BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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rationality. For instance, in the Anthropology he states that a person
without linguistic behavior will never attain concepts in the proper sense
of the term [eigentliche Begriffe]. 112 However, this is not incompatible
with the idea that something analogous to these concepts may also exist
on a pre-linguistic level. It may even be that Kant would have agreed to
call them concepts, but concepts of a different kind from those referred to
by the German term eigentliche Begriffe.
Whether this attempt to harmonize the various claims made by Kant
on the topic of concepts really works, I leave open for further
investigation. In the present context the issue does not need be decided.
All that is required is acceptance of the idea that among Kant’s various
approaches there is one conforming to what I have called Kant’s
pragmatic theory of embodied rationality.
3.15 Summary
In this chapter I have explored how Kant’s idea of the embodied mind
affects his theory of rationality in texts published both before and after
1781. From early on he puts forward the idea that our rational capacities
depend on the body. In Universal natural history, for instance, he claims
that the capacity to connect and compare concepts is influenced by the
constitution of the body of the thinking subject. Later he downplays this
part of his theory. The mature Kant emphasizes instead the entire
human being as a totality of mind and body, that is as an embodied
agent, as the rational subject. Human rationality is now analyzed at the
level of the behavior of this agent. This new perspective is found in texts
such as On the common saying from 1793, Anthropology from 1798,
Logic from 1800 and On pedagogy from 1803, and may be summarized
as follows:
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 and pragmatic
priority over the abstract concept.
This theory I have called Kant’s pragmatic theory of embodied
rationality. As for its historical roots, I have argued that it may in part be
viewed as the logical outcome of some basic ideas and assumptions held
by Kant. However, in working out their consequences, he may also have
112
Ak VII: 192.
RATIONALITY AND EMBODIED PRACTICE