BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

24
THE EMBODIED MIND
in it, but is constituted through the physical interaction of these
substances:
It is easy to demonstrate that no space and no extension would exist if
a substance had no force to work outside itself. For without this force
there is no connection, without this no order, and without this,
finally, no space. 32
Kant also argues that the specific three-dimensional character of space as
we know it is a product of the specific laws according to which substances
interact in our universe.
We are now in a position to see how Kant uses his general theory of
forces and substances to explain communication between mind and
body. This explanation is found in § 6 and the paragraph is divided in
two parts. The first concerns how the mind affects other substances, the
second how the mind is affected by other substances. Unfortunately,
again the argument is not unambiguously clear. Let us, however, start
with the first part of the argument. A basic premise of this argument is
the idea just presented, that space is constituted by the interaction of
substances. The argument, further, seems to contain two propositions.
The first states that the mind is able to produce changes outside itself and
thus to partake in the general interaction of substances. The second states
that the mind has a spatial position. Exactly what is the logical relation
between these propositions? Kant starts by posing the question of
whether the mind has a working force, that is, whether it has the capacity
to work outside itself. The answer has to be positive, he argues, due to the
fact that the mind has a position in space. That the mind has a position
in space is here presented as a fact, and thus seems to have the status of a
premise. Kant then proposes what I take to be another premise of the
argument, the idea that space is constituted by the interaction of
substances. So his argument seems to be that since the mind has a spatial
position, and space is constituted by the interaction of substances, we
may infer that the mind partakes in the general interaction of substances,
which again means that it is capable of producing changes outside itself.
Here is the argument. 33
32
Ak I: 22, a.t.
33
Nierhaus (1962), 19 argues that Kant’s theory of space in Living forces is
ambiguous. Sometimes he treats space as an epiphenomenon of the interaction of
substances, sometimes space seems to be a condition of the possibility of such
interaction. If this is so, it may explain why Kant’s account of the relation of the
two premises just mentioned is not totally clear.