BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE
we accept that this will exists as an omnipresent force, directing even our
rational capacities, it is not far from this to the idea that our rationality
realizes itself through acts initiated by this will. If, further we assume that
these acts have a goal, and that their rational status is decided on the
basis of whether they reach this goal or not, then we are close to a
pragmatism of a Kantian sort.
I think there are passages in Crusius’ work suggesting that he may
have approached such a position. One is found in the first part of the
Thelematologie, where he announces that he regards thinking as
involving more than just the possession of abstract concepts. 50 In § 73 he
continues by discussing various practices such as writing, composing
verses and chopping wood. 51 These practices, he explains, come into
existence through the regular repetition of certain acts. In this process,
the will acquires gradually a better control of the practice. And the
concepts required for the practice come ever more easily to the soul, as it
remembers how it has proceeded in the same situation earlier. Finally,
along with this, the body becomes a proper instrument of the soul. 52
Rather than being seen as isolated opposites, concept and action,
mind and body are here all viewed as part of an integral whole. Man is
not a being who first calculates the steps of future actions which are then
implemented. The concepts directing the practice are formed and
reinforced through the practice itself. This implies a pragmatic
conception of conceptual knowledge, or so I will argue. The person
exercising the art of writing, composing verses and chopping wood,
moreover, also does so in order to become good at making use of these
arts. Thus, the context in which his concepts evolve is also the context in
which certain practical ends are realized.
I will not claim that Crusius’ work had a decisive impact on Kant’s
thought. However, together with Rousseau, Basedow and perhaps other
like-minded philosophers, he helped to form a background of pragmatic
or quasi-pragmatic ideas that may well have influenced Kant’s thinking.
A final source of inspiration may have been an idea shared by both
the empiricists and the rationalists of his time, namely that thinking
involves certain mental operations like comparison and judging. 53
An
50
Ibid., 5.
51
Crusius uses here the Latin term habitus, cf. Crusius (1969), 92.
52
Ibid., 92-93.
53
For a discussion of the Aristotelian roots of this idea, see Forschner (1986), 82ff.
Forschner also more specifically compares the notions of synthesis and action in
Aristotle and Kant.
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