BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

SPATIAL SCHEMATISM 207
6.13 Falkenstein’s argument concerning intuition and body in the
Critique
In this chapter I have emphasized the connection between Kant’s theory
of spatial experience in the Transcendental aesthetic and his theory of
spatial schematism as found in the schematism chapter. Both these
theories demand that we see the cognitive self as embodied, and that the
cognitive operations ascribed to this self are taken to involve embodied
acts. In this section I shall discuss an interpretation that to some extent
moves along the same lines. It is found in Lorne Falkenstein’s Kant’s
Intuitionism. 53 In an argument somewhat different from mine but with a
similar conclusion, Falkenstein argues that Kant’s theory of intuition in
the Transcendental aesthetic implies that the cognitive self of the
Critique is embodied.
Falkenstein’s interpretation is interesting, because even if he admits
this, and even if he contends that the term ‘affection’ in Kant’s theory of
intuition refers to the affection of the body, he denies that the notion of
embodied acts has anything to do with Kant’s theory of space. Actually,
he argues, our experience of space does not require any activity on behalf
of the agent at all. In this way, Falkenstein’s interpretation runs contrary
to my reading of Kant’s critical theory of space. I shall briefly consider
this interpretation and then suggest how it may be dealt with.
A basic premise of Falkenstein’s interpretation is the idea expressed
by Kant in the Transcendental aesthetic that space is given. According to
Falkenstein, this implies that our perceptions are spatially structured
when they are taken up by the mind, i.e. prior to any activity. This again
implies not only that the cognitive self exists in time, as Shaper has also
pointed out, 54
but also that this self has an existence in space as well, i.e.
that it is an embodied self, even if this is not explicitly stated in the
Critique. Falkenstein’s argument may be summarized by saying that as
the stimuli corresponding to our perceptions hit the body at various
places, they are spatially structured from the very start, and that is why
Kant can contend that space is given. That is, space is from the very
beginning an aspect of the manner in which sensations are received. He
concludes:
53
Falkenstein (1995), cf. also Falkenstein (1998).
54
Shaper (1992).