BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

CAUSALITY AND COMMON SENSE PHYSICS 293
of the situation. Consequently a scheme has two aspects, one related to
perception and one to action. The scheme, we might say, is what coordinates
these. And as already emphasized, it does so without
introducing representational or conceptual elements. It is totally
embedded in perception and action:
In the absence of language and symbolic function, these constructions
[schemes] are made with the sole support of perceptions and
movements and thus by means of a sensorimotor co-ordination of
acts without the intervention of representation and thought. 10
According to Piaget, sensorimotor intelligence develops gradually during
the first eighteen months of the child’s life. There is a continuous
progress from spontaneous movements and reflexes to acquired habits
and sensorimotor intelligence. 11 However, a turning point takes place
when the child is approximately four and a half months old. Now the
child starts to combine its acquired behavioral schemes into ever more
sophisticated strategies of problem solving. It is in this combinatory
capacity that Piaget sees the primary sign of intelligence at this stage.
According to Piaget, the first traces of representations are found in
the child towards the end of the sensorimotor period. The child may now
be observed to have what seems to be moments of sudden insight. For
example, Piaget reports that a child confronted by a slightly open
matchbox containing a thimble first tries to open the box by physical
groping. Upon failing, it presents a totally new kind of reaction. It stops
the act and attentively examines the situation. In the course of this it
slowly opens or closes its mouth, or, as another agent did, its hand, as if
in imitation of the results to be attained, that is, the enlargement of the
opening. Then it suddenly slips its finger into the crack and thus succeeds
in opening the box.
11.2 Practice as a condition of experience
To possess an action-scheme means to be able to act in a regular way
when a certain input situation is present. It is also implied that the agent
acts to achieve a goal. Thus, the concept of an action-scheme contains all
the essential marks of an embodied practice. If this is accepted, we may
also express Piaget’s point like this: to say that the child of the
sensorimotor period knows causality means that it masters a certain
10
Op. cit.
11
Op. cit.