BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
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which explicit references to the body had no place. 81 Perhaps he excluded
such references because he wanted to stress the logical structure of his
transcendental arguments and feared that too many and explicit
references to the body would distract attention from this structure. Or
perhaps he omitted them simply in order to prevent the text from
becoming too voluminous.
A further possibility is that Kant’s transcendental philosophy derives
its structure, or parts of it, from reflections centered on the body and
embodied acts and practices, but that he was not fully aware of this.
Sometimes, when examining certain passages in the Critique, I also feel
this to be the case; I read passages that seem to demand an interpretation
referring to embodied acts or practices but Kant’s way of expressing
himself seems to resist this reading. In such cases, it is as if the text reflects
a struggle between two perspectives, one based on the insight that
embodied acts and practices are indispensable to our experience of the
world, the other based on some alternative conception. It is, however, as
if this struggle does not really catch Kant’s attention, leading to a
disturbing ambiguity in the text. 82
If the idea of an unconscious struggle between ideas seems
unattractive, we may perhaps instead return to the idea that Kant did not
succeed in working through all parts of his system. The ideas emphasized
in my interpretation of the Critique may be seen, then, as belonging to
the ideas that he did not have the time, interest or energy to make fully
explicit, and this may then account for the relative absence of references
to the body or to embodied acts and practices.
Which of the above explanations is to be preferred, I will not try to
decide here. My reason for suggesting them is only to argue that, from
the fact that explicit references to the body and to embodied acts and
practices are so few in the Critique, we cannot conclude that such acts
81 Henrich (1989), 34 notices that the juridical Deduktionsschriften that may have
represented Kant’s stylistic ideal when writing the Critique, were ‘brief, solid and
perspicuous’. The term Deduktionsschrift refers to a genre originally used by
lawyers to justify controversial legal claims. If Henrich is right, it may explain the
abstract and dry style of the Critique.
82
That there is more to be found in the Critique than both the reader, and even
its author, may be aware of, is also suggested by Bennett (1966), 4. He maintains
that Kant’s style is often confused, and his philosophical points badly expressed,
however, they may still contain hints leading to useful and interesting insights:
‘Kant has a natural, subliminal sensitivity to philosophical problems, so that even
where he argues badly his writing is rich in hints and suggestions which can lead
one to insights which Kant himself did not have.’