BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

16
communion of mind and body was discussed at two levels within
eighteenth century German philosophy, resulting in two parallel
discourses. One belongs to empirical psychology and there the
communion of mind and body was regarded as a fact, not a problem. 8
The problem arises only when we move to the discourse of rational
psychology. The problem there is to explain the communion of mind and
body given the radical difference thought to exist between them. In what
follows I will refer to this as ‘the ontological mind-body problem’. In
seventeenth and eighteenth-century European metaphysics several
possible solutions to this problem were presented and discussed, among
these the theory of influxus physicus or real interaction, the idea of preestablished
harmony, and occasionalism.
In addition to empirical and rational psychology, a third discipline in
which the mind was examined and discussed emerged during the
eighteenth century, namely anthropology. One of its roots was empirical
psychology. 9 Like empirical psychology it considered the community of
mind and body to be a fact and not a problem, a fact, moreover, to be
examined by empirical observation. However, it also included within its
field of study other aspects of human life, such as culture, habit and
society. Through his lectures in anthropology, which he gave regularly
throughout most of his academic career (starting in 1772 but based on
reflections that may date back as far as 1757 10
), Kant signaled an acute
interest in the new discipline, and also a positive attitude towards the new
approach of studying man that was associated with it. In an early
anthropology lecture he said that he saw the advantage of anthropology
over psychology in that it observed not only the soul, but the whole
human being. 11
To be aware of the disciplines within which the human mind and its
relation to the body were examined and discussed in eighteenth century
German philosophy is important as it helps us arrive at more adequate
interpretations of the texts dealing with this topic. Within the disciplines
8
To say that the community of mind and body is here a fact, means that it is
taken as a premise that is not questioned. Thus, within empirical psychology one
is allowed to investigate or speculate upon the various effects that the body exerts
on the mind (or vice versa) without being troubled by the ontological task of
explaining how this is possible in the first place.
9
For the development of anthropology in Germany, cf. Klemme (1996), 14ff. and
also Zammito (2002).
10
Cf Pitte (1978), xi and (1971), 11.
11 Ak XXV: 471.
THE EMBODIED MIND