To Experience Differently: On One Strand of Kant’s Anthropology

Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy presupposes the normal functioning of our faculties in everyday life, whether concerning knowledge, morality, or pleasure and displeasure. (I explain why I use the term “normal” shortly). According to Kant, “critique” means an examination of “all the claims that these powers [our cognitive faculties] make, in order to place these powers within the boundaries of their rightful [use]” (Kant, 1987: 15). These claims include illegitimate claims that lead us into predicaments such as what Kant calls antinomies. It is part of our faculties’ normal operation in everyday life that they make such illegitimate claims. Kant’s critique thus tries to set the division between our faculties’ legitimate and illegitimate use in their normal functioning. If Kant’s critique assumed that there are different ways in which our faculties operate, it would examine whether we can distinguish between their legitimate and illegitimate use in each of these different ways. If we can, it would make the distinction in each of these different ways. Kant’s critical philosophy leaves aside the possibility that our faculties may operate differently. His anthropological writing, however, addresses this possibility.


Introduction
Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy presupposes the normal functioning of our faculties in everyday life, whether concerning knowledge, morality, or pleasure and displeasure.(I explain why I use the term "normal" shortly).According to Kant, "critique" means an examination of "all the claims that these powers [our cognitive faculties] make, in order to place these powers within the boundaries of their rightful [use]" (Kant, 1987: 15).These claims include illegitimate claims that lead us into predicaments such as what Kant calls antinomies.It is part of our faculties' normal operation in everyday life that they make such illegitimate claims.Kant's critique thus tries to set the division between our faculties' legitimate and illegitimate use in their normal functioning.If Kant's critique assumed that there are different ways in which our faculties operate, it would examine whether we can distinguish between their legitimate and illegitimate use in each of these different ways.If we can, it would make the distinction in each of these different ways.Kant's critical philosophy leaves aside the possibility that our faculties may operate differently.His anthropological writing, however, addresses this possibility.
The present chapter aims to spell out Kant's idea in his anthropological writing that our faculties can operate differently than in their normal way, we can thereby experience differently, and the range of what we can make of ourselves can be expanded.I said "normal."On the one hand, Kant employs the language of mental illness when describing an experience where our faculties operate differently than in the normal way.Here the term normal means not suffering from mental disorder.On the other hand, Kant thinks that we should appreciate both a different exercise of our faculties than in their normal fashion and a different mode of experience thereby generated.Here the term normal means standard or ordinary in everyday life.I use the term normal because these two meanings of it capture these two manners in which Kant characterizes a different operation of our faculties.
To explain Kant's idea a little further, the world is extremely rich and constantly changing in its every aspect.A large part of such richness and change usually escapes our awareness so that our faculties operate in their normal way without being sensorially overloaded.At certain moments, however, the world affects us so that our sense faculties are overloaded and forced to function differently.At such moments our senses become unusually heightened.Sensations and perceptions different from normal ones are generated.Our

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The present world discloses to us such an immeasurable showplace of manifoldness, order, purposiveness, and beauty, whether one pursues these in the infinity of space or in the unlimited division of it, that in accordance with even the knowledge about it that our weak understanding can acquire, all speech [Sprache] concerning so many and such unfathomable wonders must lose its power to express, all numbers their power to measure, and even our thoughts lack boundaries [alle Begrenzung], so that our judgment upon the whole must resolve itself into a speechless [sprachloses], but nonetheless eloquent, astonishment [beredteres Erstaunen].(Kant, 1998: A622/B650) 3In experiencing this we feel as if we are in a "dream [Traum]" while awake (A624/B652).
The second passage appears in the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View: Surprise [ Verwunderung] (confusion [Verlegenheit] at finding oneself in an unexpected situation) at first impedes the natural play of thought and is therefore unpleasant; but later it promotes the influx of thought to the unexpected representation all the more and thus becomes an agreeable excitement of feeling.However, this affect is properly called astonishment [Erstaunen] only if we are thereby quite uncertain whether the perception takes place when we are awake or dreaming [träumend].A newcomer in the world [Ein Neuling in der Welt] is surprised at everything, but he who has become acquainted with the course of things through varied experience makes it a principle to be surprised at nothing.On the other hand, he who thoughtfully and with a scrutinizing eye pursues the order of nature in its great variety falls into astonishment [Erstaunen] at wisdom that he did not expect:… However, such an affect is stimulated only by reason, and is a kind of sacred awe at seeing the abyss [Abgrund] of the supersensible [Übersinnlichen] opening before one's feet (Kant, 2006: 160;emphasis in original).
In what follows, when I refer separately to these two passages I say the first passage and the second passage, when I refer to them together I say the two passages, and when I refer to the experience described in the two passages I say the experience at issue.We read the first passage in terms of Kant's anthropology.The first passage appears when Kant critiques a physico-theological proof for the existence of a necessary being in his discussion of transcendental theology (Kant, 1998: A620-30/B648-58).Kant's critique, however, "does not belong to transcendental theology because of its strong empirical premise" (Allison, 2004: 509, n. 34).It properly belongs to anthropology.It should occur in Kant's anthropological writing rather than in the first Critique.It is no surprise that the notion conveyed in the first passage is also expressed in the second passage from the Anthropology.The "strong empirical premise" just noted consists of two ideas.One is that we go through the experience at issue.The other is that those who have undergone the experience at issue are psychologically compelled to assume and believe in the existence of a necessary being (A622-4/B650-2).If the premise in question were part of transcendental theology, it would entail that people necessarily go through the former experience and that the former experience is necessarily followed by the latter experience.That the premise is a "strong empirical" one means that people do not necessarily go through the former experience and that the former experience is not necessarily followed by the latter experience.People can undergo the former without going through the latter.The present chapter treats only the former experience (i.e. the experience at issue).To interpret the first passage in this manner requires us to decontextualize it somewhat from the first Critique.Such a reading can be justified because the content of the first passage properly belongs to anthropology.
We interpret the two passages in light of the preface to the Anthropology.Kant's anthropology, as noted, considers the human being a self-creating being and investigates what he/she "makes of himself [/herself], or can and should make of himself [/herself]" (Kant, 2006: 3).One way to explore and expand the potential of what we can make of ourselves is to coordinate one faculty with another in an unusual way.For instance, "perceptions" can "hinder," "stimulate," "enlarge," and make "agile" "the faculty of memory" (3).Presumably, here the faculty of memory, while hindered from operating in its normal way, is unusually heightened (stimulated, enlarged, made agile, etc.).The idea that perceptions activate the faculty of memory in an extraordinary way in exploring and expanding the potential of what we can make of ourselves reminds us of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.The preface to the Anthropology indicates that if our faculties operate differently as described in the two passages we would experience differently and thereby the range of what we can make of ourselves may be expanded.
Referring to a "newcomer in the world [Ein Neuling in der Welt]" in the second passage, Kant indicates his view on how the normal functioning of our faculties emerges.A "newcomer in the world" is a person who is new and has little experience in the world (not in a specific activity or situation).Presumably, by "newcomer in the world" Kant means an infant or a person whose mode of experience resembles that of an infant.Initially, the world impinges on a "newcomer in the world" so that he/she is "surprised at everything" because everything he/she encounters is unexpected and unfamiliar to him/her.Somehow, his/her faculties gradually begin to operate in a fixed, stable way while his/her mode of experience gradually becomes fixed and stable.Eventually, such a fixed, stable functioning of his/her faculties somehow becomes their normal operation, which establishes his/her normal mode of experience.He/she now "has become acquainted with the course of things through varied experience."The unexpected and unfamiliar turns into the expected and familiar.While losing a sense of surprise, he/she gains a sense of order and security concerning the world and his/her relation to it.
The normal functioning of our faculties thus established becomes suspended in the experience at issue.Since what is in question here is an experience of the world, our faculties involved in experience, such as the faculty of the senses, all temporarily lose their normal power.That all speech or language loses its power to express means that the normal power of signifying thought is lost.Speech or language in the first passage is meant to refer to "the faculty of using signs" in its highest function (Kant, 2006: 84).Kant argues that for the human being "thinking is speaking with oneself… inwardly" and "language" is the "best way of signifying thought" (86; emphasis in original).That is why Kant says in the first passage that "our thoughts," including the categories, empirical concepts, moral concepts, and Ideas of reason, lose all their boundaries or definiteness (alle Begrenzung).A sense of purposiveness and beauty, which concerns what would soon be called the judgment of taste, is lost.Concepts losing their power to signify include the categories of causality ("effects and causes") and quantity ("all numbers") as well as concepts of "ends and means" (Kant, 1998: A622/650).Thus the understanding, whose concepts these categories are, temporarily loses its normal power.So does reason because with "ends and means" Kant refers to reason.Kant defines philosophy as the "science of the relation of all cognition to the essential ends of human reason" (A839/B867)."Essential ends… are either the final end, or subalternate ends, which necessarily belong to the former as means (A840/B868)."Moreover, "the former [the final end] is nothing other than the entire vocation of human beings, and the philosophy of it is called moral philosophy" (A840/B868).The concept of the "final end" too loses its conceptual power.This means that our moral capacity along with moral concepts is also suspended.
While ceasing to function in the normal way, our faculties operate differently.This transition is stressed in the two passages through contrasts between "natural" and "unexpected," between "unpleasant" and "agreeable," between an experienced person and a "newcomer in the world," between "surprised at nothing" and "astonishment," between "awake" and "dreaming," and between "speechless" and "eloquent."With these contrasts in mind, we turn to an explication of the two passages.

Astonishment, dream, imagination
Astonishment in the first passage is said to be a "speechless" but "eloquent" one.We can consider these two apparently incompatible characterizations compatible.Astonishment is "speechless" in terms of our faculties' normal functioning because they temporarily lose their normal power including that of all speech.Astonishment is "eloquent" in terms of the possibility that our faculties operate differently.There are many ways in which they function differently and we thereby experience differently.Astonishment is felt and expressed in a manner corresponding with each of these ways.Astonishment is "eloquent" in terms of these different manners in which it is felt and expressed.
Astonishment is characterized also by seemingly incompatible elements about reflection.As the second passage shows, for Kant surprise is an affect.So is astonishment, which is a type of surprise.Kant defines "affect" as the "feeling of a pleasure or displeasure in the subject's present state that does not let him rise to reflection [Überlegung] (Kant, 2006: 149;emphasis in original)."[A]ffect… makes reflection [Überlegung] impossible" (150).But Kant also says that "surprise [Verwunderung]… already contains reflection [Überlegung] in itself" (153, translation modified; emphasis in original).Astonishment "makes reflection impossible" and "contains reflection in itself."These two apparently inconsistent characterizations can be likewise rendered consistent.Astonishment makes the normal functioning of reflection impossible (involving an "unpleasant" feeling) and contains a different exercise of reflection (involving an "agreeable excitement of feeling").We will examine Kant's discussion of the faculty of reflection later.
Kant's stance towards the affect of astonishment reveals two ways in which he characterizes an experience of a different exercise of our faculties.On the one hand, Kant's stance in the two passages that astonishment is an "eloquent," "agreeable excitement of feeling" indicates his view that we should appreciate such an experience.On the other hand, Kant's attitude is like the one toward a sick mind.Kant states that a person seized by an affect should "probably always" be regarded as suffering an "illness of the mind [Krankheit des Gemüths]" (Kant, 2006: 149;emphasis in original).Such a person "resembles a deranged person" (151)."Affects are generally diseased occurrences [Krankhaften Zufälle] (symptoms)" (154).When our faculties operate differently, we would feel in terms of their normal functioning as if we are afflicted by a mental illness.Kant, however, thinks that we may not necessarily feel in this way because the words "probably always," "resembles," and "generally" imply, respectively, not always, not exactly the same, and different in rare cases.We could instead appreciate a different exercise of our faculties.
Astonishment is an affect by which we are seized when the activity of the mind is modified.In the second passage Kant states that "such an affect [astonishment] is stimulated only by reason."By reason Kant does not mean the faculty that concerns ends and means, Ideas, and morality.Otherwise Kant would contradict his view that our normal thoughts including Ideas of reason and moral concepts lose their power.We would have to attribute to Kant the idea that this faculty induces a state close to that of mental illness.We would have to think that this faculty stimulates the process in which perception becomes abnormal, because "this affect [surprise] is properly called astonishment only if we are thereby quite uncertain whether the perception takes place when we are awake or dreaming."As we will see shortly, Kant's characterization of dreaming leaves no room for the role of reason in this sense.That astonishment "already contains reflection in itself" indicates that it has to do with the activity of the mind as a whole because, as we will see, reflection involves the activity of the mind as a whole.We should think that by reason here Kant means the activity of the mind as a whole.We should think that in saying "only by reason" Kant stresses that, while the world impinges upon us so that it forces our faculties (mind) to function differently, astonishment is an affect stimulated by the mind differently operating rather than directly by the world impinging upon us.
Kant thinks that something akin to what is happening in dreaming is occurring when our faculties operate differently so that we feel like we are dreaming while awake.Kant expresses this when he states, as just cited, that "this affect is properly called astonishment only if we are quite uncertain whether the perception takes place when we are awake or dreaming."To understand what is implied by Kant's reference to dreaming, we look at how he characterizes the phenomenon of dreaming.Its three characteristics capture Kant's attention: involuntariness, the power of imagination, and the vitalizing of the mind's forces.Kant defines "dreaming" as "an involuntary play of one's images in sleep" or the "play of fantasy with the human being in sleep" (Kant, 2006: 60, 68;emphasis in original)."The power of imagination, in so far as it also produces images involuntarily, is called fantasy" (60; emphasis in original).Dreaming occurs involuntarily.We cannot dream at will.Similarly, in the experience at issue our faculties involuntarily operate differently.We cannot induce this at will.Presumably, in certain moments we are involuntarily affected by the world such that our faculties are forced to function differently.Kant suggests this when he says in the first passage "the present world discloses to us…" At certain moments the world somehow discloses itself to us in an overwhelming way.The faculty of imagination has its productive and reproductive functions.It is "productive… as a faculty of intuition without the presence of the object… that is, a faculty of the original presentation of the object… which thus precedes experience."It is "reproductive" when it "brings back to the mind an empirical intuition that it had previously" (60; emphasis in original).As we will see, Kant argues that the power of imagination in its productive function plays a crucial role when our faculties operate differently.Dreaming animates the "powers of the soul more than when everything goes smoothly" (Kant, 2006: 83; also 69).The phrase "when everything goes smoothly" is meant to characterize the time when our faculties operate in their normal fashion in the waking state where the course of things is expected and familiar.Our faculties are more vitalized when operating differently as portrayed in the two passages than when functioning in the normal way.
The issue of mental disorder enters here again.Discussing what it is like "if it [what is occurring in dreaming] happens while the human being is awake," Kant states: "it reveals a diseased condition [Krankhaften Zustand]" (Kant, 2006: 68).Note that this statement amounts to describing what the experience at issue would be like.This statement is also in agreement with Kant's view noted earlier that cases in which our faculties operate differently are "diseased occurrences [Krankhaften Zufälle]."An activity of our faculties is seen as revealing a "diseased condition" if it differs from their normal activity so that we feel something going wrong, like suffering from mental disorder.We may not feel in that way, however.If we do not, such an activity would be described and appreciated simply as an activity different from the normal one.That is why Kant considers the experience at issue both to be appreciated and to be characterized in the language of mental illness.
Kant thinks that the activity of our faculties has its neural basis in the brain.Treating the same three characteristics of the phenomenon of dreaming, Kant states that imagination's activity is based on a "nervous energy that proceeds from the brain, the seat of representations" (Kant, 1996: 320).Kant also says that to explain the "power of imagination" we need knowledge of "the brain" and of the regions in it where representations enter into relationships with one another (Kant, 2006: 69).By the term representation (Vorstellung) Kant means all kinds of mental content generated by our faculties.Under the "genus" of "the representation in general" there is the "representation with consciousness" (Kant, 1998: A320/B376).This refers to all kinds of mental content we are aware of: sensations, perception of the external world, memories, concepts, thoughts, Ideas of reason, whatever is produced by the power of imagination, and the feeling of pleasure and displeasure (Kant, 1987: 47-8;1998: A320/B376-7;2006: 45, 54-9, 75, 90, 126, 128).There are also representations we are unconscious of (Kant, 2006: 23-6).Kant's reference to a "nervous energy that proceeds from the brain, the seat of representations" indicates his idea that we need to examine the brain and neural circuits in it to know how our faculties function.

Artistic activity
Kant suggests that artistic activity is an example of a different exercise of our faculties and that our experience of artistic activity exemplifies the experience at issue.Artistic activity covers what is happening in both creating and appreciating artworks.As Kant's remarks examined below indicate, his view on art and artistic activity is similar to the "formula" proposed by Eldridge: "the formula that works of art present a subject matter as a focus for thought and emotional attitude, distinctively fused to the imaginative exploration of material" (Eldridge, 2003: 259).We do not go into a definition of art, however.Nor do we examine in what respect Kant's idea on art may or may not require revision in light of art after Kant.We deal with Kant's view on artistic activity insofar as it helps explicate the two passages.Our discussion helps illuminate Kant's descriptions of how exactly our faculties operate differently, as we will see in the next section.
In his Anthropology Kant suggests that in artistic activity our faculties function differently than in the normal way.Kant says that there are moments when we encounter "the startling [das Auffallende], something that… arouses the mind [Gemüth] to collect itself for reflection [sich zur Überlegung zu sammeln]" (Kant, 2006: 153;emphasis in original).This remark is followed by Kant's statement, a part of which we have looked at: "it [the startling] is the stimulus to surprise [ Verwunderung] (which already contains reflection [Überlegung] in itself)."Kant goes on: "This does not happen so easily to the experienced person; but it is proper for art [Kunst] to present the usual [das Gewöhnliche] from a point of view that will make it startling."When we adults live everyday life, we are each an "experienced person" who tends to find the "usual" everywhere.There are, however, moments when we find ourselves engaged in an activity that makes the "usual" present itself as the "startling," i.e. artistic activity.In these remarks Kant speaks of the mind as a whole (Gemüth), not of this or that individual cognitive faculty.As we will see, reflection involves the activity of the mind as a whole.That the mind is aroused to "collect itself for reflection" indicates that its or reflection's activity is suspended.Otherwise it would not need to "collect itself for reflection."Presumably, what is suspended when we encounter the "startling" with a sense of "surprise" is the normal activity of the mind or reflection, i.e. its activity when it operates with the "usual."This corresponds to Kant's notion that surprise or astonishment makes reflection impossible.At the same time, a different exercise of the mind or reflection is promoted when the "usual" turns into the "startling," as shown by Kant's statement that "surprise… already contains reflection in itself."Collecting itself for reflection in this manner, the mind is vitalized to modify its activity.Surprise arises through such a modification.This is how artistic activity affects us by making the "usual" manifest itself as the "startling." These remarks can be seen as illustrating the experience at issue.Not this or that individual faculty but the mind as a whole loses its normal power.Our normal speech is suspended.While Kant does not discuss artistic activity in the two passages, to be faced with a great artwork is surely one of the experiences where our "speech is inhibited" (Sallis, 2008: 2).As we have seen drawing on Kant's reference to dreaming, the activity of the mind as a whole is animated toward a different exercise of our faculties.As we will see in the next section, reflection, while hindered from functioning in the normal way, operates differently.Kant's remark that "this does not happen so easily to the experienced person" has a counterpart in the second passage: surprise or astonishment does not arise in a person "who has become acquainted with the course of things through varied experience."As the "usual" manifests itself as the "startling" through artistic activity, an "experienced person" experiences differently with a sense of surprise.Similarly, the world that we have become acquainted with presents itself differently in the experience at issue, so that, while the "natural" flow of representations is impeded, an influx of "unexpected" representations is promoted.We experience like a "newcomer in the world," "surprised at everything." 4 We thereby experience differently.Astonishment as a type of surprise arises through a modification of the activity of the mind.I suggest that, given these parallels, Kant's remarks on artistic activity discussed above can be said to illustrate the experience at issue.
In the Critique of Judgment Kant treats artistic activity in relation to fine art, genius, and what he calls "aesthetic ideas," referring to painting, sculpture, and poetry (Kant, 1987: 181-6).In artistic activity a representation of the imagination "prompts much thought… so that no language can express it completely and allow us to grasp it" (182)."The imagination ([in its role] as a productive cognitive power) is very mighty when it creates, as it were, another nature out of the material that actual nature gives it.We use it to entertain ourselves when experience strikes us as overly routine.We may even restructure experience" (182)."In this process we feel freedom from the law of association" so that the imagination is prompted to "spread over a multitude of kindred representations" (182, 183).Thereby we "animate" or "quicken" the "soul" or "mind", strengthening the "mental powers" (182,183).All this concerns the normal functioning of our faculties because Kant then states that in artistic activity "we also follow principles which reside higher up [than imagination], namely, in reason" (182).The imagination operates in such a way that respect for reason's power, especially in terms of morality, is inspired.Also, the imagination and understanding are in free, harmonious play (182-6).
Certainly, analogous things are taking place in the experience at issue.The power of imagination plays a key role (which we discuss in the next section).Our standard language loses its expressive power.The mind is animated.The world presents itself differently, just as "actual nature" manifests itself as "another nature."The experience of artistic activity described in the Critique of Judgment resembles the experience at issue to that extent.The difference, however, is that in the experience at issue all these things, since they concern a different exercise of our faculties, occur in a way uncontainable in artistic activity treated in the third Critique.For instance, in the experience at issue our faculties operate differently without heeding, let alone following, principles residing in reason.Instead of our feeling "freedom from the law of association," we are affected by the imagination's involuntarily accelerated associative activity processing different kinds and amounts of information in different manners at different tempos, consciously and unconsciously.Instead of a "multitude of kindred representations," that of "unexpected" representations is generated.Kant says nothing about whether the imagination and understanding are in harmonious play.We will see all this in the next section.When he suggests the similarity between artistic activity and a different exercise of our faculties described in the two passages, Kant thinks of artistic activity close to that discussed in the Anthropology.
We can read Kant's view on artistic activity in the third Critique in terms of that in the Anthropology.If we do so, Kant's suggestion that artistic activity is one example in which our faculties operate differently helps illuminate what the experience at issue would be like.Some scholars read Kant in this way.Pillow shows that Kant's argument on aesthetic ideas c a n b e u n d e r s t o o d a s i m p l y i n g t h a t t h r o ugh the "disclosive power of imagination" "aesthetic experience has the potential to challenge "natural" seeming habits of thought, to destablize taken-for-granted patters of judgment," and to "cut new paths of sense" or "significance" in which we make sense of life and the world (Pillow, 2000: 5-6).By "aesthetic experience" Pillow means "the artistically creative dimension of our interpretive responses to each other and our worlds" (Pillow, 2000: 9).This is a dimension of experiencing life and the world.Pillow's view is closer to Kant's in the Anthropology than that in the third Critique.For example, the "usual" would display itself as the "startling" as our ""natural" seeming habits of thought" are "challenge [d]," "taken-for-granted patterns of judgment" are "destabilize [d]," and, in Kant's words in the second passage, the "natural play of thought" is "impede [d]."To "cut new paths of sense" or "significance" instead would require the mind to "collect itself for reflection." Hughes reads Kant's discussion on artistic activity in the Critique of Judgment as implying that "artworks make us see differently" and "expand" our "perception of nature" (Hughes, 2010: 172).This amounts to interpreting Kant's idea in the third Critique in terms of that in the Anthropology.If "it is proper for art to present the usual from a point of view that will make it startling," we surely see differently through artistic activity.Kant states that there are moments when "nature… displays itself as art" (Kant, 1987: 168).This would be one example in which "actual nature" presents itself as "another nature" through artistic activity.We can consider this statement in terms of Kant's view on artistic activity in the Anthropology.That nature manifests itself as art would then mean that nature ceases to appear in its "usual" form and presents itself as something "startling."We can say that nature manifests itself as art in this sense when we experience the world in the way described in the two passages.
Drawing on Kant's remarks about fine art and nature as art in the Critique of Judgment, and taking Cézanne's painting as an example, Hughes further argues that "it is as though nature has become Cézanne's painting" so that we can perceive nature differently through that painting (Hughes, 2010: 172).The way Cézanne perceives nature (or the way he is forced by nature to perceive it) differs greatly from the way we normally perceive it.If we perceive it in the way Cézanne does, we would "see differently" and "expand" our "perception of nature." 5 Kant's reference noted earlier to the neural basis in the brain for the functioning of our faculties suggests that, when our perception is thus modified, the existing neural circuits in the brain would also be modified.Once this has happened, the mode of experience would no longer be the same as before and would be modified.We would "restructure experience." 6All this finds empirical support in cognitive neuroscience.For instance, taking examples of artworks including those of Cézanne, Zeki shows that, as we experience artworks, neural circuits in the brain and our mode of experience are modified (Zeki, 2000).At any rate, Kant suggests that artistic activity illuminates what a different exercise of our faculties as described in the two passages would be like.We will discuss the so-called Stendhal syndrome and see the similarity between our experience of artistic activity and the experience at issue. 5 In this connection, Kant's reference to a "newcomer in the world" reminds us of Cézanne's aspiration "to see like a newborn child!", to see the world as an endlessly new wonder.See Doran (2001: 23; also 48). 6Kant's view on artistic activity bears similarities to Robert Henri's view on art and life.Henri says: "The world and life are common, every day," but "[t]here are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual" (Henri, 2007: 42, 182).Henri goes on: "We reach then into reality.… It is in the nature of all people to have these experiences" (42).Such are the moments of art, and such are the artistic experiences."Art… is the province of every human being," "in every human being there is the artist," and "art… is in everything" (11,132,224).Art and life are inseparable.The artist in us finds "wonders" in "the world and life," and we are filled with "surprise" and "marvel" (42, 183).The artist in us "disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he [/she] opens ways for a better understanding" (11), i.e. ways for a modified mode and significance of experience.We are "inventors all through life" in that sense (135).

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To Experience Differently: On One Strand of Kant's Anthropology 67

Different operation
In the two passages Kant does not illustrate how exactly our faculties operate differently than in the normal way.Nor does Kant systematically elaborate on this issue elsewhere.Still, in several places Kant describes how exactly our faculties function differently.With Kant's view on artistic activity in mind, we look at these descriptions.It is shown that many of them capture what Kant considers in the two passages.
We begin with the faculty of the senses.As noted, Kant thinks that the power of imagination is extremely active when our faculties operate differently.The power of imagination works with sensations generated by the five senses, but it cannot produce them."Sensations produced by the five senses… cannot be made by means of the power of imagination, but must be drawn originally from the faculty of sense" (Kant, 2006: 61).If the five senses generate sensations different from normal ones, the power of imagination functions with these different sensations.When it does, it would operate differently than in its normal fashion.Its different activity would affect us differently than when it works with normal sensations.
Kant discusses what he calls "dizziness" as an example in which we experience sensations different from normal ones."Dizziness [Schwindel]" means a "fast spinning circle of many different sensations that is beyond comprehension [or exceeding mental capacity: Fassungskraft übersteigenden]" (Kant, 2006: 59;emphasis in original).Though untranslated, the word Wechsel (change) is included in this sentence. 7Kant is not speaking of usual cases of dizziness such as that we may feel when looking down from a great height. 8Kant is trying to describe what we feel when we feel many different sensations constantly changing at high speed, or rather, constantly coming one after another at high speed.Each sensation has its own degree of "intensive magnitude" (Kant, 1998: A165-9/B207-11).Sensations "differ according to degree" (Kant, 2006: 57;emphasis in original).If the change of a sensation means that it has a different degree of intensive magnitude, this amounts to saying that a different sensation emerges rather than one and the same sensation changes.
In normal cases we feel sensations distinct from one another (Kant, 1998: A168/B211).In the case of dizziness at issue we would feel one sensation ("a" circle and "a" change) as if many different sensations were fused with one another in a constantly and rapidly changing way.This sensation would be dissimilar to that coming from any one of the five senses.We would feel one intensive magnitude corresponding to this sensation rather than intensive magnitudes of many different sensations separately.Dissimilar to the intensive magnitude of a sensation arising from any one of the five senses, this intensive magnitude would be one in which intensive magnitudes of many different sensations are fused with one another in a constantly and rapidly changing manner.This sensation could be abnormal and this intensive magnitude could be enormous to the point of exceeding our capacity to endure (Fassungskraft übersteigenden).
Kant seems to think of the so-called Stendhal syndrome both in his discussion of the experience of dizziness and in the two passages.The Stendhal syndrome refers to cases in which, exposed to and overwhelmed by great artworks, people become sensorially overloaded, affectively charged, dizzy, and hallucinated, and sometimes fall unconscious.9Indeed, Shaviro argues that Kant's view on aesthetic experience helps illuminate the "socalled Stendhal syndrome, in which the encounter with a beautiful work of art leads to swooning and hallucinations (cf.Dario Argento's film The Stendhal Syndrome, 1996)" (Shaviro, 2009: 7).We can think of aesthetic experience where "nature displays itself as art."Such an experience would resemble that of a great artwork.As noted, the experience at issue can be seen as an example in which we perceive nature as if "nature displays itself as art."Those who encounter nature in this way would experience something like the Stendhal syndrome.Presumably, what is happening in the experience of dizziness and in the experience at issue is this.Nature is extremely rich and constantly changing in its every aspect (light, color, sound, smell, texture, etc.).While received by the senses, a large part of such richness and change normally escapes our awareness so that our sense faculties operate without becoming overloaded.(As we will see, Kant's remarks on the association of representations reveals his notion that the senses are processing far more information than we are aware.)As Kant says elsewhere, however, "one and the same representation affects the sensation in quite different degrees according to the different mental state of human beings" (Kant, 2007: 72).Our senses can be unusually heightened so that what otherwise normally escapes our awareness surfaces to consciousness.Depending on our mental state, we may become aware of those changes in aspects of the world that have hitherto been hidden from our awareness.Sensations generated thereof may be brought to consciousness so that we feel sensorially overloaded.Also depending on our mental state, we may or may not fall unconscious when we experience dizziness.This is what is implied when Kant says that "unconsciousness [or swooning or fainting: Ohnmacht]… usually follows dizziness" (Kant, 2006: 59; emphasis in original).The word "usually" implies that we may not faint.Even when we do, the many different sensations at issue would be processed under the threshold of consciousness, as we will see when examining Kant's remarks on "dual personality."When we do not fall unconscious, we become sensorially overloaded with the senses being unusually heightened while remaining conscious.We would see and experience differently.That the Stendhal syndrome typically involves hallucinations further suggests that Kant thinks of the syndrome in the two passages.Hallucinations are perceptions in the waking state when external stimuli are absent, so that these perceptions are taken to be about the external world.When we have such perceptions in sleep, we are dreaming.When we have hallucinations, something like what is occurring in dreaming is happening in the waking state.That is precisely what is occurring in the experience at issue: we are "quite uncertain whether the perception takes place when we are awake or dreaming."This experience would be akin to that of the Stendhal syndrome.
What is implied by Kant's reference to "a newcomer in the world" in the second passage?Kant thinks that in the experience at issue we experience like a "newcomer in the world" does.As noted, by "newcomer in the world" Kant means an infant or a person whose mode of experience resembles that of an infant.What Kant is suggesting is this.In infants sensations of their own state are undifferentiated from perceptions of the world, that is, the former are fused with the latter in infants (Stern, 2000).For Kant "sensation" is a "perception that refers to the subject as a modification of its state" (Kant, 1998: A320/B376;2006: 45).In the experience at issue, which is that of adults, it becomes difficult to differentiate perceptions of the world from modifications of one's state.External perceptions become fused with internal sensations.This occurs in adults when perceptions of the world are excessively intensified and overwhelming, because here "external representations [perceptions of the world] are changed into internal ones [sensations]" (Kant, 2006: 48).There are two cases in which external perceptions become excessively intensified and overwhelming.The first case is that in which they literally become so while our senses remain normal (e.g. when a sound becomes too loud).The second case is that in which our senses become so unusually heightened that otherwise unconscious external perceptions become conscious and otherwise normal external perceptions become intensified.Kant thinks of the second case in the two passages.In the experience at issue, as our senses become unusually heightened, hitherto hidden aspects of the world are revealed in an overwhelming flow of perceptions of constantly changing light, color, sound, smell, etc.These perceptions modify our state and generate sensations.These perceptions are fused with these sensations thereby generated.We become sensorially overloaded.We would feel an unusual, much faster and larger influx of sensations-fused-with-perceptions than in normal cases where sensations are differentiated from perceptions.We would feel dizziness.This is what is implied by Kant's reference to a "newcomer in the world."We will draw its further implications when we discuss synesthesia.
Our senses can be coordinated differently so that they operate differently.For instance, those who innately lack a sense (e.g.sight) compensate this lack with the use of another sense or other senses (e.g.hearing, touch, and olfaction) through exercising the "productive power of imagination to a high degree" (Kant, 2006: 65-6).Certainly, those people would not come to have the same sensation as that for which they lack a sense.The senses of those people, however, become coordinated with one another differently, so that those people lead a life smoothly as much as those with the five senses do.With the help of the power of imagination (recall Kant's reference to its neural basis in the brain), the sense faculties can work more flexibly and coordinate themselves differently than they normally do.Another example showing this is the phenomenon of synesthesia, which we will discuss shortly.Yet another example would be the experiment in which subjects, after wearing eyeglasses that invert their vision for a certain amount of time, see things flip back to the right way even with those eyeglasses on.Kant would have referred to this experiment if it had been conducted in his lifetime (it was first carried out by George M. Stratton in the 1890s).
Kant suggests that our conceptual power can operate differently.The issue of reflection (Überlegung or Reflexion) enters here.As noted, Kant argues that the affect of astonishment "makes reflection [Überlegung] impossible" and "already contains reflection [Überlegung] in itself."There are two types of reflection.Kant says that "to reflect…[überlegen] is to hold given representations up to, and compare them with, either other representations or one's cognitive power [itself], in reference to a concept that this [comparison] makes possible" (Kant, 1987: 400; translation for Vorstellungen modified from "presentations" to "representations").Holding given representations up to and comparing them with other representations is called logical reflection, and holding given representations up to and comparing them with one's cognitive power, transcendental reflection (Kant, 1988: 100;1998: A260-3/B316-9).10That affect makes reflection impossible means that reflection, logical and transcendental, is prevented from operating in its normal fashion.That astonishment contains reflection in itself means that reflection, logical and transcendental, functions differently with "unexpected" representations.
Logical reflection has to do with the formation of concepts.By logical reflection Kant means "the going back over different presentations, how they can be comprehended in one consciousness" (Kant, 1988: 100; also 1998: A262/B318).Here the normal functioning of our cognitive faculties is presupposed.Kant offers an example of the concept of tree.Strictly, objects called trees are each unique and unequal in every respect.Somehow, however, presentations of these objects are compared with one another, their relevant and irrelevant aspects are sorted out, the latter aspects are left aside, and the former aspects are associated and equated with one another to generate the concept of tree.In the experience at issue, our normal conceptual and concept-generating power is suspended, but new concepts would be ready to be generated out of "unexpected" representations.Logical reflection would operate differently.
Logical reflection requires transcendental reflection.Transcendental reflection refers to an act of the mind that determines both "the relation of given representations to one or the other kind of cognition [to sensibility and, if so, which sense, or to understanding]" and "their relation among themselves" (Kant, 1998: A261-2/B317-8).In the experience at issue transcendental reflection is prevented from operating in its normal fashion and is at work with "unexpected" representations toward a different exercise of our faculties.For example, transcendental reflection would operate differently than in the normal way when the sensations in dizziness are fused into one sensation dissimilar to a sensation arising from any one of the five senses or when external perceptions become fused with internal sensations.Transcendental reflection coordinates the relations among "unexpected" representations as well as the relations among these representations and our faculties.
Again we can see why Kant considers the experience at issue both to be appreciated and to be characterized in the language of mental illness.It is not that we choose at will to execute or not to execute transcendental reflection in which way.As Henrich says, transcendental reflection always occurs unconsciously "without any effort on our part," constituting a "precondition of rationality" (Henrich, 1989: 42).Somehow, it usually takes place in the way it normally does, so that it gives us, as Pillow says, a "self-feeling" for the "proper functioning of our cognitive powers" (Pillow, 2000: 23; emphasis in original; see also Lyotard, 1994: 11).There is, however, no guarantee that transcendental reflection always operates in its normal fashion.It may involuntarily work differently.When it does, we would have a "self-feeling" for a functioning of our faculties that is not "proper."We may feel and appreciate such a not-proper exercise simply as a different functioning of our faculties.We may feel it as a deviant or abnormal operation threatening a "precondition of rationality."In the latter case our "self-feeling" would be close to that of mental illness.
Language loses its normal power to express in the experience at issue.Kant's reference to "eloquent" astonishment and our discussion on reflection indicate his idea that some new potentially creative use and form of language may emerge instead as we are sensorially overloaded and our faculties thereby operate differently.As Fenves says in stressing the implications of the first passage, "all language has been lost, yet something of language, or another language," a "language unlike all others" survives or arises."This newly overheard language of an outstanding pathos is incommensurable with the language of measurement, schematization, counting, cognition, and representational thought in general" (Fenves, 1993: 7-8).Given Kant's use of the language of mental illness and his view of artistic activity, it is worth emphasizing that his idea just noted is confirmed in psychiatry and art.Patients with certain mental illnesses are sensorially overloaded, and have a different relationship to language and thus speak and think differently than those without such mental illnesses do (Fink, 2007: 17-20).Expressions of patients with certain mental illnesses bear remarkable similarities to creative expressions of artists, especially of modernist artists (Sass, 1998).Indeed, Kant's account of artistic activity resembles that of mental illness.Artistic activity makes the "usual" present itself as the "startling" and makes us see differently.Likewise, Kant sees mental illness, to which he gives the word "derangement [Verrückung]," as "a totally different standpoint into which the soul is transferred, so to speak, and from which it sees all objects differently" (Kant, 2006: 110).An adult would feel similarly when he/she sees and comports himself/herself as a "newcomer in the world."Present in everyone to varying degrees, artistic activity manifests itself in different manners.Equally, Kant argues that "unreason [Unvernunft]," which is another name for "derangement" (Kant, 2006: 108-14), is present in everyone to varying degrees and in different ways (Saji, 2009).Artistic activity is a positive form in which our faculties operate differently.Likewise, rephrasing "derangement" in the sense above as "positive unreason [positive Unvernunft]," Kant stresses that "unreason" is "something positive [die etwas Positives]" (Kant, 2006: 110, 112;emphasis in original;cf. Saji, 2009). 11Thus understood, it is no surprise that Kant suggests that the experience at issue is illuminated by both artistic activity and mental illness. 12"Unexpected," normally unconnected representations may become associated with one another, so that our faculties virtually operate differently.Kant argues that there are cases in 11 Maintaining his life-long, intense interest in mental disorder, Kant offers a discussion of mental illness not widely off the mark in light of the current standards.See Butts (1984).Cf.Nevid (2007), where Nevid argues that Kant's epistemology in his critical philosophy has significant relevance to the contemporary practice of cognitive psychotherapy concerning people with cognitive distortions and emotional disorders. 12Kant, as noted, argues that those who have undergone the experience at issue are psychologically compelled to assume and believe in the existence of a necessary being.Presumably, these people are thus compelled because otherwise they would be overwhelmed by such an experience so that they feel like they are suffering from mental illness.For example, they may feel as if the world would "sink into the abyss of nothingness" (A622/B650).Note that Kant describes them as using normal language to assume and believe in the existence of a necessary being.That is, after they have experienced losing the expressive power of normal language, they recover and stick to it instead of trying to develop some new potentially creative use and form of language.In the part after the first passage Kant describes only those who regain and adhere to normal language and, even though he refers to "eloquent" astonishment, leaves aside those who may or do cultivate some new creative use and form of language instead.which representations can be understood as effectively belonging to faculties to which they normally do not belong.As in dreaming, the key is the power of imagination.The "productive power of imagination" can "involuntarily" generate unusual connections among concepts, sensations, and affects (Kant, 2006: 66).Kant draws attention to the fact that a series of representations of one kind can be involuntarily coupled with "a host of representations of an entirely different sort" (67).Representations attached to different faculties can be coupled with one another.A case in point would be the phenomenon of synesthesia. 13Strictly, perhaps we should say that even in such a coupling a representation belongs to an appropriate faculty.Representations attached to different faculties, however, are coupled in such a way that a representation belonging to an appropriate faculty is involuntarily activated whenever other representations attached to other appropriate faculties are at work.This would amount to an experience in which our faculties operate differently.It can be said that in such a coupling representations virtually belong to faculties to which they are normally not attached.
In the Anthropology Kant refers to the phenomenon of "derangement of the senses [Sinnenverrückung]" (Kant, 2006: 36).Kant thinks of the case in which not this or that sense but all the senses together function differently than in the normal way.Kant seems to think of something like a derangement of the senses in the two passages.It helps to look at Kant's explanation of derangement concerning the faculty of sense elsewhere.Kant defines "derangement [Verrückung]" as a characteristic of a person who, "while being awake and without a particularly noticeable degree of a vehement malady," is "representing certain things as clearly sensed of which nevertheless nothing is present" (Kant, 2007: 71;emphasis in original).Kant then characterizes a person revealing the feature of derangement as a "dreamer in waking" (71).This characterization indicates that Kant thinks of something like a derangement of the senses in the two passages.It is also likely that "derangement of the senses" is meant to refer to synesthesia because Kant's definition just noted seems to be a plausible description of synesthesia from the perspective of nonsynesthetes.For instance, some synesthetes, while "being awake and without a particularly noticeable degree of a vehement malady," perceive sounds, letters, or numbers as inherently and distinctly colored, but for nonsynesthetes no color at all is present.We might be prone to regard synesthesia as a case of derangement of the senses, but we can also appreciate it as an example of a different exercise of the senses.
Kant's reference to a "newcomer in the world" indicates that he also thinks of something like synesthesia in the two passages.Empirical research shows that "newborn babies perceive all their sensory impressions as a single whole" and as a "sensory primordial soup" rather than separately (van Campen, 2008: 29).As noted, external perceptions and internal sensations are undifferentiated here.Such a "single whole" or a "sensory primordial soup" where all kinds of sensations are fused with one another reminds us of what Kant refers to as dizziness and derangement of the senses.In this sensory primordial soup babies have their "neonatal synesthesia," that is, "presumably everyone is born with a kind of synesthesia" (van Campen, 2008: 30, 160).Hidden in our senses, synesthesia is an ability that can be developed even if we are now adult nonsynesthetes, so that the line between "synesthetes" and "nonsynesthetes" becomes "blurred" (van Campen, 2008: 165;also 151-2006: 69).As noted, Kant thinks that there are unconscious representations.Clearly, Kant thinks that the mind has different activities processing different kinds and amounts of information in different manners at different tempos, consciously and unconsciously.In this context Kant again refers to dreaming.If the association of representations when we are awake is too strange to make sense of from our normal perspective, we feel as if we are "dreaming" (70).Involuntary, accelerated associative activities of this sort would be taking place in the experience at issue.Elsewhere Kant argues that representations that do not surface to consciousness are processed when we are in deep sleep.Kant gives an example of "actions of some sleepwalkers" who occasionally show "greater understanding in this state" than they do when awake (Kant, 2002: 325).In this case, while in deep sleep we have "representations clearer and more extensive than even the clearest of the representations we have when we are awake" even though we may not at all remember them upon awakening (325).Kant calls this phenomenon a "certain dual personality" because it is as if there is a state of consciousness different from our normal state of consciousness.A "dual personality" exists in us even if it does not appear as behavior like in the case of sleep-walkers (325).Kant does not seem to be widely off the mark.Neurological research suggests that the brain is activated differently in dreaming than in waking and that dreaming and waking constitute two different states of consciousness (Hobson, 2005).Sensations in dizziness would be "clearer and more extensive" than normal ones we have when awake, because the senses are unusually heightened in dizziness.This suggests that sensations in dizziness, even if we fall unconscious, are processed below the threshold of consciousness.Kant likens a process in which new representations and associations among them are generated to a process in chemistry in which "an entirely new thing emerges (somewhat like a neutral salt in chemistry)" (Kant, 2006: 70).Kant goes on to argue: "the play of forces in inanimate as well as in animate nature, in the soul as well as in the body, is based on the dissolution and union of the dissimilar.It is true that we arrive at cognition of the play of forces through experience of its effect; but we cannot reach the ultimate cause and the simple components into which its material can be analyzed" (70).Clearly, Kant thinks that the mind is capable of generating new, "unexpected" representations out of dissimilar representations although we cannot fully analyze this process.Kant's argument discussed in this and the previous two paragraphs applies to perception because perception is one type of representation.That is, Kant thinks that when perceiving the external world we are actively and creatively processing information, consciously and unconsciously, rather than passively receiving and recording information.Kant's view is supported by empirical research. 15he mode of experience is modified through a different exercise of our faculties.We have seen this in the case of artistic activity along with support in empirical research.Kant argues for a general case of this.Different or "unexpected" representations we have when our faculties operate differently would generate new sensations.Kant says that "all representations [Vorstellungen] in us," be they "sensible," "intellectual," or "unnoticeable [i.e.unconscious]" "affect the feeling of life, and none of them can be indifferent insofar as it is a modification of the subject" (Kant, 1987: 139; translation modified from "presentations" to "representations").Kant then equates "life" with the "mind" as a whole: "The mind [Gemüth] taken by itself is wholly life" (139).Representations in us affect the mind, involving modifications of our state.Sensations are thereby generated because for Kant "sensation" is a "perception that refers to the subject as a modification of its state" (Kant, 1998: A320/B376;also 2006: 45).Each of the "unexpected" perceptions in us when our faculties operate differently would generate a sensation.Sensations thus generated would be dissimilar to normal ones we have when our faculties function in the normal way.The faculty of reflection would operate with these different sensations, organize them, and coordinate relations among them and our faculties.While some of such modifications of our state may feel like mental illness, some others may feel like modifications different from normal ones.The mind would be affected differently by these different sensations and be more vitalized than when our faculties operate in their normal fashion.As Kant says in a manner reminiscent of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, "perceptions" can also "hinder," "stimulate," "enlarge," and make "agile" the "faculty of memory" in an extraordinary way.The power of memory, while hindered from operating in its normal fashion, can be unusually heightened by certain perceptions.The power of memory would be affected in this way by "unexpected" perceptions of the sort we have examined.The faculty of memory thus affected would better retain these perceptions than normally, change the sense of past experience, and alter the background against which and the way in which we anticipate future experience.The mode of experience would be modified through the process described above.
Kant's reference to dreaming indicates that the mode of experience would be modified favorably rather than unfavorably.Just as we cannot dream for too long, we cannot stay too long, let alone throughout our life, in the condition in which our faculties operate differently.It is not that we at once abandon a mode of experience in which our faculties function in the normal way to adopt an entirely new mode of experience in which they always operate differently.It is that, just as we wake up from a dream, we come back to a normal mode of experience after we have undergone a different exercise of our faculties.Still, our then normal mode of experience would be favorably modified by a different exercise of our faculties.According to Kant, dreaming advantageously affects our activity in the waking state.Indeed, Kant's point when he says the "powers of the soul" are animated while we are dreaming is that these powers are thus vitalized so that they can operate in a more active way when we are awake than otherwise.Kant's point finds empirical support in contemporary research.Drawing on Llinas (2002), Hobson says of the "sense of self" and the "sense of moving in dream space": "we dream, perforce to reactivate the brain basis of selfhood that is embedded in our built-in capacity to generate movement.Put another way, our dreams-so constantly and elaborately animated-remind us that we were born with an already huge talent for movement and for the sensorimotor perceptions of movement that become the center of our sense of self as agents" (Hobson, 2005: 65-6). 16Moreover, in his 1786 piece "On the philosopher's medicine of the body," Kant says that the affect of "astonishment" is conducive to the health of body and mind (Kant, 2007: 184).The mode of experience would be favorably modified by a different exercise of our faculties.Our modified mode of experience would become our normal mode of experience, which would in turn be favorably modified through a yet different exercise of our faculties.And so on.

Supersensible, abyss, and wisdom
We spend a few words on Kant's usage of the terms "supersensible," "abyss," and "wisdom" in the second passage.In the Critique of Judgment K a n t s p e a k s o f t h e "supersensible" to make sense of the situation in which our faculties are in accord internally with one another such that they are in accord externally with nature.The supersensible in the second passage differs from that in the third Critique.Unlike in the third Critique, in the second passage our faculties operate differently than in the normal way.In the third Critique Kant says that the antinomy of taste requires us to postulate the "supersensible" in order to find the "unifying point [Vereinigungspunkt] of all our faculties" in it (Kant, 1987: 214; translation modified).The two passages have nothing to do with the antinomy of taste.Unlike in the third Critique, whether there is an accord or a discord among our faculties is not at issue in the two passages.As indicated by the two ways in which Kant characterizes a different exercise of our faculties, what may look like a discord may well form a different internal accord.Above all, that we lose our "speech" and feel "speechless" astonishment in the experience at issue indicates that this is an experience inexpressible in our standard vocabulary including the words supersensible, abyss, and wisdom.Still, Kant tries to describe such an experience using these words.
My interpretation of Kant's use of these words is this.In her discussion of the supersensible in the Critique of Judgment Hughes argues that "the supersensible is… the activity of the mind understood in its fullest extent as incorporating a range of cognitive powers" (Hughes, 2010: 141).What is under consideration in the third Critique is the fullest exercise of our faculties in their normal functioning.In the experience at issue our faculties are more heightened and vitalized than when they operate in the normal way.In that sense, the mind can be said to exercise its powers beyond the limits of its normal functioning.Kant, I suggest, uses analogously the term supersensible in the second passage to refer to "the activity of the mind understood in its fullest extent" beyond the confines of its normal operation.I suggest two things about the expression "seeing the abyss of the supersensible opening before one's feet."First, the word abyss figuratively represents a wide range of different ways in which our faculties can operate to the fullest extent.Strictly, the abyss is within us because the supersensible has to do with the activity of the mind.Kant's phrase "opening before one's feet," however, indicates that we feel as if the abyss belongs to the world.Presumably this is because the world involuntarily affects us differently and forces our faculties to operate differently rather than we employ our faculties differently at will.Second, it is indicated that the experience at issue could feel like something is going wrong mentally.If one were "seeing" an "abyss" "opening before one's feet" even though in fact there is no such abyss, this would feel like a hallucination (this is one aspect in which we feel as if we are dreaming while awake).In the second passage Kant speaks of "wisdom [Weisheit]" that we "did not expect."Kant refers to "wisdom [Weisheit]" elsewhere in the Anthropology, where he defines it as "the idea of a practical use of reason that conforms perfectly with the [moral] law" (Kant, 2006: 94).This wisdom differs from that in the second passage because, while the latter is what we "did not expect," the former is a concept of reason that (according to Kant) we know inheres in reason.I suggest that the phrase "wisdom" that we "did not expect" is meant to characterize the fact that a different exercise of our faculties somehow fits the world so that we experience the world differently and appreciate such an experience.That is, it is as if the world is arranged in a way we "did not expect" such that it embraces a different exercise of our faculties and a different mode of experience thereby generated.

Conclusion
Kant not only recognizes the possibility of a different operation of our faculties, as occurs in some forms of mental disorder.He also explicitly acknowledges the productive value of abnormal experience: we can experience the world not merely differently than we do when our faculties are operating in their normal fashion, but in some ways better or as well.As our faculties function differently, our senses are unusually heightened, aspects of the world hidden from us when our faculties operate in the normal way are revealed, and we experience in a new, richer way.We can appreciate and enjoy such an experience while we may also be overwhelmed by it.Once we have experienced in a new richer way, our mode of experience would be favorably modified.In this process we may notice, activate, and cultivate some creative potential that would otherwise have remained latent, as suggested by Kant's remarks on artistic activity.The range of what we can make of ourselves may be expanded through a different exercise of our faculties.All this finds support in contemporary empirical research.The moral to be drawn from our reading of Kant for our self-understanding is that we are capable of more, the range of what we can make of ourselves is wider, and there is more to sense, perceive, and think in the world, than the normal functioning of our faculties leads us to believe.I conclude by suggesting the implications of my argument for Kant scholarship as well as for research in anthropology.There are two implications for each.For Kant scholarship, first, as noted, Kant's idea spelled out here has been unexamined.My interpretation enriches Kant scholarship by bringing out this under-researched dimension of Kant's thought.Second, a topic for future research is suggested.Even within the limits of critical philosophy where the normal functioning of the sense faculties is presupposed, their autonomy and activity are expanded in the course of critical philosophy from the Critique of Pure Reason through the Critique of Judgment (Kukla, 2006).My analysis shows that the sense faculties are granted further autonomy and activity in Kant's anthropological writing beyond the confines of critical philosophy.Then, the relation between Kant's anthropology and critical philosophy would need to be reconsidered in terms of the role of sensibility.17This is a topic for future research.For research in anthropology, first, it is suggested that anthropology can benefit from addressing not only what we are (i.e.how and how much we are and were the same or different, physically, culturally, socially, historically, linguistically, etc.) but also what we can make of ourselves.My discussion contributes to anthropology by offering one way of exploring what we can make of ourselves. 18Second, that Kant's idea explicated here finds empirical support in contemporary research indicates that by considering the results of such research anthropologists may develop their own research in an interdisciplinary manner.Given these two implications, an intriguing topic that my argument suggests for research in anthropology is one on the connection among mental illness, artistic activity, and creative potential. 19