BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

274
QUANTITY
participates in the practice of counting. In both cases, according to Kant,
time is also produced, at least this seems to be his idea. However, my
point is that where empirical apprehension is concerned, and when Kant
claims that this kind of apprehension involves addition, then the addition
referred to is embodied. It is embodied because empirical apprehension
always involves the body. So for instance, when I apprehend a house,
adding the various parts of the building together as I let my eyes pass
from one part of the building to the other, I partake in the practice of
embodied counting. Although my body may only be involved to a small
degree, still it is involved, and so the practice is embodied.
The second objection concerns time as the form of inner sense. Kant
defines time as the form of inner sense, and in doing this seems to locate
the constitution of time in the innermost part of our minds. How can I
then claim that time is produced by embodied acts? I will not discuss
here why Kant refers to time as the form of inner sense, or what the term
‘inner’ means in this context. Rather, I want to emphasize that Kant also
maintains that time, even if it is the form of inner sense, can only be
represented in outer sense for instance by drawing a line. Consider for
instance the following passage at B 155.
Time… cannot be made representable to us except under the image
of a line, insofar as we draw it… (B 155)
The interpretation put forward may be used to explain why Kant makes
this claim. The line does not represent time in itself, that is, the line
considered as an object extended in space. It represents time indirectly,
in virtue of representing the act by which time is produced [erzeugt]. In
fact, the passage just quoted may be seen as yet another one that supports
the idea that time is produced by embodied acts.
Earlier I listed four criteria characterizing an a priori element of
cognition:
Something is an a priori element of cognition when:
1) it is a condition of having experience,
2) it produces knowledge that is necessarily true and universal,
3) it originates in the activity of the agent, and
4) its structure is independent of contingent empirical facts.
So far, it may be argued, I have shown that the category of quantity,
interpreted as an embodied practice, satisfies the first, third and fourth of
these criteria. But what about the second? Indirectly this question was
answered in the previous chapter. We there saw Kant argue that
arithmetic qua embodied practice (for instance counting on the fingers) is
the source of knowledge that is necessarily true and universal. Geometry