Ideal Embodiment

Angelica Nuzzo is Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center and Brooklyn College (City University of New York). She has received a Mellon Fellowship at the Center for the Humanities, CUNY, Graduate Center (2007–2008), an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (2005–2006), and been a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard (2000–2001). Among her publications are Kant and the Unity of Reason (2005), two volumes on Hegel (Logica e sistema, 1996; Rappresentazione e concetto nella logica della Filosofia del diritto, 1990), and the monograph System (2003). Her numerous essays on German Idealism, modern philosophy, and theory of translation appear in such journals as the Journal of the History of Philosophy, Metaphilosophy, Journal of Philosophy and Social Criticism, Hegel Studien, and Fichte Studien.

• PrefaceKey to Kant Works CitedIntroduction: Transcendental EmbodimentPart 1. The Body in Theory1. Bodies in Space2. Bodies and Souls3. Disembodied IdeasPart 2. The Body in Practice4. Bodies in Action5. Pure Practical Reason and the Reason of Human Desire6. Freedom in the BodyPart 3. The Body Reflected7. Aesthetics of the Body8. Reflections of the Body, Reflections on the Body9. Embodied IdeasTranscendental Embodiment: A Final AssessmentNotesBibliographyIndex

"Nuzzo (CUNY) presents a novel reading of Kant's entire corpus centered on the theme of embodiment. The novelty here is that Kant traditionally is thought to have had nothing to say on this topic. Nuzzo reads Kant as focused on the question of embodiment negatively (as a way of resolving certain difficulties of traditional metaphysical dualism) as well as positively, through the concept of sensibility that recurs throughout his work. Although she focuses on Kant's critical writings, her argument relies on elaboration of key precritical writings as well. Her argument is simply that Kant presents a theory of transcendental sensibility throughout his work and that the body is thus a key preoccupation from beginning to end. Nuzzo thus organizes her work around Kant's theoretical writings and his transcendental aesthetic in the first part of the book before turning to Kant's moral philosophy in the second. In this section, she works out the relationship between moral personhood and moral feelings before turning to Kant's Critique of Judgment and the role of embodiment in reflective judgment. In sum, a clear, engaging, and novel contribution to Kant studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers. —Choice"—C. R. McCall, Elmira College, June 2009"Nuzzo (CUNY) presents a novel reading of Kant's entire corpus centered on the theme of embodiment. . . . Highly recommended. June 2009"—Choice"The book admirably draws from both analytic and continental philosophy and demonstrates a deep understanding of Kant scholarship, contemporary debates, and the history of modern philosophy. . . Nuzzo's comprehensive book is aesthetically appealing and readable, having an overarching narrative that moves it along at a confident pace.March 2010"—Review of Metaphysics"A rare gift, a new perspective from which to view one of philosophy's seminal thinkers."—Bernard Freydberg, Koç University