BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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SPATIAL EXPERIENCE AND THE BODY IN THE CRITIQUE
in it. 4 Falkenstein’s discussion of the connection between space and
embodiment in the Critique will be discussed separately in a later
chapter.
5.1 A brief remark about the structure of my argument
The claim that Kant’s critical theory of space may be thought of in part
as the abstract version of his embodied theory of space will be supported
by more than one line of argument. In this chapter I shall present a
rather lengthy argument focusing on the similarity in structure between
the two theories, emphasizing the following similarities: In both theories
the cognitive subject is said to arrive at experience of spatially extended
objects in three-dimensional space through a process in which the subject
is both passive and active. Moreover, there is a characteristic reciprocity
between these active and passive aspects. This, I will refer to as the
‘active-passive character’ of the process. This is present, I will argue, in
both Kant’s critical and embodied theories of space. This demonstration
of a parallel structure is not intended to constitute a decisive proof that
the former theory is an abstract version of the latter in the way specified.
Similarity of structure between two theories alone does not prove that the
one is an abstract version of the other. Thus, the similarity-in-structureargument
is intended as nothing but the first step in a line of arguments
that will continue in the next chapter.
Even if I do not want to put too much emphasis on the similarity-instructure-argument,
I think it merits a place here. For one thing, it is not
obvious that the two theories I compare really are similar in the way I
claim. For instance, not all interpreters agree that Kant’s critical theory
of space qua form of intuition involves the idea that space is constituted
by the activity of the cognitive self. 5 As part of the argument to be
presented in this chapter, I will also examine central parts of the
Transcendental aesthetic and the Transcendental logic. This
4 He writes: ‘Der Mensch als leibliches Wesen [...] bringt sich selbst als Körper
mit im Bereich des Weltraumes unter.’ (Kaulbach (1960), 114). A similar point is
also made by Melnick (1989), 5ff. From Kant’s idea that space is a continuum, he
argues that to Kant only the flowing nature of spatial production or construction
by an embodied agent may account for this character of a continuum.
5 Cf. e.g. Falkenstein (1995), 4 and 99, and also Obergefell (1985), 200. In general
I think that all those who reject Kant’s transcendental psychology would have to
meet with suspicion the idea that space is constituted by the activity of the
cognitive self, cf. chapter 4 of this work.