BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 201
6.10 Schematism in the transcendental deduction
This interpretation gives sense to a number of other passages that, even if
they are not found in the schematism chapter, I still regard as part of
Kant’s theory of schematism. These passages are found in the
transcendental deduction, both in its A- and B-version. In order to have
cognition of something in space, such as a line, I have to draw it, Kant
argues, for instance at B 137-138. Similar examples are found
elsewhere. 47 The reason I take these passages to be part of his theory of
schematism is, first, they claim that cognition involves acts of
construction, usually referred to by means of the verb ‘to draw’
[zeichnen], and secondly, these constructions are claimed to be
performed in the imagination. This is also, roughly, how Kant’s theory of
schematism is presented in the schematism chapter. Following my
interpretation of this chapter, however, I shall argue that the
constructions referred to in these passages also refer to movements of the
body or embodied acts in the way just specified.
This interpretation is especially required, I think, at B 162. In order
to perceive a house, Kant argues, I have to draw its shape:
Thus if, e.g., I make the empirical intuition of a house into perception
through apprehension of its manifold, my ground is the necessary
unity of space and of outer sensible intuition in general, and I as it
were draw its shape in agreement with this synthetic unity of the
manifold in space. (B 162, my emphasis)
It would be absurd to read this passage as claiming that the perception of
a house requires that we literally draw its shape. According to my
interpretation of Kant’s theory of schematism, however, the passage
invites us to search for an embodied act that is structurally similar to the
act we would have to perform in order to literally draw it. If we assume
that the perception here described is visual, as the passage seems to
suggest, this is most likely the act by which the observer moves her eyes
as their focus slides along its external contours.
6.11 Degrees of consciousness
When I see a house from a distance, I am not normally aware that my
eyes move as their focus slides along its external contours. However, seen
from a Kantian perspective, this is no objection against the interpretation
47 Cf. e.g. B 102, B 154 and B 162.