Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Kant has often been accused of being a philosopher who blatantly ignores both the body and the fact that we experience the world in and through our bodies. This purported neglect is sometimes used as a basis for arguing that Kant's philosophy is hopelessly outdated today. Occasionally it is also ascribed to some unfortunate feature of Kant's psychological predisposition. Hartmut and Gernot Böhme exemplify both trends. They first declare that Kant's philosophy represents an extreme version of the baseless dualism separating mind and body that has haunted Western philosophy for too long, a dualism that tends to devalue the physical aspect of human existence, and then explain this purported extremism by claiming that Kant was alienated from his body. Thandeka categorically states that Kant fails to see that we are biological beings.

In this passage from his Kant reflects upon what he sees as a remarkable fact, which is that the only proper form we can think of as a symbol of a rational being is the form of a human being. Even if he does not explicitly say so, it is clear from the context that this is the form of an embodied human being. What is it about the embodied human being that makes it the only proper symbol of rationality? Is it its upright position, the shape of its head or other organs, or is it the way it moves and interacts with the world? The above passage does not answer this question. However, at some level, a connection is suggested between the human body and rationality.

In this passage from the Kant claims that the tactile sense located in the tips of our fingers is essential for our capacity to explore the spatial form of physical objects. Actually, he claims, without this sense we would have no concept of such a form at all. The body, or, more precisely, our capacity for embodied action together with the awareness accompanying this action, is here given the status of an essential condition without which our concept of the spatial form of an object would not exist. The aim of this chapter is to explore this idea of the body as a condition of spatial experience as it is found in some Kantian texts.

With these words Kant mocks those rational psychologists who invoke the existence of invisible spirits to explain human rationality. Human beings are rational beings, he reminds us. So, if by ‘spirit‚ we mean simply ‘rational being‚, then no supernatural endowment is required for a person who wants to see a spirit. He can just look at a human being.

In this passage Kant defines the task of what he calls a cosmopolitan [] philosophy through four questions. What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope? What is man? These questions are said to define metaphysics, ethics, religion and anthropology. However, the last question stands in a particular position relative to the others, he claims, because it is more basic than all the rest. Before we can answer the others, we have to know what man is.

Kant says that ballgames are good for children not only because of the healthy effects of running, but also because they exercise their senses. More specifically, through the game they can learn to judge distance, size and spatial proportions better. Like Rousseau, Kant may be seen here as a proponent of the idea that man is not born with a fully developed capacity to orient himself in three-dimensional space, that is, to decide the location of an object in space relative to other objects and/or himself. He has to learn to do so, and in this learning process the body is essential. Earlier, in texts like and , we have seen that Kant explains the presence of basic spatial concepts by

In this passage from , Rousseau advises that children practice the art of drawing in order to learn how to recognize the size and shape of objects. He justifies his advice by arguing that drawing or copying the shape of objects enhances our grasp of the laws of perspective. The art of drawing is not merely a playful game, it is also an activity with an important cognitive function. In the , too, the notion of drawing appears in the context of cognitive theory. For instance, when I perceive a house, Kant tells us at B 162, it is as if I draw its shape. Especially in his theory of schematism, references to constructive acts like drawing abound. How are we to understand these references? In this chapter I will argue that these constructive acts may be understood as acts involving the body, acts in which we somehow recreate the shape of external objects by moving parts of our bodies, as when we draw an image of them. I do not claim that this idea, in exactly this form, is found in . At a more general level, however, I hold it to represent yet another example of a perspective shared by Rousseau and Kant, a perspective emphasizing that embodied acts and practices have a significant cognitive function.

In this passage from , Rousseau advises that children practice the art of drawing in order to learn how to recognize the size and shape of objects. He justifies his advice by arguing that drawing or copying the shape of objects enhances our grasp of the laws of perspective. The art of drawing is not merely a playful game, it is also an activity with an important cognitive function. In the , too, the notion of drawing appears in the context of cognitive theory. For instance, when I perceive a house, Kant tells us at B 162, it is as if I draw its shape. Especially in his theory of schematism, references to constructive acts like drawing abound. How are we to understand these references? In this chapter I will argue that these constructive acts may be understood as acts involving the body, acts in which we somehow recreate the shape of external objects by moving parts of our bodies, as when we draw an image of them. I do not claim that this idea, in exactly this form, is found in . At a more general level, however, I hold it to represent yet another example of a perspective shared by Rousseau and Kant, a perspective emphasizing that embodied acts and practices have a significant cognitive function.

This passage is taken from the part of the paralogism chapter in which Kant discusses the ontological nature of human beings. Given the general background of the chapter and its criticism of rational psychology, the passage may be read as an expression of dismay concerning the steadfast belief of many philosophers that thinking has to be explained by reference to some invisible, immaterial part of man. It is possible, Kant argues, that the very same being that we call a body in one respect is a thinking being in another (A 359). If this is the case, then it is not appropriate to say that it is souls (considered as a special sort of substances) that think. We should simply say that human beings think, that is, human beings considered as whole persons, body and mind.

Kant here draws a connection between the transcendental concept of quantity and addition. What does this mean? Does the transcendental concept of quantity presuppose addition, or is it even the same thing as addition? If so, what is meant here by addition? Is it the silent calculation of abstract numbers in the head? Or is it addition understood as an embodied practice, such as when we count on the fingers? In the previous chapter I argued that there are embodied practices that can be a priori conditions of experience in a Kantian sense. I also argued that at a general level, Kant's theory of the a priori conditions of experience is not inconsistent with the general idea that the categories are embodied practices. In this and the following chapter I will discuss Kant's theory of the categories more specifically, and examine whether the idea that they are such practices is supported by textual evidence from the The topic of this chapter is the transcendental concept of quantity . In his table of the categories at A 80/B 106 Kant lists three categories of quantity. In the following, however, I will discuss only the transcendental concept, or category, of quantity in general. This is because my discussion will be based on what Kant says about quantity in the schematism chapter and the Analytic of principles where he deals with quantity in general only.