BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

142
Hoppe may also be mentioned here, as both point out how easily Kant’s
transcendental theory may be read as a theory of human behavior. 53
Both, however, deny that Kant himself meant his theory to be
interpreted in this way.
4.4 Transcendental philosophy
Commenting upon his philosophical project in the Critique, Kant is
quite explicit in seeing it as representing a new kind of philosophy, which
he terms ‘transcendental’. In the Critique he gives his first definition of
transcendental philosophy at A 14/B 25. Transcendental philosophy is a
system of transcendental knowledge [Erkenntnis] that deals with the
specific manner in which we achieve knowledge of objects [Erkenntnisart
von Gegenständen] as far as this is possible a priori.
I call all cognition transcendental that is occupied not so much with
objects but rather with our mode of cognition of objects insofar as this
is to be possible a priori. A system of such concepts would be called
transcendental philosophy. (A 11/B 25)
At B 19 Kant also states what he takes to be the main question of
transcendental philosophy. How are synthetic a priori judgments
possible? A further characteristic of transcendental philosophy is that all
its concepts are pure a priori concepts (B 28). And finally, while most
cognitive theories deal only with the origin and history of knowledge, the
main question of transcendental philosophy is not the origin, but the
validity of knowledge (A 84/B 116). Thus, according to the distinction
drawn in chapter one above, Kant’s main project in the Critique belongs
to the discipline of epistemology and not cognitive theory.
Part of the discussion revolving around the Critique concerns what
kind of project Kant’s transcendental philosophy is. We have already
touched upon some aspects of this question above. Here I want to focus
on his own presentation of his project as we have just encountered it.
The claim that all the concepts of transcendental philosophy are pure
a priori concepts has induced interpreters to argue that Kant’s
transcendental philosophy cannot contain any concepts referring to
empirical objects or phenomena or concepts with an empirical origin. If
so, however, where do these transcendental concepts come from? One
possible answer is to see them as concepts similar to what the rationalist
tradition of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries called innate ideas.
53 Brook (1994), 18 and Hoppe (1969), 19.
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE