intersections.’ By means of this practice, an infinite<br />
set of triangles may be produced. Further, since the rule is unspecific<br />
regarding angles and distances, each new triangle produced is potentially<br />
different from the others. However, as long as they are produced<br />
according to the rule, they are all triangles. The problem of generality is<br />
solved because the generality is guaranteed by the procedure. In a sense,<br />
the generality is found in the procedure rather than in each individual<br />
triangle.<br />
Kant has now demonstrated that the procedure for producing a<br />
triangle may be conceived of as general in the same sense that a concept<br />
is usually considered to be general. However, the main question is still<br />
left unanswered, which is how does this help us understand what<br />
subsumption has to do with construction? Let us assume that we have a<br />
triangle before us, a triangle empirically given, for example one drawn on<br />
a piece of paper or made of wood. How do we recognize this triangle as a<br />
triangle? And how does this recognition involve an act of construction?<br />
What does Kant mean when he suggests that the capacity to recognize it
194<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
as a triangle, that is to subsume it under its concept, requires that we are<br />
capable of constructing a triangle?<br />
I think three answers are possible and two of these are discussed by<br />
Bennett. Either the recognition of the triangle as a triangle takes place<br />
through an act of comparison, where we first construct an actual triangle<br />
and then compare it with the triangle that was already present, or we do<br />
the same thing, except that the triangle we construct is now constructed<br />
only in our imagination, that is, as a mental image or an inner<br />
representation. According to Bennett, Kant goes for the second<br />
alternative:<br />
If recognition requires actual production and not just knowledge of<br />
how to produce, then for overwhelming practical reasons the<br />
requirement must be for the production of images only, if images will<br />
suffice to do what needs doing. 34<br />
It is interesting to see that Bennett also briefly discusses a third option.<br />
Various embodied acts of construction may have a cognitive function like<br />
the one Kant ascribes to the schema:<br />
Kant thinks, as I have already mentioned, that imagination plays a<br />
vital mediatory role in the application of concepts to data because it is<br />
active like the understanding, yet like sensibility it deals in intuitions.<br />
But does not physical activity also have a foot in each camp? In<br />
carpentering and walking and blinking we actively bring about<br />
changes in our sensory states. The making of chairs, then, has the<br />
same double virtue as the imaging of chairs, namely that it is an<br />
activity which results in the occurrence of intuitions. Yet schemas are<br />
said to be rules for the production, specifically, of images. 35<br />
As Bennett is unable to see that embodied acts of construction fit in with<br />
what Kant says in the schematism chapter, this alternative is rejected.<br />
However, contrary to Bennett, I think that the third option may lead us<br />
on to the right track, even if my interpretation is not fully congruent with<br />
the one Bennett suggests.<br />
Imagine a blind person investigating a triangle made of wood. In the<br />
absence of sight, she uses one of her hands to explore the object, that is,<br />
she lets her hand follow the contours of the triangle, one side after the<br />
other. In doing this, her hand makes roughly the same movement as the<br />
34 Ibid., 143.<br />
35 Ibid., 143.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 195<br />
one she would perform in order to construct a triangle, for instance, on a<br />
piece of paper. Thus, while she explores the triangle, it is at the same<br />
time as if she constructs its shape. If I am right, Kant’s basic idea in the<br />
schematism chapter, expressed through its second example, is that the<br />
recognition of the triangle as a triangle takes place by making a<br />
movement like the one just described, and, in making this movement,<br />
recognizing it as the movement involved in the construction of triangles. 36<br />
Later I will discuss whether the structure of this example also applies<br />
to visual perception, but first let us see in what sense the movement just<br />
described relates to what Kant says about the schema in the schematism<br />
chapter. The first point I want to underline concerns image production.<br />
The schema, Kant tells us, is a procedure for image production. The<br />
movement just described, I would argue, may also be seen as<br />
representing a practice resulting in the production of an image. Earlier I<br />
suggested that when Kant uses the term ‘imagination’ it should be taken<br />
to refer to our capacity to produce images in a wide sense. According to<br />
this interpretation, a person drawing a circle in the air by making a<br />
circular movement with her hand may be seen as constructing an image<br />
even if no material image is produced. The act just described, when a<br />
person lets her hands follow the contours of the triangle, one side after<br />
the other, is imaginative or image-productive in the same sense.<br />
Secondly, even if there is an aspect of this act that could be described<br />
as ‘passive’ or ‘empirical’ in Kantian terminology, in the sense that the<br />
person in question adjusts her movements to an already existing shape, so<br />
that in ordinary language we would say that she copies the triangle rather<br />
than creates it, nevertheless at the same time the act is also creative. It is<br />
creative in the sense that it would never have taken place without the<br />
active initiative of the agent. It represents an event in which the agent<br />
does not just passively receive impressions from the world, but in which<br />
36 Such a theory is implied, I think, by Berkeley, Descartes, Condillac, Rousseau<br />
and others, when they argue that we arrive at knowledge of spatial properties of<br />
objects by moving parts of our bodies, such as when we move our hands or eyes<br />
when we observe an object. Included in this theory is the idea that the mind<br />
during such an act receives information of the minutest changes in the muscles<br />
operating our organs. Even a small movement by the pupil of the eye is registered<br />
and the resulting information is used. As far as I know, however, neither of the<br />
authors mentioned develops a theory of schematism from this like the one I take<br />
to be implied by Kant’s schematism chapter. I think that Kant’s theory of<br />
schematism may be seen as such a development.
196<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
she actively confronts and interacts with it, and actively recreates the<br />
shape in question. She is, as Kant says in On a Discovery, selbsttätig. 37<br />
Most important, however, is the point already stated, that in making<br />
this movement she makes roughly the same movement as the one she<br />
would have performed in order to construct a triangle. Thus, while she<br />
explores the triangle, it is at the same time as if she constructs its shape.<br />
In the schematism chapter Kant tells us that we need to know how to<br />
construct a triangle in order to know what a triangle is, and in order to<br />
recognize a triangle as a triangle. According to my interpretation, Kant’s<br />
basic idea in the second example of the schematism chapter is that the<br />
recognition of the triangle as a triangle takes place when the agent makes<br />
a movement like the one just described, and, in making this movement<br />
recognizes it as the movement involved in the construction of triangles.<br />
The reason why she recognizes the triangle, then, is not that she<br />
recognizes the shape of a triangle as such, but that she recognizes the<br />
practice of its construction.<br />
This point is also made in a different way by Kitcher who writes:<br />
We apply concepts to presented objects by noting in some<br />
unconscious way that the imagination followed the same procedure in<br />
constructing a present image that it followed in previous cases. That<br />
is, concept application involves a comparison of procedures for<br />
constructing representations, rather than a comparison of images<br />
themselves. 38<br />
Kitcher does not, however, take the procedure involved here to be an<br />
embodied practice. The procedure is performed in the mind, and its<br />
cognitive function follows from the fact that it is followed by ‘the mind’s<br />
eye’, she argues. 39<br />
6.8 The key argument<br />
In what follows I shall insist that the construction of images or image-like<br />
structures discussed in Kant’s theory of schematism has to be conceived<br />
of as embodied practices in the spatio-temporal domain in the way<br />
suggested above. I shall defend this position not only because I think that<br />
a careful reading of the Kantian text allows us to do so. I shall argue that<br />
37<br />
Ak VIII: 191, footnote. This point is also promoted by Saugstad, cf. e.g.<br />
Saugstad (1993), 109.<br />
38<br />
Kitcher (1990), 153.<br />
39<br />
Ibid., 156.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 197<br />
only by interpreting Kant’s theory of schematism in this way does the<br />
theory solve the problem that it is supposed to solve.<br />
Let me state again the question I take to stand at the centre of Kant’s<br />
theory of spatial schematism: how may concepts, which are not<br />
intuitions, still be applied to objects intuited in space? In trying to exhibit<br />
the structure of what I take to be the Kantian answer to this question, the<br />
first point to note is that the objects intuited are actually existing objects,<br />
that is, physical objects present in the same spatio-temporal domain we<br />
inhabit as embodied beings. That Kant takes space to be<br />
transcendentally ideal, and that this ideality also pertains to the spatial<br />
form of intuited objects, does not refute this point. 40<br />
I have argued that what Kant calls a schema in the schematism<br />
chapter is an embodied practice in which the shape of an object is<br />
created or re-created by an embodied agent through the movement of its<br />
body, or parts of its body. The essential insight I take to underlie his<br />
theory of spatial schematism is that only by conceiving of the schema as<br />
such a practice, unfolding in the same space as the one in which the<br />
intuited objects exist, does the theory fulfill its task. A theory of<br />
schematism operating solely at the level of inner representations cannot<br />
answer the relevant question, at least not as long as the objects the theory<br />
is supposed to deal with are empirical, spatio-temporal objects and not<br />
just representational images. A theory of schematism that operates only<br />
at the level of inner representations could perhaps explain how concepts<br />
apply to such representations, but it is incapable of explaining how it is<br />
possible for these concepts to apply also to empirical objects actually<br />
existing in time and space.<br />
This problem pertains, I think, to all those who take Kant’s theory of<br />
schematism to refer to the inner domain of human representations only,<br />
such as Ros, who takes the objects [Konkreta] referred to in the theory of<br />
schematism to be mental images. 41 The problem with a theory of<br />
schematism that deals only with mental images is that it does not go ‘all<br />
the way out’ to the actually existing world of spatio-temporal objects. It<br />
remains within the world of mental representations, where the final<br />
question remains unanswered: how do we connect this mental world with<br />
the world of physical objects that our thoughts, statements and theories<br />
are all about? 42 Once we assume that the schemata of Kant’s theory of<br />
40<br />
This point will be further discussed in chapter 7.<br />
41<br />
Ros (1990), 69.<br />
42<br />
For a somewhat different criticism of the mentalist position, see Bennett (1966),<br />
142.
198<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
spatial schematism are to be understood as embodied practices in the<br />
sense specified above, this problem is solved.<br />
If I am right, then it immediately follows also that the mind [Gemüt]<br />
of the Critique is an embodied mind. The point is simple: our mind can<br />
only conceptually recognize objects extended in time and space if it is<br />
itself extended in time and space, and if it has the capacity to move in<br />
space in the way specified above. This is possible only if the mind is<br />
embodied. For a disembodied mind, there would be no space, and no<br />
spatially extended objects. 43 A similar argument has been put forward by<br />
Gibbons. 44 She argues that Kant’s theory of schematism in the Critique<br />
implies that the cognitive agent exists in time and space. Not as radical,<br />
but with a similarly structured argument, Shaper argues that Kant’s<br />
theory of schematism implies that the mind of his transcendental<br />
psychology has to exist in time:<br />
The basic Kantian insight which lurks in the Schematism seems to<br />
me this: Though it is true that we construct, we construct not as<br />
minds, or intellects, not by being mind, but by being in time. I am not<br />
saying by ‘thinking in time’, or even ‘experiencing under the form of<br />
time’, which would be closer to the Kantian text, but ‘being in time’.<br />
Kant never put it quite like this. But it seems to me that this is what<br />
was hidden as the real modes of activity to which Kant referred, and<br />
with which he grappled in this chapter. Otherwise imagination would<br />
be a deus ex machina if ever there was one. 45<br />
6.9 Visual perception<br />
Does the interpretation now put forward apply also to visual perception?<br />
In order to examine this question, let us return to the example discussed<br />
above. In this example we imagined a blind person examining a wooden<br />
triangle with her hands. But what if the person could see? What if she did<br />
not have to use her hands to explore it, but could observe it in a single<br />
glance? If my interpretation is to hold, then we need a theory here that<br />
43<br />
Again it is tempting to refer to the general discussion of the embodied basis of<br />
spatial cognition going on in Europe in the eighteenth century. That a<br />
disembodied mind or a mind incapable of moving would possess no<br />
representation of space, is, perhaps, most dramatically stated by Rousseau, in his<br />
thought experiment with the oyster. Being without the capacity to move,<br />
Rousseau argues, the whole world must appear to the oyster as nothing but a<br />
point, cf. Rousseau (1979), 143.<br />
44<br />
Gibbons (1994), 62f.<br />
45<br />
Shaper (1992), 313-314.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 199<br />
states that in this case too some kind of embodied movement is necessary<br />
in order to recognize the triangle as a triangle, a movement similar in<br />
structure to the movement employed in the construction of a triangle.<br />
Does such a movement exist? If so, what could it be? One possible<br />
answer is that our eyes move as we observe the triangle. That is, in<br />
observing the triangle we let the focus of our eyes pass along its contours,<br />
and in doing this, our eyes make the required movement. The act may<br />
take place in less than a second and it may take place without explicit<br />
awareness, but nevertheless the movement is there. And again the<br />
movement is similar in structure to the one we would have used if we<br />
were to construct a triangle. 46 I take Kant’s point in the schematism<br />
chapter to be that we recognize a perceived triangle as a triangle when<br />
we see one, because this latter movement is the same in structure as the<br />
one we would have used to construct one, and that this similarity is<br />
noticed in the act of visual perception.<br />
From his reading of contemporary theories on visual perception,<br />
Kant was well aware that visual perception presupposes the movement of<br />
the eyes, or at least, this was what some of these theories claimed.<br />
Consequently there is nothing to prevent us from assuming that his<br />
theory of schematism can be interpreted as referring to such movements<br />
when applied to visual perception. Or perhaps we should use the term<br />
‘acts’ instead of ‘movements’, to emphasize that to Kant perception is<br />
something we actively perform, not just something we passively undergo.<br />
The same point may also be applied to the third example of the<br />
schematism chapter concerning the empirical representation of a dog.<br />
The concept of a dog signifies a rule in accordance with which my<br />
imagination can specify [verzeichnen] the shape of a four-footed<br />
animal in general, without being restricted to any single particular<br />
shape that experience offers me or any possible image that I can<br />
exhibit in concreto. (A 141/B 180)<br />
Interpreted according to the now established guidelines, we have here<br />
the concept of a dog, the schema of this concept, which is the method<br />
according to which an image of a dog is produced, and finally the image<br />
itself. Further, Kant uses the concept of drawing [verzeichnen] in order<br />
to describe the process of producing the form [Gestalt] of the dog.<br />
46<br />
Imagine, for instance, that the pupils of the observer sent out laser beams with<br />
the capacity to make marks in some background medium. Then the movements<br />
used to construct a triangle on this background would be the same as the ones<br />
made when the focus of the eyes passed along the contours of an existing triangle.
200<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
According to my interpretation, drawing should here again be<br />
understood in an extended sense. Thus in visually perceiving a dog, and<br />
recognizing it as a dog, the point is not that we literally draw its form or<br />
image. The point is that the observer lets her eyes move as their focus<br />
slides along the external contours of the dog’s shape, and in doing this<br />
she performs an act similar in structure to the one she would have<br />
performed in order to draw its image. If I am right, Kant’s basic idea in<br />
the third example of the schematism chapter is that the recognition of the<br />
dog as a dog takes place, not simply by looking at it, but by making a<br />
movement like the one just described, and, in making this movement,<br />
recognizing it as what Kant calls the schema of a dog.<br />
Of course, in this example the case is not as simple as in that of the<br />
triangle. First we have the problem that dogs come in more shapes and<br />
sizes than triangles because while all triangles have the same basic<br />
structure, dogs do not. Actually, it is probably impossible to identify a<br />
dog as a dog on the basis of shape alone. In order to recognize a dog as a<br />
dog, I assume that marks other than shape are necessary, for instance<br />
dogs bark, and a complete theory of schematism would have to take this<br />
into account. However, as I have now stated more than once, I do not<br />
think that the schematism theory of the Critique is intended as such a<br />
complete theory but deals only with a limited (although basic) aspect of<br />
schematism. In the present case, before we can recognize a dog as a dog<br />
on the basis of conceptual marks (e.g. dogs bark) we have to recognize it<br />
as an object with a spatial (and temporal) form. That is, we need<br />
something that mediates between the concept of a dog and the empirical<br />
dog as it exists in space (and time). This is what I think Kant deals with in<br />
the third example of the schematism chapter, i.e. as I have already<br />
suggested, I think he deals with the mediation between the concept and<br />
the dog qua spatial being.<br />
Another problem pertaining to the present case, and also to other<br />
cases of visual perception, is perspective. The perceived shape of an<br />
object varies relative to the perspective of the observer, and sometimes<br />
we need to see a three-dimensional object from more than one side in<br />
order to properly represent its shape. In such a case, a single act of<br />
‘drawing its shape’ is not enough. However, this is not my point. My<br />
point is the more general one that such a drawing has to be part of the<br />
schematic process. Whether it takes place in one step only, or in several<br />
steps, corresponding to various perspectives, is not relevant as far as this<br />
general point is concerned.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 201<br />
6.10 Schematism in the transcendental deduction<br />
This interpretation gives sense to a number of other passages that, even if<br />
they are not found in the schematism chapter, I still regard as part of<br />
Kant’s theory of schematism. These passages are found in the<br />
transcendental deduction, both in its A- and B-version. In order to have<br />
cognition of something in space, such as a line, I have to draw it, Kant<br />
argues, for instance at B 137-138. Similar examples are found<br />
elsewhere. 47 The reason I take these passages to be part of his theory of<br />
schematism is, first, they claim that cognition involves acts of<br />
construction, usually referred to by means of the verb ‘to draw’<br />
[zeichnen], and secondly, these constructions are claimed to be<br />
performed in the imagination. This is also, roughly, how Kant’s theory of<br />
schematism is presented in the schematism chapter. Following my<br />
interpretation of this chapter, however, I shall argue that the<br />
constructions referred to in these passages also refer to movements of the<br />
body or embodied acts in the way just specified.<br />
This interpretation is especially required, I think, at B 162. In order<br />
to perceive a house, Kant argues, I have to draw its shape:<br />
Thus if, e.g., I make the empirical intuition of a house into perception<br />
through apprehension of its manifold, my ground is the necessary<br />
unity of space and of outer sensible intuition in general, and I as it<br />
were draw its shape in agreement with this synthetic unity of the<br />
manifold in space. (B 162, my emphasis)<br />
It would be absurd to read this passage as claiming that the perception of<br />
a house requires that we literally draw its shape. According to my<br />
interpretation of Kant’s theory of schematism, however, the passage<br />
invites us to search for an embodied act that is structurally similar to the<br />
act we would have to perform in order to literally draw it. If we assume<br />
that the perception here described is visual, as the passage seems to<br />
suggest, this is most likely the act by which the observer moves her eyes<br />
as their focus slides along its external contours.<br />
6.11 Degrees of consciousness<br />
When I see a house from a distance, I am not normally aware that my<br />
eyes move as their focus slides along its external contours. However, seen<br />
from a Kantian perspective, this is no objection against the interpretation<br />
47 Cf. e.g. B 102, B 154 and B 162.
202<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
suggested. As we saw in an earlier chapter, Kant allows cognitive acts<br />
and processes to take place without consciousness. This idea, in a slightly<br />
modified version, is also explicitly present in the Critique. Instead of<br />
saying that part of the cognitive process, or the representations involved,<br />
are unconscious, Kant now introduces the notion of ‘obscure’ [dunkele]<br />
representations. An obscure representation, he explains, is not totally<br />
without consciousness, but it is a representation with very little<br />
consciousness. This revision may be seen as the necessary consequence of<br />
the idea, promoted in the Critique, that the ‘I think’ is a consciousness<br />
that accompanies all concepts. Consciousness in general is not a<br />
representation by which a certain object may be discerned, but simply<br />
the general form of an object, insofar as it is to count as part of our<br />
knowledge (A 346/B 404). According to this theory, consciousness is an<br />
absolute condition of having experience [Erkenntnis]. This does not<br />
mean, however, that cognition is always conscious in the ordinary sense<br />
of the term, that is, being the explicit focus of attention. There are a<br />
number of representations that are not explicit in this way. Kant calls<br />
these representations obscure. Cognition involving these representation<br />
may be said to proceed at an obscure level.<br />
The notion of an obscure representation is defined in a footnote at B<br />
414-415:<br />
Clarity is not, as the logicians say, the consciousness of a<br />
representation; for a certain degree of consciousness, which, however,<br />
is not sufficient for memory, must be met with even in some obscure<br />
representations, because without any consciousness we would make<br />
no distinction in the combination of obscure representations; yet we<br />
are capable of doing this with the marks of some concepts (such as<br />
those of right and equity, or those of a musician who, when<br />
improvising, hits many notes at the same time). Rather a<br />
representation is clear if the consciousness in it is sufficient for a<br />
consciousness of the difference between it and others. To be sure, if<br />
this consciousness suffices for a distinction, but not for a consciousness<br />
of the difference, then the representation must still be called obscure.<br />
So there are infinitely many degrees of consciousness down to its<br />
vanishing. (B 414-415)<br />
The distinction between clear and obscure representations does not<br />
conform to the opposition between conscious and unconscious<br />
representations. There are obscure representations among which we<br />
make distinctions, and this we could not do without consciousness. What<br />
makes these distinctions obscure is the fact that the consciousness<br />
involved is too weak to leave behind any memories.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 203<br />
Indirectly the notion of obscure representations is also implied, I<br />
think, by the idea, generally advanced in the Critique that consciousness<br />
comes in degrees. This idea is mentioned in the main text, just before the<br />
footnote:<br />
For even consciousness always has a degree, which can always be<br />
diminished. (B 415)<br />
This idea is also put forward, for example, at A 175/B 217. In a passage<br />
dealing with empirical consciousness in relation to inner sense, Kant<br />
explains that this consciousness may vary in degree from zero upwards. 48<br />
Several passages in the Critique also suggest that parts of the cognitive<br />
process may take place with little consciousness. A central passage in this<br />
respect is where Kant introduces the synthetic power of the imagination,<br />
a blind force we constantly apply but normally without explicit<br />
consciousness (A 78/B 103). A similar point is stated somewhat later,<br />
arguing that all synthesis is a product of the representative faculty, he<br />
adds that this may be either conscious or unconscious (B 130). It may be<br />
confusing that Kant says that the synthetic acts of the understanding are<br />
sometimes not conscious, and if I was right earlier then no thinking, and<br />
so no synthesis, can take place without consciousness. However, I think<br />
that Kant is talking here about what we, following the distinction made<br />
at B 414-415, may call obscure consciousness, and the same applies in<br />
other cases in the Critique when he refers to unconscious cognition.<br />
Kant’s idea that consciousness comes in degrees, can also, without<br />
difficulty, be applied to embodied acts or practices. Interestingly, the<br />
Critique contains at least one example that deals explicitly with an<br />
embodied act that is performed at an obscure level of consciousness.<br />
Actually, this example occurs in the same footnote where the notion of<br />
an obscure representation is defined. The example describes the<br />
improvisations of a musician (B 415). At some level the musician has to<br />
be aware of what he is doing, Kant argues, or else he could not produce<br />
music. More precisely, without consciousness he could not make the<br />
connections and distinctions that are needed in order to produce music.<br />
However, he cannot possibly have his attention focused on every single<br />
movement of his fingers. Thus, the rapid movements of his fingers are<br />
deliberately produced and accompanied with consciousness, but on an<br />
obscure level, so that when later asked to describe these movements, he<br />
would most likely be unable to do so.<br />
48 A 175/B 217. Cf. also B 208
204<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
All this does not prove that, for instance, the movements of the pupils<br />
of the eyes are usually involved in the conceptual recognition of an<br />
empirical object. But Kant’s theory of consciousness does not exclude<br />
this. On the contrary, the theory tells us that such movements could be<br />
involved, even if we were not explicitly aware of making them. They<br />
could be involved, even if they took place in less than a second and<br />
involved only the minutest changes in the positions of the pupils, as when<br />
a musician playing a guitar creates a subtle but stunning effect through<br />
an almost unnoticeable relocation of his fingers.<br />
6.12 The empirical aspect of apprehension<br />
In the previous chapter I argued that Kant’s theory of space in the<br />
Critique may be understood in part as an abstract version of his theory of<br />
the embodied constitution of space. I also argued that his theory of<br />
schematism may be used to support this interpretation. The point is<br />
simple. The theory of schematism is a theory about an embodied agent<br />
confronted with physical objects, and in order to subsume these objects<br />
under concepts, the agent performs certain embodied practices, as<br />
specified above. In order to do this, however, to use Kant’s own<br />
terminology, this agent has first to take up or apprehend the relevant<br />
objects in his empirical intuition. In the Critique, Kant tells us that such<br />
apprehension presupposes that the agent is both active and passive. The<br />
content of our empirical intuitions derives from the affection of the agent,<br />
while their spatio-temporal features are constituted through her activity.<br />
Now, if Kant’s theory of schematism demands that we conceive of<br />
this cognitive agent as embodied and regard the schemata as embodied<br />
practices, then this is also an argument in favor of the idea that embodied<br />
acts are also involved when the agent apprehends an empirical object.<br />
After all, we meet the same agent in both Kant’s theory of schematism<br />
and in his theory of apprehension.<br />
This point may also be stated in more formal terms. In a footnote at<br />
B 162 in the Critique, Kant states that the various syntheses described<br />
are all aspects of one and the same synthetic activity.:<br />
In such a way it is proved that the synthesis of apprehension, which is<br />
empirical, must necessarily be in agreement with the synthesis of<br />
apperception, which is intellectual and contained in the category<br />
entirely a priori. It is one and the same spontaneity that, there<br />
under the name of imagination and here under the name of<br />
understanding, brings combination into the manifold of intuition. (B<br />
162, note, my emphasis)
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 205<br />
As we saw in the previous chapter, Kant has a rather complex theory of<br />
the imaginative syntheses, involving the notion of a synthesis of<br />
apprehension, a synthesis of reproduction, and, in the B-deduction, a<br />
figurative synthesis, and then finally an intellectual synthesis. 49 In order to<br />
keep the present discussion from becoming unnecessarily complicated, I<br />
will here use the term ‘apprehension’ to include all these, except for the<br />
last one. By ‘apprehension’ I shall then mean the synthesis in which the<br />
empirical manifold is taken up, made conscious and organized in time<br />
and space. The point just made, however, implies that when Kant talks<br />
about apprehension in this sense, and when he talks about intellectual<br />
synthesis, he refers to the same spontaneity of one single individual.<br />
In the schematism chapter, where he is discussing how an object may<br />
be subsumed under a concept, I take Kant’s interest to be primarily<br />
directed at what I just called the intellectual synthesis. However, if I am<br />
right and this synthesis is only an aspect of the same spontaneity as the<br />
one in which the empirical manifold is taken up, made conscious and<br />
organized in time and space, then my interpretation of Kant’s theory of<br />
schematism has consequences for the interpretation of his theory of<br />
apprehension as well. Specifically, if the theory of schematism is taken to<br />
refer to embodied practices, and I have argued that it must be, then this<br />
interpretation also supports the claim made earlier that apprehension,<br />
according to the Critique, involves embodied acts. This is why I think<br />
Kant’s theory of schematism is not only relevant to the interpretation of<br />
Kant’s theory of apprehension, but essential for its proper understanding.<br />
The direction of my argument is the same as that suggested by<br />
Rossvær and others. Rossvær recommends that earlier parts of the<br />
Critique be understood in the light of what is established later in the<br />
text. 50 More specifically, he argues that the notion of a schema,<br />
established in the schematism chapter, is presupposed in the<br />
Transcendental aesthetic, even if the term is not explicitly mentioned<br />
there. 51 That a proper understanding of the Transcendental aesthetic<br />
requires that we first read and understand the schematism chapter is also<br />
maintained by Shaper:<br />
49 I here refer to what he calls ‘recognition in concepts’ in the A-deduction (A 97)<br />
and synthesis intellectualis in the B-deduction (B 151).<br />
50 Rossvær (1974), 100.<br />
51<br />
Ibid., 215.
206<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
And it is thus easier... […] to read the Critique backwards from<br />
Schematism than forwards from the Aesthetic. 52<br />
Now, I shall try to demonstrate how one and the same embodied act may<br />
illustrate both the synthesis of apprehension and the intellectual synthesis.<br />
Let us return to the example of a blind person investigating a wooden<br />
triangle with her hands. This example was used to illustrate how the<br />
movements made by the person’s hands made her recognize the triangle<br />
as a triangle. However, as is evident from the example, the act in which<br />
the person lets her hands pass over the triangle is also the act in which<br />
the triangle first comes into contact with the sensibility of that person,<br />
and in which it is ‘taken up’ or apprehended by her consciousness. Thus,<br />
the act also illustrates the synthesis of apprehension.<br />
If this is accepted, we may say that what Kant refers to as the<br />
affection of the senses is the effect produced by the triangle on the hands<br />
of the observer as she lets them pass along its edges. The spatial feature of<br />
the triangle, its shape, is constituted for the observer as this movement<br />
proceeds in space. Finally, the conceptual recognition of the triangle as<br />
such is due to the fact that the observer recognizes this movement as<br />
structurally similar to the movement involved in the construction of a<br />
triangle, that is, what Kant calls the schema of the triangle. Implied by<br />
this interpretation is the idea that whenever the term ‘affection’ is used in<br />
the Critique, i.e. in its theory of the outer sense, it refers to an event in<br />
which the body of the cognitive agent is literally affected by some<br />
external object or some other physical cause. When perception is visual,<br />
the affection is mediated by the light reflected from the object perceived.<br />
According to my interpretation, however, its apprehension still requires<br />
embodied movement, that is, the movement of the pupils as their focus<br />
slide along the external contours of the object.<br />
This point may also be seen as supported by the fact that in the Bdeduction<br />
Kant uses the expression ‘to draw’, and presents examples in<br />
which this term is used, to illustrate both the synthesis of apprehension<br />
and the intellectual synthesis. This, at least, is how I interpret him. I take<br />
the example at B 162 about the house as particularly illustrating the<br />
synthesis of apprehension, while the example found at B 137-138 (the<br />
drawing of a line) seems primarily to be meant as an illustration of the<br />
intellectual synthesis.<br />
52 Schaper (1992), 312.
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 207<br />
6.13 Falkenstein’s argument concerning intuition and body in the<br />
Critique<br />
In this chapter I have emphasized the connection between Kant’s theory<br />
of spatial experience in the Transcendental aesthetic and his theory of<br />
spatial schematism as found in the schematism chapter. Both these<br />
theories demand that we see the cognitive self as embodied, and that the<br />
cognitive operations ascribed to this self are taken to involve embodied<br />
acts. In this section I shall discuss an interpretation that to some extent<br />
moves along the same lines. It is found in Lorne Falkenstein’s Kant’s<br />
Intuitionism. 53 In an argument somewhat different from mine but with a<br />
similar conclusion, Falkenstein argues that Kant’s theory of intuition in<br />
the Transcendental aesthetic implies that the cognitive self of the<br />
Critique is embodied.<br />
Falkenstein’s interpretation is interesting, because even if he admits<br />
this, and even if he contends that the term ‘affection’ in Kant’s theory of<br />
intuition refers to the affection of the body, he denies that the notion of<br />
embodied acts has anything to do with Kant’s theory of space. Actually,<br />
he argues, our experience of space does not require any activity on behalf<br />
of the agent at all. In this way, Falkenstein’s interpretation runs contrary<br />
to my reading of Kant’s critical theory of space. I shall briefly consider<br />
this interpretation and then suggest how it may be dealt with.<br />
A basic premise of Falkenstein’s interpretation is the idea expressed<br />
by Kant in the Transcendental aesthetic that space is given. According to<br />
Falkenstein, this implies that our perceptions are spatially structured<br />
when they are taken up by the mind, i.e. prior to any activity. This again<br />
implies not only that the cognitive self exists in time, as Shaper has also<br />
pointed out, 54<br />
but also that this self has an existence in space as well, i.e.<br />
that it is an embodied self, even if this is not explicitly stated in the<br />
Critique. Falkenstein’s argument may be summarized by saying that as<br />
the stimuli corresponding to our perceptions hit the body at various<br />
places, they are spatially structured from the very start, and that is why<br />
Kant can contend that space is given. That is, space is from the very<br />
beginning an aspect of the manner in which sensations are received. He<br />
concludes:<br />
53<br />
Falkenstein (1995), cf. also Falkenstein (1998).<br />
54<br />
Shaper (1992).
208<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
There is strong evidence, therefore, that Kant did indeed take<br />
sensations, as ‘effects on the representative capacity’ arrayed in space<br />
as well as time, to be physiological states of the body of the<br />
perceiver. 55<br />
So far I am in agreement. Falkenstein’s argument, however, differs from<br />
mine on a vital point. While he argues correctly that Kant’s critical<br />
theory of space implies that the cognitive self is spatially extended, he<br />
opposes the idea that the spatial form of the representations of this agent<br />
requires activity. Expressed in more Kantian terms, he denies that this<br />
form is constituted through what in the Critique is called synthesis.<br />
Falkenstein acknowledges, of course, the Kantian thesis that all<br />
experience is ordered and determined by the synthesizing activity of the<br />
understanding. Thus, there is a sense in which space is also synthesized.<br />
However, he contends that this synthesis concerns only the conceptual<br />
determination of space, not its original constitution and that it is not the<br />
case, as some claim, that Kant took space to be first constituted through<br />
intellectual operations, such as the figurative synthesis of imagination. 56<br />
Space exists for us prior to any synthesizing activity. It is part of what is<br />
originally given in our experience. This is why Kant claimed that space is<br />
intuited. It is intuited, and at the same time it is also the form in which<br />
our sensations appear. Thus, Falkenstein calls his position ‘formal<br />
intuitionism’. 57<br />
Falkenstein argues that his conclusion may only be reached indirectly.<br />
As experience, according to the Critique, is always ordered and<br />
determined by the categories, there are no separate products of the lower<br />
faculty of sensibility, such as space, that we can examine without making<br />
them products of the higher faculty of the understanding first. 58 He<br />
writes:<br />
55 Falkenstein (1995), 123.<br />
56 Falkenstein (1995), 4.<br />
57 According to Falkenstein the same point also applies to time.<br />
58 Cf. Falkenstein (1995), 55. This is why, Falkenstein argues, in the<br />
Transcendental exposition Kant explicitly discusses the concepts of time and<br />
space, that is, time and space qua determined by the categories, and not time and<br />
space as intuitions (ibid., 63-64).
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 209<br />
Given that the representations of intuition are, though not nothing,<br />
certainly ‘nothing to us’ prior to intellectual synthesis, we cannot<br />
possibly strip the contributions made by the intellect out of<br />
experience and attempt thereby to uncover a set of essential features<br />
characterizing a sensory representation. 59<br />
Kant’s strategy in the Transcendental aesthetic, therefore, has to be<br />
indirect. In order to prove that space is given, Kant has to show that it<br />
cannot be produced through synthesis, that is, it cannot come into<br />
existence as a result of a process in which material is unified that is in<br />
itself in no way spatial. 60 According to Falkenstein, this is what Kant does.<br />
Even if I do not think that this interpretation is entirely wrong, yet I<br />
think it has its weaknesses. One is that Falkenstein bases his<br />
interpretation of Kant’s intuitionism almost exclusively on the<br />
Transcendental aesthetic, where Kant first discusses the notion of space.<br />
Here Kant still operates with a strong dichotomy between sensibility and<br />
understanding, corresponding to the passive and active side of cognition.<br />
I have argued, however, that this dichotomy is undermined and finally<br />
revised in the Transcendental analytic.<br />
Before continuing with my criticism, let me add that in a limited<br />
sense I think Falkenstein is right to claim that knowledge of space<br />
requires no activity. In Directions in space we learn that we have a<br />
primitive awareness of space solely through the fact that we are<br />
embodied. For instance, Kant refers to our intuitive capacity for<br />
distinguishing between the right and left parts of our body. The point<br />
seems to be that from this experience alone, a primitive intuitive notion<br />
of space emerges. If this is so, then it is also possible to argue that we may<br />
be externally passive and still be aware of the position at which an<br />
impression reaching us from an external source affects us, which is<br />
Falkenstein’s point if I understand him correctly. Analyzed in this way,<br />
and at this level, space may be said to be present prior to any activity, i.e.<br />
as the spatial structure of the stimuli affecting our body surface. And if<br />
Kant’s theory of space in the Critique reflects the insights developed in<br />
e.g. Directions in space, then a corresponding notion of a primitive space<br />
may be found here also, that is, the notion of a space existing prior to any<br />
kind of synthesis, a space that is simply given or intuited, as Falkenstein<br />
claims.<br />
59 Ibid., 63.<br />
60 Ibid., 64.
210<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
However, even if the Critique may contain the idea of such a<br />
primitive space, we are seriously misled if we believe we have now<br />
reached the core of Kant’s critical theory of space, because this theory<br />
aims much wider. Its task is to explain how it is possible for us to have<br />
knowledge of objects in space, and of the shape and the reciprocal<br />
relations of these objects. To know this, more is required than just to be<br />
affected by these objects, even if this affection has a spatial structure in<br />
the way that Falkenstein claims. What is required is activity: the cognitive<br />
agent has to be able to move. This is what I take to be Kant’s insight<br />
before, in and after the Critique. And when in the Critique he describes<br />
this activity with a terminology that seems to suggest that the activity in<br />
question is mental or internal, for example when he uses the term<br />
‘synthesis’, a further examination reveals that this is not the case after all.<br />
The acts referred to by the Kantian term synthesis also include embodied<br />
acts. 61<br />
Falkenstein fails to see this by uncritically adopting a far too narrow<br />
conception of the term ‘synthesis’, according to which the synthetic acts<br />
described in the Critique are purely intellectual acts whose main function<br />
is to unite material supplied by the senses, material that already has a<br />
temporal and spatial form. Thus, he conceives of even the figurative<br />
synthesis as intellectual. However, Kant classifies it as an imaginative<br />
synthesis, and if I am right, it corresponds to what Kant calls the<br />
syntheses of apprehension and reproduction. As I have argued, it needs<br />
to be conceived of as a constructive activity involving the body. With his<br />
far too narrow conception of synthesis, Falkenstein fails to see this point.<br />
6.14 The embodied agent<br />
According to Hans Blumenberg, most scientific and philosophical<br />
theories rest on a basic metaphor. 62<br />
The term ‘metaphor’ is here used in<br />
the sense of an image serving as a model from which the basic structure<br />
and concepts of the theory are derived, without, however, entering the<br />
field of abstract discourse itself, except through occasional references.<br />
The metaphor belongs to what I have called the background or horizon<br />
within which the more abstract theory is developed. 63<br />
Without intending<br />
to go deeply into this subject, I think that, in the Critique, the embodied<br />
agent is Kant’s basic metaphor in a Blumenbergian sense. An embodied<br />
61<br />
Cf. e.g. my discussion of the synthesis of apprehension.<br />
62<br />
Blumenberg (1960).<br />
63<br />
Cf. also Black (1962).
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 211<br />
agent moving around in the world, actively interacting with its physical<br />
objects, touching, grasping, holding, etc, is the reservoir supplying Kant<br />
with his basic perspectives, concepts and theories. 64 Typical of this agent<br />
is that she uses her whole body as an instrument of cognition. She<br />
benefits from the fact that she can feel all the parts of her body, the<br />
movements of those parts and their positions relative to each other. And<br />
she relies on the impressions received from without, mediated by her<br />
outer senses, located at the surface or close to the surface of her body.<br />
Also essential is her ability to grasp and hold objects, without which she<br />
would have no concept of their spatial shape.<br />
Against this background, it is ironic, and a symptom of the<br />
interpretative challenges offered by the Critique, when Bennett<br />
complains that Kant is misled by his far too frequent use of terms<br />
referring to the visual field. Kant shares that preoccupation with the<br />
visual that has weakened and narrowed epistemology for centuries,<br />
Bennett claims. Throughout the Transcendental aesthetic he virtually<br />
equates outer sense with eyesight. This prevents him from considering<br />
other possible spaces, such as auditory space. 65 In actual life, there are<br />
plenty of alternatives to eyesight that help us orient ourselves in the<br />
world, Bennett maintains. His example is a blind man trying to find his<br />
way through a valley with a road, a farmhouse etc:<br />
I do not need eyesight to discover how the things in the valley are<br />
disposed: A man blindfold could find out by stumbling down into the<br />
valley, feeling the road under his feet, then colliding with the<br />
farmhouse, and so on. He would steer primarily by touch and by his<br />
so-called kinaesthetic sense, i.e. his ability to know where and how he<br />
is moving. 66<br />
If Bennett had studied the Anthropology and related works he would<br />
perhaps not have been quite as critical. As we have seen, there Kant<br />
discusses how we use the body to orient ourselves in space in much the<br />
same way as Bennett suggests, for instance when we move in a dark<br />
room, we rely on the distinction that we feel between the right and left<br />
sides of the body, or we make use of the echo reflected off the walls. As I<br />
have argued in this chapter, this perspective is also implied in the<br />
64<br />
For a more thorough investigation into Kant’s basic metaphors, see Sommer<br />
(1977).<br />
65<br />
Bennett (1966), 29.<br />
66<br />
Ibid., 29-30.
212<br />
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM<br />
Critique, and nowhere more than in the schematism chapter. If this<br />
chapter gives the key to a proper understanding of other parts of the<br />
Critique, however, then the same point applies to all of the Critique. In<br />
the next chapter I will discuss how this may further enhance our<br />
understanding of the text.<br />
6.15 Summary<br />
In this chapter I have discussed Kant’s theory of schematism as it is<br />
found in the Critique. As I read it, the task of Kant’s theory of<br />
schematism is to establish how our concepts apply to the world of objects<br />
intuited in time and space. And even if Kant himself is not always explicit<br />
on this point, I maintain that it is possible to distinguish two parts within<br />
this project, one having to do with temporal schematism (time) and one<br />
with spatial schematism (space). In this chapter I have only discussed<br />
Kant’s theory of spatial schematism. The basic idea of this theory,<br />
according to my interpretation, is that in order to subsume a spatially<br />
extended object under its concept, we have, by means of our body or<br />
parts of our body, to copy or recreate its shape in an act similar to<br />
drawing. More specifically, such an embodied practice is what Kant calls<br />
a schema. Using a triangle as an example, Kant’s basic idea is that the<br />
recognition of a triangle as a triangle takes place by making a movement<br />
similar to the one involved in the construction of a triangle, and, in<br />
making this movement, to recognize it as the movement involved in such<br />
a construction.<br />
I have also discussed how the Kantian term ‘imagination’ is to be<br />
understood. I have argued that in the context of Kantian philosophy the<br />
term refers to the human capacity for image production in general. This<br />
means that the imagination is active whenever a person uses her body to<br />
create images or image-like structures, whether this results in a material<br />
image, or not.
7. THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
The difference between the transcendental and<br />
the empirical therefore belongs only to the<br />
critique of cognitions [Erkenntnisse] and does not<br />
concern their relation to their object.<br />
From the Critique 1<br />
I have argued that Kant’s theory of cognition in the Critique may be<br />
read, at least in part, as referring to embodied acts and events. For<br />
instance, I have argued that when he says that the empirical content of<br />
our intuitions originates in the affection of the mind, then the mind in<br />
question has to be conceived of as an embodied mind, and what Kant<br />
refers to by the term ‘affection’ should be understood as the affection of<br />
the physical senses of the body. I have also argued that when Kant says<br />
that space and time qua forms of intuition are produced by the mind's<br />
activity, this is the embodied activity of an embodied mind. I have even<br />
argued that his theory of subsumption under concepts in the schematism<br />
chapter may be read as a theory referring to embodied practices. In the<br />
following I will refer to all this as ‘Kant’s theory of embodied cognition’.<br />
When claims like this are put forward, two objections are typically<br />
raised, both having to do with the distinction between the empirical and<br />
the transcendental. The first objection relates to the epistemic project of<br />
the Critique and involves the claim that our knowledge of the body is<br />
empirical, and that empirical observation cannot support the a priori<br />
claims of transcendental philosophy. I shall discuss this objection in a<br />
later chapter. In this chapter I shall discuss another potential objection to<br />
the above interpretation. It may be stated like this. In the Critique Kant<br />
establishes a transcendental philosophy, and along with this a<br />
transcendental perspective. This perspective is to be kept sharply distinct<br />
from an empirical perspective, the perspective we use to describe the<br />
empirical world. And even if the task of transcendental philosophy is to<br />
answer how it is possible to have objective knowledge of the empirical<br />
world, transcendental philosophy itself is not about this world. This,<br />
again, means that we cannot take the concepts of transcendental<br />
1<br />
A 55/B 81.
214<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
philosophy to refer to phenomena known from the empirical world.<br />
When, for instance, in his transcendental philosophy Kant talks about<br />
the affection of the cognitive agent, this cannot be interpreted as a theory<br />
of physical affection. Neither can Kant’s transcendental theory of<br />
cognitive activity be interpreted as referring to embodied acts. To do this<br />
would involve what may be termed a ‘transcendental transgression’ and<br />
would mean that we gave up the distinction between the transcendental<br />
and empirical that Kant demands we uphold.<br />
A version of this position is represented by Strawson. According to<br />
Strawson, Kant tries to discover the limits of human knowledge from a<br />
position outside these limits, or, as Strawson puts it, Kant ‘seeks to draw<br />
the bounds of sense from a point outside them’. 2 From this he concludes<br />
that the syntheses described in the Critique belong to a theory of a mind<br />
that cannot be empirically observed. Kant’s theory of these syntheses,<br />
therefore, cannot be interpreted as referring to anything we know from<br />
the empirical world. A similar point is made by Bennett. 3 As we have<br />
seen, not all agree with Strawson and Bennett on these points. So for<br />
instance, Falkenstein argues that Kant’s critical theory of space in the<br />
Transcendental aesthetic implies that the mind of the Critique is<br />
embodied, and, consequently that parts of the cognitive process<br />
described in Kant’s transcendental psychology also involve the body. 4<br />
Starting out from Kant’s theory of schematism, Shaper argues it implies<br />
that the mind described in the Critique has to be conceived of as existing<br />
in time and so not fully outside the spatio-temporal domain. 5 Even if I<br />
agree with both Falkenstein, Shaper and others on the point that the<br />
mind described in the Critique both can and must be conceived of as<br />
embodied, I also take the position defended by Strawson, Bennett and<br />
others seriously. I think that Kant’s way of presenting his transcendental<br />
philosophy may very easily be misread in a way that may seem to make<br />
such a position unavoidable.<br />
In promoting his transcendental idealism, Kant argues that all our<br />
experience is representational and that time and space are nothing but<br />
subjective forms of intuition. Moreover, he claims that there is an aspect<br />
of reality (the world as it is independently of our way of experiencing it)<br />
2<br />
Strawson (1973), 12.<br />
3<br />
Discussing Kant’s theory of sensibility, Bennett argues that what Kant in the<br />
Critique calls the outer sense cannot be identified with our biological senseorgans<br />
(Bennett (1966), 18).<br />
4<br />
Falkenstein (1995).<br />
5<br />
Shaper (1992).
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 215<br />
to which these forms do not apply. In making these claims one may easily<br />
get the impression that Kant is speaking from a point beyond the<br />
empirical world. The same applies to the transcendental theory by which<br />
he purports to explain how our representations of this empirical world<br />
are constituted. Although Kant maintains that there is no way in which<br />
we can escape our subjective forms of experience, nevertheless he seems<br />
to have discovered a method (in the form of a transcendental reflection)<br />
by which such a position may still be reached, a position from which we<br />
may explain transcendentally how our representations are constituted,<br />
without including in our explanation anything empirical.<br />
In this chapter I shall argue, however, that despite how it may seem,<br />
Kant’s transcendental idealism does not demand that we adopt an<br />
interpretation like this one. Another interpretation of this idealism is<br />
possible according to which we may both maintain all its basic doctrines<br />
and at the same time, without inconsistency, conceive of the cognitive<br />
agent of the Critique as embodied and the transcendental psychology<br />
associated with this agent as referring to embodied acts and events.<br />
Actually, I shall argue that Kant’s transcendental idealism follows from a<br />
line of reflection in which the embodied self and the embodied nature of<br />
human cognition are basic premises. Within the context of this<br />
interpretation, the idea of embodied cognition is not foreign to or<br />
inconsistent with Kant’s transcendental idealism. On the contrary,<br />
because it is a premise underlying transcendental idealism, in promoting<br />
this idealism Kant both accepts and presupposes that cognition is<br />
embodied.<br />
It may be argued that this strategy involves a vicious circularity. In<br />
order to defend the idea that the embodied mind has a central place<br />
within Kant’s transcendental philosophy I argue that transcendental<br />
idealism may be seen as the end product of a line of reflection taking as<br />
its starting point the idea that the human mind and human cognition is<br />
embodied. Thus I assume what is to be proved. However, I have already<br />
given independent arguments in support of the idea that the cognitive<br />
agent of the Critique is an embodied self and that its cognition is<br />
embodied. This is not an ad hoc hypothesis suddenly introduced at this<br />
point. Secondly, my immediate aim in this chapter is not to supply<br />
further proofs for this idea. My aim is more modestly to argue that it is<br />
not contradicted by Kant’s transcendental idealism, if only we<br />
understand it in the right way.<br />
The following discussion will touch upon topics that have been<br />
extensively discussed in Kant scholarship, such as the relation between<br />
empirical objects and things in themselves. I will reflect upon my position<br />
relative to this discussion towards the end of this chapter. First, however,
216<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
I shall spend some time examining Kant’s transcendental idealism as it is<br />
put forward in the Critique. Then I shall discuss in more detail how this<br />
idealism seems to jeopardize my claim that embodied acts and practices<br />
are central to the cognitive theory of the Critique. Finally, I shall present<br />
my own conception of this transcendental idealism. In order to prevent<br />
the discussion from becoming too voluminous, I shall focus on space in<br />
particular, that is the transcendental ideality of space, in this chapter.<br />
The transcendental ideality of time will be discussed in a later chapter.<br />
7.1 The transcendental distinction<br />
The term ‘transcendental idealism’ is introduced late in the Critique. In<br />
the A-edition it is first introduced in the paralogism chapter, and in the<br />
following way:<br />
I understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the<br />
doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere<br />
representations and not as things in themselves, and accordingly that<br />
space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not<br />
determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things<br />
in themselves. (A 369)<br />
In short, transcendental idealism involves the idea that appearances are<br />
nothing but representations [Vorstellungen]. Further it draws a<br />
distinction between these representations on the one hand, and what<br />
Kant calls the thing or things in themselves. 6 Let us call this ‘the<br />
6 Kant’s way of denoting what we called ‘things in themselves’ varies throughout<br />
the Critique. Sometimes he uses the singular form Ding an sich selbst or Sache<br />
an sich selbst. Sometimes he uses the same expressions in plural. According to<br />
Prauss (1974), 13ff., however, Kant most typically uses the expression Ding an<br />
sich selbst betrachtet, or versions of this, suggesting that the thing in question is<br />
not ontologically distinct from the ordinary things of our experience, but identical<br />
to them, only that everything pertaining to our human way of experiencing them<br />
has now been abstracted away. Kant sometimes also seems to be using the notion<br />
of das transzendentale Objekt (e.g. A 46/B 63 and A 494/B 522) and das<br />
transzendentale Gegenstand (A 109) in the same sense. For instance, using<br />
raindrops as an example, at A 46/B 63 Kant claims that not only are they<br />
appearances, so are their round form, and even the space through which they<br />
fall. The transcendental object, however, is unknown. At other places, however,<br />
he seems to be using the concept of a transcendental object in a different sense, as<br />
referring to the unity which must be present in a manifold if we are to experience<br />
it as an object, cf. for instance A 109. Prauss (1974), 126 claims that the notion of
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 217<br />
transcendental distinction’. 7 Further, transcendental idealism involves the<br />
claim that we cannot know anything about the nature of the things in<br />
themselves on the basis of our representations. Doing this would involve<br />
what we may call a transcendental transgression.<br />
Even if the term is introduced in the A-edition as late as the<br />
paralogism chapter, and even later in the B-edition, transcendental<br />
idealism is implicitly present in the Critique from the very beginning.<br />
Thus, in claiming the transcendental ideality of time and space, the<br />
above passage refers directly back to the Transcendental aesthetic. At A<br />
26/B 42, for instance, Kant maintains that space is nothing but the form<br />
of the appearances of the outer sense. Shortly thereafter, at A 28/B 44,<br />
he concludes that the things in themselves cannot be ascribed spatial<br />
determinations. Thus, where space is concerned, Kant claims that:<br />
... it is nothing as soon as we leave out the condition of the possibility<br />
of all experience, and take it as something that grounds the things in<br />
themselves. (A 28/B 44)<br />
Transcendental ideality is likewise ascribed to time, for instance at A<br />
32/B 49, and then again promoted in general in the Transcendental<br />
logic, cf. e.g. B 164:<br />
But appearances are only representations of things that exist without<br />
cognition of what they might be in themselves. (B 164)<br />
In the passage just quoted, the term ‘appearance’ is said to involve<br />
nothing but the representation of a thing. The term is further defined at<br />
A 20/B 34 as the undetermined object [Gegenstand] of an empirical<br />
intuition.<br />
the transcendental object must be kept distinct from the notion of the thing in<br />
itself. As we have just seen, however, Kant’s use of the term transcendental object<br />
is ambiguous, so that an absolute distinction is hard to maintain.<br />
7<br />
Kant at A 44/B 62 refers to it as a transzendentaler Unterschied. Here the<br />
distinction is drawn between appearances and things in themselves. Below I will<br />
argue that Kant’s point is that no representation can ever tell us anything about<br />
the things in themselves. Thus the transcendental distinction, properly described,<br />
has to be drawn between the representational domain on the one side, and the<br />
things in themselves on the other.
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That intuition which is related to the object through sensation is<br />
called empirical. The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is<br />
called appearance. (A 20/B 34)<br />
As this undetermined object appears in time and space, and time and<br />
space are nothing but the forms in which objects are represented, it<br />
follows that we cannot, on the basis of how objects appear to us, say how<br />
these objects are in themselves.<br />
7.2 The unknown subject<br />
Kant presents a parallel argument regarding self-knowledge. Through<br />
the inner sense I observe my inner life, the form of which is time.<br />
Through the outer sense, the form of which is space, I observe myself as<br />
a body. However, doing this I observe myself only as I appear to myself,<br />
not as I am considered as a thing in itself. 8 That there is a clear limit to<br />
what we can know about ourselves, is also argued in the paralogism<br />
chapter of the A-and B-edition. Here I will present a brief exposition of<br />
the argument of the paralogism chapter of the A-edition. This chapter is<br />
notoriously difficult and I do not intend to give an extensive analysis of it<br />
here. At first sight, and this is also how the chapter is commonly read, its<br />
main agenda is to refute the claims of rational psychology as represented<br />
by Wolff and other rationalist philosophers. We may, however, also<br />
discern another agenda in the paralogism chapter that is perhaps just as<br />
important, if not even more. Starting with a general discussion of selfconsciousness,<br />
Kant discusses what we can learn about ourselves as<br />
human beings from the fact that we are self-conscious.<br />
Our capacity for self-consciousness is central to both the A- and the<br />
B-versions of the transcendental deduction. In the A-deduction selfconsciousness<br />
is introduced in the chapter called ‘On the synthesis of<br />
recognition in the concept’ (A 103 ff.). Kant begins by stating that<br />
cognition presupposes the capacity of being conscious that what we<br />
thought a moment ago is the same as what we think now. Without this<br />
capacity, the manifold of our intuitions would never constitute a whole. It<br />
would lack the unity that only this consciousness can give it. In order to<br />
denote this consciousness Kant introduces the term ‘transcendental<br />
apperception’ (A 106). Transcendental apperception is a pure, original<br />
and unchanging consciousness. It is necessarily represented as being<br />
numerically identical. And as all unity in experience presupposes this<br />
8 Cf. e.g. B 156.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 219<br />
consciousness, it is an a priori condition of the possibility of experience (A<br />
108).<br />
7.3 The temptations of self-consciousness<br />
What can we learn about ourselves from the fact that we have this<br />
specific kind of self-consciousness called transcendental apperception? If<br />
we return to rational psychology, as Kant deals with it in the paralogism<br />
chapter, from the fact that we are self-conscious, rational psychology has<br />
thought it possible to infer a number of conclusions regarding what it<br />
calls ‘the soul’, Kant writes. Not only is the soul taken to be the most<br />
essential part of us, but according to rational psychology it is a substance,<br />
single, without parts and numerically identical through time. From this<br />
rational psychology has further inferred its immortality.<br />
In all these arguments rational psychology has used the sentence ‘I<br />
think’ as its only premise, Kant claims.<br />
I think is thus the sole text of rational psychology, from which it is to<br />
develop its entire wisdom. (A 343/B 401)<br />
But are the deductions of rational psychology tenable? As readers of<br />
Kant are well aware, he firmly denies this. His official strategy is to show<br />
that the arguments of rational psychology involve a misuse of logic (A<br />
341/B 399). It is, however, also possible to extract another argument<br />
from the paralogism chapter: the error of rational psychology is due to a<br />
transcendental transgression. The argument is that rational psychology<br />
has regarded human self-consciousness as a privileged source of<br />
knowledge about what we really are as human beings. Using Kant’s<br />
terminology, we may say that it claims to have access to knowledge of<br />
what a human being is, considered as a thing in itself. But, human selfconsciousness<br />
is no such source. It is a representation, and as such, it tells<br />
us nothing about ourselves considered as a thing in itself. Rational<br />
psychology has failed to see this and so is guilty of the charge of<br />
transcendental transgression.<br />
Kant supports this point in various ways. Sometimes he argues that in<br />
analyzing self-consciousness we find nothing but the structure of our<br />
representations, or as he puts it, the form our representations necessarily<br />
must have in order to belong to our consciousness (A 363). At other times<br />
he refers to the ‘I think’, or more specifically, the ‘I’ of ‘I think’, as a<br />
representation, for instance here:
220<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
But ‘I am simple’ signifies no more than that this representation ‘I’<br />
encompasses not the least manifoldness within itself, and that it is an<br />
absolute (though merely logical) unity. (A 355)<br />
I will not try to decide here which of the above descriptions best covers<br />
Kant’s point but I will simply repeat what I take to be his basic agenda in<br />
these passages. In analyzing self-consciousness, we never leave the field of<br />
our representations, so there is no way in which transcendental<br />
apperception may be used as a premise from which we may deduce what<br />
a human subject is qua thing in itself. A few pages later, Kant refers to<br />
this unknown and unknowable subject as ‘the transcendental subject’ (A<br />
356). 9<br />
As I see it, Kant’s concept of the transcendental subject is a clear<br />
parallel to his concept of a thing in itself. Just as our empirical<br />
representation of an object does not tell us the whole truth about what<br />
such an object is, so, according to Kant, analyzing our representations<br />
does not tell us the whole truth about who we are considered as thinking<br />
beings. In both cases, there remains something unknown that will forever<br />
remain beyond the reach of human knowledge. 10<br />
7.4 The unknown origin of affection<br />
How does Kant’s theory of embodied cognition, which I claim is implied<br />
and presupposed by the abstract discourse of the Critique, fit with Kant's<br />
transcendental idealism? As was suggested in the introduction to this<br />
chapter, there are problems involved in trying to combine these two<br />
perspectives. In this section I shall take a closer look at these problems,<br />
and then argue how they may be overcome. Let me start by focusing on<br />
Kant’s idea that sensation involves affection.<br />
According to Kant’s theory of embodied cognition (cf. e.g. the<br />
Anthropology), all sensation involves the body being affected directly or<br />
indirectly by physical objects. According to the transcendental idealism of<br />
the Critique we are justified, as part of an empirical psychology, in<br />
9<br />
See also A 354, A 355, A 381 and A 382.<br />
10<br />
This I also take to be Allison’s point (1983), 287 when he writes: ‘The Critique<br />
contains two distinct and incompatible doctrines about the relation between the<br />
subject of apperception and the noumenal self. According to one, which is Kant’s<br />
official position, the subject of apperception is identified simply with the<br />
noumenal or ‘real’ self. According to the other, which I take to express Kant’s<br />
deepest view, the subject of apperception is distinguished from the noumenal self,<br />
indeed, from any kind of intelligible object.<br />
‘
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 221<br />
exploring the physical interaction between the human body and other<br />
physical objects, and trying to identify how this interaction affects us.<br />
However, once we shift to a transcendental perspective, we realize that in<br />
doing this, we only describe ourselves and the physical objects affecting<br />
us as they appear, that is as appearances. Considered transcendentally,<br />
what we describe is nothing but representations. In these representations<br />
we may distinguish between their a priori form, which according to the<br />
theory is supplied by ourselves, and their content, which according to the<br />
theory is produced by the affection of the mind.<br />
Now, what is this affection of the mind? How does it take place? If we<br />
are to answer this question from a transcendental perspective, it seems<br />
that we cannot answer it by referring to the affection that we observe<br />
empirically. If we did this, we would end up with a circular explanation.<br />
We would then explain the empirical content of our representations by<br />
referring to the very same representations the theory was supposed to<br />
explain. 11 In order to avoid this circularity, it seems we have no other<br />
option but to seek the source of the affection of the mind outside the<br />
representational domain, that is in the domain of the things in<br />
themselves.<br />
This also seems to be Kant's idea, for instance at A 494/B 522, where<br />
he states:<br />
The sensible faculty of intuition is really only a receptivity for being<br />
affected in a certain way with representations, whose relation to one<br />
another is a pure intuition of space and time (pure forms of our<br />
sensibility), which, insofar as they are connected and determinable in<br />
these relations (in space and time) according to laws of the unity of<br />
experience, are called objects. The non-sensible cause of these<br />
representations is entirely unknown to us, and therefore we cannot<br />
intuit it as an object; for such an object would have to be represented<br />
neither in space nor in time (as mere conditions of our sensible<br />
representation), without which conditions we cannot think any<br />
intuition. Meanwhile we can call the merely intelligible cause of<br />
appearances in general the transcendental object, merely so that we<br />
may have something corresponding to sensibility as a receptivity. (A<br />
494/B 522, my emphasis)<br />
In this passage the affection of the mind is claimed to be produced by a<br />
non-empirical cause, here called ‘the transcendental object’. This non-<br />
11<br />
That is, the theory was supposed to explain a certain aspect of this experience,<br />
what Kant calls its matter.
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empirical cause, Kant emphasizes, is totally unknown; all we can know is<br />
that it exists. The conclusion seems to be that from a transcendental<br />
perspective we can say nothing about the original affection of the mind<br />
other than that this affection occurs.<br />
Also, to claim that this original affection involves the body seems not<br />
only to lead to circularity but it also seems to involve a transcendental<br />
transgression in which elements from the representational domain are<br />
illicitly used to make claims about the transcendental domain of things in<br />
themselves. However, as Kant does not allow such transgressions to take<br />
place, it seems as if his embodied account of the affection of the senses<br />
has to be strictly distinguished from his transcendental account of<br />
affection. 12 If so, it seems we also have to reject the idea that the theory of<br />
affection found in the Critique gives an abstract account of the theory of<br />
embodied affection put forward in other texts.<br />
An argument similar to the one just suggested may also be used in an<br />
attempt to refute the idea that our representations of time and space are<br />
constituted by embodied acts. From a transcendental perspective, such<br />
an explanation would again seem to be circular, given that time and<br />
space are the forms in which our embodied acts are represented. In order<br />
to explain the constitution of these forms it seems we cannot seek the<br />
explanation inside the domain of the form that is to be explained. In<br />
order to avoid circularity it seems we have to seek it outside this domain,<br />
which again seems to lead us to the domain of things in themselves. To<br />
claim that this constitution involves embodied acts, then, would seem to<br />
involve a new example of an illegal transcendental transgression.<br />
If this holds, then we may have found the final reason why the<br />
cognitive theory of the Critique contains few, if any, explicit references to<br />
the body. The reason is that the body has nothing to do in a cognitive<br />
theory produced under the perspective of transcendental idealism. If this<br />
is so, then in the Critique Kant attempts to establish a cognitive theory of<br />
a totally different kind from the theory of embodied cognition found in<br />
his other writings, different in the sense that it operates on the nonempirical<br />
side of the transcendental distinction, that is, the side of the<br />
things in themselves. In that case, Kant’s transcendental psychology is<br />
not a psychology of man as he exists as an empirical being in an<br />
empirical world. It is the psychology of man as he exists as a<br />
transcendental subject.<br />
Before we draw this conclusion, however, we should ask whether<br />
other interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism are possible. As<br />
12 For a further discussion of this problem, see e.g. Prauss (1974), 192ff.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 223<br />
we have already seen, a number of commentators have put forward what<br />
I have called a life-world perspective according to which Kant’s<br />
transcendental philosophy involves a philosophical reflection taking place<br />
within the human life-world as we know it. I would argue that this is also<br />
the case where Kant’s transcendental idealism is concerned: Kant’s<br />
transcendental idealism follows from a line of reflection in which the<br />
embodied nature of human cognition is a basic premise. By adopting this<br />
interpretation, we may maintain both the basic doctrines of Kant’s<br />
transcendental idealism, and at the same time contend that Kant’s theory<br />
of embodied cognition is a legitimate part of transcendental philosophy. 13<br />
I shall shortly present my interpretation in more detail, and argue<br />
why I think it should be preferred. This will also be my way of<br />
responding to those who argue that references to the body have no place<br />
in Kant’s transcendental idealism, for instance by pointing at the<br />
problems (or apparent problems) we have investigated in this section. My<br />
strategy is not to argue directly against this position, but rather to argue<br />
that another and better reading of Kant is available. Indirectly, however,<br />
this strategy of course also involves a criticism of earlier interpreters such<br />
as Strawson because it implies that their reading of the Critique misses<br />
some rather essential points.<br />
As a final point before continuing, let me state that I am aware that<br />
Kant claims to have followed more than one way leading to<br />
transcendental idealism, one starting from the antinomies, another from<br />
the a priori nature of geometry. The way emphasized in this chapter is<br />
perhaps not the only one leading to a transcendental idealism of a<br />
Kantian sort but it is a way that I take to be fundamental. With this in<br />
mind, let us proceed.<br />
7.5 From the empirical to the transcendental<br />
I have suggested that Kant’s transcendental philosophy in general<br />
involves philosophical reflection taking place within the human life-world<br />
as we know it, and that Kant’s transcendental idealism is a product of<br />
this reflection. More specifically, I shall now argue that Kant’s<br />
transcendental idealism is the product of a reflection having as its starting<br />
13 Only at one point within his transcendental reflection does Kant point beyond<br />
the empirical world, I think. This is when he defines the general notion of a thing<br />
in itself. However, I agree with those arguing that this notion is used only<br />
negatively, as denoting that in an object that cannot be known. Thus, properly<br />
understood, the term refers to the limit of our knowledge, and does not imply<br />
that Kant attempted to cross this limit.
224<br />
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point the everyday world of our experience, i.e. the idea that this world is<br />
roughly as we experience it to be. Let us call this ‘the empirical world’.<br />
Moreover, let us assume that this world is more or less as described by<br />
Newtonian physics, here conceived of as a physics valid for the medium<br />
sized objects of our world. Finally, let us assume that we exist in this<br />
world as embodied beings. If we do this, we arrive at a conception of the<br />
world more or less similar to the one Kant explicitly defends. Note that<br />
contrary to, for instance, Descartes and Hume, Kant never indulges in<br />
skepticism concerning the existence of the world of our experience. On<br />
the contrary, he frequently tells us that we are justified in taking this<br />
world to be real. This is what I take to be implied by his claim that this<br />
world is ‘empirically real’. Transcendentally considered the things of our<br />
world may all be appearances, but this does not mean that they are just<br />
illusions [ein bloßer Schein]. Contrary to what the terminology may<br />
suggest, he emphasizes that these things are real.<br />
If I say: in space and time intuition represents both outer objects as<br />
well as the self-intuition of the mind as each affects our senses, i.e., as<br />
it appears, that is not to say that these objects would be a mere<br />
illusion... […] Thus I do not say that bodies merely seem to exist<br />
outside me ... (B 69)<br />
That we have no reason to doubt the reality of the spatio-temporal<br />
objects of our empirical world is also emphasized in Kant’s refutation of<br />
the skepticism of Hume and Descartes, found for instance, in the Aversion<br />
of the paralogism chapter. Our immediate awareness<br />
[unmittelbare Wahrnehmung or Bewußtsein] of these objects is sufficient<br />
proof of their existence, he argues.<br />
I am no more necessitated to draw inferences in respect of the reality<br />
of external objects than I am in regard to the reality of the objects of<br />
my inner sense (my thoughts), for in both cases they are nothing but<br />
representations, the immediate perception (consciousness) of which is<br />
at the same time a sufficient proof of their reality. (A 371)<br />
That Kant took this world of objects to obey the laws of Newtonian<br />
physics is also well documented. Actually, the very Critique itself is an<br />
argument in support of this.<br />
As for the embodied nature of human existence, we have seen that<br />
this idea is put forward in a number of texts published both before and<br />
after the Critique. A basic idea of these texts is that the human mind is<br />
radically embodied and that there is no way in which it may operate<br />
independently of the body. This idea is stated in different ways at
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 225<br />
different times. In Dreams of a spirit-seer Kant states that the mind is<br />
present wherever the body is. At other times he argues that the mind is<br />
virtually present in the body. In the Anthropology the idea is simply<br />
assumed as an obvious fact. In the Critique the embodied nature of the<br />
mind is not explicitly discussed. Still, I have argued that here too we need<br />
to see the human mind as embodied.<br />
Let us accept that the cognitive agent of the Critique is an embodied<br />
human being. It is a being whose mind is virtually present in the body,<br />
that is, it is present as the life of this embodied being. The term ‘life’ is<br />
here to be understood in a wide sense, signifying awareness or<br />
consciousness, biological processes as well as behavior. What follows if we<br />
accept this idea of human embodiment and if we ask how this<br />
embodiment affects our experience? One conclusion that follows is that,<br />
qua embodied beings, we always find ourselves to be placed in a radical<br />
manner in the position of the body. This means that in our search for<br />
experience, or knowledge, of the world, we have to help ourselves with<br />
whatever capacities and resources we are endowed with in virtue of being<br />
embodied. One aspect of this is positive in that our embodied nature, or<br />
to use a more Heideggerian expression, our being-in-the-world-as-body,<br />
gives us certain capacities and powers that we would not have had if,<br />
counterfactually, we were not embodied. However, our radical<br />
embodiment also puts certain and absolute limits on what it is possible<br />
for us to achieve.<br />
Where awareness is concerned, for instance, it follows from the idea<br />
of radical embodiment that immediate awareness can include nothing<br />
but the body. I may in principle have an immediate awareness of all parts<br />
of my body but there is no way in which I can have such an awareness of<br />
things existing outside it. I can have an immediate awareness of my hand,<br />
my leg and the beating of my heart but I cannot have this kind of<br />
awareness of the table in front of me or the tree outside my window. In<br />
this sense, my immediate awareness is confined within the space in which<br />
I exist as an embodied being, that is, the space of my body. Where<br />
immediate awareness is concerned, the boundary of this space is an<br />
absolute limit. Inside it, immediate awareness is possible, outside it, it is<br />
not.<br />
What follows if we further reflect upon this limit? As already noticed,<br />
it follows that we have no immediate or direct awareness of objects<br />
existing outside the boundaries of our bodies. Let us accept that such<br />
objects exist in the way specified above, that we exist as embodied beings<br />
along with these objects, and that we physically interact with them, either<br />
directly, for instance when we touch or grasp them, or indirectly, for<br />
instance, when rays of light are reflected from an object and strike the
226<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
eyes. It still follows that we have no immediate awareness of these objects<br />
with which we interact. We may believe that we have and when I touch<br />
an object with my hand I may think that I have an immediate awareness<br />
of it. However my immediate awareness includes only the changes<br />
occurring in my hand (the way my hand is affected) as it touches the<br />
object, and its movements as I grasp it. The same applies to any other act<br />
of perception. When, for instance, I see a tree in front of me, my<br />
immediate awareness includes the changes occurring in my eye as they<br />
are affected by the rays of light reflected from the tree, and the<br />
movements of my pupils as they focus on the tree. It does not include the<br />
three as such. In all acts of perception, my immediate awareness never<br />
includes the object of perception, but only the changes occurring in my<br />
embodied states. We are here close to a point expressed by Kant in the<br />
A-edition:<br />
For one cannot have sensation outside oneself, but only in oneself,<br />
and the whole of self-consciousness therefore provides nothing other<br />
than merely our own determinations. (A 378)<br />
This idea is also restated in the B-edition. Kant here maintains that it is a<br />
reasonable and well founded philosophical claim that we have no<br />
immediate experience [unmittelbahre Erfahrung] outside ourselves (B<br />
275).<br />
The fact that I refer to these passages in order to illustrate my points<br />
is of course no coincidence. On the contrary, I think the reflection we are<br />
now involved in is more or less the same as the one leading to Kant’s<br />
transcendental idealism. It starts by stating that we are embodied beings,<br />
and thus have a limited existence in time and space, 14 and proceeds by<br />
asking what philosophical consequences may be drawn from this. The<br />
idea that, in all acts of perception, my immediate awareness never<br />
includes the object of perception but only the changes occurring in my<br />
internal, embodied states in the perceptive act, may seem strange if not<br />
outrageous. However, I do not think there is anything wrong with it. On<br />
the contrary, it follows directly from assumptions that were not only<br />
supported by Kant (if I am right) but are also taken as obvious by most<br />
people today. If we accept that the world is like how we take it to be, that<br />
14 The idea that we, as human beings, are limited [endliche Wesen] is explicitly<br />
stated at B 72. In line with the general abstract style of the Critique, Kant does<br />
not say that a human being is finite because it is embodied. However, I think we<br />
may well assume that this is the argument.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 227<br />
we exist in this world as embodied beings, and that our immediate<br />
awareness includes our own bodies only, then the rest of what was said<br />
above follows.<br />
There is one sense in which this reflection is strange, however. It is<br />
strange in the sense that it is a reflection in which we do not ordinarily<br />
engage. We are not used to reflecting upon the fact that we are<br />
embodied, and that our immediate awareness is confined within the<br />
space that we inhabit as embodied beings. This, however, is what Kant<br />
does as part of his transcendental reflection, I believe. It should also be<br />
emphasized that this is a reflection and when we are talking about the<br />
embodied states of which we are immediately aware, this immediate<br />
awareness should not be identified with our normal state of<br />
consciousness. Our normal state of consciousness is the one implied by<br />
Kant’s notion of empirical realism, a state of consciousness in which we<br />
experience ourselves in space along with other spatio-temporal objects; in<br />
a world of houses, trees and other everyday things. The fact that our<br />
immediate awareness is confined within the space that we inhabit as<br />
embodied beings is an idea, therefore, that we would probably not have<br />
come upon had it not been for this reflection.<br />
It may be objected against this analysis that even if we accept it as<br />
part of a theoretical reflection, it is wrong, for instance because I assume<br />
that the embodied acts accompanying our perceptions are something of<br />
which we are aware. It may be claimed that this is not so. When I<br />
perceive a tree, I am not normally aware of the movements of my pupils<br />
as they focus on the tree. Within the context of Kantian philosophy,<br />
however, this is not a problem. As we have seen earlier, Kant argues that<br />
embodied acts, even if we are not explicitly aware of peforming them,<br />
may still be conscious at a deeper level. In a sense we are aware of them,<br />
but this awareness is too weak to reach the level of explicit attention.<br />
Let us now return to the idea that, when we physically interact with<br />
objects outside us, our immediate awareness never includes these objects<br />
as such, but only the changes occurring in our internal, embodied states<br />
in the perceptive act. And let us now proceed a step further. From what<br />
has just been said it follows that everything we experience as being<br />
outside our bodies is known only indirectly through our awareness of<br />
these embodied states. To use a metaphor, we could say that the world of<br />
our experience, the world in which we find ourselves living, the world of<br />
physical objects like tables, houses and trees, is some kind of construction<br />
made on the basis of our awareness of these states, elaborated by<br />
whatever capacities our embodied minds may have. Being familiar with<br />
this construction since early childhood, we do not doubt its objectivity.<br />
Nevertheless, it is a construction.
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Let us call the construction just referred to a ‘representation’, or<br />
perhaps better, let us talk about representations in the plural. A<br />
representation, then, corresponds to a state within an embodied mind. 15<br />
How and where it exists in this embodied mind, and how it involves the<br />
body and/or embodied acts and events, we do not have to discuss here,<br />
although I shall return to it later. At present I want to emphasize that the<br />
reflection has now led us to a conclusion that is central to Kant’s<br />
transcendental idealism: all our experience of the world is<br />
representational.<br />
I also want to emphasize that we have arrived at this idea without,<br />
metaphorically speaking, having left the empirical world. We have not<br />
placed ourselves outside this world, for instance in the domain of things<br />
in themselves. The perspective we have established is not a perspective in<br />
which the empirical world is critically examined from a position outside<br />
it. Notice also, that this representationalism is not defined in contrast to a<br />
hypothetical knowledge of things in themselves. In fact, the notion of<br />
things in themselves has not been a part of the reflection at all so far. The<br />
notion of a representation has been called upon simply in order to<br />
characterize the specific status of our experience. This, I think, is highly<br />
significant. Even if Kant sometimes contrasts representational knowledge<br />
with hypothetical knowledge of things in themselves, it does not follow<br />
that this contrast is required in order to define the transcendental notion<br />
of a representation. Notice, finally, that in claiming our experience to be<br />
representational, I do not challenge our normal, everyday confidence in<br />
the empirical world, and neither does Kant’s representationalism require<br />
us to do so. So far, the reality of the empirical world has been a premise<br />
underlying the reflection. If it seems that our confidence in this world has<br />
been undermined, we shall soon see, and by means of a Kantian<br />
argument, that there is no need to draw this conclusion.<br />
Before we do that, however, let me make a final remark concerning<br />
the transcendental character of the present reflection. It may seem that<br />
the reflection we have now entertained is indistinguishable from an<br />
empirical investigation of the process of perception. I shall maintain,<br />
however, that it is not. The transcendental reflection, as it has now been<br />
presented, does presuppose that we have empirical knowledge of the<br />
perceptive process and the context in which it takes place. It presupposes<br />
15<br />
As for empirical intuitions, Falkenstein (1995), 120 approaches a similar view:<br />
‘Such an intuition is immediately grounded in the affection of the body, and<br />
there is a sense, therefore, in which intuitions are present as ‘extended and<br />
enduring physiological states’.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 229<br />
what Kant would have called an empirical anthropology. However, it is<br />
not identical with such a science. On a general level, if we draw a<br />
distinction between what we may call an empirical perspective and a<br />
transcendental perspective, I take an empirical perspective in a Kantian<br />
sense to be established, roughly, when we ask how the empirical world is.<br />
A transcendental perspective is established when we ask how we attain<br />
experience of this world. The last question contains a reference to our<br />
subjective relation to the world, which goes beyond a mere empirical<br />
description of its objects, and also beyond a mere empirical description of<br />
man. Also, the question just stated leads us to formulate concepts and<br />
doctrines that have no place within a merely empirical science, such as<br />
the claim that all our knowledge is representational. This claim concerns<br />
not the content, but the epistemic status of our knowledge. Thus, the<br />
present reflection is in its essence transcendental, not empirical.<br />
7.6 Kant’s representationalism<br />
In the history of philosophy, Kant is not alone in arguing that all<br />
experience is representational. Both Descartes and Hume put forward a<br />
representationalist position, and so do a number of other sixteenth and<br />
seventeenth-century philosophers. In the philosophy of both Descartes<br />
and Hume this representationalism is associated with skepticism<br />
concerning the existence of the external world. Even if both philosophers<br />
strive to overcome this skepticism, there is a moment in the philosophical<br />
reflection of each in which skepticism is overwhelming, in which all<br />
confidence in the reality of the external world, including the human<br />
body, is lost, and in which only the reality of the mind itself remains<br />
secure. Under the perspective of this radical skepticism the agent is<br />
invited to look at itself as a disembodied mind, mysteriously existing<br />
outside the spatio-temporal world of physical objects, constituting a<br />
mental domain where free-floating images come and go.<br />
Kant’s representationalism is sometime taken as a version of such a<br />
representationalism. However, there is at least one way in which his<br />
representationalism differs radically from the ones found in Hume and<br />
Descartes. Nowhere in the transcendental project does he doubt that the<br />
external, empirical world exists, or that this world is, roughly, as it<br />
appears to us. Nowhere does he suggest that our confidence in this world<br />
is unfounded. And, significantly, never does he conceive of the mind as<br />
disembodied. Within the context of Kant’s transcendental reflection,<br />
there is no moment at which we are encouraged to conceive of<br />
representations as free-floating images coming and going in a<br />
disembodied mind. According to his transcendental philosophy the way
230<br />
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it is conceived here, these images, i.e. representations, are always firmly<br />
grounded in the immediate experience of the embodied states of the<br />
embodied agent interacting with the physical objects, which are also the<br />
objects of its experience. In this way Kant’s representationalism has more<br />
in common with the embodied representationalism of Condillac and<br />
Rousseau, than the representationalism of Descartes or Hume.<br />
The immediate awareness of embodied states on which our<br />
representations are grounded may be classified under two categories; the<br />
awareness of embodied affection and the awareness of embodied acts. I<br />
shall elaborate this point by means of an example through which I also<br />
want to illuminate further what I take to be the relation between the<br />
empirical and the transcendental in Kant’s critical philosophy. Finally I<br />
shall discuss how Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space<br />
may be interpreted within the context now established.<br />
Imagine yourself with closed eyes holding a large ball in your hands.<br />
Imagine that you feel its surface with your fingers. In order to get an idea<br />
of its shape, you move your hands along its surface. Imagine that you do<br />
this with the kind of everyday familiarity with which we normally<br />
confront the world. That is, imagine that the ball is there with a fixed<br />
shape and a fixed texture in the way that we normally take objects to<br />
exist in this world. Imagine this. Then, within this context, go on to focus<br />
only on that of which you have immediate awareness. What is it? First it<br />
includes the movements you are making with your hands. Secondly, it<br />
includes the feeling in your palms and fingers as they move. Notice that<br />
in drawing this conclusion you have not moved from one world to<br />
another. You have not become a different person. You are the same<br />
person all along, and the event you have been involved in, the moving<br />
and touching, is the same as well. What has happened, however, is that<br />
you have now established another perspective on this event. According to<br />
the first perspective, the ball is simply there, in space, with a fixed shape,<br />
independently of whether you observe it or not. The ball is what Kant<br />
calls ‘empirically real’ and so are its texture and its spatial features, i.e. its<br />
shape. So we may call this perspective ‘empirical’. According to the other<br />
perspective, however, the ball is not simply there. What is there is your<br />
awareness of your body, that is, your awareness of the movements you<br />
are making with your hands, and the feeling in your palms and fingers as<br />
they move. The focus here is not on the empirical object as such, but an<br />
aspect of your way of attaining experience of it. Thus, according to my<br />
definition in chapter 4, this perspective may be called transcendental in a<br />
general sense.<br />
Even if Kant himself does not explicitly describe the relation between<br />
the empirical and the transcendental in exactly this way, I think this
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 231<br />
example may be used to illuminate this relation in a Kantian sense. First,<br />
it illuminates what I take to be a central Kantian point, that moving from<br />
an empirical to a transcendental perspective does not mean that we<br />
suddenly become different people or that we deal with another world<br />
with other kinds of objects. The move involves a change in perspective<br />
only, focusing on our way of attaining experience of objects rather than<br />
the objects of this knowledge. This point, I think, is clearly expressed in<br />
the passage quoted at the beginning of this chapter:<br />
The difference between the transcendental and the empirical<br />
therefore belongs only to the critique of cognitions [Erkenntnisse] and<br />
does not concern their relation to their object. (A 57/B 81)<br />
The example also illustrates how our experience or knowledge of the<br />
ball, as we take it to exist within the empirical perspective, is grounded in<br />
our immediate awareness of our embodied states. It is not a free-floating<br />
image in a disembodied mind. Notice also how these states are of two<br />
sorts. First we have the awareness of our palms and fingers as they are<br />
affected by the texture of the ball. Then we have the awareness of our<br />
hands and perhaps the rest of the body as we actively grasp the ball and<br />
let our hands move along its surface. What within the empirical<br />
perspective we refer to as the texture of the ball corresponds to or is<br />
grounded in the first sort of awareness, while what within this perspective<br />
we refer to as its shape, corresponds to or is grounded in the second sort<br />
of awareness.<br />
Below I shall argue that the reflection presently entertained also<br />
entails the idea that space is transcendentally ideal, or at least that space<br />
may be described in the same terms as we find in the Kantian doctrine of<br />
the transcendental ideality of space. Before we reach that point, however,<br />
we need to return for a moment to the example of the ball. Imagine<br />
yourself again holding it in your hands with closed eyes. Imagine how<br />
you move your hands along its surface. When you consider the ball with<br />
the everyday confidence that characterizes what we have called the<br />
empirical perspective, the ball is simply there, in space, with a certain<br />
fixed shape, independently of whether you observe it or not. Thus its<br />
spatiality, i.e. shape, is what Kant calls empirically real. If, however, you<br />
direct your attention to that of which you are immediately aware only,<br />
the shape of the ball is not simply there anymore. What is there, is your<br />
awareness of that which in the perspective now established corresponds<br />
to the empirical shape of the ball. As we have seen above, and as is<br />
obvious from the example, this is the movement you are making with<br />
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<br />
as the shape of the ball, and this awareness of movement? As long as you<br />
actually stand there examining the ball, I think there is a sense in which<br />
the two are the same. When you say to yourself that the ball is round,<br />
thereby making a statement belonging to the empirical perspective, there<br />
is a sense in which the term ‘round ball’ refers to your awareness of your<br />
movement. Now, please notice the implication of this: the spatial features<br />
of the ball, i.e. its shape, which inside the first perspective is seen as<br />
empirically real, and according to Kant legitimately so, must in a<br />
transcendental perspective be acknowledged as your awareness of your<br />
own movement. Transcendentally considered space not only presupposes<br />
embodied activity, space is such activity, or better, embodied, selfdetermined<br />
movement of which we are immediately aware.<br />
I have focused on an example in which the tactile sense is central not<br />
just because I think it is illuminating, but also because, as I have argued<br />
earlier, I take embodied acts such as the one explored in this example to<br />
be prototypical in Kant’s cognitive theory. In all perception there is an<br />
essential aspect of embodied movement. In visual perception, for<br />
instance, I typically move my pupils as their focus slides along the<br />
external contours of the object perceived. Consequently, I think the<br />
results just arrived at may be generalized to include all kinds of<br />
perception. Stated generally, and transcendentally considered, space is<br />
awareness of embodied movement, or better, it is embodied, selfdetermined<br />
movement of which we are immediately aware. 16<br />
We have now arrived at a position that is consistent with all the<br />
central ideas defining Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental ideality of<br />
space. In the Critique he contends that, transcendentally considered,<br />
space is subjective. 17 According to the present interpretation it is so<br />
because the notion of space, transcendentally considered, refers to the<br />
awareness of the embodied movements of the cognitive agent. It is also<br />
16<br />
I am here close to Kaulbach’s interpretation, cf. e.g. Kaulbach (1965), 104.<br />
Here he writes: ‘Die Lehre Kants von Raum und Zeit in der transzendentalen<br />
Ästhetik konnte den Begriff der Bewegung nicht voll entfalten, weil die beiden<br />
‘Formen’ der Anschauung hier noch isoliert von der Synthesis mit dem<br />
Verstande behandelt werden. Im weiteren Verlauf der Vernunftkritik zeigt sich<br />
jedoch immer deutlicher das Hervortreten des Bewegungsprinzips. Es wird dabei<br />
deutlich, daß Raum und Zeit nichts für sich sind, sondern Momente an dem<br />
Wesen der Bewegung: Beide müssen daher von ihr her philosophisch analysiert<br />
werden.’ I am also close to Melnick’s position (1989), 6 when he ascribes to Kant<br />
the view that space ‘is fundamentally our behavior or something we do’.<br />
17<br />
Cf. e.g. A 26/B 42. Cf. also A 99, A 103 and B 162.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 233<br />
obvious why he argues in the Critique that space is not an empirical<br />
concept in the sense of being abstracted [abgezogen] from our<br />
experience of empirical objects in space.<br />
Space is not an empirical concept that has been drawn from outer<br />
experiences. (A 23/B 38)<br />
On the contrary, our representation of space is what makes possible the<br />
experience of such objects.<br />
… but this outer experience is itself first possible only through this<br />
representation [of space]. (A 23/B 38)<br />
In the context of the present interpretation, Kant may claim this because,<br />
again, the notion of space, transcendentally considered, refers to the<br />
awareness of the embodied movements of the cognitive agent. And only<br />
through this, that is, by touching, grasping, etc., and by being aware of<br />
these acts, do we learn to know the spatial form of empirical objects. In<br />
this sense, these acts combined with awareness make possible the<br />
experience of objects in space. Thus, Kant may legitimately claim that<br />
the representation of space is not abstracted [abgezogen] from our<br />
experience of such objects. It is the other way around. Our<br />
representation of space, i.e. our embodied acts combined with awareness,<br />
make our experience of these objects possible.<br />
By means of the present interpretation we can also explain how Kant<br />
may legitimately claim both that space, transcendentally considered is<br />
produced, i.e. that it originates [entspringen] in our own activity, and<br />
that it is not a discursive concept, but a pure intuition (A 24-25/B 39).<br />
The term ‘intuition’, I think, signals, among other things, the special<br />
quality of immediate awareness characterizing our self-determined<br />
embodied movements, which transcendentally considered is space. 18<br />
Because we have this immediate, intuitive awareness of space, we do not<br />
have to employ conceptual thinking or logical reasoning in order to know<br />
space intuitively. It is known intuitively through the immediate awareness<br />
we have of our embodied movements, which, transcendentally<br />
considered, is space. In this specific sense, space is given. At the same<br />
18<br />
Also relevant here is what Kant says about space in Directions in space and<br />
Orientation, that we have an immediate awareness of the spatial relations within<br />
our body, such as the difference between its left and right side. This awareness is<br />
immediate, and thus, intuitive.
234<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
time however, it is also activity, or awareness of activity. Falkenstein fails<br />
to see this point when he claims that the Kantian idea that space is given<br />
entails that it is given prior to any activity of the agent. 19<br />
Within the context of the present interpretation, we may explain,<br />
finally, how Kant, as part of his doctrine of the transcendental ideality of<br />
space, may legitimately contend that, transcendentally considered, the<br />
notion of space refers only to our way of intuiting the world, and cannot<br />
be used to qualify objects as they exist independently of this (cf. e.g. A<br />
24f/B 39ff.). If we accept that space, transcendentally considered, is<br />
embodied movement, or our awareness of such movement, and if we<br />
accept that Kant’s statement for instance at A 24f/B 39ff. is based on this<br />
insight, then I think that Kant’s point is that, transcendentally<br />
considered, this is the only space we know. Why? Let us return for a last<br />
time to the example of the ball. According to what we called the<br />
empirical perspective, the ball is simply there, in space, with a fixed<br />
shape, independently of whether you observe it or not. The ball is what<br />
Kant characterizes as empirically real and so are its spatial features, i.e.<br />
its extension and shape. According to what we called the transcendental<br />
perspective, however, the ball is not simply there. Within this perspective<br />
we place brackets, as it were, around the empirical world. As we place<br />
brackets around this world, what is left qua space, is nothing but our own<br />
self-conscious movement. Within the transcendental perspective, this is<br />
space, and moreover, it is the only space we know. And as long as we<br />
remain strictly within this perspective, we cannot talk about any other<br />
space. Consequently, we must also abstain from any talk that ascribes<br />
spatial qualities to objects as they exist in abstraction from our way of<br />
perceiving them. This, I think, is Kant’s basic insight when he insists that<br />
the notion of space cannot be applied to the things in themselves. 20<br />
Notice, finally, that the Kantian idea of the transcendental ideality of<br />
space does not demand that we give up our ordinary confidence in the<br />
empirical reality of space. The Kantian idea principally concerns our<br />
way of experiencing this space. It involves a transcendental reminder of<br />
19<br />
As I have argued, Falkenstein may be right in a limited sense, but not when we<br />
take into account our experience of the spatial form of objects.<br />
20<br />
This I take to be also Kaulbach’s idea, when discussing Kant’s critical theory of<br />
space, he states: ‘Die Figur selbst ... […] ist keine an sich seiende Wesenseinheit,<br />
sondern spiegelt die Handlung des Beschreibens wider: Da sie diese Bewegung<br />
spiegelt, ist die Figur Ausdruck der Bewegung des Beschreibens. Unabhängig und<br />
ausserhalb dieser Bewegung ist sie nichts.’ (Kaulbach (1968), 274.)
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 235<br />
the origin of our empirical knowledge of space, and the limits of this<br />
knowledge. It does not question our intuition of this space.<br />
I do not claim to have conclusively proved that Kant’s doctrine of the<br />
transcendental ideality of space follows from a reflection upon human<br />
embodiment. In fact, I do not think that it is possible to arrive at any final<br />
or decisive interpretation of a text as complex as the Critique. However, I<br />
have demonstrated that an interpretation of the Critique exists according<br />
to which we may legitimately contend both that space is transcendentally<br />
ideal and that cognition is embodied in the way suggested, that is to say,<br />
where our intuitions of empirical objects are concerned, they are<br />
grounded in the affection of the body along with its self-conscious<br />
movements. This we can do because the existence of the body is never<br />
doubted as part of the transcendental reflection. On the contrary,<br />
through this reflection we learn to realize that it is the instrument by<br />
which alone, through embodied interaction, we learn to know the world<br />
around us. This was what I wanted to show here.<br />
Before ending this chapter, I shall take a final look at Kant’s antiskepticism,<br />
and also consider further how we are to understand the<br />
Kantian notion of a representation.<br />
7.7 Kant’s anti-skepticism<br />
Kant’s transcendental idealism, perhaps the most famous of all his ideas,<br />
is often attacked as an example of the loftiness of philosophy in general<br />
and Kant in particular. Talking about things in themselves is seen as<br />
representing a morbid and unfounded skepticism quite foreign to<br />
common sense. The same applies to his radical representationalism and<br />
the idea that time and space are transcendentally ideal.<br />
We have seen that the transcendental idealism of the Critique may be<br />
seen to follow a reflection with its starting point being an idea that most<br />
of us accept as obvious, that human existence is embodied. I think that<br />
this transcendental idealism represents a position that any qualified<br />
thinker has to end up with if she takes seriously the embodied nature of<br />
human life. Far from being a sign of the loftiness of his philosophy,<br />
Kant’s transcendental idealism tells us that Kant himself is such a<br />
thinker. We have also seen that Kant vigorously distances himself from<br />
skepticism. Rather than promoting it, he says that the Critique should be<br />
seen as an attempt to diagnose and cure the unwarranted skepticism of<br />
other philosophical positions. As the whole Critique may be read as an<br />
argument against skepticism, I will not go into all the details of Kant’s<br />
anti-skeptical arguments here. I think, however, that the notion of the
236<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
embodied mind is a basic element of his anti-skeptical strategy, even if he<br />
does not stress that point himself. I shall say more on this in due course.<br />
First, however, let us notice that it is far from obvious that the notion<br />
of human embodiment can be used in a strategy to fight skepticism. On<br />
the contrary, the notion itself seems to be vulnerable to skepticism. I have<br />
argued that Kantian representationalism follows from a reflection<br />
starting out from the idea that human existence is radically embodied. It<br />
is possible to argue, however, that by following this reflection to the end,<br />
the very notion of embodiment is undermined. If we accept that<br />
everything that we represent as being outside us is some kind of<br />
construction made on the basis of information present to our embodied<br />
minds, then it seems to follow that what I call my body is such a<br />
construction too. When I observe my arm, my legs, and other parts of my<br />
body, then my body appears to me in space along with all the other<br />
empirical objects of my empirical world. If these are representational<br />
constructions, must not my body also be such a construction? If so, do I<br />
have any privileged knowledge of it? Can I know that what I take to be<br />
my body is really my body? Can I know that this body is where my mind<br />
is? It may seem as if all these questions have to be answered negatively. If<br />
so, then the very idea that the mind is embodied undermines itself, or so<br />
it seems.<br />
The problem is not a trivial one. When I observe my body from the<br />
outside, for instance, if I look at one of my arms, then it has the same<br />
epistemic status as other objects in my environment, and as such I have<br />
no privileged epistemic access to it. However, the knowledge I have of<br />
my body is not derived just from the knowledge I have from observing it<br />
from the outside. I also know my body from the inside, and this<br />
knowledge is immediate in a sense that my knowledge derived from<br />
external observation is not. 21<br />
Now, what kind of knowledge is this<br />
immediate knowledge? What can it tell about myself? Does it tell me I<br />
am embodied?<br />
Before I answer this question let me emphasize, as I have done<br />
before, that what I here call ‘immediate knowledge’ is not identical with<br />
our normal state of consciousness. So the answer to the question just put<br />
is not found by asking what we actually feel inside at some particular<br />
moment. It is found by asking what it is possible to know, and what not,<br />
when we start to reflect upon human embodiment. With this in mind, let<br />
us proceed.<br />
21<br />
Kaulbach (1968), 285 expresses this point beautifully: ‘Der Leib ist<br />
unmittelbare Gegenwart. Er ist mir, raumlich gesprochen, das Nächste.’
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 237<br />
I think that much of my knowledge of myself as an embodied being<br />
has to be given up when I establish the theoretical perspective just<br />
suggested. I have to give up all parts of this knowledge that is based on<br />
observation from outside the body, such as when I observe my arm on<br />
the table in front of me now. I have to give up, for instance, my<br />
knowledge of the color of my skin and my eyes, as well as my knowledge<br />
of the exact constitution of my organs, including my sense organs. Even if<br />
all this is given up, however, something, I think, remains, namely, that I,<br />
as a conscious mind, inhabit a space within a certain boundary. Thus, I<br />
know myself as a being in space. 22 I also know myself as a being with the<br />
capacity to move in space, as a being with the potential for being acted<br />
upon, and with a potential for acting upon other beings. Whether I am<br />
justified in referring to this spatial being that I am as a body may be a<br />
matter for discussion. If we define a body in a minimal sense, however, as<br />
a being endowed with consciousness, extended in space and with the<br />
capacity to act and being acted upon, then I am also justified in saying<br />
that my mind inhabits a body in the sense just specified.<br />
Whether Kant would have agreed to this argument or not, I do not<br />
know. He might have pointed out that there are other arguments<br />
favoring the idea that the mind is embodied in the sense just specified as<br />
well, such as the one suggested in my analysis of the schematism chapter;<br />
that cognition of objects in space presupposes that we exist in space with<br />
the capacity to interact with these objects. Or he might have insisted that<br />
the fact that we are embodied beings (at least in this life) is such an<br />
obvious fact that there is no point in denying it. Regardless of the<br />
underlying argument, however, I think that Kant would have insisted<br />
that his transcendental philosophy presupposes the notion of human<br />
embodiment in the way specified. Moreover, I think that this notion is a<br />
basic element of Kant’s anti-skeptical strategy, as I shall try to show.<br />
Let us take a look at Kant’s refutation of the skepticism of Descartes<br />
and Hume in the A-version of the paralogism chapter. Kant here fights<br />
what he diagnoses as skeptical idealism, that is, the position claiming that<br />
the existence of objects in space is doubtful, which he ascribes to both<br />
Descartes and Hume. This skepticism, he argues, arises from the<br />
assumption that the mind is the only thing of which we have immediate<br />
awareness, i.e., sensation. This is in itself no bad assumption, according<br />
to Kant. In fact, it is also his own position:<br />
22 At least, this follows if we accept that we have an immediate awareness of the<br />
spatial relations within our body, as Kant contends in Directions in space and<br />
Orientation.
238<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
For one cannot have sensation outside oneself, but only in oneself,<br />
and the whole of self-consciousness therefore provides nothing other<br />
than merely our own determinations. (A 378)<br />
So assuming that the mind is the only thing of which we have immediate<br />
awareness is not a mistake in itself, according to Kant. However, the<br />
skeptical idealist combines this assumption with other ideas with<br />
disastrous consequences. Among these is the idea that time and space<br />
exist independently of our representations, and consequently, that objects<br />
experienced in time and space exist as such independently of our way of<br />
representing them. This position Kant calls transcendental realism. If this<br />
realism were true, he admits, the existence of objects in space would<br />
indeed be uncertain. Then we would have to make an inference from our<br />
representations of these objects in us to the objects corresponding to<br />
these representations as they exist independently of our representations.<br />
But as such inferences are an easy prey to skepticism, no knowledge of<br />
these objects, considered independently of our representations, would be<br />
secure.<br />
If we let outer objects count as things in themselves, then it is<br />
absolutely impossible to comprehend how we are to acquire cognition<br />
of their reality outside us, since we base this merely on the<br />
representation, which is in us. (A 378)<br />
However, transcendental realism does not hold, Kant argues. Space<br />
exists only as the form of our intuition, and objects in time and space<br />
(what we usually call external objects) are known to us only in intuition.<br />
Thus, it is wrong to regard these objects, qua experienced, as external to<br />
the mind. Our awareness of them is just as immediate and direct as is the<br />
mind itself. Consequently, we should reject the idea that we have some<br />
sort of privileged knowledge of the mind that does not apply also to<br />
objects intuited in space. We have no more reason to doubt the existence<br />
of objects in space, qua experienced, than we have to doubt the existence<br />
of the mind itself.<br />
I am no more necessitated to draw inferences in respect of the reality<br />
of external objects than I am in regard to the reality of the objects of<br />
my inner sense (my thoughts), for in both cases they are nothing but<br />
representations, the immediate perception (consciousness) of which is<br />
at the same time a sufficient proof of their reality. (A 371)<br />
So contrary to what someone might believe, according to Kant the idea<br />
that what we call external objects are through and through
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 239<br />
representational does not jeopardize their epistemic status. Quite the<br />
opposite, it frees them from the doubt directed at them by skeptical<br />
idealism, and so transcendental idealism necessary leads to what Kant<br />
calls empirical realism.<br />
At first sight Kant’s story here seems to be rather different from the<br />
one I have told above. Nothing is said about an embodied mind. Instead,<br />
he seems to be giving us an account of a mind almost indistinguishable<br />
from the mind as it is according to Hume and Descartes, a disembodied<br />
mind aware only of its own inner states. This mind, Kant emphasizes, is<br />
the only thing of which we have immediate and secure knowledge.<br />
Moreover, what we take to be objects existing independently in space<br />
are, transcendentally considered, nothing but representations in this<br />
mind. However, we also know that Kant vigorously resisted the idealism<br />
of Descartes and Hume. Consequently, whatever the message of the<br />
above argument is, it should not be confused with the position of these<br />
philosophers.<br />
Kant may himself have become aware that this way of stating his<br />
point might lead readers to confuse his transcendental idealism with the<br />
more dubious forms of idealism of Descartes and Hume. No wonder,<br />
then, that he rewrote the paralogism chapter for the B-edition and also<br />
added a newly written Refutation of idealism. However, the fact that he<br />
rewrote the A-version of the paralogism chapter does not mean that he<br />
took its argument to be false. More probably he feared that it would be<br />
misread, or that more was needed to get his point across than what was<br />
said in the A-edition. Actually, in the Refutation of idealism of the Bedition,<br />
Kant repeats what we have just seen him claim in the A-edition<br />
version of the paralogism chapter. He discusses a position called<br />
problematical idealism which is an idealism of a Cartesian sort, in which<br />
the existence of external objects is not denied, but claimed to be dubious.<br />
This idealism is based on the assumption that we have no immediate<br />
experience [unmittelbahre Erfahrung] outside ourselves. This is a<br />
reasonable and well founded philosophical claim, he maintains (B 275). 23<br />
But does not this make Kant a Cartesian? Does not this make his<br />
position just what he wants to avoid? In the B-edition he still attacks<br />
Cartesian idealism, so in what way is his position different? One way of<br />
seeing it as different and giving sense to the argument found both in the<br />
23<br />
However, he now also adds another argument to prove the existence of<br />
external objects. Our experience of time, which belongs to the inner sense, and<br />
thus to the domain which even the sceptic accepts as certain, is possible only if<br />
outer objects exist. This argument will be further explored in a later chapter.
240<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
A-version of the paralogism chapter and the B-edition Refutation of<br />
idealism that we have no immediate experience [Erfahrung] outside<br />
ourselves is to conceive of the cognitive agent referred to in the argument<br />
as an embodied self. This would ensure that Kant’s position is different<br />
from Descartes’, and moreover, it takes us into a reflection remarkably<br />
similar in structure to the reflection that has formed the core of the last<br />
part of this chapter.<br />
According to Kant, the reason why my experience of the empirical<br />
world is not threatened by the skepticism of such as Descartes is that it is<br />
established as a fact beyond doubt, that I am a body in the minimal sense<br />
defined above, i.e., a being endowed with consciousness, extended in<br />
space and with the capacity to act and be acted upon. This is established<br />
by the intuitive and immediate awareness that I have of being such a<br />
body. The same intuitive immediacy applies also to my intuitions of<br />
objects of my empirical world, such as when I hold a ball in my hands.<br />
Even if I do not have any immediate awareness of the ball as such (due to<br />
the fact that I have no immediate awareness outside my body), I have an<br />
immediate awareness of how the ball affects my hands (or the something<br />
that corresponds to this affection affects me), as well as my movements as<br />
I hold and grasp it, which is its spatial form within the transcendental<br />
perspective. Thus, everything the ball is to me, of this I have an<br />
immediate, intuitive awareness. And if immediate awareness testifies to<br />
reality, as Kant obviously think it does, then the ball, as I experience it, is<br />
real as it can be to me. And the same is true of every object of my<br />
experience. This is why Kant can conclude, as he does (A 371), that ‘I am<br />
no more necessitated to draw inferences in respect of the reality of<br />
external objects than I am in regard to the reality of the objects of my<br />
inner sense (my thoughts), for in both cases they are nothing but<br />
representations, the immediate perception (consciousness) of which is at<br />
the same time a sufficient proof of their reality.’ The fact that there is an<br />
aspect of the ball that I do not and cannot know, as Kant contends there<br />
is, is within this context no problem. This unknown something never has<br />
and never will be part of my experience. As for my experience, however,<br />
and everything contained in it, it has now been secured from the<br />
skepticism of Hume and Descartes and any similar skepticism.<br />
7.8 More about the Kantian notion of a representation<br />
Before I end this chapter I want to add some brief remarks concerning<br />
the Kantian notion of a representation. I have suggested that, according<br />
to my interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism, there is a sense in<br />
which a representation may be seen as corresponding to a state within an
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 241<br />
embodied mind. We have also seen that there are cases in which the<br />
Kantian notion of a representation may be seen as referring to selfconscious,<br />
embodied movement, such as in his transcendental theory of<br />
space. If we accept that transcendentally considered, space is selfconscious<br />
embodied movement, and also, transcendentally considered,<br />
that space is a representation, then the point just made follows. 24<br />
However, I do not want to restrict the meaning of the Kantian term<br />
‘representation’ to those suggested by these examples. I think<br />
‘representation’ as used by Kant may have several meanings, each<br />
depending on the perspective that is operative. Sometimes, for instance,<br />
he seems to use it in the sense of mental image. However, my point is<br />
that where the representations of sensibility are concerned, the<br />
underlying message of the Critique is that these are always grounded in<br />
our immediate awareness of our embodied states in the way specified<br />
above. Even my visual representation of, for instance, a tree is so<br />
grounded. What is the exact connection between the awareness of my<br />
embodied states and this visual representation? As Kant does not supply<br />
us with an explicit answer to this question, it is hard to say what his<br />
answer might have been. The basic point that I take to be implied by the<br />
Critique is that such a connection exists, and that we need to be<br />
reminded of this. More than in any other kind of perception, there is a<br />
quality to visual perception that makes objects appear to us as something<br />
existing in themselves independently of whether we perceive them or not<br />
and with qualities that stand in no relation to our way of perceiving<br />
them. I think that a basic message of Kant’s transcendental philosophy is<br />
that even my visual perception of a tree, or some other distant object, is<br />
grounded in immediate embodied experiences, such as my awareness of<br />
the light reflected from the object affecting my eyes, and my awareness of<br />
my embodied acts as I move my pupils in order to get the object in focus,<br />
or when I move in order to see the object from different angles.<br />
I asked what the exact connection was between my awareness of my<br />
embodied states and my visual representation of, for instance, a tree and<br />
I claimed that Kant does not supply us with an explicit theory of this<br />
connection. This does not mean that Kant has nothing more to say on<br />
the matter other than what has been suggested so far. When I have<br />
referred to the immediate awareness of embodied states, i.e., the states on<br />
which my empirical representations are grounded, I have given an<br />
24 The same point may be deduced from his theory of schematism, according to<br />
which a schema is an embodied practice, and at the same time, also claimed to<br />
be a representation.
242<br />
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL<br />
interpretation of Kant’s theory of sensibility. The states identified are the<br />
states that in the context of this theory are abstractly referred to by the<br />
term ‘affection’, or by means of various terms (e.g. ‘synthesis’) referring to<br />
activity. However, from the Critique, we also learn that more than<br />
sensibility is required in order to arrive at experience of the world as we<br />
know it, that is, a world of physical objects obeying the laws of nature<br />
Kant took to be formulated in Newtonian physics. This ‘more’ is the<br />
categories and our general capacity for conceptual thinking. In the<br />
following chapters I shall take a closer look at Kant’s theory of the<br />
categories and argue that even here the text invites us to include the<br />
notion of embodied acts and practices in our interpretation.<br />
7. 9 Summary<br />
The idea that Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space may<br />
be seen as following from a line of reflection in which the embodied self<br />
and the embodied nature of human cognition are basic premises may<br />
seem strange given the trend that has dominated Kant research for<br />
almost two centuries, but there are several reasons for accepting it. First,<br />
by accepting it, it becomes possible both to accept this doctrine as a<br />
legitimate and tenable part of transcendental philosophy and at the same<br />
time, without inconsistency, to contend that the Critique sees cognition<br />
as embodied, even if due to the abstract character of the text, the body is<br />
not explicitly mentioned as a rule. This interpretation saves both major<br />
parts of the Critique and Kant from potential charges of transcendental<br />
transgression and/or circularity. As for the charge of transcendental<br />
transgression, it was based on the idea that nothing in our<br />
representational domain could ever tell us anything about the things in<br />
themselves. I have argued that, even if transcendental idealism includes<br />
the idea of things in themselves, i.e., some unknown dimension of the<br />
world of which we can know nothing, in formulating transcendental<br />
idealism Kant does not speak from the domain of these things in<br />
themselves. He speaks from a position within the empirical world. So<br />
Strawson is wrong in his idea that Kant seeks to draw the bounds of sense<br />
from a point outside them. 25<br />
Kant’s philosophy is transcendental, but this<br />
does not mean that he transcends the world as we know it.<br />
Finally, if we accept that Kant develops his transcendental idealism in<br />
the way I have suggested, this may be used to support not only the claim<br />
that the cognitive theory of the Critique gives an abstract account of<br />
25<br />
Strawson (1973), 12.
THE <strong>BODY</strong> <strong>AND</strong> THE TRANSCENDENTAL 243<br />
Kant’s embodied theory of cognition, it may also be used to explain why<br />
the account has to be abstract. I argued that the perspective of Kant’s<br />
transcendental idealism involves a focus on the embodied states of which<br />
we are immediately aware. I also argued that much of my knowledge of<br />
myself as an embodied being has to be given up when I establish this<br />
perspective. I have to give up all parts of this knowledge based on<br />
observation from the ‘outside’ of my body. The consequence of this is<br />
that certain empirically based statements cannot be imported into the<br />
Critique. For instance, while in the Anthropology (operating here within<br />
an empirical perspective) Kant may legitimately present a detailed<br />
description of the various senses of man, based on empirical observation,<br />
the Critique leaves room only for the general and abstract concept of the<br />
outer sense. The same holds for all the other specific details of Kant’s<br />
embodied theory of cognition that are based on empirical observation.<br />
They cannot be imported into the cognitive theory of the Critique, and<br />
so they have to be abstracted away. What is left is nothing but the<br />
general and abstract structure of the original theory.
8. <strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
Thereby the expression that only souls (as a<br />
particular species of substances) think would be<br />
dropped; and instead it would be said, as usual,<br />
that human beings think.<br />
From the Critique 1<br />
This passage is taken from the part of the paralogism chapter in which<br />
Kant discusses the ontological nature of human beings. Given the<br />
general background of the chapter and its criticism of rational<br />
psychology, the passage may be read as an expression of dismay<br />
concerning the steadfast belief of many philosophers that thinking has to<br />
be explained by reference to some invisible, immaterial part of man. It is<br />
possible, Kant argues, that the very same being that we call a body in one<br />
respect is a thinking being in another (A 359). If this is the case, then it is<br />
not appropriate to say that it is souls (considered as a special sort of<br />
substances) that think. We should simply say that human beings think,<br />
that is, human beings considered as whole persons, body and mind.<br />
We should be careful not to infer too much from a single passage. If<br />
my interpretation of other parts of the Kantian corpus is correct,<br />
however, then both before and after the Critique Kant presupposed a<br />
theory of rationality according to which human rationality is explored<br />
and analyzed at the level of embodied practices. We have also found that<br />
he approaches a similar perspective in the Critique when in his<br />
schematism theory he promotes the idea that the subsumption of objects<br />
under concepts, which is a form of rational thinking, involves embodied<br />
practice. With this as a background I shall focus on Kant’s theory of the<br />
transcendental concepts, or the categories, in this and the following<br />
chapters. I shall argue that not only may the Kantian notion of a schema<br />
be interpreted as referring to embodied practice, but the Kantian notion<br />
of a transcendental category may be so interpreted as well. 2<br />
In this<br />
chapter I defend this claim at a general level only. As a first argument in<br />
support of it, I shall maintain that there are embodied practices that have<br />
1 A 359.<br />
2 The possibility of such an interpretation was briefly mentioned in chapter 6.
246<br />
the same function in the constitution of experience (the term is used here<br />
in its strong Kantian sense meaning ordered or determined experience 3 )<br />
as the categories are said to have in the Critique. The logic of this<br />
argument is simple: because such practices exist, it is also possible to<br />
think of the categories as such practices. I shall also give an example of<br />
such a practice. First, however, I shall discuss some possible objections to<br />
the idea just stated, and suggest how these objections may be met. In<br />
subsequent chapters I shall examine Kant’s theory of the categories in<br />
more detail, with an emphasis on the category of quantity and the<br />
relational categories.<br />
8.1 The necessary structure of the world<br />
Kant’s theory of the categories forms the core of what may be called his<br />
transcendental epistemology. The aim of this section is to give a<br />
preliminary outline of this epistemology, which I see as having more than<br />
one aim. One is to draw a limit between what can be known and what<br />
can only be the subject of religious belief or metaphysical speculation. In<br />
Kantian terminology this roughly corresponds to the distinction between<br />
the empirical world and the things in themselves. Just as important,<br />
however, is the epistemic project dealing with our knowledge of the<br />
empirical world. Here Kant is preoccupied with the question of objective<br />
knowledge: how is it possible for us to attain objective knowledge of the<br />
empirical world?<br />
This question is far from trivial. As we have seen, Kant sees our<br />
experience as having a subjective origin. Our sensations are nothing but<br />
modifications of our minds. 4 Time and space are subjective forms of<br />
intuition. Even the categories are subjective in the sense that they are acts<br />
or functions carried out by ourselves. They are not Platonic ideas or<br />
eternal patterns of which the structure of the world is merely a reflection.<br />
The notion of a category refers to an aspect of how we, as human beings,<br />
approach the world. Given this subjective origin, how is objective<br />
knowledge possible? How do we arrive at the experience of a world<br />
ordered in time and space, a world of spatio-temporal objects interacting<br />
according to universal laws of nature?<br />
At first sight, these questions seem to demand a cognitive theory, a<br />
theory explaining how experience is constituted by means of the<br />
3<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
In Kantian terms, and according to Kant, to determine the undetermined<br />
manifold of an intuition, the categories are required.<br />
4 Cf. A 378.
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
247<br />
cognitive capacities and powers available to us. And, as we have seen, the<br />
Critique actually offers such a theory. However, the above questions also<br />
have an epistemic aspect, and Kant never fails to emphasize that this is<br />
his most basic concern in the Critique. When we ask how it is possible for<br />
us to attain objective knowledge of the world, there is introduced a<br />
concept of objectivity according to which a statement about the world<br />
can be either true or false. Thus, the question of objectivity goes beyond<br />
asking merely how our knowledge is produced. It concerns the validity of<br />
our knowledge claims.<br />
How is it possible for us to attain objective knowledge of the world<br />
given that the origin of this knowledge is subjective in the sense specified?<br />
Kant’s answer is that such knowledge may be proved to be possible when<br />
we realize that some of the subjective elements on which our knowledge<br />
is based are actually that which makes experience (or knowledge)<br />
possible. They are what Kant calls ‘a priori conditions of experience’. In<br />
order to make this theoretical move to solve the problem, however, we<br />
also have to show that these a priori conditions make possible what Kant<br />
calls ‘synthetic a priori knowledge’ of the world. This synthetic a priori<br />
knowledge is knowledge of the necessary order in which the world<br />
appears to us, or the determinations that the world needs to have in<br />
order to appear as more than a mere manifold, to use a well known<br />
Kantian expression. That objects exist beside each other in Euclidean<br />
space is an example of what Kant here means by order. Causality, the<br />
fact that in the empirical world every event has a cause, is another<br />
example. Kant’s point is that the world appears to us as ordered and<br />
determined because our a priori forms of experience, even if they are all<br />
subjective, are conditions of synthetic a priori knowledge of the kind just<br />
suggested. This is why Kant can phrase what he claims to be the main<br />
question of the Critique as ‘How is synthetic a priori knowledge<br />
possible?’<br />
This question is also implied by Kant’s general definition of<br />
transcendental philosophy, which has already been discussed, as ‘a<br />
system of transcendental knowledge (Erkenntnis) which deals with the<br />
specific manner in which we achieve knowledge of objects (Erkenntnisart<br />
von Gegenständen) as far as this is possible a priori’ (A 11/B 25). An<br />
essential mark of this transcendental philosophy, Kant points out, is that<br />
all its concepts are pure a priori: They contain nothing empirical (A 14/B<br />
28). Later the same point is stated like this:<br />
I call all representations pure (in the transcendental sense) in which<br />
nothing is to be encountered that belongs to sensation. (A 20/B 34)
248<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
Kant also argues that transcendental philosophy involves setting up a<br />
certain kind of proof structure. Not any a priori insight [Erkenntnis] is<br />
transcendental. Characteristic of a transcendental insight [Erkenntnis] is<br />
that it makes us understand that and how certain representations<br />
(intuitions or concepts) are possible and may be used a priori only.<br />
And here I make a remark the import of which extends to all of the<br />
following considerations, and that we must keep well in view, namely<br />
that not every a priori cognition must be called transcendental, but<br />
only that by means of which we cognize that and how certain<br />
representations (intuitions or concepts) are applied entirely a priori,<br />
or are possible (i.e., the possibility of cognition or its use a priori). (A<br />
56/B 80)<br />
In order to denote this transcendental proof structure, Kant introduces<br />
the notion of a transcendental deduction. Most familiar is the<br />
transcendental deductions of the categories. However, he also refers to<br />
the proof structure of the Transcendental aesthetic as a transcendental<br />
deduction (A 87/B 119-120). A transcendental deduction in general is<br />
compared with a trial (A 84/B 116). 5 The aim of this trial is to explain<br />
how it is possible for a concept to relate a priori to objects, and why this<br />
use of the concept is justified. A transcendental deduction is contrasted<br />
with an empirical deduction in which only the origin of the concept is<br />
explained (A 85/B 117).<br />
8.2 Problems<br />
As Kant’s transcendental epistemology is part of his transcendental<br />
philosophy, 6 what has been said so far also applies to this epistemology.<br />
This raises a number of problems relative to what I have set out to prove<br />
in this chapter, that the categories may be conceived of as embodied<br />
practices. The claim, for instance, that only pure a priori representations<br />
5<br />
For a highly interesting study of the etymology of the term ‘deduction’ and the<br />
meaning it had for Kant, cf. Dieter Henrich’s influential article (1989). According<br />
to Henrich, the meaning of the term for Kant cannot be identified narrowly with<br />
a logical deduction, represented by a syllogism, but was influenced by the<br />
juridical Deduktionsschriften of his time which aim it was to justify controversial<br />
legal claims, cf. Henrich (1989), 32.<br />
6<br />
The reason why I here distinguish between Kant’s transcendental philosophy in<br />
general and transcendental epistemology in particular is that I take Kant’s notion<br />
of transcendental philosophy to include more then just an epistemology. It<br />
includes, e.g. also his transcendental psychology, i.e., cognitive theory.
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
249<br />
(i.e. non-empirical representations) have a place within this<br />
transcendental epistemology, seems to exclude the notion of embodied<br />
practices from epistemological reflection because the notion of an<br />
embodied practice seems to carry with it too much of the empirical.<br />
Another problem in claiming that the categories may be conceived of as<br />
embodied practices is that Kant classifies these categories as concepts,<br />
and according to our traditional understanding of what a concept is, it is<br />
not an embodied practice. Finally, his distinction between an empirical<br />
and transcendental deduction raises a problem of its own that will be<br />
considered later. I will deal with these problems in the order in which<br />
they appear here. First, then, we must discuss Kant’s requirement that<br />
the representations involved in transcendental philosophy should include<br />
only pure a priori concepts.<br />
8.3 The a priori<br />
The term ‘a priori’ occurs in several contexts within the Critique. A<br />
central one is Kant’s theory of a priori concepts. Concepts are a priori<br />
when they have to be presupposed as necessary for having experience (B<br />
XVIII-XIX). Kant also uses ‘a priori’ to denote a certain kind of<br />
knowledge [Erkenntnis]. The essential feature of such knowledge is that it<br />
is independent of the impressions of the senses (B 2). As such, it is<br />
contrasted with empirical knowledge derived ‘a posteriori’ (B3). 7<br />
Other<br />
essential features of a priori knowledge are necessity and universality (B<br />
3). Finally, as we have seen, Kant sees the a priori conditions of our<br />
experience as subjective in the sense that they have their origin in the<br />
subject rather than the object of experience.<br />
In the light of this, Kant’s notion of the a priori may be characterized<br />
in terms of three points:<br />
Something is a priori when:<br />
1) it is a condition of having experience<br />
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,<br />
and<br />
3) it originates in the activity of the agent 8 .<br />
As we have seen, the a priori is defined in opposition to the empirical, so<br />
getting a clear idea of what Kant means by ‘empirical’ may also help us<br />
7<br />
For a short survey of the story of the notions of a priori and a posteriori in<br />
German philosophy prior to Kant, see Oberhausen (1997), 46ff.<br />
8<br />
As I will argue below, this last point also implies that the a priori has a structure<br />
which is independent of contingent empirical facts.
250<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
understand the a priori better. So, what does Kant mean by ‘empirical’?<br />
At B2 where the topic is first discussed, he begins by saying, perhaps not<br />
very helpfully, that empirical knowledge is knowledge that originates<br />
from experience. More helpful, I think, is the passage found at A 19-<br />
20/B 34. The passage starts by defining the notion of a sensation<br />
[Empfindung]. A sensation, Kant explains, is produced when the mind 9<br />
is affected by an object. He further tells us that an intuition that relates to<br />
an object through a sensation is empirical. The undetermined object of<br />
such an intuition is an appearance. In such an appearance, there is what<br />
he calls its ‘matter’, corresponding to our sensations, and form. As is now<br />
well known, this form is time and space, which, according to Kant are a<br />
priori.<br />
From this, we may argue that an empirical intuition has two aspects.<br />
The first, its matter, is that in the intuition which derives from the<br />
affection of the mind. The other is the a priori forms of time and space,<br />
originating in the activity of the mind itself. This, however, seems to leave<br />
us with a somewhat ambiguous understanding of the term ‘empirical’, at<br />
least as long as we talk about empirical intuitions. On the one hand, the<br />
whole empirical intuition is empirical. On the other, Kant tells us that<br />
one aspect of this intuition is a priori and so cannot be empirical. Only<br />
what is left, therefore, is empirical, namely that in the intuition that is<br />
derived from the affection of the mind. The same point pertains to<br />
representations in general. In any such representation there will be an a<br />
priori aspect. What is empirical in a strict sense is only its matter, derived<br />
from the affection of the mind.<br />
From this it follows that we may use the term ‘empirical’ in both a<br />
wide and a narrow sense. 10<br />
We use it in a wide sense when we use it to<br />
characterize representations (intuitions and concepts) that contain<br />
elements derived from the affection of the mind. We use it in a narrow<br />
sense when we refer only to these elements, i.e. the elements derived<br />
from the affection of the mind. In this last sense ‘empirical’ means ‘that<br />
in a representation that originates in the affection of the mind’. This<br />
9 I.e. the faculty of representation.<br />
10 A somewhat parallel point is made by Kambartel (1976), 98. He points out that<br />
the term ‘experience’ has an ambiguous history in Western philosophy.<br />
Sometimes it is used to refer to that which is delivered by the senses, conceived of<br />
as some kind of raw material of cognition. At other times it is used to refer to our<br />
awareness of the empirical world, conceived of as a well ordered, structured<br />
system of interrelated objects and processes. According to Kambartel this<br />
ambiguity is also imported into Kant’s philosophy.
251<br />
means that ‘a priori’ may be used in a correspondingly narrow sense to<br />
denote that in a representation that does not originate in the affection of<br />
the mind, but in the activity of the cognitive agent. This conforms to the<br />
final of the three points stated above, something is a priori when it<br />
originates in the activity of the agent. In what follows I shall take this to<br />
be an essential defining mark of the Kantian a priori. 11<br />
The claim just made will be of significance in the further discussion in<br />
more than one way. First, I shall use it in support of the idea that the<br />
categories may be conceived of as embodied practices after all. The logic<br />
of my argument is this. If we accept that a defining mark of the a priori is<br />
that it originates in the activity of the agent, then an embodied practice is<br />
a priori in this specific sense. An embodied practice is an activity<br />
performed by an agent, thus, we may also say that it originates in the<br />
agent. 12 This alone, of course, does not prove that the categories are<br />
embodied practices, or that we may legitimately conceive of them as<br />
such. In order to make this probable, we also have to show that there are<br />
practices satisfying the first and second demands listed above. We must<br />
demonstrate that there are embodied practices that are conditions for<br />
having experience, and that produce knowledge that is necessarily true<br />
and universal. This I shall do next.<br />
8.4 Embodied practice as a condition of experience<br />
In this section I shall argue that there are embodied practices that are<br />
conditions for having experience in a Kantian sense, and that produce<br />
knowledge that is necessarily true and universal. That there are<br />
embodied practices with such a function may perhaps not strike the<br />
reader as evident. 13<br />
Let me therefore give an example of an embodied<br />
11<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
The a priori may of course also be defined in opposition to the empirical<br />
relative to the first and second of the marks listed above defining the a priori. The<br />
point is then that 1) while the a priori is a condition of having (empirical)<br />
experience, (empirical) experience is conditioned by the a priori, and 2) while the<br />
a priori produces knowledge which is necessarily true and universal, the empirical<br />
cannot do this: empirical claims are merely contingent ( cf. e.g. A 91/B 123 and<br />
A 196/B 214).<br />
12<br />
This is only meant as a brief suggestion here. I will say more about it below in<br />
discussing the normativity of a practice.<br />
13<br />
Within the Wittgensteinian tradition, however, there is a growing awareness<br />
that embodied practices may be conditions for having experience in a Kantian or<br />
quasi-Kantian sense. Cf. e.g. Lear (1986) and Railton (2000). I will return to this<br />
point below.
252<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
practice that does have such a function, that is, a practice that is a<br />
condition for having experience. The term ‘experience’ is used here, as<br />
before, in its strong Kantian sense, which means, among other things<br />
that it is an experience of objects that are determined. The following<br />
example focuses on one such determination, size.<br />
Imagine we are to measure the size of an object, for instance a table. 14<br />
In order to do so, we need an object to use as a measuring rod. The<br />
measuring is performed by placing the rod next to the table. If the table<br />
is larger than the rod, we will have to successively move the rod from one<br />
position to another along the object, while memorizing in the mind, or<br />
perhaps by counting on the fingers, how many times this takes place. In<br />
doing this, our acts are not arbitrary but take place in a regular way.<br />
They also have a goal, finding the size of the table. According to the<br />
definition of a practice given above, they may be regarded as a practice.<br />
Let us call it ‘the practice of finding the size of an object’.<br />
As can be seen, we would not attain knowledge about the size of the<br />
table without this practice. Or to use a more Kantian expression, we<br />
would not be able to determine this particular aspect of the table without<br />
it. Where this particular aspect of our experience of the table is<br />
concerned, we may say that the practice is an a priori condition of having<br />
it.<br />
8.5 An empirical or a transcendental deduction?<br />
There is one problem with the example just offered which has to do with<br />
Kant’s distinction between an empirical and a transcendental deduction.<br />
It seems we have only given an empirical account of how the table is<br />
measured, so what we have done, at best, is provide what Kant calls an<br />
empirical deduction, telling the story of how the concept of the size of the<br />
table originates in our practice.<br />
First, let us notice, that even if Kant seems to be drawing a sharp<br />
distinction between the two sorts of deductions in the Critique, the first<br />
having to do merely with origin, the other with validity, it is not evident<br />
that in his transcendental epistemology he only operates on one side of<br />
this distinction. Both in the A- and the B-deduction of the categories and<br />
elsewhere in the Critique, Kant frequently refers to the origin of our<br />
knowledge. He also seems to think that, in doing this he is saying<br />
something about the justification of this knowledge (cf. e.g. A 66/B 90<br />
and A 86/B 119). There is more than one way to respond to this. We<br />
14<br />
I owe this example, and also its interpretation, to Saugstad (1992), 388.
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
253<br />
may criticize Kant for not being loyal to his own distinction, and try to<br />
reformulate his philosophy according to our idea of how the distinction<br />
ought to be understood. Or we may see the two sides of the distinctions<br />
as being two aspects of a common, unified project. As the second option<br />
conforms to the Critique better than the first, I think this is to be<br />
preferred, so within Kant’s transcendental epistemic project we are<br />
allowed to talk about the origin of knowledge, for instance by<br />
investigating its origin in our cognitive capacities. Actually, I think Kant’s<br />
point is that we must do this: we cannot critically examine our knowledge<br />
without also examining the origin of this knowledge, that is, our way of<br />
attaining this knowledge. 15<br />
In doing this, however, and this I think is Kant’s main point, we<br />
should not be content with merely telling the story of the genesis of our<br />
knowledge. In telling this story, we should take care to identify the<br />
elements or aspects that may also tell us something about the validity of<br />
this knowledge. This I take to be his point in the following criticism of<br />
Locke.<br />
15 This also conforms to the original meaning of the term ‘deduction’ in the<br />
German juridical tradition. If Dieter Henrich is right, Kant’s notion of a<br />
transcendental deduction is modelled on the juridical Deduktionsschriften of his<br />
time, cf. Henrich (1989), 32ff. Such deductions were also typically preoccupied<br />
with origin. In order to decide the rightfulness of a juridical claim to a property,<br />
for instance, it was standard to trace the origin of this claim. Was the property<br />
lawfully purchased, or acquired in any other lawful way (such as inheritance)? An<br />
essential point, however, is that such a ‘deduction’ was also concerned with more<br />
than just origin, i.e., the question of right.
254<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
Such a tracing of the first endeavors of our power of cognition to<br />
ascend from individual perceptions to general concepts is without<br />
doubt of great utility, and the famous Locke is to be thanked for<br />
having first opened the way for this. Yet a deduction of the pure a<br />
priori concepts can never be achieved in this way; it does not lie<br />
down this path at all, for in regard to their future use, which should<br />
be entirely independent of experience, an entirely different birth<br />
certificate than that of an ancestry from experiences must be<br />
produced. I will therefore call this attempted physiological derivation,<br />
which cannot properly be called a deduction at all because it<br />
concerns a quaestio facti, the explanation of the possession of a pure<br />
cognition. It is therefore clear that only a transcendental and never an<br />
empirical deduction of them can be given, and that in regard to pure<br />
a priori concepts empirical deductions are nothing but idle attempts,<br />
which can occupy only those who have not grasped the entirely<br />
distinctive nature of these cognitions. (A 86-87/B 118-119)<br />
The reason why Kant criticizes Locke is that he merely describes the<br />
genesis of our knowledge. Kant does not thereby deny that our<br />
knowledge has a genesis. What he says is that this genesis is not presently<br />
his interest, because its story cannot justify our knowledge. 16<br />
Even if we have now modified our concept of the distinction between<br />
an empirical and transcendental deduction, our basic problem still<br />
remains. Have we proved that the practice just described may function as<br />
a condition of experience in a Kantian sense? Have we not merely given<br />
an empirical account of the origin of the concept of size, i.e. the concept<br />
of the size of the table? It depends on how we interpret the example. It is<br />
possible to interpret it as a story of origin in the way suggested. But<br />
another interpretation is also possible, and this interpretation emphasizes<br />
not origin but something else. Through the practice the undetermined<br />
intuition of the table (undetermined in the sense that we do not know<br />
what its size is) becomes determined. In this sense the practice constitutes<br />
an aspect of our experience for us, an aspect that would not have been<br />
16 This is also the point I see implied by the much discussed reflection R 4900<br />
where Kant discusses Tetens’ theory of concepts, declaring that he himself<br />
concerns himself neither with the evolution of concepts nor with their genesis<br />
through action. I think his point is not that he is indifferent to the genesis of<br />
concepts, only that this is not his main concern. This interpretation is supported<br />
by Carl (1989), 120. He claims that Kant was sympathetic to Tetens’ theory of<br />
concepts, but that he also maintains that examining concepts qua acts performed<br />
by the cognitive subject was not enough. One had to deal with their objective<br />
validity as well.
255<br />
there for us without this practice. This is also what a category does,<br />
according to Kant. So, the above practice does the same for our<br />
experience as a category is said to do within his transcendental<br />
epistemology. Consequently there are embodied practices that are a<br />
priori in the sense of being a condition of having experience in the<br />
Kantian sense of the term.<br />
8.6 The normativity of practice<br />
The aim of this discussion is to prove that there are embodied practices<br />
that satisfy the demands defining the Kantian notion of the a priori:<br />
Something is a priori when:<br />
1) it is a condition of having experience,<br />
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,<br />
and<br />
3) it originates in the activity of the agent.<br />
In the last section we focused on the first of these demands, using the<br />
practice of finding the size of an object as our example. With this<br />
example at hand, let us now discuss the third demand. Earlier I argued at<br />
a general level that a practice may be conceived of as originating in the<br />
activity of an agent, so satisfying this third demand. The present example<br />
illustrates this because the measuring of the table would never have taken<br />
place if the agent had not actively measured it. This is something the<br />
agent does. In this way, the practice originates in the activity of the agent.<br />
In this section I shall point out that saying that the practice originates<br />
in the activity of the agent involves more than this simple and somewhat<br />
trivial claim. It also means that the structure or form of the practice is not<br />
determined by contingent empirical facts. The specific outcome of a<br />
specific act of measuring depends, of course, on the size of an actual<br />
object, so this outcome is contingent, which means it bears the essential<br />
mark that Kant ascribes to the empirical. But the practice itself does not<br />
depend upon this outcome. Neither is it dependent on such contingent<br />
facts as the age, sex or other similar features of the person performing the<br />
practice. 17<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
What counts is that the person in question knows how to<br />
perform the practice, not his or her personal features. A similar point<br />
may be made with regard to the instrument or instruments used in the<br />
practice, for instance, the measuring rod, its size, its color or its<br />
17<br />
I owe the general idea behind this point to Saugstad (1993), 111.
256<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
material. 18 In the absence of a conventional measuring rod, we might<br />
even use other objects to do the job, such as our arms, our feet etc. 19<br />
However, the practice would still essentially be the same. In this sense, its<br />
basic structure is independent of contingent empirical facts. Let us add<br />
this to the list of characteristics of the Kantian a priori:<br />
Something is a priori when:<br />
1) it is a condition of having experience,<br />
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,<br />
3) it originates in the activity of the agent, and<br />
4) its structure is independent of contingent empirical facts. 20<br />
What we are examining here may also be addressed through the notion<br />
of normativity. To say that a practice is normative means that, even if a<br />
practice unfolds in the empirical world, and even if it involves elements<br />
that may be explored at an empirical level, there is an aspect of the<br />
practice (its most essential aspect) that resists being qualified as empirical.<br />
This is its normative aspect. To say that the practice is normative, means,<br />
among other things, that it is possible to specify norms or rules according<br />
to which the practice takes place. In order to identify these rules, we<br />
typically abstract them from an existing practice. However, this does not<br />
mean that they are merely empirical generalizations.<br />
The following example may illustrate this point. 21 In the linguistic<br />
practice of a language community, the linguistic rules governing this<br />
practice are not disconfirmed even if individual members fail to conform<br />
to them. Such rules can be said to hold or be in force in the particular<br />
instances in which they are violated as well as those in which they are<br />
followed. Neither are these rules confirmed a posteriori by instances of<br />
rule-conforming use. When, struggling, I manage to use a phrase<br />
correctly in French, this may somewhat enhance my credibility as a<br />
French speaker, but it does not strengthen the credibility of the rules of<br />
French grammar. According to Railton this aspect of the rules, their<br />
18<br />
The only thing we need to consider is to specify the scale of the act of<br />
measuring relative to the sort of measuring rod we are using.<br />
19<br />
In pre-scientific societies size was normally specified by means of scales<br />
referring directly to the body or embodied acts such as this.<br />
20<br />
As most practices are maintained by a social community, there is also an<br />
important social aspect to a practice. In a sense, the practice is therefore not<br />
controlled by the individual, but by the community. However, when a practice is<br />
performed by an individual in an individual case, point 4 still applies.<br />
21<br />
The example is borrowed from Railton (2000), 176ff.
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
257<br />
normativity, is also transferred to the practice within which they occur. 22<br />
Discussing an example similar to the one given above (i.e. measuring an<br />
object with a measuring rod), he maintains that this practice is not<br />
disconfirmed when someone fails to live up to its standards. 23<br />
The idea that practices are normative in the sense here specified, is, I<br />
think, also integral to the Kantian definition of a practice. When Kant<br />
defines a practice as ‘acts performed according to a rule to attain an end’,<br />
he clearly ascribes to it a normative aspect, signaled by the fact that he<br />
claims the practice to be governed by a rule, i.e. a norm. So confronting<br />
the world with a practice involves more than just passively registering one<br />
of its properties. In confronting the world with a practice, we set up a<br />
standard, a standard represented by the practice. Borrowing a<br />
metaphor from the old master himself, we may say that in confronting<br />
the world with a practice, we approach the world not as students waiting<br />
to be told its secrets, but like judges, demanding that the world answers<br />
our questions. Or as Kant expresses the point in the preface to the Bedition:<br />
Reason, in order to be taught by nature, must approach nature with<br />
its principles in one hand, according to which alone the agreement<br />
among appearances can count as laws, and, in the other hand, the<br />
experiments thought out in accordance with these principles - yet in<br />
order to be instructed by nature not like a pupil, who has recited to<br />
him whatever the teacher wants to say, but like an appointed judge<br />
who compels witnesses to answer the questions he puts to them. (B<br />
XIII)<br />
In Kant’s Transcendental Idealism Allison discusses what might count as<br />
a priori conditions of experience in a Kantian or transcendental sense. 24<br />
There are several conditions that have to be met in order for a person to<br />
have experience of the world, such as the physiological processes going<br />
on in the brain but Allison rightly denies that such processes may be<br />
called a priori conditions of experience in a Kantian or transcendental<br />
sense. Allison’s criticism, however, does not apply to a practice in my<br />
view. One essential difference is that the physiological processes in the<br />
brain are not something we actively control in the same way that we<br />
22 Ibid., 176.<br />
23 Ibid., 180. Interestingly, Railton here also introduces the notion of a priori.<br />
The rule, he claims, is a priori regulative to the practice.<br />
24 Allison (1983), 10.
258<br />
control our practices. Neither can these processes be said to be normative<br />
in the sense that a practice is normative. 25<br />
8.7 Arithmetic as an a priori synthetic science<br />
In our discussion of the apriority of an embodied practice we have now<br />
covered all the criteria defining the a priori, except this one: something is<br />
a priori when it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and<br />
universal. Can embodied practices meet this requirement?<br />
It is interesting to see that in the Critique Kant himself gives an<br />
example of such a practice. The example, or different versions of it, is<br />
found in more than one place. At present, let us focus on the version<br />
found in the introduction to the B-edition at B 15ff. 26 The example deals<br />
with arithmetic. In arguing that arithmetic is an a priori synthetic<br />
science, Kant explains how our fingers are often used to perform<br />
arithmetic calculations, such as when we are to calculate the sum of 7 +<br />
5. In fact, this calculation by means of the fingers is used to illustrate<br />
what is meant by the idea that arithmetic is an a priori synthetic science,<br />
producing knowledge that is necessarily true and universal. In order to<br />
arrive at the insight that 7 + 5 = 12, more is required than merely to<br />
have the concepts of 7 and 5 respectively. We may examine and analyze<br />
these numbers as much as we like, and even try to think of them<br />
together, without getting any closer to the solution. What is required is<br />
the practice of counting (for instance on the fingers); we arrive at the sum<br />
once we start to count, step by step, first from one to seven, and then five<br />
steps more, until we reach the number of twelve:<br />
25 It follows from the present discussion that investigating the rules of our<br />
practices may be classified as a transcendental project in a general Kantian sense.<br />
This is also a point made by Pettit (1986), 270ff. Discussing Wittgenstein’s<br />
investigation of rule-following practices he argues that this may count as a<br />
transcendental investigation in a loose Kantian sense: ‘I suggest that we go back<br />
to Kant's definition and loosen it, so that a non-empirical inquiry into rulefollowing<br />
counts as a transcendental investigation.’<br />
26 Thanks to Saugstad for bringing my attention to this passage and its<br />
significance.<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
259<br />
The concept of twelve is by no means already thought merely by my<br />
thinking of that unification of seven and five, and no matter how long<br />
I analyze my concept of such a possible sum I still do not find twelve<br />
in it. One must go beyond these concepts, seeking assistance in the<br />
intuition that corresponds to one of the two, one’s five fingers, say, or<br />
(as in Segner’s arithmetic) five points, and one after another add the<br />
units of the five given in the intuition to the concept of seven. For I<br />
take first the number 7, and, as I take the fingers of my hand as an<br />
intuition for assistance with the concept of 5, to that image of mine I<br />
now add the units that I have previously taken together in order to<br />
constitute the number 5 one after another to the number 7, and thus<br />
see the number 12 arise. (B 15ff.)<br />
The example is interesting, I think, in establishing a clear link between<br />
the embodied practice of counting on the fingers and the a priori<br />
synthetic character of mathematics. Kant does not claim that the<br />
arithmetic operation of addition may be performed my means of fingers<br />
only. This is just one example of how such an operation may take place.<br />
However, even if this is just an example, the fact that Kant uses it is<br />
interesting. As arithmetic, according to Kant, is a science producing<br />
knowledge that is necessarily true and universal, and as he clearly<br />
acknowledges that arithmetical operations can be carried out by counting<br />
on the fingers, it shows that there are embodied practices that produce<br />
such knowledge. Counting on the fingers is one such practice. If I use my<br />
fingers to perform the arithmetic operation of 7 + 5, the answer will<br />
always be 12, as long as I know how to perform the operation properly.<br />
For the same reason, the answer will also be universal.<br />
8.8 Thinking as practice<br />
At the beginning of this chapter we listed some possible objections to the<br />
general idea that the categories are embodied practices. One such<br />
objection was based on Kant’s claim that transcendental philosophy<br />
allows pure a priori concepts only. We then identified the following four<br />
marks defining the Kantian notion of the a priori:<br />
Something is a priori when:<br />
1) it is a condition of having experience,<br />
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,<br />
3) it originates in the activity of the agent, and<br />
4) its structure is independent of contingent empirical facts.<br />
We have seen that an embodied practice may be a priori in all these<br />
senses.
260<br />
We may now proceed to another of the objections suggested above.<br />
The categories are classified as concepts. According to our traditional<br />
understanding of what a concept is, however, it is not an embodied<br />
practice. How are we to solve this problem? A first step towards a<br />
solution may be found by reminding ourselves that the term ‘concept’<br />
may have several meanings. Sometimes it is used to mean ‘mental<br />
representation’. At other times, it may refer to a system of beliefs, or<br />
prototypes. 27 Johannessen complains that philosophers typically use the<br />
term as if it were settled what it meant, when it is not. 28<br />
In some Kantian texts published before and after the Critique we<br />
have seen that Kant promotes what we have called a pragmatic theory of<br />
embodied rationality, according to which a person may possess a concept<br />
solely through the successful performance of an embodied practice. In<br />
such a case, the concept exists in the practice itself, or as what we termed<br />
a working concept. In this and the following sections I shall examine<br />
some statements in the Critique about the categories. I shall argue that<br />
even if Kant does not explicitly say that the categories are embodied<br />
practices, what he says is consistent with the idea that they are such<br />
practices.<br />
Notice how Kant typically qualifies the categories. They are functions<br />
or acts carried out by the agent, or as Kant puts it in German, they are<br />
Handlungen des reinen Denkens (A 57/B 81). However, the categories<br />
are also referred to as rules. 29 A category, we may conclude, is both an act<br />
and a rule, or an act taking place according to a rule. This way of<br />
paraphrasing the point conforms to Kant’s definition of a practice, so at a<br />
general level his way of describing the categories conforms to his own<br />
definition of a practice. It may be objected that the parallel is merely<br />
formal here, and should not be emphasized too much. I agree, but the<br />
Critique also contains other interesting reflections on the connection<br />
between concepts, categories and practices. Not surprisingly, given what<br />
we have previously learned from examining his Logic, they are found in<br />
Kant’s general discussion of logic introducing the second main part of the<br />
Critique, the Transcendental logic.<br />
27<br />
Cf. Peacocke (1992), 3.<br />
28<br />
Cf. Johannessen (1999), 95.<br />
29<br />
Cf. e.g. A 126 and B 145.<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
8.9 Logic<br />
261<br />
Kant starts his Transcendental logic by dividing logic into two main<br />
areas. The first he calls general or elementary logic. This is the logic<br />
corresponding to the general employment of the understanding. It<br />
contains the necessary rules of thinking without which no use of the<br />
understanding would take place. The second is called ‘the logic of the<br />
particular use of the understanding’, and contains the rules on how we<br />
are to think properly about a certain kind of objects. There exists more<br />
than one such logic, one for each existing science.<br />
The logic corresponding to a particular science, that is, the rules of<br />
how to understand a certain sort of objects according to this science, is<br />
described by Kant as a sort of propaedeutic to this science, that is,<br />
something a person has to know before he can become a proper student<br />
of it. However when we reflect upon the development of reason (and<br />
here he probably has the development of a specific science in mind), the<br />
rules of this logic are formulated at a relatively late point, that is, after the<br />
science has been established in its final form.<br />
The former can be called elementary logic, the latter, however, the<br />
organon of this or that science. In the schools the latter is often stuck<br />
before the sciences as their propaedeutic, though in the course of<br />
human reason they are certainly the latest to be reached, once the<br />
science is already long complete, and requires only the final touch for<br />
its improvement and perfection. For one must already know the<br />
objects rather well if one will offer the rules for how a science of them<br />
is to be brought about. (A 52/B 76-77)<br />
Only when the science has been firmly established may we specify the<br />
rules of the logic on which the science is founded.<br />
This passage is very interesting because we may clearly see here the<br />
ideas underlying Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality. In a<br />
previous chapter, discussing an example illuminating this theory, we saw<br />
Kant claim that the rules or concepts of grammar are present in the<br />
linguistic practice of a person, even if they cannot make these rules<br />
explicit. This passage seems to express a similar point, saying that to<br />
every science there corresponds a logic; i.e. a set of concepts and/or<br />
rules. Before they can be made explicit [angeben], however, the science<br />
must be established. If we accept that it needs to be established as a<br />
practice, and that this practice is embodied, then we have found an<br />
argument with a similar structure to Kant’s grammar example. The<br />
abstract logic of the science, i.e. its rules and/or concepts, is abstracted<br />
from the embodied practice.
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<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
Is this really what this passage says? First, we have to ask whether<br />
Kant conceives of science as an embodied practice in the Critique. Even<br />
if he does not explicitly say so, I think he does. From the references to<br />
Galileo, Torricelli and Stahl in the preface to the B-edition of the<br />
Critique, we may deduce that he was well aware of the embodied aspects<br />
of the scientific practice. Here he writes:<br />
When Galileo rolled balls of a weight chosen by himself down an<br />
inclined plane, or when Torricelli made the air bear a weight that he<br />
had previously thought to be equal to that of a known column of<br />
water… […] a light dawned on all those who study nature. They<br />
comprehended that reason has insight only into what it itself<br />
produces according to its own design... (B XII-XIII)<br />
Notice how Kant describes science as an embodied activity here. The<br />
scientist is a person in flesh and blood, performing all sorts of<br />
experiments with physical objects. The passage shows that he did not<br />
conceive of science merely as a theoretical or contemplative activity. On<br />
the contrary, the above passage suggests that his conception of a science<br />
conforms, at least in part, to our notion of an embodied practice. So the<br />
logic described above may be interpreted as the logic inherent in such a<br />
practice, a logic that is later made explicit in a process similar to the one<br />
Kant refers to in his grammar example.<br />
Shortly after the passage just examined, an argument similar to the<br />
one we have just discussed is also presented with regard to general logic.<br />
Even general logic is the product of a process of abstraction, we are told.<br />
It is what remains when we abstract away all the empirical conditions<br />
under which the understanding is employed.<br />
Now general logic is either pure or applied logic. In the former we<br />
abstract from all empirical conditions under which our understanding<br />
is exercised, e.g., from the influence of the senses, from the play of<br />
imagination, the laws of memory, the power of habit, inclination, etc.,<br />
hence also from the sources of prejudice, indeed in general from all<br />
causes from which certain cognitions arise or may be supposed to<br />
arise, because these merely concern the understanding under certain<br />
circumstances of its application, and experience is required in order<br />
to know these. (A 52-53/B 77)<br />
Whether the starting point of the abstraction process includes embodied<br />
practices here is not explicitly stated. Still, the theory of general logic<br />
presented has a radical embodied and pragmatic strain. Pure general<br />
logic contains nothing but a priori principles (A 53/B 77), but the basis
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
263<br />
for even this pure system of logic is the understanding of its empirical use.<br />
Even the purest most abstract principle of logic has its origin in some<br />
activity performed by the cognitive agent close to the empirical objects of<br />
the world.<br />
8.10 Transcendental logic<br />
Kant then proceeds to define his notion of a transcendental logic. Like<br />
the other logics identified so far, this is also a product of abstraction.<br />
However, in this case, not all content has been abstracted away.<br />
In this case there would be a logic in which one did not abstract from<br />
all content of cognition … (A 55/B 80)<br />
Transcendental logic is the logic dealing with the origin of our knowledge<br />
[Erkenntnis] of objects, it concerns the part of this knowledge that is not<br />
derived from the objects themselves.<br />
It would therefore concern the origin of our cognitions of objects<br />
insofar as that cannot be ascribed to the objects... (A 55-56/B 80)<br />
Its concepts [Begriffe] relate a priori to these objects and are nothing but<br />
acts of pure thinking (A 57/B 81), Kant claims. A science [Wissenschaft]<br />
that presents the origin, scope and validity of such knowledge is<br />
transcendental logic.<br />
Such a science, which would determine the origin, the domain, and<br />
the objective validity of such cognitions, would have to be called<br />
transcendental logic, since it has to do merely with the laws of the<br />
understanding and reason, but solely insofar as they are related to<br />
objects a priori and not, as in the case of general logic, to empirical as<br />
well as pure cognitions of reason without distinction. (A 57/B 81-82)<br />
Thus, like logic in general, transcendental logic is the result of a process<br />
of abstraction in which something originally part of a more<br />
comprehensive context is isolated and then examined in this isolated<br />
state. We are told (A 62/B 87) that what is here isolated is simply the<br />
understanding.<br />
I think it is very important to keep in mind what Kant says here<br />
about logic in general, and transcendental logic in particular, being the<br />
product of a process of abstraction, so that we are not misled when a few<br />
pages later he emphasizes the pure, non-empirical character of the<br />
transcendental concepts or the categories. These concepts are pure and
264<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
not empirical, he says (A 64/B 89). The notion of a pure concept may<br />
very easily evoke the idea of an entity having some kind of independent<br />
existence in some sort of Platonic world of ideas. This interpretation<br />
might also be suggested when some lines later Kant extols the systematic<br />
nature of the transcendental concepts and says that pure understanding<br />
distinguishes itself not only from all the empirical, but from all sensibility<br />
as well. It is a stable, self-contained unity (A 65/B 89-90).<br />
No doubt Kant wants us to see the transcendental concepts as part of<br />
some complete system, and that the structure of this system comes not<br />
from what he calls sensibility, but from somewhere else. Yet, as we have<br />
repeatedly emphasized, Kant also says that these pure concepts are the<br />
product of a process of abstraction from a context originally far more<br />
complex and richer in content, a content that also includes empirical<br />
elements. In this context, the transcendental concepts exist as the actions<br />
of the cognitive agent confronting the empirical world. Whatever this<br />
agent is, and whatever its actions are, it is clear that the transcendental<br />
concepts are far from being Platonic ideas with an independent existence,<br />
as these ideas have traditionally been understood. They exist as the acts<br />
of a cognitive agent as this agent confronts the empirical world.<br />
Kant’s discussion of logic does not prove that the categories are<br />
embodied practices, nor even that they may be conceived of as such<br />
practices, but it serves as a useful background against which to further<br />
explore the tenability of this idea.<br />
8.11 The categories are acquired<br />
A final Kantian point to be discussed in this chapter in support of the<br />
idea that the categories may be conceived of as embodied practices is<br />
Kant’s claim that the categories are acquired, found in a number of<br />
passages from the period in which the different versions of the Critique<br />
were published. 30 Let us start with the following passage from On a<br />
discovery, published in 1790, the same year as the third edition of the<br />
Critique:<br />
The Critique admits absolutely no implanted or innate<br />
representations. One and all, whether they belong to intuition or to<br />
concepts of the understanding, it considers them as acquired. 31<br />
30<br />
For a further discussion on this point, see Oberhausen (1997).<br />
31<br />
Ak VIII: 221.
265<br />
The fact that the categories are a priori does not mean, as one might<br />
easily be tempted to think, that they are innate, he argues, or that they<br />
are present from the very first minutes of our lives. As with any other<br />
concept, they are acquired. This process of acquisition Kant refers to as a<br />
process of ‘original acquisition’:<br />
But there is also an original acquisition (as the teachers of natural<br />
right call it), and thus of that which previously did not yet exist at all,<br />
and thus did not belong to anything prior to this act. According to the<br />
Critique, these are, in the first place, the form of things in space and<br />
time, second, the synthetic unity of the manifold in concepts… 32<br />
The same idea may also be seen to be implied by Kant’s claim in the<br />
Critique that the categories are the product of what he calls the<br />
‘epigenesis of pure reason’. However, he also emphasizes here that the<br />
categories are not of empirical origin (B 167).<br />
How may the categories be acquired and yet not be of an empirical<br />
origin? I will argue that a possible answer to this question may be found<br />
by assuming, again, that the categories are embodied practices. An<br />
embodied practice has to be learned and so is acquired. At the same<br />
time, a practice is in its essence normative and so transcends what Kant<br />
refers to as the empirical. In an argument similar to mine, Saugstad<br />
argues that the categories have behavioral techniques as their subjective<br />
basis. I take this notion of behavioral techniques to be more or less<br />
synonymous with my notion of an embodied practice. By assuming the<br />
categories have behavioral techniques as their subjective basis, Saugstad<br />
argues, we may explain both that they are a priori conditions of<br />
experience, and that they are acquired:<br />
The behavioral techniques that make empirical judgements possible<br />
do not exist in the agent before they are learned. Hence externalism<br />
explains how representations can be both a priori and originally<br />
acquired: they are neither abstracted from the senses nor developed<br />
from intellectual ‘seeds’, but formed with the acquisition of<br />
behavioral skills. 33<br />
Again, we have found an argument that, even if it does not prove that the<br />
categories are embodied practices, may be used as a general support for<br />
this idea. The argument begins from Kant’s claim that the categories are<br />
32<br />
Op. cit.<br />
33<br />
Saugstad (1992), 389.<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
266<br />
<strong>KANT</strong>’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY<br />
acquired. As we have seen, this claim is compatible with the idea that<br />
they are embodied practices.<br />
8.12 Summary<br />
In this chapter I have given some arguments in favor of the general idea<br />
that the categories may be interpreted as embodied practices. So far this<br />
idea has been defended at a general level only, with few explicit<br />
references to the Critique. However, the idea seems consistent with basic<br />
ideas explicitly put forward by Kant. In the following chapters I intend to<br />
take a closer look at some selected categories, such as quantity and<br />
causality, to see whether it is possible to interpret what Kant says about<br />
these as referring to embodied practices. With some reservations, I will<br />
argue that the answer is positive.<br />
Before continuing, let me add a general remark about the nature of<br />
the practices we shall be looking for. In contrast to the specialized<br />
practices of scientists, which require years of education and are found<br />
only within professional communities, the categories are supposed to be<br />
common to all humans, perhaps, except, new-born babies, or at least,<br />
this is how I understand Kant. Consequently, if the above-mentioned<br />
categories are embodied practices, then their development should require<br />
no specialized context. Living an ordinary life should suffice. We should<br />
also expect them to be acquired early in life. Finally, from what we have<br />
learned from Kant’s discussion of consciousness, it is possible that they<br />
are not performed with full consciousness. With this in mind, let us<br />
proceed.
9. QUANTITY<br />
The pure schema of magnitude (quantitatis),<br />
however, as a concept of the understanding, is<br />
number, which is a representation that<br />
summarizes the successive addition of one<br />
(homogeneous) unit to another.<br />
From the Critique 1<br />
Kant here draws a connection between the transcendental concept of<br />
quantity and addition. What does this mean? Does the transcendental<br />
concept of quantity presuppose addition, or is it even the same thing as<br />
addition? If so, what is meant here by addition? Is it the silent calculation<br />
of abstract numbers in the head? Or is it addition understood as an<br />
embodied practice, such as when we count on the fingers? In the<br />
previous chapter I argued that there are embodied practices that can be<br />
a priori conditions of experience in a Kantian sense. I also argued that at<br />
a general level, Kant’s theory of the a priori conditions of experience is<br />
not inconsistent with the general idea that the categories are embodied<br />
practices. In this and the following chapter I will discuss Kant’s theory of<br />
the categories more specifically, and examine whether the idea that they<br />
are such practices is supported by textual evidence from the Critique.<br />
The topic of this chapter is the transcendental concept of quantity. In his<br />
table of the categories at A 80/B 106 Kant lists three categories of<br />
quantity. 2 In the following, however, I will discuss only the transcendental<br />
concept, or category, of quantity in general. This is because my<br />
discussion will be based on what Kant says about quantity in the<br />
schematism chapter and the Analytic of principles where he deals with<br />
quantity in general only.<br />
Despite the rather abstract style of the text, I shall argue that it invites<br />
us to conceive of the category of quantity as an embodied practice. More<br />
specifically, I claim that Kant’s theory of quantity in general may be<br />
interpreted as referring to a class of embodied practices that all have in<br />
common the fact that they represent a sort embodied addition. One<br />
1 A 142/ B 182<br />
2 In German they are; Einheit, Vielheit and Allheit.
268<br />
QUANTITY<br />
example of this is counting on the fingers, and I will argue that counting<br />
on the fingers may be considered as one example of what Kant has in<br />
mind in his transcendental theory of quantity. In the following chapter, I<br />
shall then go on to discuss the relational categories. As far as I know,<br />
there is not much secondary literature supporting the interpretation that<br />
I am going to put forward. However, Saugstad has presented an<br />
interpretation that I think is similar to mine in its basic structure and that<br />
has had an influence on my own. 3<br />
9.1 Transcendental schematism<br />
In my discussion of quantity I shall again turn to the schematism<br />
chapter, 4 as well as the Analytic of principles of which that chapter is a<br />
part. In chapter 6, I suggested that the basic aim of these parts of the<br />
Critique was to establish a connection between our concepts and spatiotemporal<br />
reality. I also argued that the practices involved when we<br />
construct figures in space are a central part of this theory. By this theory<br />
of construction, Kant establishes a connection between concepts in<br />
general, and objects qua extended in space. However, this only solves<br />
half the problem. Time remains to be discussed. Why is it that concepts<br />
in general and the categories in particular apply to an empirical world<br />
that is both spatial and temporal? Do we need the notion of practice in<br />
order to answer also the latter part of this question? If so, what kind of<br />
practice is this?<br />
Not far from where the notion of a Verfahren is first introduced,<br />
Kant gives an answer that points in the direction in which we will now<br />
take our investigation: the categories and their schemata make possible<br />
the transcendental determination of time. In the last part of the<br />
schematism chapter this general statement is followed up by a more<br />
detailed account relating more directly to the different categories and<br />
their corresponding schemata. This more detailed account begins at A<br />
142/B 182, that is, in the schematism chapter, and extends into the<br />
following chapters.<br />
In Kant’s table of categories, the twelve categories are sorted into four<br />
groups, quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Each of these is now<br />
3 Cf. especially Saugstad (1992). Cf. also Kambartel (1976).<br />
4 The reason why I base my interpretation here on the schematism chapter is that<br />
this is where Kant most explicitly discusses how the categories are applied to the<br />
empirical world. If the categories are embodied practices, or if their employment<br />
involves such practices, this is where we are most likely to find this to be<br />
expressed by Kant.
QUANTITY 269<br />
associated with four basic ways in which time is transcendentally<br />
determined, having to do with; 1) the flow of time; 2) the content of time;<br />
3) the order of time; and, finally, what Kant calls 4) the sum total of time<br />
in regard to all possible objects [Zeitinbegriff in Ansehung aller<br />
möglichen Gegenstände]. In what follows I shall examine the category of<br />
quantity in general and argue that it is possible to interpret Kant’s theory<br />
of this category and its schematization as referring to embodied practice.<br />
9.2 Quantity<br />
Now, let us turn to see what Kant has to say about quantity and time.<br />
Discussing the concept of quantity, he explains that while the pure image<br />
of all quantity of the outer sense is space, the pure image of all quantity<br />
whatsoever is time. The pure schema corresponding to this general<br />
concept of quantity is number, which again is a representation of the<br />
successive addition of one equal element to another. Thus he concludes<br />
that number is nothing else than the unity of the synthesis of the<br />
manifold of a homogenous intuition in general, as the subject himself<br />
creates time in his apprehension of an intuition:<br />
The pure image of all magnitudes (quantorum) for outer sense is<br />
space; for all objects of the senses in general, it is time. The pure<br />
schema of magnitude (quantitatis), however, as a concept of the<br />
understanding, is number, which is a representation that summarizes<br />
the successive addition of one (homogeneous) unit to another. Thus<br />
number is nothing other than the unity of the synthesis of the<br />
manifold of a homogeneous intuition in general, because I generate<br />
[erzeuge] time itself in the apprehension of the intuition. (A142/B<br />
182)<br />
The passage is loaded with information. First, the fact that Kant claims<br />
that number is the pure schema of quantity, considered as a concept of<br />
the understanding, suggests that the theory now promoted refers back to<br />
the first example of the schematism chapter, the example of number.<br />
Number, he argues, is the pure schema of quantity in general. Quantity,<br />
however, has two pure images: the pure image of quantity corresponding<br />
to the outer sense is space and the pure image of quantity corresponding<br />
to the inner sense is time. Also worth noting is the fact that time, which<br />
by now is firmly established as the form of all intuition, is explicitly<br />
described as the product of our own activity, more specifically, time is<br />
said to be produced [erzeugt] by the synthesis of the manifold of an<br />
homogenous [gleichartigen] intuition, or in short, by our apprehension of
270<br />
QUANTITY<br />
such an intuition. The process in which this takes place is referred to as<br />
‘successive addition’.<br />
Let us stop for a moment to consider this term ‘successive addition’ as<br />
it used here. Another word for successive addition is counting. Counting,<br />
I think, may be described, without any great controversy, as a practice,<br />
and moreover as a practice that often involves the body. Kant has given<br />
us several examples of counting qua embodied practice, such as when we<br />
count on our fingers (B 15). Other examples of counting involving the<br />
body are easily found. One such example is when we count a series of<br />
external objects by manipulation, for example when we pick up ten<br />
apples in the supermarket and place them in our shopping basket. Even<br />
when we count a series of objects without touching them, as when we<br />
count the number of books standing in a bookshelf, our body is involved<br />
as we move our eyes, focusing on one book after the other.<br />
9.3 The production of time<br />
Now, let us return to our discussion of time. The passage suggests that, in<br />
some way or another, the transcendental determination of time may<br />
involve acts or practices like the ones just suggested. What is more, time<br />
itself, Kant tells us, may be seen as produced by such acts. What does this<br />
mean? Despite Kant’s rather abstract and/or obscure way of making his<br />
point, I think his idea is quite simple. In all acts of counting (one..., two...,<br />
three...) the act of counting constitutes a primitive time flow. As we<br />
count, through our counting as such, time comes into being for us.<br />
Before saying more about this, however, let us now take a look at the<br />
last part of the passage again:<br />
Thus number is nothing other than the unity of the synthesis of the<br />
manifold of a homogeneous intuition in general, because I generate<br />
[erzeuge] time itself in the apprehension of the intuition. (A142/ B<br />
182)<br />
A connection is established between the theory of time production just<br />
suggested, and the concept of apprehension. What is this connection? In<br />
what way is counting (successive addition) involved in apprehension? Let<br />
me suggest the following answer, and let me use the apprehension of an<br />
empirical object as my example. According to Kant, the apprehension of<br />
an empirical object takes place as a process in which new parts of the<br />
object are constantly perceived and added to the parts previously<br />
perceived. The fact that parts just perceived are added to previous ones<br />
means that apprehension always involves addition or counting. For<br />
instance, imagine yourself standing close to a very large building, so large
QUANTITY 271<br />
that you cannot take it all in in one look. You have, literally, to start the<br />
process of perception at one part of the house, say its northern end, and<br />
then proceed by letting your eyes pass towards its southern end, or vice<br />
versa. We are now close to Kant’s own description of such a situation at<br />
A 192/B 237-238.<br />
In the previous example of a house my perceptions could have begun<br />
at its rooftop and ended at the ground, but could also have begun<br />
below and ended above; likewise I could have apprehended the<br />
manifold of empirical intuition from the right or from the left. (A<br />
192/B 237-238)<br />
In the case of a large building, I think it is obvious that the process of<br />
perception or apprehension may be described as a process in which the<br />
different parts of the building are added together. It is obvious from the<br />
fact that you cannot take in the whole building in a single glance. You<br />
have to apprehend one part of the building at a time, and then add the<br />
parts together. According to the following passage, however, this process<br />
of addition, far from being something we seek recourse to only where<br />
large objects are concerned, is part of even the minutest perception, such<br />
as the perception of a very small line.<br />
I cannot represent to myself any line, no matter how small it may be,<br />
without drawing it in thought, i.e., successively generating all its<br />
parts from one point [alle Teile nach und nach zu erzeugen], and<br />
thereby first sketching this intuition. (A 162-163/B 203, my<br />
emphasis.)<br />
I here interpret the expression ‘alle Teile nach und nach zu erzeugen’ as<br />
part of the same general theory of apprehension as addition as the one<br />
identified above. Notice also how in this passage, as before, the practice<br />
of addition is seen as an integral part of apprehension as such.<br />
From what has been said so far, it should be clear that the counting<br />
involved in apprehension has to be conceived of as an embodied<br />
practice. When the object of apprehension is large, and we stand very<br />
close to it, this is perhaps most obvious. If the object is a large house, for<br />
instance, and I stand close to it, I have to take it in part by part and then,<br />
in order to recognize the house as a unity, I have to add the parts<br />
together. Moreover, this whole process demands that I actively use my<br />
body, turning my head so that I can see the different parts of the<br />
building, or moving myself in relation to the house. The counting<br />
exemplified here is similar to the addition involved when I count a series
272<br />
QUANTITY<br />
of objects without touching them, as when I count the number of books<br />
standing in a bookshelf by moving my eyes.<br />
Kant’s idea may be perceived to be that a similar process is involved<br />
in all apprehension. In chapter 6 I argued, following Kant, that<br />
apprehension could be described as a kind of drawing in which our<br />
bodies are involved. In visual perception, for instance, I move my eyes,<br />
making a movement similar to the one I would have made in order to<br />
produce a drawing of the shape of the object perceived. I think that the<br />
theory of apprehension implied by the passages just examined may be<br />
interpreted as referring to the same embodied acts as those identified<br />
there. That is, all apprehension presupposes and implies embodied<br />
movement. What is new, however, is that these acts are now also<br />
described as instances of addition or counting.<br />
If my interpretation is correct, this idea is used in the Critique in two<br />
ways. First, it is used to account for the fact that all empirical objects<br />
apprehended have spatial size. They have size because the act in which<br />
they are apprehended is an act in which part is added to part, and this is<br />
how spatial size is constituted for us. Another way of stating this point is<br />
by saying that empirical apprehension always involves a sort of primitive<br />
measuring of the apprehended object, a measuring in which we use our<br />
body, or parts of our body, as a primitive measuring rod. This is most<br />
obvious when apprehension takes place by touch. When I place my hand<br />
directly on the surface of the object to be apprehended, in the very same<br />
act I also measure its size relative to the size of my hand. Perhaps I also<br />
have to move it in order to really get a hold on what kind of object it is.<br />
Along with this, and as part of the very same act, measuring takes place<br />
again. How many times do I move my hand a ‘hand-sized’ distance in<br />
order to get from one side of the object to another? The fact that I am<br />
perhaps unaware of making such a measurement does not prevent it<br />
from taking place. Kant might have said that I am aware of it on an<br />
obscure level of consciousness. Most important, however, and what I take<br />
to be the basic Kantian point, is that we cannot apprehend an object<br />
without at the same time measuring it. And typically, in most everyday<br />
situations, the ‘measuring rod’ we use to perform the measuring is our<br />
bodies or parts of our bodies, such as when people in primitive cultures<br />
measure by means of their feet, thumbs or other body parts. 5<br />
5<br />
In Émile Rousseau advances similar thoughts when he writes: ‘Since man’s first<br />
natural movements are, therefore, to measure himself against everything<br />
surrounding him and to experience in each object he perceives all the qualities<br />
which can be sensed and relate to him, his first study is a sort of experimental
QUANTITY 273<br />
In addition to this, another highly important new aspect is now added<br />
to Kant’s theory of empirical apprehension. If we accept that his theory<br />
of empirical apprehension refers to embodied acts, and that these acts<br />
typically also exemplify the embodied practice of counting, then we may<br />
read the above passage at A142/B 182 as arguing that not only do these<br />
acts constitute the spatial form and size of empirical objects, they also<br />
constitute their temporal form, i.e., the fact that they appear to us in<br />
time. How is it that the temporal form of an object is produced in the<br />
same act as the one in which the object is apprehended and its size is<br />
measured? I think the answer is similar to the one given about space<br />
above. Time is produced through this act, because it involves the<br />
addition of parts. Through this addition, Kant explains, two images of<br />
quantity are produced; not only space, but also time (A 142/B 182).<br />
Thus, time and space are constituted [erzeugt] in the same act.<br />
Again I think that apprehension of large objects, such as a large<br />
building, best exemplifies the Kantian point. When I stand close to a<br />
large building and perceive it, part by part, adding together these parts,<br />
this addition (one..., two..., three...) constitutes a time flow. However, as<br />
this time flow is constituted through the same acts as the building is<br />
apprehended, the perceived building must necessarily appear in this time<br />
flow. It must necessarily appear to us as existing in time. However, this<br />
applies not only to large objects. Again I take the underlying idea to be a<br />
general one: the same constitution of a time flow in which the objects are<br />
necessarily perceived, is present in all apprehension.<br />
9.4 Some objections and answers<br />
In this section I shall briefly discuss two potential objections to this<br />
interpretation First, there are cases in which we count without using the<br />
body, such as when we silently perform mathematical operations. How<br />
do we know that Kant is not talking about such inner calculation? I do<br />
not deny that addition may take place in this inner way. In a sense I also<br />
think that the practice then performed is the same as when, for instance,<br />
we count on the fingers. A person may count internally or externally. In<br />
both cases counting takes place, and in both cases the person in question<br />
physics relative to his own preservation’ (Rousseau (1979), 125). Cf. also p. 143:<br />
‘There are natural measures which are almost the same in all places - a man’s<br />
pace, his outstretched arms, his stature. When the child estimates the height of a<br />
story, his governor can serve him as measuring rod; if he estimates the height of a<br />
steeple, let him measure it against houses. If he wants to know the number of<br />
leagues covered by a road, let him count the hours it takes to walk it.’
274<br />
QUANTITY<br />
participates in the practice of counting. In both cases, according to Kant,<br />
time is also produced, at least this seems to be his idea. However, my<br />
point is that where empirical apprehension is concerned, and when Kant<br />
claims that this kind of apprehension involves addition, then the addition<br />
referred to is embodied. It is embodied because empirical apprehension<br />
always involves the body. So for instance, when I apprehend a house,<br />
adding the various parts of the building together as I let my eyes pass<br />
from one part of the building to the other, I partake in the practice of<br />
embodied counting. Although my body may only be involved to a small<br />
degree, still it is involved, and so the practice is embodied.<br />
The second objection concerns time as the form of inner sense. Kant<br />
defines time as the form of inner sense, and in doing this seems to locate<br />
the constitution of time in the innermost part of our minds. How can I<br />
then claim that time is produced by embodied acts? I will not discuss<br />
here why Kant refers to time as the form of inner sense, or what the term<br />
‘inner’ means in this context. Rather, I want to emphasize that Kant also<br />
maintains that time, even if it is the form of inner sense, can only be<br />
represented in outer sense for instance by drawing a line. Consider for<br />
instance the following passage at B 155.<br />
Time… cannot be made representable to us except under the image<br />
of a line, insofar as we draw it… (B 155)<br />
The interpretation put forward may be used to explain why Kant makes<br />
this claim. The line does not represent time in itself, that is, the line<br />
considered as an object extended in space. It represents time indirectly,<br />
in virtue of representing the act by which time is produced [erzeugt]. In<br />
fact, the passage just quoted may be seen as yet another one that supports<br />
the idea that time is produced by embodied acts.<br />
Earlier I listed four criteria characterizing an a priori element of<br />
cognition:<br />
Something is an a priori element of cognition when:<br />
1) it is a condition of having experience,<br />
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,<br />
3) it originates in the activity of the agent, and<br />
4) its structure is independent of contingent empirical facts.<br />
So far, it may be argued, I have shown that the category of quantity,<br />
interpreted as an embodied practice, satisfies the first, third and fourth of<br />
these criteria. But what about the second? Indirectly this question was<br />
answered in the previous chapter. We there saw Kant argue that<br />
arithmetic qua embodied practice (for instance counting on the fingers) is<br />
the source of knowledge that is necessarily true and universal. Geometry
QUANTITY 275<br />
is another example frequently used by him to illustrate the production of<br />
such knowledge. As I argued in chapter 6, he also saw geometry as an<br />
embodied practice (cf. e.g. A 239ff./B299ff.). Thus, I conclude that it is<br />
possible to interpret Kant’s theory of quantity as referring to an<br />
embodied practice (the practice of counting) and that there is textual<br />
evidence in the Critique supporting the view that this was how Kant<br />
conceived of the matter.<br />
One last question that may need to be discussed is whether we are<br />
entitled to interpret the category of quantity as such as an embodied<br />
practice, or whether we should adopt the more modest claim, that it is<br />
only when we apply this category that we are involved in the practice<br />
defined above. Expressed in Kantian terminology, is the category an<br />
embodied practice, or is it only the schematized category which is such a<br />
practice?<br />
As long as we distinguish between a category and its schema, the<br />
latter option must be preferred, I think. However, it is not obvious that<br />
we are justified in upholding such a distinction. Even if Kant is not<br />
unambiguous on this point, a number of interpreters have argued that<br />
there is no room in his theory for the notion of an unschematized<br />
category. By defining a category as an act [Handlung] or a function<br />
performed with regard to the empirical manifold of our intuitions, Kant<br />
by definition seems to say that the category has no existence in<br />
abstraction from its employment. Gardner comments:<br />
... the notion of an unschematized category disappears, or becomes a<br />
dubious abstraction from the conditions of empirical knowledge... 6<br />
If so, then we are entitled to adopt the stronger of the two options<br />
suggested above, that the category of quantity as such may be interpreted<br />
as an embodied practice. This will also be my position. This means,<br />
however, that whenever the claim is made that a category is an embodied<br />
practice, the term ‘category’ is used in the sense of a schematized<br />
category.<br />
6<br />
Gardner (1999), 169f. Cf. also Kambartel (1976), 127.
10. THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES<br />
... [we] can ... perceive all time-determination<br />
only through the change in outer relation<br />
(motion) relative to that which persists in space<br />
(e.g., the motion of the sun with regard to the<br />
objects on the earth)...<br />
From the Critique 1<br />
The task of this chapter is to answer the question of whether Kant’s<br />
theory of the relational categories as found in the Critique may be<br />
interpreted as referring to embodied practices in a way analogous to<br />
what we found in the previous chapter concerning the category of<br />
quantity. The approach of the chapter will be as follows. First, I examine<br />
what Kant has to say about these categories in the Analogies of<br />
experience, which is the part of the Analytic of principles dealing with<br />
these categories and their function relative to time. A central idea put<br />
forward here is that objective time determination is only possible given<br />
these categories. However, Kant also contends that such determination<br />
presupposes the existence of external objects. Moreover, in the above<br />
passage from the Refutation of idealism, following closely on the<br />
Analogies of experience, he uses the sun and its movement across the sky<br />
as an example of a process [Wechsel] in the outer conditions [äußere<br />
Verhältnisse] that make the determination of time possible. From this, I<br />
will argue, it is possible to infer that there is a level at which the relational<br />
categories may be conceived of as embodied practices, and that this is<br />
implied by the Critique. These are the practices involved whenever we<br />
use the movements of the sun or another object to determine time.<br />
I end this chapter somewhat hesitantly, however. Kant’s general<br />
theory of the categories seems to demand that the relational categories,<br />
whatever they are, are virtually present at every moment of our lives, at<br />
least as long as we are awake and in a normal state of consciousness. If<br />
there is a level at which these categories exist as embodied practices, we<br />
have to search for practices that are similarly entertained at every<br />
moment of our lives. It is not obvious that the practices involved when<br />
1 B 277-278.
278<br />
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES<br />
we use the movement of the sun or another object to determine time are<br />
such practices. This problem is followed up in a further discussion in the<br />
next chapter<br />
As for the secondary literature, with a few significant exceptions I<br />
have found little of immediate relevance to what I shall discuss in this<br />
chapter. 2<br />
Of course, the textual passages on which my interpretation is<br />
based have frequently been discussed but these discussions have mostly<br />
taken a rather different direction from the one I will be pursuing.<br />
10.1 The analogies of experience<br />
First, let us take a look at Kant’s discussion of the relational categories,<br />
and the function he ascribes to them within his theory of time. As we<br />
have seen, according to Kant, the categories do not all determine time in<br />
the same way. The transcendental schema of quantity merely produces a<br />
time flow [Zeitreihe] (A 145/B 184). In order to have a representation of<br />
time order [Zeitordnung] we need something more. We need the<br />
transcendental schemata of the relational categories of substance,<br />
causality and interaction. The distinction made between time flow and<br />
time order may be interpreted as a distinction between subjective and<br />
objective time. Through empirical apprehension a first, primitive time is<br />
produced, and sensations or perceptions are located in this time. This,<br />
however, does not tell me anything about the objective order of time,<br />
that is, the time order of the objective world. All I know at this point is<br />
the temporal succession of my subjective representations. How is it<br />
possible for us to know, then, that there also exists an objective time<br />
order? And what does it mean to say that such an order exists?<br />
Kant’s answer to this question is presented in his theory of the<br />
transcendental schemata corresponding to the three relational categories.<br />
This theory is provided in the chapter entitled the Analogies of<br />
experience, consisting of what Kant refers to as three analogies. Each<br />
analogy is connected to one of the three relational categories, and each<br />
consists of a principle followed by a proof.<br />
2<br />
An exception is Kambartel (1976). Cf. also Melnick (1989). As part of his<br />
general attempt to interpret the categories at the level of human behavior, he<br />
argues, for instance, that the relational category of substance may be interpreted<br />
as referring to our capacity to perform certain procedures characterized by a<br />
temporally extending behavior (1989), 86. Saugstad presents an externalist<br />
interpretation of the Kantian notion of causation in Saugstad (1993a), 219ff, cf.<br />
also Saugstad (1992), 383.
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 279<br />
The first analogy deals with what Kant refers to as ‘the principle of<br />
the permanence of substance’. In the B-edition it is stated as follows:<br />
In all change of appearances substance persists, and its quantum is<br />
neither increased nor diminished in nature. (B 224)<br />
At first sight, it is not easy to see how this has anything to do with<br />
objective time determination. In order to get a clue as to how this<br />
principle relates to time, we have to proceed to the proof that<br />
immediately follows it. Unfortunately, the argument supplied by this<br />
proof is far from transparent. In the A-edition Kant begins his proof by<br />
stating that all appearances are in time. Further, as apprehension of the<br />
manifold of these appearances is successive, we are confronted with a<br />
manifold that is always changing. Based on this manifold alone it would<br />
be impossible, Kant argues, to decide [bestimmen] whether the objects of<br />
experience are coexistent or whether they follow each other in time.<br />
Such a determination requires that there is a substrate underlying the<br />
appearances, a substrate that is lasting and permanent. This substrate is<br />
substance.<br />
How does this argument relate to Kant’s theory of transcendental<br />
time determination? Let us take a look at the parts of the proof where<br />
Kant more explicitly refers to time. A basic feature of objective time is<br />
that there is just one such time. This was established in the Aesthetic and<br />
it is now repeated. 3 Time is also in a basic sense unchanging. We may say<br />
that our appearances change in time, but this does not entitle us to say<br />
that time itself changes. Time, considered as the form of appearance, is<br />
always the same.<br />
The time, therefore, in which all change of appearances is to be<br />
thought, lasts and does not change. (B 224-225)<br />
Further, only in relation to such a time can we say that two events are<br />
either simultaneous or follow each other (B 224-225). This, however,<br />
raises a new question. Time, not being an empirical representation but<br />
only the form of such a representation, cannot be observed (B 225). From<br />
where, then, do we get the representation of a single, unchanging time?<br />
Kant’s solution involves the category of substance, which, applied to<br />
the world of our experience, invites us to conceive of a stable and<br />
permanent substratum underlying this world. This substratum, or<br />
3 See e.g. A 188/ B 232.
280<br />
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES<br />
substance as Kant prefers to call it, remains the same even if its<br />
determinations change and so is perfect for serving as the representation<br />
of time in general. Substance is a representation of time in general<br />
Consequently it is in the objects of perception, i.e., the appearances,<br />
that the substratum must be encountered that represents time in<br />
general… (B 225).<br />
The term ‘substance’ seems to be used somewhat ambiguously in the<br />
text. In the first part of the first analogy the term is used in the singular,<br />
and from the context seems to refer to the idea of some unobserved<br />
primary matter underlying all empirical reality. The principle of the first<br />
analogy, claiming that the quantity of substance in nature neither<br />
increases or decreases, seems to confirm this reading. Then, however,<br />
Kant begins to use the term in the plural, talking about substances, 4 as if<br />
he were using the term in an Aristotelian sense, talking about tables and<br />
trees and other empirical objects in space. Later in the text, as in the<br />
third analogy, the term is undoubtedly used in this sense.<br />
The apparent dilemma is best solved, I think, by remembering that<br />
the term ‘substance’ when used transcendentally refers neither to objects<br />
in space nor to an unobservable primary matter, but to a conceptual<br />
synthesis by means of which something permanent is thought in the<br />
empirical world, without, however, committing us to any particular<br />
metaphysics. 5 What the first analogy teaches us is that this synthesis may<br />
be performed in two different ways; one in relation to nature at large,<br />
and one in relation to what we refer to as empirical objects. It may also<br />
be argued, however, that Kant’s argument in the first analogy rests<br />
primarily on the first of the above-mentioned uses. What he needs here is<br />
the representation of something unchanging that neither increases or<br />
decreases in quantity. This kind of stability may only be found, I think, if<br />
we consider nature at large.<br />
The kind of stability just mentioned plays a fundamental role in the<br />
argument found at A 188/B 231. Imagine new substances coming into<br />
being while others disappeared, Kant suggests. That would not only do<br />
away with the empirical unity of time, it would abolish even the<br />
4<br />
See especially the part following A 188/ B 230.<br />
5 Here I agree with Gardner (1999), 174. I take also Allison (1983), 209 to be<br />
making the same point, when, in discussing this part of the first analogy, he<br />
comments: ‘It should be kept in mind, however, that this is a strictly<br />
transcendental claim, which tells us nothing about the nature of this matter.’
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 281<br />
possibility of such a time. Our appearances would then relate to two<br />
separate times flowing side by side. But this is clearly beyond reason (A<br />
188-189/B 231-232). Even if it is perhaps not crystal clear what this<br />
argument achieves, it confirms what seems to be Kant’s basic point in the<br />
first analogy. A representation of a single and unified time is possible only<br />
under the condition that we think of the appearances of nature as being<br />
founded on something the quantity of which is neither increasing or<br />
decreasing.<br />
10.2 The second analogy<br />
Looking at what Kant is trying to achieve with the three analogies, the<br />
first one has laid down some foundations, but he has not yet told us how<br />
it is possible to have knowledge of the objective order of time. This<br />
question is dealt with in the second analogy. This presents what he refers<br />
to as ‘the principle of temporal succession according to the law of<br />
causality’. In the B-edition, the principle is expressed in this way:<br />
All alterations occur in accordance with the law of the connection of<br />
cause and effect. (B 232)<br />
The proof following this principle states that only if experience is<br />
organized according to the principle of cause and effect can we<br />
determine the objective time order of two events. This is possible, Kant<br />
argues, for the reason that when we have determined an event A to be<br />
the cause of another event B, then, as part of this determination, we have<br />
also determined that B follows A. Thus, we have also established an<br />
objective time relation between A and B (A 192/B 237).<br />
To illustrate this proof Kant presents his famous example of the<br />
house and the ship. Imagine, first, that you are observing a house.<br />
According to his theory of apprehension, you have to take it into your<br />
consciousness part by part. Now, it is clear that the order in which the<br />
different parts of the house are apprehended is not determined by any<br />
rule. This means that the parts may be apprehended in a number of<br />
different ways. In this sense, the order of apprehension is accidental.<br />
Imagine now that you see a ship drifting down a river. At one moment<br />
you see the ship at one point in the river and some time later you observe<br />
it at a lower point in the river. In this case, Kant argues, you cannot first<br />
apprehend the ship at the lower point and then, at some later time,<br />
apprehend it at the higher position. The order of the succession of<br />
perceptions is here determined by something transcending the subjective<br />
order of apprehension.
282<br />
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES<br />
I see a ship driven downstream. My perception of its position<br />
downstream follows the perception of its position upstream, and it is<br />
impossible that in the apprehension of this appearance the ship<br />
should first be perceived downstream and afterwards upstream. The<br />
order in the sequence of the perceptions in apprehension is therefore<br />
here determined, and the apprehension is bound to it. (A 192/ B 237)<br />
What is it in this example that makes it possible for us to transcend the<br />
subjective order of apprehension? Kant is quite clear that it is the<br />
category of causality. By means of this category, you decide that the<br />
situation in which the ship was higher up the river is the cause leading to<br />
the situation in which the ship has moved to a lower point of the river.<br />
Let us call the first situation A and the second B. By deciding that A is<br />
the cause of B, it follows that B cannot precede A. It also follows that it is<br />
impossible to apprehend B before A.<br />
This is the case whenever we observe that something happens. Kant<br />
here seems to be thinking that the concept of something happening<br />
implies the concept of an objective time order, which is why he can claim<br />
that the rule of causality is necessarily present in all contexts in which<br />
something is happening.<br />
But this rule is always to be found in the perception of that which<br />
happens, and it makes the order of perceptions that follow one<br />
another (in the apprehension of this appearance) necessary. (A193/B<br />
238)<br />
How do we know that one event is the cause of another? According to<br />
Hume we can never know this in an absolute sense. As our idea of<br />
causality is based on induction, it lacks the universal and necessary<br />
character found in a priori principles. Kant agrees with Hume that if the<br />
concept of causality was founded merely on induction, then the principle<br />
that everything that happens has a cause would be merely empirical, and<br />
thus accidental (A 196/ B 241). However, Kant claims that there is more<br />
to causality than this and that it is possible to prove that causality is a<br />
necessary condition of objective time determination. According to this<br />
proof, objective time determination is possible only given the necessary<br />
connection between cause and effect.<br />
The argument has here the structure of a transcendental proof.<br />
Starting out from something thought to be evident, that is, the fact that<br />
we experience the world as a series of events taking place in an<br />
irreversible time order, Kant then proceeds to argue that this fact can<br />
only be explained by assuming that this time order already stands under
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 283<br />
the category of causality. This category, then, is proven to be an a priori<br />
condition of what was taken to be evident, and the proof is concluded. In<br />
giving his proof of the transcendental function of causality, Kant does not<br />
require us to constantly investigate the exact causal relations of the<br />
elements of our environment in order to objectively determine time, at<br />
least not in the way I read him. I take Kant’s point to be that the fact that<br />
we experience the world as a series of events taking place in an<br />
irreversible time order confirms that we already apply the category of<br />
causality in our experience, even if we are not explicitly aware of this.<br />
This is possible, because, as we have seen, Kant contends that a<br />
significant part of our cognitive process may take place at an obscure<br />
level of consciousness.<br />
10.3 The third analogy<br />
In my presentation of the two previous analogies, I have tried to<br />
emphasis their main structure, deliberately omitting a number of details.<br />
My discussion of the third analogy will be even briefer. In short, Kant<br />
claims that determining two objects as simultaneous require the category<br />
of reciprocal causal interaction. He has previously stated that time has<br />
only two modi, that is, succession and simultaneity (B 226/A182). In the<br />
second analogy he argued that objective succession presupposes causality.<br />
Thus, the first of the two modi of time was taken care of. The second<br />
modus, simultaneity, is the topic of the third analogy. As I understand it,<br />
Kant’s theory of the category of reciprocal causal interaction is little<br />
more than an extension of his theory of the category of causality.<br />
According to this theory, while the latter determines a causal relation to<br />
be present between A and B, the former determines that it also, at the<br />
same time, is present between B and A. If this is right, it follows that<br />
causality, alongside substantiality, is the essential principle of time<br />
determination. It also follows that simultaneity is a special case of<br />
succession. When A and B causally influence each other reciprocally, we<br />
may say both that A succeeds B and that B succeeds A, which can be true<br />
only if they are simultaneous and the time between A and B is zero. 6<br />
6 This comes close to the cases described in the second analogy at A 203ff/ B<br />
247ff. Here Kant discusses cases in which cause and effect exist simultaneously.<br />
Actually some of these cases, such as the iron ball resting on a pillow, might have<br />
been used as examples of reciprocal interaction just as well as unidirectional<br />
causality. In this case, there is causal directionality present both from the ball to<br />
the pillow and from the pillow to the ball.
284<br />
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10.4 Time and the world<br />
When introducing the three analogies, Kant declares that their purpose is<br />
to show how objective time determination is possible. Now, after having<br />
briefly looked at the structure of the three analogies, it is clear that they<br />
all work together in achieving this aim. In order to have an objective<br />
representation of time we need the category of substance, causality and<br />
interaction. The first makes it possible to think of the world and its<br />
objects as being permanent in either an absolute or relative sense, the<br />
second and third make it possible to think of the objects of this world as<br />
standing in causal relations to each other. And all of this is necessary if<br />
we are to think of these objects as existing in an objective time order.<br />
After having read our way through the three analogies, we now also<br />
know more about what Kant means by ‘objective time order’. When first<br />
introducing the term, it might seem as if he meant simply the<br />
representation of time, considered in abstraction from all empirical<br />
representations, a time that objectively considered is unified and<br />
sequential, and that somehow exists independently of our subjective<br />
order of representations. We now realize that this objective time order<br />
cannot be conceived of independently of an objectively existing empirical<br />
world, that is a world characterized by permanence (in the sense specified<br />
above) and causality. Apart from this world, so Kant’s argument goes, no<br />
such thing as an objective time order can exist. This is why objective time<br />
in itself cannot be intuited.<br />
So the argument of the three analogies concerns more than objective<br />
time abstractly considered. It concerns the existence of an objectively<br />
existing empirical world with objects interacting according to the laws of<br />
causality. In fact, so we learn from the three analogies, these two<br />
questions, the question of objective time and the question of an objective<br />
world order, can only be solved together. This does not mean that the<br />
three analogies in themselves contain the whole of Kant’s theory of an<br />
objectively existing world or of how we may possess such a world. Parts<br />
of this theory are established before we reach the analogies, in his theory<br />
of space. However, as is easily understood, space alone cannot account<br />
for our knowledge of an objective world. An essential feature of this<br />
world is its character of being a process in time and so as part of our<br />
theory of objective experience we need a theory of objective time<br />
determination as well.<br />
10.5 Time measuring practices<br />
The task of this section is to answer the question of whether Kant’s<br />
theory of the relational categories as found in the Critique can be
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 285<br />
interpreted as referring to embodied practices in a way analogous to<br />
what we found in the previous chapter concerning the category of<br />
quantity. So far, this question has not been answered. We have found,<br />
however, that the transcendental determination of an objective time<br />
order requires an empirical world. More specifically, it requires an<br />
empirical world where objects interact and where events follow each<br />
other according to the laws of causality.<br />
A similar point is also made at B 155, where Kant, after having stated<br />
that time may be represented only by the image of a line, continues to<br />
argue that the determination of time always has to be made relative to<br />
changes in the outer world:<br />
But that it really must be so can be clearly shown, if one lets space<br />
count as a mere pure form of the appearances of outer sense, from<br />
the fact that time, although it is not itself an object of outer intuition<br />
at all, cannot be made representable to us except under the image of<br />
a line, insofar as we draw it, without which sort of presentation we<br />
could not know the unity of its measure at all, or likewise from the<br />
fact that we must always derive the determination of the length of<br />
time or also of the positions in time for all inner perceptions from<br />
that which presents external things to us as alterable; hence we<br />
must order the determinations of inner sense as appearances in time<br />
in just the same way as we order those of outer sense in space. (B 155,<br />
my emphasis)<br />
Does this give us any clue as to how the above question may be<br />
answered?<br />
When we study the history of man, we find that people have used<br />
events in the outer world to determine the order of time in various ways.<br />
For instance, from prehistoric times the cycles of the sun and the moon<br />
have been used to construct a system of objective time determination.<br />
Could it be that the practice of observing the celestial bodies and, on the<br />
basis of such observations, making judgments regarding the order of<br />
time, could be used as an example of the practices involved in the<br />
transcendental determination of time? There are arguments in support of<br />
this claim. Actually, Kant seems to confirm this claim himself in a<br />
passage at B 277 in the Refutation of idealism. He uses the movement of<br />
the sun as an example of the kind of process in the outer world that<br />
makes possible the determination of time in general [alle<br />
Zeitbestimmung]. He writes:
286<br />
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES<br />
... [we] can … perceive all time-determination only through the<br />
change in outer relation (motion) relative to that which persists in<br />
space (e.g., the motion of the sun with regard to the objects on the<br />
earth)... (B 277, my emphasis)<br />
Let us assume that Kant is here referring to the practice suggested<br />
above. 7 If this is accepted, it should be obvious that there are also a<br />
number of other practices that may count as a time-determining practice<br />
in a similar sense. One example is when I determine time by means of a<br />
mechanical clock, run, for instance, by a couple of weights. The basic<br />
structure of this practice is the same as the one examined above, only the<br />
hands of the clock have now replaced the sun as the moving object. Does<br />
this mean that the case is now settled?<br />
I hesitate to let this be the final conclusion of my examination, not<br />
because I believe my line of argument is wrong, but because it has so far<br />
not made us realize the fundamental significance that the relational<br />
categories (interpreted as embodied practices) have in our daily lives. A<br />
basic point of Kant’s transcendental philosophy is that the relational<br />
categories, metaphorically expressed, are what tie the world together. In<br />
a more formal manner, this point is expressed in the first part of the<br />
Analogies of experience in a passage newly written for the B-edition.<br />
Through the original apprehension of the objects of the empirical world,<br />
these objects are placed beside each other in space, Kant explains, and<br />
moreover, as apprehension takes place in time, a subjective notion of<br />
time is introduced here. However the term ‘experience’ signifies more<br />
7 A possible objection to this interpretation, is that the sun is an empirical<br />
phenomenon, and so is its movement. If we use this movement to keep track of<br />
time, it seems as if the resulting concept of time is abstracted from merely<br />
empirical observations. I will suggest an answer to this question by drawing an<br />
analogy back to the example where the size of an object is measured by means of<br />
a measuring rod. There is a sense in which this rod is an empirical object like any<br />
other. However, the moment we employ it in an act of measuring, all these<br />
qualities become irrelevant. All that matters now is its function as a standard, and<br />
it is only this function that now interests us. So it is with the sun and its<br />
movements. From an empirical perspective, the sun is of course empirical, and so<br />
is its movement. Considered as elements of a time-determining practice,<br />
however, their status changes. What interest us now are not their empirical<br />
qualities but their function within this practice. In establishing this practice, the<br />
sun and its movement are given the status of a standard by which time is<br />
measured and relative to which other events may be ordered. That an object’s<br />
status changes when used in a practice like measuring is a point also made by<br />
Wittgenstein (1984), § 50.
THE RELATIONAL CATEGORIES 287<br />
than this. It signifies the knowledge we have when the objects of the<br />
world are conceived within an objective time order. This is made possible<br />
through a synthesis different from the synthesis of apprehension, he<br />
argues. It is a synthesis that takes place through synthesizing concepts<br />
[verknüpfende Begriffe], and these are no other than the relational<br />
categories (B 218 ff.).<br />
The basic significance that Kant ascribes to the relational categories<br />
here is also evident from a passage found at A 216/B 263. According to<br />
Kant the term ‘nature’ used empirically refers to appearances connected<br />
by necessary rules, and these are the rules explored in the three<br />
analogies, i.e. the relational categories. Now, even if we accept that there<br />
are embodied practices that have the basic function Kant here ascribes to<br />
the relational categories, and also that there is a level at which the<br />
relational categories are these practices, it is not obvious that the practice<br />
(or practices) that we have identified so far can fulfill this function. When<br />
I determine the objective order of time by using the movement of the sun<br />
across the sky as a standard, this is something I do only from time to<br />
time. So also with the other practices identified above. We perform them<br />
from time to time. However, the way I interpret Kant’s theory of<br />
experience as expressed in the above passage and elsewhere in the<br />
Critique, the relational categories are presupposed at every moment of<br />
our waking existence. As long as we experience ourselves as living in a<br />
coherent and ordered world, signified by the Kantian term ‘nature’, the<br />
relational categories are working.<br />
Notice also Kant’s argument at A 196/B 241. He claims that<br />
causality is a necessary condition of objective time determination.<br />
Objective time determination is possible only given the necessary<br />
connection between cause and effect. As I have already stated, I do not<br />
think that Kant demands that in order to objectively determine time, we<br />
have to constantly investigate the exact causal relations of the elements of<br />
our environment. I take Kant’s point to be that the fact that we<br />
experience the world as a series of events taking place in an irreversible<br />
time order shows that we already apply the category of causality in our<br />
experience, even if we are not explicitly aware of this.<br />
This all supports the idea that the relational categories, whatever they<br />
are, are virtually present at every moment of our lives, at least as long as<br />
we are awake and in a normal state of consciousness. If there is a level at<br />
which these categories are embodied practices, we have to search for<br />
such practices that are similarly entertained at every moment of our lives.<br />
In the next chapter I discuss what these practices may be.
11. CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS<br />
Reality data are treated or modified in such a way<br />
as to become incorporated into the structure of<br />
the agent.<br />
Piaget 1<br />
In the previous chapter I argued that if there is a level at which the<br />
relational categories exist as embodied practices, then these practices<br />
have to be continuously entertained. In this chapter I ask whether there<br />
are practices with a function similar to the one ascribed to the relational<br />
categories in the Critique that satisfy this demand. I shall argue that if<br />
there are such practices, and if we accept that there is a level at which the<br />
relational categories exist as embodied practices, then these may be the<br />
ones.<br />
In searching for practices satisfying these criteria, I shall seek help in<br />
the work of Jean Piaget. 2 That Piaget is relevant here may not be<br />
immediately obvious. He is a child psychologist empirically studying the<br />
cognitive development of the child. However, he is also deeply inspired<br />
by Kant, calling himself a ‘dynamic Kantian’. 3 Among the ideas in his<br />
1<br />
Piaget and Inhelder (1987a), 52.<br />
2<br />
That the work of Piaget may be of help in order to achieve a more<br />
comprehensive understanding of Kant’s transcendental epistemology was first<br />
brought to my attention by Hansgeorg Hoppe (1983) and his highly interesting<br />
study Synthesis bei Kant. Here he writes: ‘Diese Theorie [Piaget’s] einer<br />
Gegenstandskonstitution durch Synthesen, die ihrerseits Kategorien<br />
hervorbringen oder von Kategorien geleitet sind, ist sowohl für die<br />
Gegenstandsbeziehung unserer Vorstellungen als auch für ihre Interpretation<br />
von außerordentlicher Wichtigkeit...’ (Hoppe (1983), 160-61). However, even if<br />
Hoppe claims that a Piagetian approach may help us arrive at a more interesting<br />
notion of transcendental philosophy, he also thinks that we then go beyond Kant<br />
(ibid., 20). Cf. also Hoppe (1988), 116.<br />
3<br />
Cf. Arbib (1986), 45 and Oberhausen (1997), 27. Even if he called himself a<br />
dynamic Kantian, however, openly acknowledging a Kantian influence, he took<br />
the dynamic aspect of his theory to be incompatible with the Kantian notion of<br />
the a priori. Oberhausen reports that Piaget characterized Kant’s theory of space<br />
as a nativist theory, and that he ascribed to Kant the idea that space and causality
290<br />
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS<br />
work that reveal a Kantian orientation is the idea that experience<br />
involves more than the senses of the child being passively affected. For<br />
the child to experience itself as living in an ordered world of causally<br />
interacting spatio-temporal objects, it needs to actively relate to this<br />
world.<br />
The reason why I use Piaget in this chapter is, however, not just this<br />
general Kantian orientation. Equally important is the fact that according<br />
to Piaget, the activity just referred to, the activity making possible the<br />
experience of an ordered world, is a behavioral activity. Also, Piaget<br />
attempts to identify in detail how different behavioral patterns make<br />
possible various aspects of the child’s experience of the world, such as<br />
object-permanence and causality. I shall argue that these behavioral<br />
patterns may be conceived of as practices, and that they may be those we<br />
are looking for.<br />
Critics have argued that Piaget’s empirical findings cannot always<br />
support the more general conclusions that he himself draws from them<br />
and that his theory is therefore in need of revision. 4 The outcome of this<br />
chapter, however, does not stand or fall by the empirical truth of each<br />
and every detail of Piaget’s theory. I think that even if we allow this<br />
theory to be revised, there are aspects of it that remain tenable, and<br />
moreover, that have a relevance beyond the specific context in which<br />
they are introduced. Of specific interest is the Piagetian notion of a<br />
sensorimotor intelligence, an intelligence working through perception<br />
and action alone. I shall argue that this notion of a sensorimotor<br />
intelligence may also be of relevance in understanding Kant’s<br />
transcendental epistemology in general, and his theory of the relational<br />
categories in particular.<br />
Finally, it may be worth noting that the project of this chapter will<br />
take us beyond what I take to be Kant’s main concern in his theory of the<br />
relational categories. As I read the Critique, his interest lies not in<br />
presenting a comprehensive theory of what these categories are, or what<br />
we do when we employ them. His basic aim is to prove the validity of the<br />
relational categories. This validity, moreover, is proved by means of a<br />
transcendental argument, starting out from what is taken to be evident,<br />
i.e. that we experience the world as a series of events taking place in an<br />
are part of the a priori cognitive framework with which the child is born. From<br />
what I have argued above, however, there are good reasons for questioning this<br />
conclusion.<br />
4 For a discussion of this criticism, cf. e.g. Goswami (1998) and Butterworth<br />
(1987).
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 291<br />
irreversible time order. Kant then proceeds by arguing that this is<br />
possible only if we accept that the relational categories are already<br />
functioning as the principles by which our experience achieves unity.<br />
I shall argue, however, that there is a certain sense in which the<br />
project of this chapter is still Kantian. It is Kantian in the sense that it is<br />
consistent with basic assumptions, explicit or implicit, underlying the<br />
transcendental discourse of the Critique. Among other things, as we have<br />
seen, in the Critique Kant explicitly describes the categories in general,<br />
and thus also the relational categories, as acts. They do not constitute<br />
some abstract, Platonic structure to which the empirical world simply<br />
and mysteriously conforms. They are something an agent does, that is,<br />
they are acts performed by a agent confronting the empirical world. Also,<br />
if I am right, the agent to whom these acts are ascribed in the Critique<br />
cannot be understood in any other way than as being an embodied<br />
agent, an agent, moreover, whose only way of attaining knowledge of the<br />
objects of the world is by interacting with them. This, along with the<br />
Kantian idea that the categories may be described both as acts and as<br />
rules points towards the conclusion that far from being inconsistent with<br />
basic assumptions underlying the Critique, there are aspects of this text<br />
that invite us to consider whether there is a level at which the relational<br />
categories may be perceived as embodied practices.<br />
11.1 Piaget and the cognitive development of the child<br />
According to Piaget’s account of the cognitive development of the child,<br />
it may be divided into phases. The first, including roughly the first<br />
eighteen months of the child’s life, is the sensorimotor period. 5 In it the<br />
child develops what Piaget calls a sensorimotor intelligence. This is an<br />
intelligence working without language or representations, totally<br />
embedded in perception and action. It consists essentially of the ability to<br />
co-ordinate the perceptions and actions of the child, without involving<br />
thought or representation. As Piaget himself expresses the point,<br />
sensorimotor intelligence is a practical intelligence. It aims at getting<br />
results rather than stating truths. 6 According to Piaget, sensorimotor<br />
intelligence develops gradually during the sensorimotor period. Initially,<br />
the universe of the new-born child is centered entirely on its own body.<br />
5<br />
Piaget emphasizes that individuals develop differently, and that all claims that<br />
he makes about ages and phases are approximate, cf. Piaget and Inhelder<br />
(1987a), 51 and also Goswami (1998), 278.<br />
6<br />
Piaget and Inhelder (1987a), 52.
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CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS<br />
In the course of the first eighteen months, however, a sort of general<br />
decentering process takes place. The child goes through a sort of<br />
Copernican revolution, replacing its original egocentric perspective with<br />
a more objective one, learning to regard itself as an object among others<br />
in a spatio-temporal universe of permanent objects interacting causally. 7<br />
In the beginning, however, this knowledge is sensorimotor only.<br />
Let me illustrate Piaget’s account of the development taking place in<br />
the sensorimotor period by focusing on causality. According to Piaget,<br />
the first primitive understanding of causality originates in the child’s<br />
capacity to manipulate external objects. When the child is approximately<br />
four and a half months old, it enters a period in which it tries to grasp<br />
and manipulate everything it sees in its immediate vicinity. When, for<br />
instance, a cord connected to a rattle is hung within its reach, it will pull<br />
it, and, motivated by the interesting sound produced, it will repeat this<br />
movement again and again. Through acts like this, Piaget argues, the<br />
child demonstrates a first primitive knowledge of causality. 8<br />
To say that in the sensorimotor period the child understands basic<br />
features of the world, such as causality, or that it has knowledge of these<br />
things, needs comment. Normally, we employ these terms to suggest that<br />
some sort of conceptual thinking is taking place, but Piaget argues that in<br />
the sensorimotor period the child does not engage in conceptual thinking<br />
in the usual sense of the term. When we say that the child in this period<br />
develops understanding or knowledge of causality, what we mean,<br />
therefore, is simply that it learns to interact with the world in an ever<br />
more sophisticated manner. This is what is implied by the term<br />
sensorimotor intelligence.<br />
Another notion introduced in order to describe the child’s intelligence<br />
on this level, is the notion of an action-scheme or simply a scheme.<br />
Examples of such schemes are the grasping and holding of an object,<br />
using an object, for instance a rope, to produce an effect in some distant<br />
object connected to the rope, or searching for objects temporarily out of<br />
sight. Piaget emphasizes that a scheme is neither a representation nor a<br />
thought. 9 Rather, it is a strategy or practice developed by the child in its<br />
embodied interaction with the world. In its first, primitive form it is<br />
simply what we call a habit. It is a habit carried out whenever the child<br />
finds itself in a certain situation. In order to know when the habit is to be<br />
employed, it needs the capacity to perceive and recognize certain aspects<br />
7<br />
Piaget and Inhelder (1987b), 165.<br />
8<br />
Piaget and Inhelder (1987a), 55.<br />
9<br />
Op. cit.
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 293<br />
of the situation. Consequently a scheme has two aspects, one related to<br />
perception and one to action. The scheme, we might say, is what coordinates<br />
these. And as already emphasized, it does so without<br />
introducing representational or conceptual elements. It is totally<br />
embedded in perception and action:<br />
In the absence of language and symbolic function, these constructions<br />
[schemes] are made with the sole support of perceptions and<br />
movements and thus by means of a sensorimotor co-ordination of<br />
acts without the intervention of representation and thought. 10<br />
According to Piaget, sensorimotor intelligence develops gradually during<br />
the first eighteen months of the child’s life. There is a continuous<br />
progress from spontaneous movements and reflexes to acquired habits<br />
and sensorimotor intelligence. 11 However, a turning point takes place<br />
when the child is approximately four and a half months old. Now the<br />
child starts to combine its acquired behavioral schemes into ever more<br />
sophisticated strategies of problem solving. It is in this combinatory<br />
capacity that Piaget sees the primary sign of intelligence at this stage.<br />
According to Piaget, the first traces of representations are found in<br />
the child towards the end of the sensorimotor period. The child may now<br />
be observed to have what seems to be moments of sudden insight. For<br />
example, Piaget reports that a child confronted by a slightly open<br />
matchbox containing a thimble first tries to open the box by physical<br />
groping. Upon failing, it presents a totally new kind of reaction. It stops<br />
the act and attentively examines the situation. In the course of this it<br />
slowly opens or closes its mouth, or, as another agent did, its hand, as if<br />
in imitation of the results to be attained, that is, the enlargement of the<br />
opening. Then it suddenly slips its finger into the crack and thus succeeds<br />
in opening the box.<br />
11.2 Practice as a condition of experience<br />
To possess an action-scheme means to be able to act in a regular way<br />
when a certain input situation is present. It is also implied that the agent<br />
acts to achieve a goal. Thus, the concept of an action-scheme contains all<br />
the essential marks of an embodied practice. If this is accepted, we may<br />
also express Piaget’s point like this: to say that the child of the<br />
sensorimotor period knows causality means that it masters a certain<br />
10<br />
Op. cit.<br />
11<br />
Op. cit.
294<br />
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS<br />
embodied practice. The knowledge lies in this practice. The same,<br />
according to Piaget, also applies to time, space and object-permanence.<br />
What is implied by saying that the child achieves this knowledge?<br />
According to Piaget, among other things, it implies that the child now<br />
starts to perceive the world in a new way. It begins to perceive the world<br />
as an ordered and structured world, characterized by being spatial and<br />
temporal, containing permanent objects standing in causal relations.<br />
Expressed in Kantian terms, the action-schemes or practices acquired by<br />
the child, are a priori conditions of experience. The term ‘experience’ is<br />
here used in its strong Kantian sense, meaning an experience ordered or<br />
determined in the way just specified.<br />
Piaget seems to be aware that he is here establishing a Kantian<br />
perspective, and it is hardly a coincidence that he uses Kantian<br />
terminology to express his point. Like Kant, he suggests that the<br />
empirical data of the senses needs to be structured by the agent in order<br />
to become experience.<br />
Reality data are treated or modified in such a way as to become<br />
incorporated into the structure of the agent. In other words, every<br />
newly established connection is integrated into an existing<br />
schematism. According to this view, the organizing activity of the<br />
agent must be considered just as important as the connections<br />
inherent in the external stimuli... 12<br />
He also uses the metaphor of the filter, a metaphor not employed by<br />
Kant, but often used to explain his point to students.<br />
... the input, the stimulus, is filtered through a structure that consists<br />
of the action-schemes... 13<br />
Read in isolation, these passages might be taken to refer to some mental<br />
process taking place in some mental disembodied space in which raw<br />
data from the senses were mysteriously structured by some other mental<br />
entities or processes called action-schemes. This, at least, is how Kant is<br />
often interpreted when he uses similar expressions. Piaget, however,<br />
firmly resists such a reading. When, in the above passages he refers to the<br />
organizing activity of the agent, he is explicitly referring to embodied<br />
12 Op. cit.<br />
13 Ibid., 52.
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 295<br />
practices. It is embodied practices performed by the child that account<br />
for the fact that it finds itself living in an ordered world.<br />
Notice that the perspective established by Piaget contains more than<br />
just an account of how the child develops cognitively from birth to<br />
adolescence. It contains a philosophical theory of how embodied<br />
practices may be considered a priori conditions of experience, that is,<br />
experience in the strong Kantian sense. 14 Even if this idea is integral to<br />
Piaget’s theory of development, that is, placed in a diachronic setting, it is<br />
also possible to extract it from this setting, thereby establishing a<br />
synchronic perspective. In this perspective, what is considered is no<br />
longer the genesis of concepts. The focus is on how embodied practices<br />
are a priori conditions of experience.<br />
This is, I think, philosophically considered, the most interesting part<br />
of Piaget’s theory. It is also the hardest part to grasp. How can embodied<br />
practices, like the ones suggested above, make the world appear ordered<br />
to us? Piaget’s answer is this: long before the child has a name for<br />
substance and causality or anything similar to this, long before it has<br />
started to form mental representations of the world, long before it has<br />
started to reflect consciously at all, it has the capacity to act and respond<br />
in a regular way relative to the complex network of sensual impressions<br />
in which it is living. It is capable of acting so that certain desired ends are<br />
produced and others are avoided. At this level, in the absence of other<br />
structural techniques such as language or inner mental representations,<br />
having and using these embodied practices is what it means for the agent<br />
to live in an ordered world. Without them the world is chaotic and<br />
meaningless. With them, the world is ordered and full of meaning.<br />
This is a radical theory, radical in the sense that it breaks with a<br />
number of well-established habits of thought. I assume that most of us<br />
are not accustomed to thinking that behavior has the power to make the<br />
world appear an ordered place to the agent. This, I assume, is also one of<br />
the reasons why this theory is so hard to grasp. If I am right in my above<br />
interpretation, however, this idea is not at all foreign to Kant. As we have<br />
seen, in Kant’s works of anthropology and pedagogy, inspired by<br />
Rousseau and others, he argues that we learn to know the world only<br />
through embodied interaction. If my interpretation of Kant’s theory of<br />
quantity is right, he also accepts that an embodied practice may function<br />
as an a priori condition of experience.<br />
If this is accepted, and if we are to continue the search for a level at<br />
which the relational categories exist as embodied practices, then we may<br />
14 This point is also made by Hoppe (1988), 116.
296<br />
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS<br />
now use Piaget as a guide. More specifically, when we find a practice<br />
claimed by Piaget to have the same cognitive function as the relational<br />
categories have according to Kant, then we may argue that this practice<br />
is what we are looking for, i.e. it is where the category is present qua<br />
practice. In what follows, I shall do that.<br />
11.3 Sensorimotor practices and the relational categories<br />
In the first analogy Kant explains the fact that we think of the objects of<br />
our experience as permanent by referring to the category of substance.<br />
Thus the category of substance accounts for the fact that we ascribe to<br />
objects existence also in the periods when they are not immediately<br />
perceived. According to Piaget, the child shows it has a sensorimotor<br />
understanding of object-permanence when, for instance, it is found<br />
searching for an object, including when this object is not immediately<br />
perceived. Actually, according to Piaget, to entertain this and similar<br />
practices is what it means at this level to know that objects have a<br />
permanent existence. There is no knowledge of object-permanence<br />
independent of and external to these practices. This means that if we<br />
accept that there is a sense in which the child at this level experiences<br />
itself to be living in a world of permanent objects, this experience is made<br />
possible by the above suggested practices. The practices are a priori<br />
conditions for possible experience in this specific sense. Let us assume<br />
that all these practices are versions of one general practice, and let us call<br />
this ‘the practice of object-permanence’.<br />
The reason why I suggest that this general practice may be present in<br />
more than one version is that I do not want to confine attention only to<br />
those specified above, i.e. the practice of searching for an object,<br />
including when this object is not immediately perceived. Actually, I think<br />
that any act in which we adjust our behavior to the world of objects so<br />
that certain desired ends are produced and others are avoided may be<br />
seen as an example of the same general practice. An instance of this may<br />
be when the child grasps and explores an object. Thus, I think that an<br />
original, primitive sensorimotor knowledge of object-permanence is<br />
found when the child first learns to grasp a ball or another object placed<br />
before it.<br />
In an earlier chapter I used the example of a person exploring a ball<br />
to illuminate the idea that space is transcendentally ideal. Let us return to<br />
this example, however, and now imagine that the person in question is a<br />
child in the sensorimotor period. Let us also try to describe the event in<br />
Kantian terminology. Transcendentally considered, what we call the<br />
spatial shape of the ball is the awareness the child has of the movements
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 297<br />
of its hands as it grasps the ball. In a similar sense the empirical quality of<br />
the ball is the feeling the child has in its hands as they are affected by it.<br />
That the child ascribes to the ball a size is due to the fact that the child,<br />
in grasping and perceiving it, automatically also performs a primitive<br />
measuring relative to its hands and/or body. This is what we learn from<br />
Kant’s transcendental theory of quantity, I have argued. Now, finally, we<br />
have the child’s knowledge of objects’ permanence. Is there an aspect of<br />
the act that has so far not been emphasized and that shows the child has<br />
this knowledge? This, I will now argue, is the fact that it reaches for the<br />
ball in the first place, grasps it, and explores it. By doing this the child<br />
signals that it knows that there is something there to explore. The ball is<br />
not merely a floating sensation. It is a something.<br />
The Piagetian perspective is useful in establishing a theoretical<br />
context in which the knowledge here present may be acknowledged as no<br />
more and no less than a practice. 15<br />
According to Piaget, the child at this<br />
level has no knowledge of object-permanence independent of and<br />
external to its practices. Thus, it is not as if the child first knows that a<br />
ball is there as a permanent something, and then acts. The knowledge<br />
lies in the act itself. The practice of reaching and grasping is an example<br />
of what it means for the child to know that objects are permanent. The<br />
ball (or better, the reality data corresponding to what we call the ball)<br />
stands out as a permanent object to the child by being incorporated into<br />
the structure of its activity. I think, however, that the perspective<br />
established here is Kantian as well. It is a perspective similar to the one<br />
we identified in chapter 3 discussing what I called Kant’s pragmatic<br />
theory of embodied rationality. And, if I am right, it is a perspective<br />
underlying significant parts of the Critique, such as its theory of spatial<br />
schematism and quantity. Fundamental to this perspective is the idea<br />
that there exists a rationality that realizes itself in and through practice,<br />
and moreover, that these practices are conditions of experience.<br />
11.4 Causality and interaction<br />
A parallel argument may be put forward with regard to causality.<br />
According to Piaget, a first primitive understanding of causality is present<br />
in the child’s capacity to manipulate external objects. The first causality<br />
with which the child is aquatinted is therefore its own. His classic<br />
15<br />
We might have arrived at the same point by examining Melnick’s idea that<br />
Kant’s theory of the relational category of substance refers to our capacity to<br />
perform certain procedures characterized by a temporally extending behaviour<br />
(1989), 86. However, I will not further explore Melnick’s views here.
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CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS<br />
example is the act of pulling a cord connected to a rattle. It may be<br />
added, following e.g. Butterworth, 16 that the child also takes the causality<br />
of objects into account for instance by raising its hands in a defensive<br />
movement when approached by what seems to be an oncoming object.<br />
These practices will then all be part of what it means for the child of this<br />
age to know causality. Following Piaget, we may also say that if we accept<br />
that there is a sense in which the child at this level experiences itself to be<br />
living in a world of objects standing in causal relations, this experience is<br />
made possible by these practices, which are a priori conditions for<br />
experience in this specific sense. For my own part, I think that all<br />
practices through which the child interacts with the objects of its<br />
environment may be conceived as such conditions. Let us see all these<br />
practices as versions of one general practice, and let us call this ‘the<br />
practice of causality’.<br />
Even if I have not found this explicitly expressed by Piaget, I think it<br />
is consistent with his general ideas to claim that this practice of causality<br />
is a practice typically engaged in at every waking moment of the child’s<br />
life. My argument is this. Let it be accepted that the practice of causality<br />
includes all the practices by which the child interacts with the objects of<br />
its environment. The notion of interaction here contains an implicit<br />
reference to the intentions of the child. When the child interacts with the<br />
world, it is always relative to some aim. It reaches out for an object<br />
because it wants it, it raises its hand in a defensive movement when<br />
approached by an object in order to avoid being hit by it, etc. This also<br />
means that whether a specific interaction is to be conceived of as<br />
successful or not depends on the specific aim involved and whether the<br />
interaction succeeds in meeting the demand of this aim. Now, imagine<br />
some external object approaching the child. Assume the child in this case<br />
wants to be hit by the object, perhaps, because the ‘object’ is the<br />
caressing hand of its father. In that case it deliberately stays in position,<br />
without moving. Or perhaps it does not want to be hit by the object, and<br />
tries to prevent this by moving away or by raising its hand in defense. In<br />
the first case, no movement is observed, in the second it is. In both cases,<br />
however, deliberate acts are performed. In the context of the two<br />
examples, both staying at rest and moving have the status of intentional<br />
acts. And in both cases, a genuine interaction takes place.<br />
This conclusion is significant because it tells us that what we have<br />
called the practice of causality does not require that embodied movement<br />
actually takes place. Movement takes place only if the child believes that<br />
16 Butterworth (1987), 100-101.
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 299<br />
it is in its interest to move. If not, it remains at rest. However, interaction<br />
still takes place. This point is perhaps best described by saying that the<br />
child’s knowledge of causality is embedded in its general propensity to<br />
move or to remain in rest relative to other objects so that desired<br />
consequences are produced, and unwanted are avoided. As before,<br />
‘knowledge’ means here sensorimotor knowledge, signifying that the<br />
child at this age has no knowledge of causality independently of the<br />
practice.<br />
In a previous chapter I argued that if there is a level at which the<br />
relational categories exist as embodied practices, then these have to be<br />
practices entertained at every awake moment of our lives. I have now<br />
identified what I have called a practice of causality that satisfies this<br />
condition. I have also argued, following suggestions made by Piaget, that<br />
this practice may be conceived of as an a priori condition of experience.<br />
So this practice seems to have a function similar to the one ascribed to<br />
the category of causality in Kant’s transcendental theory. If we accept<br />
that there is a level at which the category of causality exists as an<br />
embodied practice, the practice just defined may well be the practice we<br />
are looking for. Note, as before, that I do not take this idea to be<br />
explicitly promoted in the Critique. My claim is only that it is Kantian in<br />
the weaker sense that is compatible with basic ideas underlying a number<br />
of Kantian texts, including some parts of the Critique.<br />
Note, finally, that just as the relational categories work together<br />
according to Kant’s theory in the Critique, there is a sense in which the<br />
two practices now identified, those of object-permanence and causality,<br />
presuppose each other in a sense that makes them hard to distinguish in<br />
an actual situation. To take into account the causality of the world means<br />
to take into account that objects exist and that they have a permanence<br />
beyond our perception of them. Therefore there is a level at which these<br />
two practices converge into a general practice of interaction, i.e. they are<br />
at play in every interaction we have with the objects of our world.<br />
11.5 Sensorimotor intelligence in the adult<br />
It may be that this argument is reasonable as long as we talk about<br />
children in the sensorimotor period, but what about adults? The<br />
cognitive capacities of the adult are dramatically more sophisticated than<br />
those of the young child. Where the adult is concerned, would it not be<br />
natural to see the categories as functions present within these more<br />
sophisticated cognitive faculties? I think not, and my argument for this is<br />
based in part on an aspect of Piaget’s cognitive theory that has so far not<br />
been mentioned. It is the idea that sensorimotor intelligence is present
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CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS<br />
not only in the child but also in the adult. According to Piaget, even if the<br />
adult has other modes of cognition at her disposal, sensorimotor<br />
intelligence continues to have a basic significance throughout life. 17 This<br />
means that if we accept that there are embodied practices with the<br />
cognitive and epistemic function suggested above, then these same<br />
practices will also be found in the adult, and they will have the same<br />
function in the adult as in the child. The fact that the adult has also other<br />
modes of cognition to her disposal, does not change this.<br />
In order to make my point as clear as possible, let me define<br />
sensorimotor intelligence as an intelligence working through action and<br />
perception only, and let us assume that this kind of intelligence is at work<br />
whenever embodied practices are performed without the interference of<br />
representations understood as mental images or abstract concepts. By<br />
this move the notion of a sensorimotor intelligence acquires a relevance<br />
far beyond child psychology. If we define it as an intelligence working<br />
through action and perception only, it may be conceived of as a cognitive<br />
substructure, present and working in the presence of other modes of<br />
cognition too. The term ‘sensorimotor’ not only denotes a phase in the<br />
development of the child, it denotes a distinct level of cognition, a<br />
cognitive domain in its own right that is present throughout life.<br />
A Kantian parallel may be established by comparing Piaget’s notion<br />
of a sensorimotor intelligence with the Kantian notion of a rationality<br />
embedded in practice. As I have suggested, this seems to be the level<br />
where, according to Kant, the understanding does its basic work.<br />
Actually, I think that what Piaget calls sensorimotor intelligence is more<br />
or less the same as what Kant calls understanding. Like Piaget’s<br />
sensorimotor intelligence, Kant’s understanding is associated with our<br />
capacity to act regularly in the world. This, at least, is what I take to be<br />
implied when Kant calls the understanding a capacity for rules. 18<br />
We<br />
have also seen that Kant typically locates the working of the<br />
understanding at the basic level at which we first confront the physical<br />
objects of the world, suggested for instance in the Anthropology through<br />
the image of a servant, and in the Critique through the idea that the<br />
categories are applied as we confront the empirical world.<br />
This does not mean that Kant denies that the categories and/or other<br />
concepts cannot also be used in other contexts, such as when we silently<br />
reflect on earlier experiences, or when we involve ourselves in scientific<br />
or philosophical reflections. However, I do not think that this use of the<br />
17<br />
Cf. Piaget (1950).<br />
18 Cf. e.g. A 126 in the Critique, and also the Anthropology, Ak VII: 199.
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 301<br />
categories is his main concern in the Critique. Here, when he talks about<br />
the understanding, and how it is involved in the constitution and/or<br />
determination of our experience, I think the term has a meaning very<br />
close to Piaget’s notion of a sensorimotor intelligence.<br />
A final argument in support of this idea is that in the Critique, the<br />
categories of the understanding do their work without explicit awareness.<br />
They represent a rational activity that cannot and should not be confused<br />
with our conscious thoughts when we reflect upon a problem or perform<br />
other thought operations in full consciousness. Of course, the categories<br />
may be made the object of such explicit or conscious reflection, such as<br />
when we reflect upon their nature and function. But this does not mean<br />
that they do their basic work at this level. If I am right, the level at which<br />
they do their basic work is the level at which we confront the world<br />
through our embodied practices.<br />
11.6 Objective time revisited<br />
I shall end this chapter by returning to the question of objective time in<br />
the Critique. As we have seen, Kant argues that the relational categories<br />
make objective time determination possible. It is due to these categories<br />
that we experience the processes of the world as events taking place in an<br />
irreversible time order. In this chapter I have argued that there is a level<br />
at which the relational categories are present as embodied practices, and<br />
I have argued, following Piaget, that there is a sense in which these<br />
practices make experience possible. Can we also say that they make<br />
objective time determination possible?<br />
I think so. Assume that there is a level at which knowledge exists<br />
merely as practice. For an agent to have a certain knowledge at this level<br />
means for her to be able to perform a certain practice. Assume also that<br />
at this level there exists a practice we may call ‘the practice of objective<br />
time determination’. When we say that a person at this level knows<br />
objective time, or knows how to determine time objectively, we mean<br />
that she has mastered this practice. This practice, I shall now argue, is<br />
the same as the one identified above in our discussion of the relational<br />
categories, that is, it is the general practice of interaction that is at play in<br />
every interaction we have with the objects of our world.<br />
How does this practice make objective time determination possible?<br />
Imagine you are playing ball. As you move back and forth on the field<br />
(and when we consider these movements from a transcendental<br />
perspective) we may say, first, that these movements, or your awareness<br />
of these movements, is the space within which you move. We could also<br />
use a more Kantian expression and say that a first primitive space is here
302<br />
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS<br />
produced [erzeugt] through a number of apprehensive acts, and that<br />
these acts involve your embodied movements across the field. If my<br />
interpretation is correct so far, the same movements also give you a first,<br />
primitive knowledge of the size of the field. Finally, as Kant emphasizes<br />
that apprehension is also the origin of primitive time, we may say that<br />
through these acts (running and perceiving) a primitive experience of<br />
time is produced. However, this original experience of time is merely<br />
subjective; it is the time flow in which various perceptions come and go<br />
before the mind. Now, let us continue the example. Imagine yourself in<br />
the field and imagine that you have no other information at your disposal<br />
other than that specified so far. Would you be able to play ball under<br />
such circumstances? I think not. Imagine, for instance, that you want to<br />
catch a ball that is not coming directly towards you. In order to catch it,<br />
you have to run, but as the ball is moving, you cannot run towards the<br />
position in which the ball first appeared. You have first to calculate the<br />
speed of the ball and then try to make an estimate of where it will be in,<br />
let us say, five seconds. Then, you have to estimate your own potential<br />
speed, and assess whether you will be able to reach the position towards<br />
which the ball is heading in the time required, or not, etc.<br />
All this requires a knowledge of time other than the subjective<br />
awareness of a time flow just referred to. It requires a knowledge of<br />
objective time. In this specific case it requires knowledge of the time it<br />
takes for the ball to move from the original position to the position at<br />
which you intend to catch it. This time is objective because it is an aspect<br />
of how objects move. And only if such knowledge is present is it possible<br />
for you to be a qualified player of the game. That is, only then will you<br />
be able to properly interact with the ball, the other players, and finally<br />
the physical environment in which the game takes place.<br />
Now, let us return to the basic assumption under which this reflection<br />
has been taking place, namely that there is a level at which knowledge<br />
exists merely qua practice, and let us assume that it is possible to possess<br />
the knowledge of objective time that we described in the above example<br />
as such a knowledge. In that case, your knowledge of objective time is<br />
present in no other way than in practice, that is, you show you have this<br />
knowledge when you actually manage to co-ordinate your own<br />
movements with the movements of the ball so that you catch it, or at<br />
least try to catch it in a way that is not merely arbitrary, but rational,<br />
given the way the ball moves. I think such a level of knowledge exists,<br />
and anyone having played a ballgame knows it. At this level, to know<br />
objective time and to know how to interact with the ball is one and the<br />
same thing. It is not as if you first calculate how long it will take for the<br />
ball to move from one point to another, and then adjust your movements
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 303<br />
accordingly (even if this is how we may chose to describe the event). In<br />
the midst of the game there is no time for such calculation. You simply<br />
act and in these acts is embedded your knowledge of objective time,<br />
which is nothing other than your knowledge of how the ball and yourself<br />
move, which is through and through a knowledge-in-practice and<br />
identical with your practice of interaction with the ball.<br />
The same point may, of course, also be stated at a more general level,<br />
when we start to reflect on our general way of interacting with the<br />
physical objects of our environment. Just as in the ballgame example, we<br />
would never be able to interact with those objects if we did not know how<br />
they moved in time, which is the same as knowing objective time.<br />
Moreover, this knowledge is normally not something of which we are<br />
aware, or which is present in the form of an explicit calculation, but<br />
merely as a knowledge-in-practice, that is, the practice of interaction<br />
itself.<br />
I think we are here approaching one of the basic ideas of the<br />
Critique, expressed for instance in the Refutation of idealism, that<br />
objective time determination is possible only in a world of externally<br />
existing objects, objects, moreover, with which we ourselves interact. In<br />
the Refutation of idealism and elsewhere in the Critique Kant does not<br />
discuss exactly how this interaction takes place or how it is related to<br />
objective time determination. The above reflections have supplied us<br />
with a model of this, however, and it has led us to the same conclusion:<br />
objective time determination is possible only in a world of externally<br />
existing objects, objects, moreover, with which we interact. It is so<br />
because to know time objectively and to know how to interact is one and<br />
the same thing, and the one is not conceivable without the other.<br />
Alternatively, we may say that by learning to interact with the objects<br />
of the world, objects that either move or are at rest relative to ourselves,<br />
we acquire a primitive physics. 19 We learn to calculate not only the<br />
spatial sizes and positions of objects, but also their movements. In short,<br />
we learn to know the world as a dynamic network of objects and forces<br />
dynamically connected in an objective time order, that is, as a series of<br />
causally connected events. When the child first acquires this knowledge<br />
in the sensorimotor period, this knowledge is a knowledge-in-practice,<br />
because this is the only kind of knowledge available to the child of this<br />
period. However, as I have argued, we may also see this knowledge-in-<br />
19 We may here draw a parallel to Rousseau’s Émile where he describes the<br />
process of a child learning to interact with the objects of his environment, as an<br />
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<br />
is possible for us to move around in the world without constantly taking<br />
explicit notice of our own movements and the movement of each and<br />
every object in our environment. Our interaction with those objects<br />
typically takes place ‘all by itself’, showing that we possess what I call a<br />
primitive physics on a level other than that which our conscious thoughts<br />
normally operate. It is a physics present in practice, in what we do. By<br />
mastering this practice, we show we have a decentered knowledge of the<br />
world, that is, a knowledge in which the dynamic network of objects and<br />
forces in which we live our lives has the status of a network of<br />
independently existing phenomena.<br />
For the most part our interest in this network is based on the potential<br />
use we may make of it, and we typically give more attention to those<br />
elements that are of immediate relevance to the projects we are involved<br />
in. These will normally be those objects and events close to us. However,<br />
our knowledge also includes more distant objects and events, even the<br />
movement of celestial bodies. This is why it is possible for us to use such<br />
movements in time-determining practices, such as when we use the<br />
movement of the sun to measure the periods of the day. In a previous<br />
chapter I argued that time-determination by means of the sun may be<br />
conceived of as a practice. I think that we may now see it as a special<br />
version of the general practice of interaction we have defined above.<br />
Other special versions are time determination by means of time glasses or<br />
mechanical clocks. These all make possible exact and fine-grained<br />
determinations of time. In this sense they are similar to the practices<br />
developed within ancient geometry, replacing the old methods of<br />
measuring size by means of hands, feet or other body parts. These more<br />
specialized practices all grew out of original human practices, being more<br />
sophisticated versions of these original practices. 20<br />
11.7 A very brief remark on transcendental apperception<br />
I have almost finished without discussing what in Kantian terminology is<br />
called transcendental apperception. As readers of Kant are well aware,<br />
this notion forms the very core of the transcendental arguments of the<br />
20 As I take Kant’s cognitive and epistemic theory in the Critique to be a theory of<br />
practice in general, both of these kinds of practices are included, at least<br />
implicitly, in this theory, I think. This is why I claim that the Critique may be<br />
read both as a theory of science (i.e. scientific practice) and a theory of our<br />
everyday interaction with the world making possible what we may call Haben<br />
einer Welt.
CAUSALITY <strong>AND</strong> COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 305<br />
Critique. I think that the notion of transcendental apperception may be<br />
examined and analyzed at more than one level, 21 but common to all these<br />
levels is the idea that the notion refers to a unity principle. The<br />
categories, Kant contends, are also such unity principles, but ultimately,<br />
they all represent the unity of transcendental apperception. I have<br />
defended the idea that the categories, or at least the general category of<br />
quantity and the categories of relation, may be interpreted as embodied<br />
practices. In the context established here, I think that what Kant calls<br />
transcendental apperception may be conceived of as that which prevents<br />
these embodied practices from degenerating into just a sequence of<br />
meaningless movements. It is what makes these movements into a<br />
practice, considered as a systematic unity of acts. This is meant only as a<br />
brief suggestion and there is no time to go further into it here. 22<br />
11.8 The categories of quality and modality<br />
I shall end this chapter with a brief comment on the categories of quality<br />
and modality, explaining why I do not think they need to be given special<br />
emphasis here. As for Kant’s theory of the category of quality, it basically<br />
deals with the intensity of the sensations [Empfindungen] of which the<br />
agent is aware. In this part of his transcendental theory Kant concerns<br />
himself with that in our cognition which is not a priori. Even if it is not a<br />
priori, however, I take Kant’s point to be that something a priori may be<br />
known about it. We can know a priori that it has a certain intensity (A<br />
143/B 182). 23 This theory, I think, is part of Kant’s general theory of<br />
apprehension. This theory, I have previously argued, may be interpreted<br />
as a theory about the embodied practice of the cognitive agent. Being<br />
part of this general theory, the present theory of quality is relevant to the<br />
project pursued in this work. It does not, however, shed any new light on<br />
21<br />
On of the best discussions on transcendental apperception I have found is<br />
Brook (1994). My interpretation is here roughly in line with his.<br />
22<br />
A possible way of developing this perspective further may perhaps proceed<br />
along the same lines as those followed by Melnick (1989), 27ff. Melnick interprets<br />
Kant’s theory of the categories basically as a theory of how human behavior is<br />
brought under rule-form, which also is how unity enters the picture.<br />
23<br />
The term a priori is here obviously used in a looser and less specialized sense<br />
than the one defined above. It seems simply to be used in the sense of ‘prior to<br />
experience’.
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the question of how we may describe or understand the embodied<br />
practice of apprehension. 24<br />
Kant’s theory of the categories of modality concerns how a certain<br />
aspect of our world is present in time (A 145/B 184). The most<br />
significant aspect of this theory, I think, is the distinction between<br />
necessity and contingency. As necessity is an essential mark of a priori<br />
knowledge and contingency is a mark of the empirical content of<br />
knowledge, the distinction plays a very significant role in Kant’s<br />
transcendental philosophy. In defining yet another major task of the<br />
Critique, one might say that Kant’s transcendental philosophy,<br />
considered as a whole, aims at making clear exactly how this distinction<br />
relates to our knowledge of the world. More specifically, it aims at<br />
answering the question of how it is possible to have knowledge about the<br />
world that is necessarily true and universal. As this question underlies<br />
Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a whole, however, it is unlikely that<br />
it can be answered by identifying the categories of modality with a<br />
certain group of practices, embodied or not. What may be argued,<br />
however, as I have done, is that knowledge about the world that is<br />
necessarily true and universal can be seen as originating in embodied<br />
practices. Going further into Kant’s theory of the categories of modality<br />
at this point, would not, I think, add much to what has already been said.<br />
11.9 Summary<br />
The aim of this and the previous chapters was to explore whether it was<br />
possible to interpret the relational categories, as they are described in the<br />
Critique, as embodied practices. I conclude that it is. Let me remind the<br />
reader, however, that in making this claim, I have followed a path of<br />
investigation that I think was probably not of much interest to Kant in<br />
the Critique. However, as I have said, my investigation has not been<br />
motivated by Kant’s main interest in the Critique but by a desire to look<br />
beyond or behind the abstract theory of this text to see what may have<br />
been omitted from it either accidentally or deliberately.<br />
24 It may at most be seen as a sort of supplement to what was said above, when I<br />
claimed that the cognitive subject in an act of empirical apprehension is always<br />
affected and that this affection produces a sensation. In his theory of the category<br />
of quality, Kant says that we can know a priori that this sensation has an intensity<br />
lying somewhere between something and zero.
CONCLUSION<br />
Man can only become man by education. He is<br />
merely what education makes of him. It is<br />
noticeable that man is only educated by man –<br />
that is, by men who have themselves been<br />
educated.<br />
From Kant’s On pedagogy 1<br />
When you enter this world as a newborn baby, you are a body endowed<br />
with consciousness. Gradually, in and through your body, you start to<br />
explore the world, but in the beginning only with great difficulty.<br />
Holding and grasping an object, and other similar acts, are performed<br />
clumsily and without any hint of elegance. Only gradually do you<br />
become a master of your environment. It takes a long time until one day<br />
you are able to hold a glass of milk without spilling its contents, eat with a<br />
knife and fork, bring together objects that belong together, such as<br />
replacing the lid of a jar, or running to catch a ball in a ballgame. Just as<br />
gradually, however, you start to forget your original difficulties. In<br />
performing your daily activities, you pay them less and less attention,<br />
until one day you perform them almost unconsciously. They have<br />
become what Polanyi calls ‘tacit knowledge’. 2 Along with this we also<br />
start to forget how significant these skills are in our daily lives. 3<br />
1<br />
Ak IX: 443, a.t.<br />
2<br />
Cf. e.g. Polanyi (1978).<br />
3<br />
Meeting a person with a somewhat unusual biography, however, may remind us<br />
of this. Oliver Sacks in his interesting book An Anthropologist on Mars (1995)<br />
tells the story of the 50-year-old man Virgil who after an operation regained sight<br />
after having been blind for almost all his life. While immediately after the<br />
operation he was able to see colors and movements, he had great difficulties<br />
interpreting what he saw, that is, recognizing the colours and movements as the<br />
objects that he had previously known only through touch. He also had great<br />
difficulties in judging the distance between himself and a perceived object.<br />
Sometimes he jumped away in order not to be hit by an approaching bird in the<br />
sky, even if the bird was far away. During his blind years he had learned to<br />
recognize distance by walking. He knew, for instance, how many steps it took to<br />
cross his porch, and this was his notion of its size. Now, he had to learn, little by
308<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
I think it is a basic feature of Kant as a philosopher that he has not<br />
forgotten the basic significance of our interactive skills relative to the<br />
physical world. He acknowledges that they represent a sort of knowledgein-practice<br />
essential to human life. And even more, he sees their deep<br />
cognitive and epistemic significance. This is why he advises that children<br />
should run, play ball, draw images etc. so that they learn, for instance, to<br />
judge size, shape and distance properly, and why he claims that without<br />
the capacity to hold and grasp an object we would have no concept of its<br />
shape.<br />
As I have argued in this work, there may be a number of reasons for<br />
Kant’s emphasis on embodied practice and behavior. His reading of and<br />
his admiration for Rousseau has already been mentioned, and so has his<br />
general interest in pedagogy and anthropology. Another reason may<br />
have been his tendency to self-observation (mentioned by his<br />
contemporary biographers), including with regard to the minutest events<br />
taking place in his body. 4 Also significant is his growing empiricism and<br />
pragmatism, which I discussed in the first part. The behavioral domain is<br />
open to empirical observation and can also easily be influenced and<br />
modified by means of proper didactic measures, to the common benefit<br />
of man and culture. Both are basic concerns for Kant, at least from the<br />
late 1760s. However, long before that, actually from the very beginning,<br />
he was deeply preoccupied with the radical embodiment of human<br />
existence.<br />
It is evident that Kant’s philosophical orientation toward human<br />
embodiment was bound to have epistemic implications. If human<br />
existence is radically embodied, then it follows that there is no other way<br />
to explore the world other than in and through the body. All experience<br />
and all knowledge therefore have a subjective origin, which may be<br />
specified by reference to the specific constitution of our body, its position<br />
within the world and its capacity for action. One conclusion to be drawn<br />
from this is that the old theocentric model of knowledge has to be given<br />
up. There is no way in which we can arrive at a detached, objective<br />
perspective of the world from which we can see it as it really is,<br />
independent of all perspective, as perhaps its Creator sees it. The<br />
subjective origin of our experience forms an absolute limit we can never<br />
transcend so Kant’s model of knowledge is radically and fundamentally<br />
anthropocentric. Exactly when he reached this position, I do not know,<br />
little, to make his new visual appearances fit in with his experience of the world as<br />
he had known it through touching it and by moving around in it.<br />
4 Cf. Gross (1993).
CONCLUSION 309<br />
but it is clearly present in Dreams of a spirit-seer from 1766. This text<br />
represents a radical defense of what I have called an embodied<br />
empiricism, involving e.g. the idea that our immediate awareness of<br />
being in a body has an epistemic superiority that no skepticism can<br />
undermine. As I have argued, the Critique may be interpreted as a work<br />
that draws the philosophical implications of all this.<br />
I therefore find it highly ironic when Kant is constantly accused of<br />
having ignored the body and our embodied existence. Even those who<br />
argue that his transcendental theory could easily be interpreted as a<br />
theory of embodied practice typically complain that he failed to see this<br />
himself, and certainly did not intend his theory to be interpreted in this<br />
way. For example, Brook points to the fact that Kant’s transcendental<br />
theory can be read as a theory of human behavior:<br />
Suppose we reconceive Kant’s work and substitute ‘behavior’ and<br />
‘dispositions’ for his ‘representations’, ‘experience’, ‘awareness’, and<br />
so on. Then suppose we think of Kant as offering a contingent theory<br />
of behavior, especially linguistic behavior, not an a priori ‘analytic’ of<br />
a hidden mental realm. This theory would explain behavior by<br />
postulating a certain unity and certain synthesizing powers. All<br />
Kant’s insights into unity and synthesis could easily survive even so<br />
radical a recasting. 5<br />
But Brook also maintains, as if it were beyond doubt, that Kant himself<br />
did not intend us to read his theory in this way: Kant himself understood<br />
his theory to refer to mental activities and states of a Cartesian mind,<br />
hidden and unobservable, something very different from behavior. 6<br />
Brook does not contend that an interpretation focusing on behavior is<br />
better than the one he takes Kant to be intending, but John McDowell<br />
does in his highly interesting book Mind and World. 7 McDowell purports<br />
to prove that Kant still has much to offer contemporary philosophy.<br />
There are, however, several problems with Kant’s philosophy, he<br />
complains. One such problem is his habit of conceiving of human<br />
rationality in total abstraction from the actual lives we live as human<br />
beings, i.e. as embodied animals endowed with rational capacities. So<br />
Kant ends up with a quasi-Platonic conception of rationality, according<br />
to which the categories are viewed as part of an eternal, timeless<br />
structure beyond the empirical world.<br />
5<br />
Brook (1994), 19.<br />
6<br />
Op. cit.<br />
7<br />
McDowell (1994).
310<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
Instead of this quasi-Platonic orientation, Kant might have done<br />
better adopting a more Aristotelian approach, McDowell argues. In<br />
Aristotle, human rationality is seen as embedded in human skills<br />
developing over time. McDowell especially emphasizes the Aristotelian<br />
notion of the practical intellect found in his ethics. 8 The knowledge or<br />
wisdom of this intellect is based in our natural potentials, but their actual<br />
presence in the mature individual requires development, i.e. a process in<br />
which both individual experience as well as a proper social influence is<br />
essential. Moreover, it is a knowledge immediately related to our human<br />
existence, the aim of which is to identify the best possible life given<br />
human nature and the nature that surrounds us. Finally, even if moral<br />
concepts, according to this conception of Aristotelian rationality, have a<br />
history rooted in the conditions of a specific individual and a specific<br />
society, the structure of these concepts is not seen as arbitrary. They<br />
represent a practical rationality with an internal logic that supersedes<br />
their historical origin. Aristotle is no ethical relativist. Some moral<br />
standards are better than others due to the fact that they correspond to a<br />
happier way of life.<br />
McDowell introduces the notion of a ‘second nature’ to account for<br />
the rationality described in Aristotelian ethics, a nature grounded in<br />
biological nature, but transformed and refined through proper<br />
development and education. He also recommends that this Aristotelian<br />
concept should serve as a model for all human rationality.<br />
We can return to sanity if we can recapture the Aristotelian idea that<br />
a normal mature human being is a rational animal ... […] The way<br />
to do that is to realize that our nature is largely second nature. 9<br />
This Aristotelian model teaches us that a proper theory of human<br />
rationality is found by studying who we are and what we do as rational<br />
animals. Unfortunately, Kant was unable to adopt such a conception,<br />
McDowell complains. His Newtonian concept of nature, according to<br />
which nature is conceived of as a lifeless system governed by natural law<br />
prevented him from developing the notion of a second nature specific to<br />
human beings. 10 Hence he was unable to reach a proper understanding<br />
of human rationality. And as experience is rationally structured for Kant,<br />
this failure undermines his theory of experience as well:<br />
8<br />
Ibid., 79.<br />
9<br />
Ibid., 91.<br />
10<br />
Ibid., 96.
CONCLUSION 311<br />
Kant's lack of a pregnant notion of second nature explains why the<br />
right conception of experience cannot find a firm position in his<br />
thinking. 11<br />
Kant’s insight would have acquired a satisfactory shape only if he could<br />
have accommodated the fact that a thinking and intending agent is a<br />
living animal, McDowell contends. But with his firm conviction that<br />
conceptual powers are non-natural and with his lack of a notion of<br />
second nature, Kant was shut off from this idea. 12 McDowell therefore<br />
suggests that we equip Kant with this idea of a second nature, in the<br />
sense that we add to his philosophy something that was not originally<br />
there. This would not only free Kant’s insight from the distorting effect of<br />
the framework he tries to express it in, but it would also give Kant’s<br />
theory of rationality a potentially revolutionary effect in modern<br />
philosophy:<br />
This is a framework for reflection that really stands a chance of<br />
making traditional philosophy obsolete... […] I have described a<br />
philosophical project: to stand on the shoulders of the giant, Kant,<br />
and see our way to the supersession of traditional philosophy that he<br />
almost managed, though not quite. 13<br />
As should be clear from my argument throughout this work, I think that<br />
McDowell is wrong in claiming that Kant ignored the embodied aspects<br />
of human existence. If I have nevertheless included this rather lengthy<br />
argument of McDowell’s, it is because I see him as yet another<br />
representative of an almost unequivocal trend in Kant research, which<br />
not only fails to see that the Critique may be read as a reflection on<br />
human embodiment, but also ignores the texts in which Kant actually<br />
and explicitly stands out as a philosopher preoccupied with the body. In<br />
these texts he even explicitly expresses the idea of a second<br />
anthropological nature that McDowell calls for. 14 I will not now reopen<br />
the discussion concerning what the reason for this long-lasting neglect of<br />
11<br />
Ibid., 98.<br />
12<br />
Ibid., 104.<br />
13 Ibid., 111.<br />
14 Cf. the passage from On pedagogy quoted at the beginning of this chapter.
312<br />
CONCLUSION<br />
this side of the Kant’s philosophy among his interpreters may be, 15 but I<br />
think the time has come to challenge the dominant image resulting from<br />
it.<br />
McDowell is also included here for another more positive reason. For<br />
my own part, I am convinced that the interpretation offered in this work<br />
makes Kant appear a far more interesting philosopher and a thinker with<br />
far more relevance to contemporary philosophy than the Kant from<br />
whom McDowell distances himself. However, as I have already<br />
suggested, I think there is no need for McDowell to distance himself from<br />
Kant the way he does. Kant’s philosophy does not need to be developed<br />
in the way that McDowell demands. It already contains the insights that<br />
McDowell calls for. So I will let McDowell end this work with his<br />
declaration that this position is really a revolutionary one, even in the<br />
context of contemporary philosophy.<br />
15 I recommend Collins (1999) as an author giving an interesting discussion of this<br />
question.
BIBLIOGRAPHY<br />
Works by Kant<br />
German<br />
Immanuel Kants gesammelte Schriften, 29 volumes, ed. Königliche<br />
Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften/Deutsche Akademie der<br />
Wissenschaften. Berlin: Georg Reimer/Walter de Gruyter, 1900–.<br />
English<br />
‘A new elucidation of the first principles of metaphysical cognition,’ in<br />
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philosophy, 1755–1770, tr. and ed. David Walford in collaboration with<br />
Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 1-46.<br />
Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view, tr. Mary J. Gregor. The<br />
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974.<br />
‘Attempt to introduce the concept of negative magnitudes into<br />
philosophy,’ in The Cambridge edition of the works of Immanuel Kant,<br />
theoretical philosophy, 1755–1770, tr. and ed. David Walford in<br />
collaboration with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University<br />
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‘Concerning the ultimate ground of the differentiation of directions in<br />
space,’ in The Cambridge edition of the works of Immanuel Kant,<br />
theoretical philosophy, 1755–1770, tr. and ed. David Walford in<br />
collaboration with Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University<br />
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Critique of pure reason, ed. and tr. P. Gruyer and A.W. Wood.<br />
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‘Dreams of a spirit-seer elucidated by dreams of metaphysics,’ in The<br />
Cambridge edition of the works of Immanuel Kant, theoretical
314<br />
BIBLIOGRAPHY<br />
philosophy, 1755–1770, tr. and ed. David Walford in collaboration with<br />
Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 301-360.<br />
Logic, tr. Robert S. Hartman and Wolfgang Schwarz. New York: Bobbs-<br />
Merill, 1974.<br />
‘Mr. Immanuel Kant's announcement of the programme of his lectures<br />
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works of Immanuel Kant, theoretical philosophy, 1755–1770, tr. and ed.<br />
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‘On a discovery according to which any new critique of pure reason has<br />
been made superfluous by an earlier one,’ in The Cambridge edition of<br />
the works of Immanuel Kant, theoretical philosophy after 1781, tr. and<br />
ed. Henry Allison, Peter Heath, Gary Hatfield, and Michael Friedman.<br />
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‘On the common saying: that may be correct in theory, but it is of no use<br />
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practical philosophy, tr. and ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge<br />
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‘On the form and principles of the sensible and the intelligible world,’ in<br />
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‘Prolegomena to any future metaphysic that will be able to come forward<br />
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theoretical philosophy after 1781, tr. and ed. Henry Allison, Peter Heath,<br />
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‘What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?’ in The Cambridge<br />
edition of the works of Immanuel Kant, religion and rational theology, tr.<br />
and ed. Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni. Cambridge:<br />
Cambridge University Press, 1996, 1-18.<br />
Universal natural history and theory of the heavens, tr. Stanley L. Jaki.<br />
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315<br />
Allison, Henry. Kant’s transcendental idealism. New Haven: Yale<br />
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Clive Cazeaux. London: Routledge, 1992, 143-167.<br />
Aristotle, The complete works, ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton:<br />
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Basedow, Johann Bernhard. Ausgewählte pädagogische Schriften, ed. A.<br />
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Beck, Lewis White. Early German philosophy: Kant and his<br />
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—— ‘Kant on education,’ in Education in the 18th century, ed. J.D.<br />
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Beiser, Frederick C. The fate of reason: German philosophy from Kant<br />
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Allison, Henry, 11, 63, 138,<br />
140, 150, 160, 168, 220, 257,<br />
280, 314, 315<br />
Ameriks, Karl, 1, 3, 8, 17, 134,<br />
315<br />
Aristotle, 22, 83, 84, 98, 122,<br />
310, 315<br />
Basedow, Johann Berhard, xi,<br />
95, 97, 99, 127, 315<br />
Bennett, Jonathan, 81, 123,<br />
136, 153, 164, 180, 192, 194,<br />
197, 211, 214, 315<br />
Berkeley, George, 64, 65, 66,<br />
195, 316, 317<br />
Brook, Andrew, 139, 141, 142,<br />
165, 169, 305, 309, 316<br />
Carpenter, Andrew, 3, 20, 316<br />
Condillac, Etienne Bonnet de,<br />
18, 64, 67, 69, 75, 76, 77, 78,<br />
90, 195, 230, 318<br />
Crusius, Christian August, xi,<br />
18, 28, 43, 95, 96, 97, 99,<br />
317, 319, 325<br />
Descartes, René, 65, 66, 77, 88,<br />
195, 224, 229, 237, 239, 240<br />
Falkenstein, Lorne, xii, 3, 140,<br />
157, 158, 164, 207, 208, 209,<br />
210, 214, 228, 234, 317<br />
Guyer, Paul, 136, 138, 180,<br />
315, 318<br />
Heidegger, Martin, 179, 318<br />
Henrich, Dieter, 138, 153, 248,<br />
253, 319<br />
NAME <strong>IN</strong>DEX<br />
Hoppe, Hansgeorg, 137, 142,<br />
289, 295, 319<br />
Hume, David, 18, 19, 42, 43,<br />
224, 229, 237, 239, 240, 282<br />
Kambartel, Friedrich, 3, 141,<br />
143, 144, 184, 250, 268, 275,<br />
278, 319<br />
Kaulbach, Friedrich, 3, 18, 62,<br />
63, 69, 73, 133, 141, 143,<br />
147, 157, 158, 159, 176, 180,<br />
181, 184, 191, 232, 234, 236,<br />
320, 321<br />
Kitcher, Patricia, 3, 18, 64, 67,<br />
136, 137, 139, 183, 196, 317,<br />
320<br />
Laywine, Alison, 3, 20, 34, 35,<br />
39, 40, 60, 320<br />
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, viii,<br />
18, 19, 22, 43, 46, 63, 69, 70,<br />
320<br />
Locke, John, 18, 253, 254<br />
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 82, 83, 84,<br />
85, 321<br />
Melnick, Arthur, 3, 141, 157,<br />
158, 167, 232, 278, 297, 305,<br />
321<br />
Munzel, G. Felicitas, 3, 55, 82,<br />
95, 130, 135, 321<br />
Newton, Isaac, 18, 19, 63, 93<br />
Nierhaus, Friedhelm, 3, 20, 21,<br />
23, 24, 25, 33, 43, 321<br />
Piaget, Jean, xiii, 118, 289, 290,<br />
291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296,<br />
297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 322
328<br />
Pitte, Frederick P. van de, 3, 16,<br />
18, 44, 55, 93, 94, 130, 135,<br />
136, 322<br />
Rawls, John, 82, 323<br />
Rossvær, Viggo, xii, 4, 69, 73,<br />
133, 141, 157, 159, 179, 180,<br />
184, 185, 186, 188, 205, 323<br />
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, vi, x,<br />
6, 18, 19, 44, 67, 68, 69, 71,<br />
75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 89, 90, 91,<br />
92, 93, 94, 95, 97, 99, 108,<br />
127, 155, 177, 195, 198, 230,<br />
272, 295, 303, 308, 317, 323<br />
Saugstad, Jens, 4, 9, 141, 143,<br />
157, 180, 184, 196, 252, 255,<br />
258, 265, 268, 278, 323<br />
NAME <strong>IN</strong>DEX<br />
Schönfeld, Martin, 3, 18, 20,<br />
21, 27, 35, 39, 40, 132, 133,<br />
324<br />
Shell, Susan Meld, 3, 5, 20, 26,<br />
27, 34, 42, 43, 324<br />
Strawson, P.F., 136, 138, 139,<br />
214, 223, 242, 325<br />
Tetens, Johann Nicolaus, 18,<br />
67, 69, 75, 77, 88, 254<br />
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 82, 118,<br />
119, 120, 121, 122, 138, 180,<br />
258, 286, 315, 317, 319, 323,<br />
326<br />
Wolff, Christian, 15, 88, 183,<br />
184, 218, 325, 326
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