BODY AND PRACTICE IN KANT

THE EMBODIED MIND
As I understand it, Kant is here making the simple and somewhat trivial
point that, if by a ‘thinking being’ we mean what comes before our inner
sense, then we may also conclude that such a being may never appear
before our outer sense. This does not mean, however, that the idea of a
thinking being should be associated only with what we inwardly intuit as
thoughts, desires, etc. It is possible, Kant argues, to think that the
unknown something that lies behind the outer appearances (that is, the
unknown something that affects our senses so that representations of
space, matter, shape etc. result) also has thoughts.
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… yet that same Something that grounds outer appearances and
affects our sense so that it receives the representations of space,
matter, shape, etc. – this Something, considered as noumenon (or
better, as transcendental object) could also at the same time be the
subject of thoughts, even though we receive no intuition of
representations, volitions, etc., in the way we are affected through
outer sense, but rather receive merely intuitions of space and its
determinations. (A 358)
Kant here puts forwards the idea of a possible thinking being which, even
if it affects our outer sense so that we represent it as extended in space, is
still a thinking being. Kant further maintains that when we consider this
thinking being as a thing in itself, we cannot say that it is extended.
However, neither are we justified in ascribing the predicates of the
representational content of inner sense to this thing in itself. The most we
can say is that these predicates do not contradict the idea of such a thing
in itself.
Yet the predicates of inner sense, representation and thought, do not
contradict it. (A 359)
What are the predicates of inner sense? As I understand Kant, these are
the predicates we normally ascribe to the immaterial. So his point may
be summarized by saying that it involves no contradiction to think of a
thinking being qua thing in itself as immaterial.
Even if Kant has so far not explicitly stated that a thinking being qua
thing in itself is immaterial, there seems to be a bias in the argument
towards immaterialism. Kant seems to be arguing that while we cannot
ascribe to a thinking being, considered as a thing in itself, extension,
there is no contradiction involved in thinking it to be immaterial. We
may thus feel tempted to regard the argument as having come to its