BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

11. CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS
Reality data are treated or modified in such a way
as to become incorporated into the structure of
the agent.
Piaget 1
In the previous chapter I argued that if there is a level at which the
relational categories exist as embodied practices, then these practices
have to be continuously entertained. In this chapter I ask whether there
are practices with a function similar to the one ascribed to the relational
categories in the Critique that satisfy this demand. I shall argue that if
there are such practices, and if we accept that there is a level at which the
relational categories exist as embodied practices, then these may be the
ones.
In searching for practices satisfying these criteria, I shall seek help in
the work of Jean Piaget. 2 That Piaget is relevant here may not be
immediately obvious. He is a child psychologist empirically studying the
cognitive development of the child. However, he is also deeply inspired
by Kant, calling himself a ‘dynamic Kantian’. 3 Among the ideas in his
1
Piaget and Inhelder (1987a), 52.
2
That the work of Piaget may be of help in order to achieve a more
comprehensive understanding of Kant’s transcendental epistemology was first
brought to my attention by Hansgeorg Hoppe (1983) and his highly interesting
study Synthesis bei Kant. Here he writes: ‘Diese Theorie [Piaget’s] einer
Gegenstandskonstitution durch Synthesen, die ihrerseits Kategorien
hervorbringen oder von Kategorien geleitet sind, ist sowohl für die
Gegenstandsbeziehung unserer Vorstellungen als auch für ihre Interpretation
von außerordentlicher Wichtigkeit...’ (Hoppe (1983), 160-61). However, even if
Hoppe claims that a Piagetian approach may help us arrive at a more interesting
notion of transcendental philosophy, he also thinks that we then go beyond Kant
(ibid., 20). Cf. also Hoppe (1988), 116.
3
Cf. Arbib (1986), 45 and Oberhausen (1997), 27. Even if he called himself a
dynamic Kantian, however, openly acknowledging a Kantian influence, he took
the dynamic aspect of his theory to be incompatible with the Kantian notion of
the a priori. Oberhausen reports that Piaget characterized Kant’s theory of space
as a nativist theory, and that he ascribed to Kant the idea that space and causality