BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

e based on this idea, i.e. it requires that we direct our attention to the
embodied aspects of man and to his embodied acts and practices. 38
3.5 Basedow and Crusius
Similar influences to those just mentioned may also have come through
the writings of Johann Bernhard Basedow, whose pedagogical ideas Kant
eagerly supported. In 1774 Basedow opened a radical educational
institution in Germany, an initiative backed by Kant. In the same year,
pedagogy was introduced as a subject at the University at Königsberg,
and in the following year pedagogy was added to the topics on which
Kant lectured. 39
Less radical, and theoretically not as interesting as Rousseau's Émile,
Basedow nevertheless ascribes a basic significance to practice.
Concerning the education of the young gentleman, he suggests in his
Elementarwerk that he should spend time with experienced artisans and
craftsmen in order to learn to use their tools to perform simple
operations. 40 He also recommends regular studies in practice on a wellrun
farm. 41 By being part of such practical contexts, the student acquires
his first concepts of the relevant arts and of agriculture. Basedow, like
Rousseau, ascribes to embodied participation a highly significant role in
the education of practical skills, skills, moreover, valued more highly than
mere theoretical reflections.
A third source of influence may have been Christian August Crusius
who in his Anweisung vernünftig zu leben promoted a cognitive theory
with pragmatic strains, based on an anthropology in which the human
mind was seen as radically embodied. 42 As Tonelli points out, Crusius
was an eclectic whose position was not always consistent. 43
95
Thus, his
pragmatism is perhaps not as clear cut as the pragmatism of e.g.
Rousseau. I still, however, see him as a possible influence on Kant. He
introduces his Anweisung vernunftig zu leben with a chapter on
Thelematologie, or a theory of the will. ‘Will’ is here defined as the
38
That Kant saw Rousseau as an inspiration within the field of rational theory is
suggested also by a remark found in the Blomberg Logic of 1771. Here Rousseau
is heralded as supplying a ‘grammar of the understanding’. Cf. Ak XXIV: 300.
Cf. also Ak XXIV: 495 and Zammito (2002), 260-261.
39
Cf. Munzel (1999), 266ff.
40
Basedow (1965), 192.
41
Ibid., 192.
42
For Crusius’ influence on Kant, cf. also Heimsoeth (1971), 127ff.
43
Tonelli (1969).
RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE