BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

38
something of how he conceived of the epistemic status of the theory. It is
an hypothesis, but, he stresses, one that is not refuted by experience.
Even more important, however, is that associated with this hypothesis is
a particular idea that, I will argue, stands out from the others. This is the
idea that we may use the terms ‘mind’ or ‘soul’ to refer to the activity of
the embodied self. From now on, whenever Kant uses these terms, we
must be aware that this meaning may be part of their meaning. ‘Activity’
is here to be understood in a broad sense, akin to the German
Wirksamkeit, including both the biological processes of the body as well
as the conscious and unconscious behavior of the embodied self. The two
terms, it should be noted, also continue to carry their earlier meanings,
referring to our capacity to sense, feel and think, as well as our
consciousness of this.
When the term ‘soul’ is used a little later in the text, all these
meanings, I believe, are implied. Kant here states, as an irrefutable fact
of experience, that the soul is present wherever its body is:
Where is the place of this human soul in the world of bodies? My
answer runs like this: the body, the alterations of which are my
alterations — this body is my body; and the place of that body is at
the same time my place. 71
What about those who claim that the mind or soul is present only in one
particular place in the body, such as the brain? They are misled by a
certain way of reasoning that is not confirmed by experience, Kant
argues:
But no one is immediately conscious of a particular place in his body;
one is only immediately conscious of the space one occupies relative
to the world around. I would therefore rely on ordinary experience
and say, for the time being, where I feel, it is there that I am. I am as
immediately in my fingertip as I am in my head. It is I myself whose
heel hurts, and whose heart beats with emotion. And when my corn
aches, I do not feel the painful impression in some nerve located in
my brain; I feel it at the end of my toe. No experience teaches me to
regard some parts of my sensation of myself as remote from me. 72
Kant seems to be taking it as an obvious fact, directly confirmed by
experience, that the human mind is present in every part of the body.
However, he denies that we may infer from this that the mind,
71
Ak II: 324.
72
Ak II: 324.
THE EMBODIED MIND