BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

28
For it follows immediately from what we have demonstrated that, if
the human soul were free from real connection with external things,
the internal state of the soul would be completely devoid of changes. 42
What may we infer from this? First, Kant claims, the above principle
proves that, contrary to what idealism teaches, the body really exists. It
also supports those who claim that a finite mind has to be connected to
an organism:
And should anyone, perchance, seek to provoke a dispute with me, I
should refer the matter to the modern philosophers who unanimously
and as with one voice openly declare that the connection of the soul
with an organic body is necessary. 43
As representatives of this view, he points to those he loosely calls ‘the
moderns’, and Crusius is mentioned as one. According to Crusius, so
Kant tells us, the endeavor of the mind to have representations always
corresponds to an endeavor for outer movement. 44 Here embodied
movement is again associated with cognition.
In a highly interesting passage Kant then faces an imaginary critic
accusing him of being a materialist. 45 It is true, he admits, that his theory
seems to lie close to materialism. Instead of explicitly denouncing
materialism, however, he targets what he takes to be a fatal flaw in a
purely idealist view of the mind. The idealist contends that the mind
operates independently of all physical interaction. But, he asks, would not
this imply the idea of an unchanging mind, or worse, would we not then
deprive the mind of the capacity to represent altogether?
Regardless of what changes Kant’s thinking may have undergone
between Living forces and New elucidation, his theory of how the mind
communicates with the body, and thus, indirectly also with the physical
universe, seems to be more or less the same in the two texts. In both texts
we learn that the mind, conceived as the inner aspect of the human
substance, partakes in the general interaction of substances, because this
is how all substances interact. Moreover, in all such interaction, the inner
as well as the outer aspect of the substance are involved. If this is so, then
it is obvious why the mind has to partake in the general interaction of
42
Ak I: 412.
43
Ak I: 412.
44
Ak I: 412.
45
Ak I: 412.
THE EMBODIED MIND