BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE
insists, reminding us here of Rousseau’s didactic in Émile. If the topic, for
instance, is map-making, then an optimal learning situation is not
established just by letting the students learn the principles of map-making
in abstracto, but also by letting the students partake in the practice of
map-making.
Secondly, Kant uses the notion of Regeln in abstracto. The very
notion of abstraction implies that the concepts here referred to, before
they are abstracted, exist as part of a richer and more comprehensive
context. This context, obviously, is a practice.
Finally, let us recall that when Kant advises that the rules or concepts
corresponding to a certain practice are presented to the students in
abstracto, it is to prevent, their understanding from proceeding
‘mechanically’. Even if he explicitly advises against it, he also implies that
a mechanical employment of the understanding is actually possible.
What does it mean for the understanding to proceed mechanically? I
suggest that Kant has in mind the same unconscious mastering of a
practice as the one described in Logic. 74
If my interpretation is on the right track, then we may conclude that
the passage just examined implies or presupposes the same basic ideas as
those in Logic. Very briefly, these are:
1) A person may possess a concept solely through the successful
performance of an embodied practice.
2) Such a concept may also be possessed in abstracto, that is, in
abstraction from its corresponding practice.
3) In such a case the practice has ontological priority over the
abstract concept. 75
As suggested at the beginning of this chapter, I do not claim that these
three points exhaust all Kant has to say about concepts. I do not claim,
for instance, that he held all concepts to be abstracted from practices. I
will claim, however, that the three points just stated represent more than
just a passing fancy on his behalf. They represent a lasting theory,
presupposed or implied by a number of passages in his writings on
anthropology, pedagogy and logic, some of which will be examined
below. These three points, I maintain, are also central to what I have
called Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.
Before continuing, however, let us turn briefly to the second question
asked above. If concepts are rules that may be possessed solely through
the successful performance of an embodied practice, what does this tell us
74
Cf. Ak IX: 503
75
Below I will slightly modify this third point.