BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

25
The question of whether the mind [Seele] may cause movements,
namely, if it has a moving force, turns into this one: whether its
essential force may be judged to have an outbound force, that is,
whether it is capable of creating changes in other beings [Wesen]?
This question may be quite decisively answered in the following way:
the mind must be able to work outside itself, because it inhabits a
place [weil sie in einem Orte ist]. For when we analyze the concept of
what we call place, we find that it points to the reciprocal effects of
substances on each other. 34
I will not discuss whether this argument is tenable or not. The author
himself, however, seems to be convinced that the question has been
settled and that the argument explains how it is possible for a mind to
produce effects outside itself. And it is just as easy, Kant argues, to
understand how physical objects may imprint representations and images
in the mind. Matter in movement influences everything with which it is
spatially connected, and that includes the mind.
It is just as easy to understand the seemingly paradoxical statement
on how it is possible that matter, which we imagine can produce
nothing but movement, may in fact imprint upon the mind certain
representations and images [der Seele gewisse Vorstellungen und
Bilder eindrücke]. For matter that is brought to move, works on and
in everything that is connected with it in space [was mit ihr dem
Raum nach verbunden ist], thus, also the mind [Seele], that is, it
changes its inner state in so far as it relates itself to the external [in so
weit er sich auf das Äußere beziehet]. 35
Exactly what theory of the mind does this line of argument imply? I think
Nierhaus is on the right track when stating that no general distinction
between mind and body is made in this text. 36
Nierhaus suggests instead
that Kant’s view here is a sort of monism according to which physical
movement and thinking are seen not as activities performed by different
kinds of substances, but as different forms of expressions
[Erscheinungsbilder] of substances that are basically similar
[gleichartig]. 37 As I read Living forces Kant here defends a model
according to which mind and body are nothing but different aspects or
dimensions of the human being, perceived as one substance. An
argument in favor of this interpretation is that in discussing the
34
Ak I: 20-21, a.t.
35
Ak I: 21, a.t.
36
Nierhaus (1962), 27.
37
Ibid., 17.
THE EMBODIED MIND