BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

147
above, this is also what I see as the basic move constituting Kant’s
transcendental perspective.
That this move also involves a critical reflection is a point aptly
expressed by Kaulbach. By redirecting attention from the world to the
observer, it becomes possible for us to critically distinguish between the
elements of our experience that originate in the objects and those that
originate in our specific subjective way of approaching these objects.
This, again, makes it possible for us to free ourselves from some illusions
that threaten to cloud our understanding when this subjective aspect of
our experience is not taken into account. Kaulbach, moreover, also
contends that the subject of this reflection is embodied. 66
4.6 Some further remarks on the transcendental and the empirical
I have argued that Kant’s transcendental philosophy is a philosophical
reflection taking place within the human life-world as we know it, what
might also be called the empirical world. An argument in favor of this
idea is that there is no need to leave this world in order to solve the task
defined at A 11/B 25, i.e. to explain how synthetic a priori knowledge is
possible, or at least that is what I shall argue. By examining the embodied
practices developed by man in his physical interaction with the world,
and by examining how such practices make possible certain aspects of
our knowledge of this world, we discover that such practices may be seen
as a priori conditions of knowledge, i.e., a priori and synthetic in the way
defined at A 11/B 25ff. 67 A first suggestion that this idea is recognized by
Kant is found in Orientation when Kant tells us that without the capacity
to draw a circle, and by doing this to recognize whether the direction is
from left to right or the other way around, we would not be able to
determine a priori the different locations of objects in space. 68 The body,
i.e. our way of using it and our awareness of this, is here declared to be a
condition of a priori knowledge. Below I shall argue that the same is the
case with other embodied acts and practices.
What has been said so far is intended to be understood only as brief
suggestions. All the topics touched upon above will be discussed more
extensively in the following chapters. At this point I will maintain only
that I do not take Kant’s transcendental philosophy to involve reflections
that, metaphorically speaking, take us out of the world as we know it.
66
Kaulbach (1968), 251.
67
This claim will be developed more fully in the following chapters.
68
Ak VIII: 135.
THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE