BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
reference to the body and to embodied acts and practices. For instance,
we have seen him argue that our capacity to grasp an object is a
condition of our capacity to form a concept of its shape. In this passage
emphasis is placed on acts involving the whole body, such as running,
throwing, trying to hit a target, etc. In an earlier chapter, I called the
ideas underlying this way of thinking Kant’s ‘theory of the embodied
constitution of spatial representations’, or his ‘embodied theory of space’
for short.
In this and the following chapter I will argue that the theory of space
and spatial experience as it is found in the Critique, or Kant’s ‘critical
theory of space’, for short, is remarkably similar in structure to his
embodied theory of space. It is true that in his critical theory there are no
explicit references made to the body, at least, not in the way we see them
in Directions in space, Orientation, Anthropology and On pedagogy. At
the centre of the critical theory of space stands the abstract notion of a
mind [Gemüt], the relation of which to the body is not specified, and the
abstract notion of space, defined as the a priori form of intuition. This
form is claimed to have its source a priori in the mind. To be more
specific, it is said to have its origin in the activity of the mind, or so I shall
argue. At no point, however, is this activity said to be embodied in the
way we have seen in the texts examined above. The absence of explicit
references to the body is especially noticeable in the Transcendental
aesthetic, the part of the Critique dedicated to Kant’s critical
examination of sensibility, which is also the part where space is first
discussed in the Critique. Despite this absence, I will maintain that his
critical theory of space is remarkably similar in structure to his embodied
theory of space. Based on this similarity, and based also on other
theoretical reflections, I shall put forward the thesis that the former
theory may be read, in part, as an abstract version of the latter. The task
of this and the following chapter is to provide evidence for this claim.
The reason why Kant’s critical discussion of space is allowed to
occupy two whole chapters should come as no surprise. Alongside time,
space is one of the main topics of the Critique, and he returns to discuss it
from various angles throughout the text. I also hope that by discussing his
critical theory of space at some length the foundations will be established
to support my interpretation of other parts of the Critique, namely his
critical theory of time and the categories.
By claiming that Kant’s critical theory of space is, in part, an abstract
version of his embodied theory of space, I mean that the abstract
character of the former is, in part, due to the fact that explicit references
to the body have been removed from the latter. More specifically, I claim
that the abstract notion of the mind, found in the Critique should be