Non-Metaphysical Dimensions of Freedom: Embodiment of Reason from a Kantian Standpoint

Abstract This paper challenges the traditional interpretation of Kant’s theory of freedom, which typically locates its core understanding within the noumenal world. Instead, it argues that positive human freedom is grounded in the living human body. The living body, with its distinct beginning (birth) and end (death), thus becomes the foundational condition of possibility of freedom, since it provides the temporal existence for infinite reason. The embodiment of reason within the living body is then presented as equivalent to the limitation of autonomy, which in turn allows for positive freedom to come into the world. Embodied in a living body, reason, as a legislative entity, can thereby inhabits a world governed by laws that are both self-imposed, i.e. expression of autonomy, and heteronomous, such as the laws of nature.