Abstract
In this paper we want to show how far the early, pre-critical Kant develops a theory of the constitution of space that not only anticipates insights usually attributed to the phenomenological theory of lived space with its emphasis on the constitutively central role of the human lived-body, but which also establishes the foundation for Kant’s Copernican turn according to which space is understood as ‘form of intuition’, implied in the activity of the transcendental subject. The key to understand this role of the body lies in Kant’s understanding of the asymmetrical nature of a pair of hands, which despite being equal in size and structure, remain incongruent counterparts, and thus evade integration into a homogenous and purely self-referential form of space.
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Notes
The way by which Edmund Husserl discovered the peculiar position the human body occupies in space can be traced in his lectures from 1907 published in 1973 as Ding und Raum (Hua XVI), English as Thing and Space (1997). All references to Husserl’s works will follow the Husserliana edition (Hua). In Ding und Raum, Husserl, starting from a framework which still remained Cartesian in important aspects, progressively realized that the human body is privileged in so far as it is the “ever-abiding point of reference” (Hua XVI, p. 80) from which space unfolds for us in the first place. Likewise analytic philosopher Alfred N. Whitehead came to a similar conclusion regarding the body’s unique presence in our experience of space and world. For Whitehead (1929/1960) the body is intrinsically distinguished from other ‘things’ by its “withness” (e.g. p. 99, 125, 475ff), that is, its ongoing, indispensable involvement in the organism’s engagement with its environment.
Interestingly however, both thinkers emphasize that this presence does not coincide with an absolute transparency: for Husserl in his second book of the Ideen zur einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie (Hua IV) the body (Leib) is “ein merkwürdig unvollständig konstituiertes Ding” (Hua IV, p. 159), ‘a strangely incompletely constituted thing,’ as some of its parts such as our back remain invisible to our field of (visible) perception. Similarly, for Whitehead (1929/1960) the “‘withness’ of the body is an ever-present, though elusive element in pure perceptions of presentational immediacy” (p. 474f). For a compact yet informative discussion of Whitehead’s conception of the body’s ‘withness’ as well as of his understanding of the privileged relation between body and space in general see Casey (1997, pp. 211–215); the same work contains also a succinct discussion of Husserl’s theory of space (pp. 216–228). The most comprehensive discussion of Husserl’s theory of the constitution of space remains Claesges (1965).
We will reference “Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume,” or briefly “Gegenden,” as well as all other writings by Kant according to the Akademie Ausgabe of Kants Werke, briefly Ak, the standard German edition of Kant’s writings. Translations will, unless otherwise noted, follow the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. With respect to Kant’s essay “Gegenden,” however, there exists some controversy among commentators how to properly translate the German word Gegend into English. Most translations, such as the one by John Handyside (1991), choose to translate Gegend in its most literal form as ‘region’; and Kant’s essay accordingly as “On the first ground of the distinction of regions in space.” David Walford (2003) in contrast in the The Cambridge edition of the works of Immanuel Kant renders Gegend as ‘direction;’ and Kant’s essay accordingly as “Concerning the ultimate ground of the differentiation of directions in space,” since Kant in “Gegenden” is concerned with directed spaces and not merely with ‘regions’ (see the translator’s comment at ibid, p. 456f). As both translations seem to have their advantages and disadvantages respectively, we will as far as possible stick to the German original Gegend. In cases of doubt however we opt to use the word ‘region’ instead of ‘direction,’ bearing in mind that ‘region’ in Kant indicates a directed space and not merely a part of space amongst other parts. The English translation used in this essay tries to combine both Handyside’s and Walford’s translations. Where there is a passage in which both translations seem inadequate, a modified version will be offered.
Leibniz’s statement is taken from his ‘Third Letter to Clark’ (§ 4, p. 682) which was part of his exchange with Newton’s dedicated student and friend Samuel Clark ranging from 1715 until Leibniz’s death in 1716. The pagination and translation follows the Loemker edition of the Philosophical Papers and Letters of G.W. Leibniz (1969).
The German original says: “daß der absolute Raum unabhängig von dem Dasein aller Materie und selbst als der erste Grund der Möglichkeit ihrer Zusammensetzung eine eigene Realität habe” (Ak II, p. 378).
For more detail on Kant’s theory of incongruent counterparts and its relation to Kant’s understanding of space see Buroker (1981), especially chapter 3, as well as the volume edited by van Cleve & Frederick (1991). For an insightful discussion which initially helped to develop this essay see the section on Kant in Casey (1997, pp. 202–210).
One might add in accordance with Husserl that the constitution of space also requires another form of materiality complementing and ‘underlying’ in a literal sense the matter of the human body, namely the earth as Boden, ground, of our bodily movements and experiences. For a discussion of this constitutive function of the ‘Earth-as-Ground’ see Husserl’s (1940) posthumously published “Grundlegende Untersuchungen zum phänomenologischen Ursprung der Räumlichkeit der Natur.”
“Was heißt: Sich im Denken orientieren?” (in Ak VIII, pp. 131–147) was originally published in 1786. Translated into English by Hugh Barr Nisbet as “What is orientation in thinking?” (1991).
“Hence, all the peoples of the world are right-handed (apart from a few exceptions which, like that of squinting, do not upset the universality of the regular natural order [die Allgemeinheit der Regel nach der natürlichen Ordnung])” (Ak II, p. 380). In privileging the right over the left Kant is in line with a long philosophical, religious, and cultural tradition. See the volume Right and left: Essays on dual symbolic classification, edited by Rodney Needham (1973), for mostly anthropological evidence for the pre-eminence given to the right. Philosophically most interesting is the study by Geoffrey Lloyd on “Right and left in Greek philosophy” (1973), which gives examples for the superiority attributed to the right by Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle among others. Religiously, one should note that the favoring of the right also features in Christian scriptures. See for example Luke 22:69, where it is said that the Son of Man is seated at the right hand of God. Finally, from a cultural-anthropological point of view French anthropologist Hertz (1909/1973) discusses the superior role of the right in Maori culture but also offers an intriguing general account in his classical essay “The pre-eminence of the right hand: A study in religious polarity.”
A detailed and systematic elaboration of the thesis that lived, orientated space is the indispensable prerequisite allowing for the constitution of abstract geometrical space can be found in Elisabeth Ströker’s Investigations in philosophy of space (1965/1987). For Ströker, who aims to contribute to a philosophical grounding (Begründung) of geometry (p. 3), it is the lived, phenomenally given spatiality experienced by our lived-body which, by providing us with a primordial sense of spatiality, facilitates the formulation of abstract and idealized notions of geometrical and mathematical spaces. Briefly said, for Ströker it is only on the basis of our corporeality that we are spatial beings (p. 307), and “only a spatial and spatially bound being can pose problems for himself of the kind that lead to geometry as a science of space” (p. 306). Hence for Ströker, geometrical spaces are grounded [fundiert] in lived space (p. 9); albeit not in a strictly linear way, but rather in terms of a relation of “reciprocally implicative becoming” (p. 307) in which corporeality possesses a certain, yet not absolute priority. On the relation between phenomenal and geometrical spaces see also the studies by Oskar Becker (1973).
As previously mentioned, Husserl introduces the notion of the human body (Leib) as the ‘centre of orientation’ in his lectures published as Ding und Raum (Hua XVI), and returns to it later in his Ideen II (Hua IV). Specifically, for Husserl the body not only “stands there as the ever-abiding point of reference [my emphasis], to which all spatial relations [Verhältnisse] seem to be related to” (Hua XVI, p. 80). But it also, in doing so, functions transcendentally, as all objects are spatially experienced, and necessarily can only be spatially experienced, in relation to the “referential center of spatial orientation” (Hua XVI, p. 131), which is my body. That is to say, it is precisely by way of the body that things are given us perspectively, in form of adumbrations (Abschattungen), and thus become intuitable in the first place. As Husserl sums this relation up in his first book on the Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie (Hua III), translated by Fred Kersten (1982): “It is shown, therefore, that something such as a physical thing in space [Raumdingliches] is only intuitable by means of appearances in which it is and must be given in multiple [mannigfaltigen] but determined changing ‘perspective’ modes and, accordingly, in changing ‘orientations’ not just for human beings but also for God—as the ideal representative of absolute cognition” (Hua III, p. 351).
For Kant’s understanding of his Copernican turn see the preface to the second edition of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Ak III, B, p. XVI), translated as Critique of pure reason: “Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us. This would be just like the first thought of Copernicus, (…).” Further bibliographical and historical details regarding the first Kritik are given further below. For more detail on Kant’s Copernican turn see Volker Gerhart’s article on “Kants kopernikanische Wende” (1987).
In the Akademie Ausgabe the essay “Träume eines Geistersehers” can be found in Ak II, pp. 315–373. Translated by David Walford as “Dreams of a spirit-seer elucidated by dreams of metaphysics” (1992).
See e.g. Hua IV, supplement XII. Furthermore, it is notable with respect to Kant’s pioneering role that the (Cartesian) task of locating and isolating a particular part such as a “microscopically tiny region of the brain” (Ak II, p. 324) in which the body is connected to the soul is identified by Kant as an imagination contradicting our common sense experience: “But no one is immediately conscious of a particular place in his body; one is only immediately conscious of the space which one occupies in the intuition of the world around. (…). I am as immediately present in my finger-tip as I am in my head” (Ak II, p. 324, my emphasis, translation modification). Accordingly, Kant is willing to grant that there is an implicit truth in the common sense statement which says: “My soul is wholly in my whole body, and wholly in each of its parts” (Ak II, p. 325).
There exist two editions of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, the first appeared in 1781, the second, slightly modified, in 1787. In the Akademie Ausgabe the Kritik can be found in Ak IV (1st edition) and in Ak III (2nd edition). The English translations are taken from Paul Guyer’s and Allen W. Wood’s edition of Kant’s Critique of pure reason (1998). One should note that in case of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft the common scholarly practice is to give the pagination of Kant’s original texts, which is given in the margins of the Akademie Ausgabe. The English translation also gives the original pagination in the margins.
The problem of the mediation between sensousness (Sinnlichkeit) and intellect (Vernunft) is one of the main points on which Husserl criticizes Kant (see e.g. Husserl’s Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie (Hua VI), supplement X). With respect to space this implies that Husserl rejects Kant’s theory of space as forms of intuition, because according to his view it cannot mediate between these forms on the one hand and their matter on the other (see Claesges 1965, p. 38). The matter is far too complex to discuss here in more detail. We therefore refer to the discussion in Iso Kern’s Husserl und Kant : Eine Untersuchung über Husserls Verhältnis zu Kant und zum Neukantianismus (1964), still the most comprehensive source regarding the relation between the two thinkers. Husserl’s critique regarding the disruption of sense and intellect is discussed herein on p. 62ff in particular.
The “Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können” are referenced according to Ak IV, pp. 253–384. Translated by Gary Hatfield as Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that will be able to come forward as science (2002).
“Dies subjective Mittel, das alsdann noch übrig bleibt, ist kein anderes, als das Gefühl des der Vernunft eigenen Bedürfnisses” (Ak VIII, p. 136)
The “Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht” can be found in Ak VII, pp. 117–334. Translated as Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view by Robert B. Louden (2006). It is also worth noting in this context that with this last claim Kant aligns himself closely to a tradition of ‘materialist’ thinkers ranging from Anaxagoras (see Aristotle, Parts of animals, Book IV, 687a7) to Friedrich Engels’ (see his unfinished essay “Über den Antheil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen” from 1876 (in MEW 20, pp. 444–455) who regard the specific structure of the human hand in its relation to disposition of the human organism as such as the decisive factor in the process of hominisation.
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Woelert, P. Kant’s hands, spatial orientation, and the Copernican turn. Cont Philos Rev 40, 139–150 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-007-9055-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-007-9055-4