BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

139
performed by the subject, what kind of activities and events does the
theory refer to? Here I think three positions may be distinguished. 36 The
first claims that the cognitive subject is an ordinary embodied human
being and that the events and activities associated with this subject are
open to empirical investigation. A scholar approaching such a view in the
nineteenth century was Hermann von Helmholz. 37
According to the
second position, the cognitive subject is a transcendental subject, to
which no empirical knowledge applies. Strawson claimed that this was
Kant’s position, and argued that this made Kant’s transcendental
psychology untenable. 38 Not all representatives of the second position
draw this negative conclusion, however. The second position is also
represented by scholars contending that Kant’s transcendental
psychology is a valuable piece of philosophy, but claiming too that the
events and activities associated with the subject of this psychology belong
to an inner mental domain or some non-empirical, transcendental
domain only accessible by a certain kind of philosophical reflection. 39 The
third position involves the idea that the cognitive subject of Kant’s
transcendental psychology is not a subject at all, at least, not in the usual
sense of the term. Instead the term ‘subject’ is seen as referring to some
transpersonal entity, such as the human species, or even some sort of
Hegelian World-Spirit. A modern version of the trans-personal view is
found in Gerhardt. He claims that Kant’s so called Copernican
revolution should be interpreted as a radical anthropological turn [eine
universelle Hinwendung zum Menschen]. More specifically, it represents
a philosophical reflection evolving from the idea that human existence is
limited in time and space. Gerhardt’s claim focuses not on the finite
existence of the individual, however, but on humanity at large. 40
36
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
These are also discussed in Martin (1969), 207, cf. also Kitcher (1990), 3ff. A
closely related discussion concerns how to understand Kant’s distinction between
the empirical and the transcendental subject. This will be discussed below.
37
Cf. Martin (1969), 207. Typical of this position is that the distinction between
the empirical and transcendental subject is challenged.
38
I will return to discuss this in chapter 7.
39
Cf. e.g. Brook (1994), 19.
40
Gerhardt (1987), 140ff. Gerhardt emphasizes the fact that human life is limited
to the planet on which we live: ‘Was immer der Mensch über die Welt und über
sich selbst in Erfahrung bringen kann, verdankt er den Lebensbedingungen auf
diesem kleinen Planeten, der ihm, selbst wenn es gelingen sollte, perfekte
Erkenntnisinstrumente zu entwickeln, stets nur einen Begrenzten Weltausschnitt
eröffnet.’ (Gerhardt (1987), 142).