BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

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means that ‘a priori’ may be used in a correspondingly narrow sense to
denote that in a representation that does not originate in the affection of
the mind, but in the activity of the cognitive agent. This conforms to the
final of the three points stated above, something is a priori when it
originates in the activity of the agent. In what follows I shall take this to
be an essential defining mark of the Kantian a priori. 11
The claim just made will be of significance in the further discussion in
more than one way. First, I shall use it in support of the idea that the
categories may be conceived of as embodied practices after all. The logic
of my argument is this. If we accept that a defining mark of the a priori is
that it originates in the activity of the agent, then an embodied practice is
a priori in this specific sense. An embodied practice is an activity
performed by an agent, thus, we may also say that it originates in the
agent. 12 This alone, of course, does not prove that the categories are
embodied practices, or that we may legitimately conceive of them as
such. In order to make this probable, we also have to show that there are
practices satisfying the first and second demands listed above. We must
demonstrate that there are embodied practices that are conditions for
having experience, and that produce knowledge that is necessarily true
and universal. This I shall do next.
8.4 Embodied practice as a condition of experience
In this section I shall argue that there are embodied practices that are
conditions for having experience in a Kantian sense, and that produce
knowledge that is necessarily true and universal. That there are
embodied practices with such a function may perhaps not strike the
reader as evident. 13
Let me therefore give an example of an embodied
11
KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL EPISTEMOLOGY
The a priori may of course also be defined in opposition to the empirical
relative to the first and second of the marks listed above defining the a priori. The
point is then that 1) while the a priori is a condition of having (empirical)
experience, (empirical) experience is conditioned by the a priori, and 2) while the
a priori produces knowledge which is necessarily true and universal, the empirical
cannot do this: empirical claims are merely contingent ( cf. e.g. A 91/B 123 and
A 196/B 214).
12
This is only meant as a brief suggestion here. I will say more about it below in
discussing the normativity of a practice.
13
Within the Wittgensteinian tradition, however, there is a growing awareness
that embodied practices may be conditions for having experience in a Kantian or
quasi-Kantian sense. Cf. e.g. Lear (1986) and Railton (2000). I will return to this
point below.