BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

140
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
Following a somewhat different line of argument, Neujahr contends that
the cognitive subject of the Critique is transpersonal. 41
Identifying which of these positions Kant interpreters belong to is not
always easy. Falkenstein, 42 for instance, conforms to the second position
relative to Kant’s theory of the intellectual synthesis. However, where
Kant’s theory of sensibility is concerned, he claims that this theory
contains references to man as an embodied being, and in that respect his
position is closer to the first of the three. Even Allison argues that in
Kant’s theory of sensibility the term ‘affection’ refers to the affection of
the body. 43
My own position lies near the first one. I think the subject of Kant’s
transcendental psychology is man as we know him as an embodied being
and I also accept transcendental psychology as a legitimate part of
transcendental philosophy. Contrary to those who claim that the events
and activities associated with this subject belong to an inner or even nonempirical
domain, however, I think that the events are embodied events
and that the acts are embodied acts or practices. So Kant’s
transcendental psychology is not a psychology in the usual sense of the
term, referring to inner mental or otherwise hidden processes. It is the
psychology of a philosopher who was as critical of introspection as he was
of neurology, a philosopher who emphasized that the human mind was
radically embodied and present in and through the embodied selfawareness
and the embodied activity of the subject. This is also why I
prefer not to use the term ‘transcendental psychology’, with its
connotations of inner mental or hidden processes, but the more neutral
term ‘cognitive theory’.
That Kant’s cognitive theory in the Critique, or that his
transcendental philosophy in a more general sense, refers in some way or
41 Neujahr contends that in the Critique Kant was committed not to one but two
views of the subject. He started by seeing the subject as an individual entity.
Then, in order to escape solipsism, he was forced to introduce a new theory
according to which the subject is a transpersonal mind, cf. Neujahr (1995), 98ff.
Neujahr sees these two views as incompatible and an example of the general
inconsistency of the Critique.
42 Falkenstein (1995).
43 This, at least is how I interpret the following remark: ‘Kant not only can but
does speak about the mind as affected by empirical objects. For example, he
speaks unproblematically of colors as ‘modifications of the sense of sight which is
affected in a certain way by light’ (A28). [...] Kant can perfectly well characterize
human sensibility in this way because, on the empirical level, the human mind is
itself considered as part of nature.’ Allison (1983), 249.