BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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Kant saw in Rousseau’s philosophy a model of character building, and in
the author of this philosophy a proponent of human rights and dignity,
ideas that later came to fruition in his ethics. 33 The philosophy of religion
is also singled out as a field in which the influence on Kant of Rousseau
was decisive. 34 However, even if this is accepted, I do not think it by any
means exhausts what there is to say about the influence of Rousseau on
Kant. For my own part I want to stress Kant’s interest in pedagogy, and
the strong Rousseauan tone of his own pedagogical works, documented
for instance by Niethammer. 35 I want to call attention to Rousseau’s
disparagement of scholarly knowledge and the high esteem he accords
the practical skills of ordinary people, adopted, at least in part, by Kant,
enhancing the pragmatic and empiricist tendencies of his philosophy, as
commented upon by e.g. Vleeschauwer and others. 36 First and foremost,
however, I want to emphasize how all these ideas and ideals are founded
in a unified conception of man, a conception recognized and adopted by
Kant. It is a conception according to which man is basically an embodied
being whose first development is mediated by his free interaction with his
physical environment. Here human rationality has its basis, Rousseau
argues, a rationality that is later developed through the embodied
practices the child learns to master.
When Kant, like Rousseau, denounces Dressieren in the education of
children, and advises instead that the educational process should be
characterized by freedom, including freedom of movement, fiercely
attacking artificial inventions inhibiting such movement, the reason is not
only that it impedes the physical development of the child. It also
negatively affects the healthy development of man considered as a
rational being. 37
I think that when Kant ascribes to Rousseau the brilliant
discovery of how man must be studied with an eye for that which is
enduring in human nature, he also has in mind the idea that human
rationality is embodied, and that reflection on human rationality has to
33
Cf. Cassirer (1991), 12ff. Similar ideas have been promoted by e.g. Pitte (1971
and 1978), Dieterich (1878) and most recently by Zammito (2002). According to
Zammito, however, Kant’s enthusiasm for Rousseau lasted only for a while.
From around 1770 Kant began to distance himself from Rousseau. Dieterich also
emphasises Rousseau’s influence in the fields of social theory and the philosophy
of history.
34
Cf. e.g. Cassirer (1991), 44 and Klemme (1996), 56.
35
Niethammer (1980), 129.
36
Cf. Vleeschauwer (1962), 41, Makkreel (2001), 187 and Zammito (2002), 113ff.
37
Cf. Ak IX: 463.
RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE