Student and Private Teacher 93It has often been suggested that Kant had Knutzen in mind here.
Knutzen did indeed maintain that the soul had a place or was "in loco." He
had also tried to prove that the theory of physical influx was probable on
the basis of the "locality" of the soul. His argument went something like
this: (1) The soul is "in loco" (in a place) because it is embodied. (2) That
the soul possesses movement of its own is proved by the fact that its body
moves often. Therefore, (3) the soul possesses a movement of its own.
Therefore, (4) it can move other things. The problematic character of
premises (1) and (2) is too obvious to need discussion. Neither Descartes
nor Leibniz would have seen anything more in them than a confusion of
what was at issue in the mind—body problem. Kant simply claims that to
have "a place" or to be "in loco" means to stand in "mutual interaction"
with other substances. This claim - regardless of whether it has any other
merits — is preferable to Knutzen's. His work seeks then to improve his
teacher's account. Not only does he intend to replace probability with cer¬
tainty, he also wishes to correct Knutzen.
More needs to be said. First, Kant is sarcastic: a slight confusion pre¬
vents perfect triumph - and is the confusion really that slight? If the
"acute author" is indeed Knutzen, then this is a put-down. Second, there
is no reason to suppose that Kant really believed that physical influx would
ever triumph over preestablished harmony in the way Knutzen believed
it could, that is, by replacing it. What Kant says is quite compatible with
the view that physical influx was a perfect triumph in one area, namely, as
far as dead force and external causality is concerned, but not as far as the
systematic account of the whole is concerned.
The theory of preestablished harmony in its strictest form was unac¬
ceptable to Knutzen and the other Pietists in Königsberg for theological
reasons. It seemed to them to conflict with a belief in the freedom of the will
and to lead to a thorough determinism and fatalism. Thus, while Knutzen
uses the word "monad," his monads are different from Leibniz's. They
are characterized by "intellect and free will" ("intellectu et libera voluntate"),
and they are entirely immaterial. Knutzen explicitly rejects Leibniz's theory
that monads mirror the universe and that they are the substantial unities
that make up all things. "Substantia simplex sive monas" (simple substance
or monad) is identical to "Spiritus," or mind, for him. Kant, in adopting
Leibniz's "theory of universal order and harmony," was thus arguing for
a position unacceptable to Knutzen and the Pietists. In some ways, his
position in the Living Forces is as close to those of Marquardt and Rappolt
(and even Fischer) as it is to the Pietistic position. Neither Knutzen nor