BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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SPATIAL SCHEMATISM
that it is an uneigentlich so genannte Konstruktion. In contrast with the
first kind, it makes use of instruments.
Given all this, it is possible to argue that Kant’s distinction between
the two types of construction described in the above passage is not meant
to distinguish between inner and outer constructions. What is essential to
the first kind of construction (the one described as an a priori
construction in the imagination) is rather that the agent performs the
operation independently [selbsttätig] without depending on some pattern
borrowed from experience, or as Kant expresses the point in German;
ohne das Muster dazu aus irgend einer Erfahrung geborgt zu haben (A
713/B741). A second point may be derived from Kant’s claim that the
circle may be used to prove the qualities of a circle even if it is irregular.
How can it be used as such a proof? My guess is that it is because it is the
product of a procedure that is a universal procedure for producing
circles, and as long as we focus on this procedure rather than its product,
the general qualities of the circle remains intact. Why does the
construction of a circle with instruments not count as a construction in
the same sense? My guess is that the agent in this case does not prove
unequivocally that she is really a master of this universal procedure. The
production of the circle might in this case be the product of mere luck,
the fact that she incidentally bumped into the instrument so that a circle
was produced. If so, there is an essential connection between the first and
second points above and we may conclude that the basic point of Kant’s
theory of a priori construction in the imagination is not to say anything
decisive about the image being produced, nor to say anything decisive
about the medium in which it is produced. The focus is the productive
procedure in which a free and autonomous agent exhibits the capacity to
produce an image corresponding to a concept.
If I am right, the reason why Kant refers to this kind of construction
as an a priori construction in the imagination is not in order to deny that
it may result in the production of real images (as circles in the sand), but
because this aspect of the process is not the focus here. Or to put it
differently, the theory of an a priori construction in the imagination is
neutral with regard to the specific status of the image and its medium.
This will be a premise in the further development of my interpretation.
6.6 Further remarks on the imagination
In ordinary language the term ‘imagination’ typically refers to the
capacity of a human agent to have inner, mental images. I see no point in
denying that Kant may have taken the term to also have this sense. A
number of remarks in e.g. the Anthropology seem to demand such an