BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

180
SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
been advanced by others. 8 Somewhere in the middle we find Bennett
arguing that, even if he does not find Kant’s schematism theory totally
convincing, it is more promising than most theories that link concepts
with images. Instead of associating each concept with a single image or
with a set of exactly similar images, Kant’s theory associates each concept
with a rule for image-production. This, Bennett argues, saves him from
difficulties that are fatal to other theories. 9
The perspective developed in this chapter is indebted to a number of
earlier studies. I would like to draw particular attention to Rossvær’s
highly inspiring work Kant og Wittgenstein 10 and its discussion of Kant’s
constructivism in mathematics. On a general level my perspective is also
structurally similar to the one found in a number of works by Kaulbach. 11
Even if he admits that the Critique is not unambiguous, he maintains
that the cognitive self of this work is also an embodied self. As such it is
part of the same spatio-temporal world as the objects of its experience. Its
immediate presence in this world is located in the specific here-and-now
of its body. And Kant’s transcendental philosophy, Kaulbach contends,
may be read as a theory of how this embodied self confronts the world.
In Kaulbach’s interpretation self-conscious movement is a basic
principle. By moving about in the world and being aware of his own
movement, man explores its spatio-temporal structure. Such movement,
Kaulbach argues, may also be seen as a transcendental condition of
experience. 12 The perspective here established is also applied to Kant’s
theory of spatial schematism, which, according to Kaulbach, is a theory
of an embodied self performing constructive operations by means of its
body. 13
8
Cf. Pippin (1982), 222, Paton (1936), 17ff., Guyer (1987), 157, Shaper (1992)
and Obergefell (1985), to mention but a few names. Also Rossvær (1974) and
Svendsen (1998), 11 have argued that the schematism chapter is central to a
proper understanding of the Critique.
9
Bennett (1966), 141.
10
Rossvær (1974).
11
Kaulbach (1960, 1965 and 1968).
12
Cf. Kaulbach (1960), 99.
13
He writes: ‘Ohne daß sich der Konstruierende in den Raum und in die Zeit
hinein ausdehnt, indem er sich eine Raumgestalt entlang bewegt, gibt es keine
Konstruktion einer Figur. Das konstruierende Bewusstsein muss sich bewegen
und damit den begangenen Weg, d. i. die Konturen der konstruierten Figur
markieren.’ (Kaulbach (1965), 122). For Kaulbach’s discussion of Kant’s theory
of schematism, cf. also Kaulbach (1960), 117 and 127 and Kaulbach (1968), 285.
Cf. also Saugstad (1982), 24ff.