Interpreting Cassirer: Critical Essays [1 ed.] 1108496482, 9781108496483

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INTERPRETING CASSIRER

This is the first comprehensive volume in English on Cassirer's philosophy for over seventy years. Eleven leading Cassirer scholars address all of the key aspects of Cassirer’s multi-faceted thought and situate them in the wider context of his philosophy of culture. Their essays demonstrate the depth and richness of a philosophical enterprise that still awaits recognition as one of the most original contributions to twentieth-century philosophy. Interpreting Cassirer will prove invaluable not only for Cassirer scholars and researchers of early twentieth-century philosophy, but also for scholars of the philosophy of culture, language, science, art, history, and mind.   is Postdoctoral Researcher (FWO) at KU Leuven. He is the author of numerous articles in journals including Cassirer Studies, Idealistic Studies, and International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

INTERPRETING CASSIRER Critical Essays       SIMON TRUWANT KU Leuven

University Printing House, Cambridge  , United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, th Floor, New York,  , USA  Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne,  , Australia –, rd Floor, Plot , Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – , India  Anson Road, #–/, Singapore  Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/ : ./ © Cambridge University Press  This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published  A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Truwant, Simon, editor. : Interpreting Cassirer : critical essays / edited by Simon Truwant, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. : Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, . | Includes bibliographical references and index. :   (print) |   (ebook) |   (hardback) |   (paperback) |   (epub) : : Cassirer, Ernst, –. :  .   (print) |  . (ebook) |  – LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/  ---- Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of Contributors Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations

page vii ix x 

Introduction Simon Truwant

  ’    

Interaction between Language and the Other Symbolic Forms

 

Robert S. Leib



The Status of Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



Samantha Matherne



Being in Time: History As an Expression and Interpretation of Human Culture



Anne Pollok



Science As a Symbolic Form: Ernst Cassirer’s Culture of Reason



Massimo Ferrari



Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation: The Final Stage of Cassirer’s Philosophy of Physical Science



Thomas Ryckman



Spirit in the Age of Technical Production Nicolas de Warren

v



Contents

vi 

Political Myth and the Problem of Orientation: Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



Simon Truwant

  ’    

Rethinking Representation: Cassirer’s Philosophy of Human Perceiving, Thinking, and Understanding

 

Martina Plu¨macher



Cassirer’s Philosophy of Mind: From Consciousness to “Objective Spirit”



Guido Kreis

  ’  



 Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



Daniel O. Dahlstrom

 Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape: “Synthetic Philosophy,” Transcendental Idealism, Cultural Pluralism



Sebastian Luft

Bibliography Index

 

Contributors

 .  is John R. Silber Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Boston University. He is the author of works including Heidegger’s Concept of Truth (), Philosophical Legacies (), The Heidegger Dictionary (), and Identity, Authenticity, and Humility (), and the editor of Kant and His German Contemporaries, Vol. : Aesthetics, History, Politics, and Religion ().    is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at Penn State University. He is the author of Husserl and the Promise of Time: Subjectivity in Transcendental Phenomenology () and A Momentary Breathlessness in the Sadness of Time: On Krzysztof Michalski’s Nietzsche (), and Original Forgiveness (), and the coeditor of New Approaches to Neo-Kantianism (), Philosophers at the Front: Phenomenology and the First World War (), and New Phenomenological Studies in Japan ().   is Professor of the History of Philosophy at University of Turin. He is the author of Ernst Cassirer: Stationen einer philosophischen Biographie () and Retours à Kant: Introduction au néokantisme ().   is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Aarhus University. His publications include two monographs, Cassirer und die Formen des Geistes and Negative Dialektik des Unendlichen: Kant, Hegel, Cantor, as well as the German coedited volume Arguments for the Existence of God ().  .  is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Elon University. He has published a number of articles on nineteenth- and twentieth-century continental philosophy. vii

viii

List of Contributors

  is Professor of Philosophy at Marquette University. He is the author of The Space of Culture: Towards a Neo-Kantian Philosophy of Culture (Cohen, Natorp, & Cassirer) () and Subjectivity and Lifeworld in Transcendental Phenomenology (); editor of Paul Natorp: Allgemeine Psychologie nach kritischer Methode () and The Neo-Kantian Reader: An Anthology of Key Texts (); and coeditor of The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer: A Novel Assessment () and Neo-Kantianism in Contemporary Philosophy ().   is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. She is the author of Cassirer () for the Routledge Philosophers Series.  u¨ is Professor of Philosophy at the Technical University of Berlin. Her publications include Wahrnehmung, Repräsentation und Wissen: Edmund Husserls und Ernst Cassirers Analysen zur Struktur des Bewußtseins (), Speaking on Colors and Odors (coedited, ), and The Power of Distributed Perspectives (coedited, ).   is research Assistant (tenured) at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. She is the author of Facets of Humankind: On Moses Mendelssohn’s Anthropology ().   is Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. His publications include the monographs Einstein () and The Reign of Relativity: Philosophy in Physics – ().   is a postdoctoral fellow FWO (Flemish Research Council) at KU Leuven. He has published several articles on Cassirer, as well as the monograph Cassirer and Heidegger in Davos: The Philosophical Arguments (forthcoming).

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank all collaborators for their thoughtful and original contributions to this volume, as well as for the enlightening discussions we had in the process of composing and writing it. Special thanks go to Sebastian Luft for his invaluable editorial advice. Ultimately, this volume would not have seen the light of day if it were not for the support and guidance of Hilary Gaskin and her colleagues at Cambridge University Press. I am grateful to all for making this contribution to Cassirer scholarship happen.

ix

Abbreviations

Where references are by author and year of publication, full reference information can be found in the Bibliography. References to Cassirer’s original German writings refer to the Meiner Verlag Gesamtausgabe, which consists of Ernst Cassirer: Gesammelte Werke (–;  volumes) and Ernst Cassirer: Nachgelassene Manuskripte und Texte (–;  volumes). These series are indicated as “ECW” and “ECN” respectively: ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW 

Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit. Erster Band () Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit. Zweiter Band () Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit. Dritter Band () Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophy und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit. Vierter Band. Von Hegels Tod bis zur Gegenwart (Ms completed ) Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff. Untersuchungen u¨ber die Grundfragen der Erkenntniskritik () Aufsätze und Kleine Schriften (–) Zur Einsteins’chen Relativitätstheorie: erkenntnistheoretische Betrachtungen () Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Erster Teil: Die Sprache () Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Zweiter Teil: Das mythische Denken () Philosophie der symbolischen Formen. Dritter Teil: Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis () Aufsätze und Kleine Schriften (–) Aufsätze und Kleine Schriften (–) x

List of Abbreviations ECW  ECW  ECW  ECW  ECN  ECN  ECN  ECN  ECN  ECN  ECN  ECN  ECN 

xi

Aufsätze und Kleine Schriften (–) Determinismus und Indeterminismus in der modernen Physik. Historische und systematische Studien zum Kausalproblem () Aufsätze und Kleine Schriften (–) Aufsätze und Kleine Schriften (–) Zur Metaphysik der symbolischen Formen Geschichte. Mythos Symbolische Prägnanz, Ausdrucksphänomen und “Wiener Kreis” Kulturphilosophie. Vorlesungen und Vorträge – Vorlesungen und Studien zur philosophischen Anthropologie Zu Philosophie und Politik Kleinere Schriften zu Goethe und zur Geistesgeschichte Davoser Vorträge. Vorträge u¨ber Hermann Cohen Ausgewählter wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel

References to original English writings by Cassirer are indicated in the following manner: EM MS PK IV SMC

() An Essay on Man, An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture, New Haven: Yale University Press, . () The Myth of the State, New Haven: Yale University Press, . () The Problem of Knowledge, Volume : Philosophy, Science, and History since Hegel. Willam H. Woglom and Charles W. Hendel (tr.), New Haven: Yale University Press. Symbol, Myth and Culture, Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer (–), ed. by Donald Phillip Verene, New Haven: Yale University Press, .

References to English translations of Cassirer’s works are indicated in the following manner: () Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics: Historical and Systematic Studies of the Problem of Causality. O. T. Benfey (tr.), New Haven: Yale University Press, . IC () The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. Mario Domandi (tr.), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, . LCS () The Logic of the Cultural Sciences. Steve G. Lofts (ed.), New Haven: Yale University Press, . DI

xii

List of Abbreviations

() Language and Myth, Susanne K. Langer (tr.), New York: Dover Publications, . PSF I () The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume : Language. Ralph Manheim (tr.), New Haven: Yale University Press, . PSF II () The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume : Mythical Thought. Ralph Manheim (tr.), New Haven: Yale University Press, . PSF III () The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume : The Phenomenology of Knowledge. Ralph Manheim (tr.), New Haven: Yale University Press, . PSF IV (–) The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume : The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms. John Michael Krois and Donald Phillip Verene (ed.), New Haven: Yale University Press, . SF () Substance and Function & Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Considered from the Epistemological Standpoint. William Curtis Swabey and Marie Collins Swabey (tr.), New York: Dover Publications, . WY (–) The Warburg Years: Essays on Language, Art, Myth, and Technology. Steve G. Lofts and Antonio Calcagno (tr.), New Haven: Yale University Press, . LM

Introduction Simon Truwant

The writings of Ernst Cassirer (–) offer a grandiose intellectual project that combines three philosophical objectives: elucidating the spheres, the unity, and the history of human culture. Although for Cassirer these matters are intrinsically related to each other, one must carefully distinguish them in order to understand the depth of his thought, which is all too often concealed by his accessible writing style. A first look at Cassirer’s oeuvre shows a collection of transcendental reflections on various cultural domains: mythical thought, religion, language, natural science, art, history, politics, law, and technology. Cassirer calls the constitutive rational frameworks that underlie these domains “symbolic forms.” By explaining how each symbolic form establishes a meaningful worldview governed by a distinct logic, he ascribes to mythical, religious, and linguistic perceptions and expressions an objective status that most of Western philosophy had preserved for scientific thought. In this way, the philosophy of symbolic forms transforms Kant’s critique of reason into a critique of culture. This pluralist theory of meaning formation also methodologically advances upon the universal, static logic to which Kant adhered: Informed by a massive amount of empirical data gathered by ethnologists, linguists, art historians, physicists, etc., Cassirer develops an original notion of the historical a priori. Yet, a careful reading of Cassirer’s work reveals that his ambition reaches further than delimiting different spheres of objectivity: Ultimately, he aims to establish a unifying account of human culture as a whole. This central concern of Cassirer’s philosophy of culture takes two forms. When focusing on the unitary ground of human culture he develops what could be 

To name but Cassirer’s most famous works on these cultural domains, see respectively The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms I-III (–), ‘Art and Language‘, The Logic of the Cultural Sciences (), The Myth of the State (), ‘Axel Hägerström, Eine Studie Zur Schwedischen Philosophie der Gegenwart’ (), and ‘Form and Technology’ ().





 

called a transcendental psychology (following Natorp), a phenomenology of human consciousness (in line with Hegel), or a metaphysics of symbolic forms (referencing contemporaries such as Bergson, Simmel, and Heidegger, but also Goethe). Cassirer’s mission here is to maintain the modern faith in reason as the defining human characteristic while resisting any reductionist (scientistic) understanding of this capacity. His original notion of the “animal symbolicum” is meant to unite these motives. When Cassirer is concerned with the harmonious coexistence of all cultural products, on the other hand, he puts forward a normative conception of human culture. The challenge that Cassirer faces here is to not compromise the diversity of the symbolic forms, and even keep open the possibility for new forms to arise (one could argue that social media present a novel symbolic form), while nevertheless emphasizing their ideal connection. Taken together, this account of culture cannot result in a true synthesis, as Hegel would have it, but only in a “synthetic overview” of the human world’s current composition. Any reader of Cassirer’s works who attempts to retrace these systematic accounts of meaning formation, be it of a particular cultural domain or of human culture as a whole, however has to wade through a plethora of often lengthy references to other thinkers – most of whom Cassirer greatly admires, even when he fundamentally disagrees with them on key issues. His systematic account of language as a symbolic form, for example, is enmeshed with a historical overview of past and contemporary linguistic theories. Likewise, his own philosophical notions of representation, consciousness, or objectivity are always developed through a dialogue with the history of Western philosophy. This historical component of Cassirer’s thought also takes multiple forms: He offers historical reviews of the particular cultural domains – e.g., the evolution from Newtonian mechanics to relativity theory and quantum mechanics; an encompassing history of the development of human culture – from myth over language to natural science; and a history of the philosophical reflection on meaning formation – from Plato’s theory of forms to his own, Neo-Kantian, symbol theory. On each of these levels, Cassirer discerns a clear, but not linear, progression from a substantial (i.e., a metaphysical or dogmatic) to a   

On the topic of the subjective and objective unity of human culture, consult The Phenomenology of Knowledge (), An Essay on Man (), and The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms (–). Consult, again, The Phenomenology of Knowledge and An Essay on Man. See The Problem of Knowledge (–), The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy () and The Philosophy of the Enlightenment ().

Introduction



functional (i.e., a critical or open-ended) understanding of human culture. These three components of Cassirer’s philosophical project continue to offer useful insights for contemporary philosophers, as well as art historians, scholars of mythology, or physicists. However, the true genius of Cassirer’s thought lies in the way they are interwoven throughout his writings. This is not a mere matter of style. At each level of cultural expression, Cassirer discerns an “ideal relatedness of the single perceptive phenomenon, given here and now, to a characteristic total meaning.” This idea of “symbolic pregnance” applies not only to our most basic way of perceiving “things” – each perception immediately entails more symbolic meaning than is sensibly presented – but also to the resulting meaningful units – a religious ornament or a scientific sign are only understandable in view of the total context of the religious or scientific symbolic form, and all other such units it entails – and to each symbolic form – the cultural significance of language can only be grasped through its position within a certain culture and hence through its relations to myth, politics, or science. Accordingly, the components of Cassirer’s thought are intrinsically and mutually related to each other. The detailed analyses of mythical stories, syntaxes, and artworks serve to expose the recurring symbolic capacity of human consciousness and the structural unity of human culture, which in turn explain the meaning of these cultural products. Likewise, these systematic reflections both inform and rely on Cassirer’s account of the history of philosophy as the development of the epistemological problem of the one and the many. Hence, Cassirer is a structuralist thinker who interprets all cultural objects in view of their position with regard to others and the whole of human culture, and vice versa, but this evolving part– whole relation also in view of the history of ideas, and vice versa. Cassirer’s painstaking engagement with other scientific disciplines and historical periods arguably renders him the last true Homo universalis (while this may no longer be a desirable title today, one should acknowledge that Cassirer studied non-Western cultures as well). Cassirer was much too modest to explicitly identify himself in this way. However, his final writings lament the fact that such an intellectual stance is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold in an era that is marked by knowledge explosion and scientific diversification and specialization. In this context, an all-encompassing, unifying viewpoint becomes a questionable philosophical ideal. Yet, Cassirer’s thought displays an undeterred commitment 

Cf. Substance and Function ().



 

to this ideal: His attempt to rethink the ideas of objectivity, rationality, systematicity, and progress should be understood in light of it. Already during Cassirer’s life, his insightful modifications were nevertheless overruled by the more radical alternatives of Lebensphilosophie and existentialism. The resulting picture of Cassirer as an outdated thinker was reinforced by his academic allegiance to the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, his cultural commitment to the Enlightenment, his political defense of the Weimar Republic, and his personal image as a cosmopolitan, detached intellectual, none of which were in tune with the Zeitgeist of the interbellum. By the time of Cassirer’s untimely death in  – twelve years after fleeing Nazi Germany and four years after leaving Europe altogether – his original philosophical project was discredited or even forgotten, and he was only positively remembered as a historian of ideas. This one-sided recollection of Cassirer’s thought, one that detaches its third component from the other two, reverberated throughout a large part of the twentieth century. Since the late s, Cassirer’s philosophical insights have steadily regained attention and praise in Germany, followed by a surge in interest in the Anglo-Saxon world since the early s. The impetus for this “Cassirer revival” may have been a renewed desire for a reconciliatory philosophical methodology and a fatigue of critical takes on rationality and objectivity. What is keeping new Cassirer scholars engaged and convinced of his cause is undoubtedly his lucid writing style and nuanced position about so many aspects of contemporary culture. The current volume of critical essays both results from this renewed scholarship and, we hope, offers a significant contribution to it. *** This volume comprises eleven contributions, grouped in three parts that roughly coincide with the three aforementioned components of Cassirer’s thought. The majority of the chapters focuses on one of the symbolic forms, explaining Cassirer’s view on language, art, history, natural science, quantum mechanics more specifically, technology, and politics. However, these chapters also reflect on the place of these forms within the whole of human culture (and their interaction with other forms) or their role within Cassirer’s philosophical project. As such, these contributions consider what could be called Cassirer’s philosophy of objective spirit. Two subsequent chapters discuss Cassirer’s understanding of representation and consciousness as the basis of human culture, thus engaging with his philosophy of subjective spirit. The two final chapters of this volume specifically reconsider

Introduction



Cassirer’s philosophical methodology from a historical perspective: One in comparison with the phenomenological method that Husserl developed around the same time, the other in view of the divide between analytic and continental philosophy, which originated around the time that Cassirer left Europe. Each contribution can be understood on its own terms, but reading all of them, in any order, would provide the reader with a proper overview of Cassirer’s versatile philosophy and a necessary guide to his multilayered writings. Robert S. Leib (Chapter ) explores the ways in which language is related to the other symbolic forms in Cassirer’s philosophy of culture. Like myth, religion, art, and science, language is a distinct symbolic form, yet at the same time it always appears in the context of other human activities. This means that whenever we talk about language as a symbolic form, we are forced to think of it relationally, in and through the different aspects of language that come into focus through the perspectives of the other forms. Leib distinguishes three constitutive functions of language: its sign function, its mediation between the “I” and the world, and its ability to encapsulate a “worldview” as a totality for consciousness. On the basis of these functions, he shows how language, as a medium for expression, reorganizes itself when aligning with myth, religion, art, science, and history. Ultimately, Leib argues that myth is an immanent possibility of language that remains active even in today’s “labile equilibrium” of culture. In Chapter , Samantha Matherne solves a number of tensions in Cassirer’s dispersed writings about art. Does art align with the “expressive” or the “representative” function of consciousness? And is art, like myth and religion, a cultural domain that we are supposed to surpass toward mathematics and natural science, or is it also situated on the highest rungs of human culture? Matherne first argues that Cassirer defends a cognitivist rather than an expressivist theory of art, according to which art represents the intuitive forms of external objects and emotions. Next, she attributes to Cassirer a “liberal” theory of cultural teleology, which allows for culture to progress toward different goals. On this basis, she holds that, for Cassirer, although mathematics and natural science are more advanced than art with respect to progress toward conceptual knowledge, art is more advanced than all the other symbolic forms when it comes to intuitive insight. In this way, Matherne elucidates not just the place but the place of priority that art has in Cassirer’s system of culture. Anne Pollok in turn discusses the role of history, historiography, and historicity in Cassirer’s philosophy in Chapter . In contrast to the



 

“objectively teleological” approaches to history offered by Leibniz or Hegel, Cassirer, on the one hand, does not assume an inherent teleology that is merely reflected in culture he interprets history as a dynamic and progressive movement of the self-liberation of spirit that must be expressed and manifested by cultural means. Hence, the historian must actively engage with our cultural past as a means to elucidate our current standing and inform our future development. Contrary to Heidegger, on the other hand, Cassirer does not see this process of self-liberation as an existential struggle but assumes that a proper relation to our history offers a valid answer to the demands of the present. Pollok hereby demonstrates that historical reconstruction elucidates the basic communal and intersubjective structure of symbol formation, thus transcending the limits of the historian’s time and elucidating the complex system of human symbolic formation in culture. Massimo Ferrari (Chapter ) explains the crucial role that science plays in the framework of the philosophy of symbolic forms. According to Ferrari Cassirer’s functionalistic understanding of scientific knowledge is intimately tied with the history of self-liberation from the concept of substance that began with Galileo’s scientific revolution and that resulted in the focus of contemporary physics on purely mathematical symbols. Yet for Cassirer, science has broad cultural significance because it is at once the pivotal point of modern culture and remains influenced by other symbolic forms such as myth, language, and art, and ways of world understanding in general. In showing how science represents the “theoretical self-awareness” of a new era of Western civilization, Ferrari emphasizes not only Cassirer’s remaining commitment to Neo-Kantianism but also the continuity between his early epistemological view and broader philosophy of culture. Cassirer’s view on science is also the subject of Chapter  by Thomas Ryckman. This chapter revisits Cassirer’s lesser-known work Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics and argues that it harbors a significantly new stage of his philosophy of physical science. On the one hand, this work presents the quantum formalism as a limiting pole of the Bedeutungsfunktion, the highest mode of symbolic formation according to Cassirer’s “phenomenology of cognition.” Inspired by Paul Dirac, Cassirer understands quantum mechanics as a symbolic calculus for deriving probabilistic predictions of measurement outcomes without regard to underlying wave or particle “images” – or, as an exemplar of abstract symbolic thought. On the other hand, Cassirer recognizes the philosophical significance of the use of group theory in quantum mechanics as

Introduction



advancing a purely structural concept of object in physics. Hence, Ryckman reveals that Cassirer drew epistemological consequences from the symbolic character of contemporary physical theory that retain relevance for philosophy of science today. Nicolas de Warren examines not just a lesser-known text by Cassirer – “Form and Technology” – but also a symbolic form that has received little attention. Chapter  reconstructs Cassirer’s contribution to the animated debates about the value and dangers of technological power in Germany after the First World War. On the one hand, De Warren examines both the affinity and the differences between technical artefacts and language (as tools) and between technological and mythical consciousness (as magical), thus cutting out an indispensable role for the symbolic form of technology within the whole of human culture. At the same time, De Warren presents Cassirer’s understanding of this form as indicative for his overall view of the relation between form and freedom, thus illustrating Cassirer’s assessment of modern thought. Ultimately, technology is shown to have a moral status for Cassirer (only) in the sense that it strives toward the self-realization of human freedom. In Chapter , Simon Truwant claims that the philosophy of symbolic forms formulates a critique of and response to two dialectically related crises of culture: an intellectual crisis resulting from a lack of overall cultural unity and orientation, and a political crisis resulting from the political sphere overstepping its legitimate boundaries. First, this chapter analyses Cassirer’s accounts of these crises, and their interconnection, in terms of objectivity and truth. On this basis, it appears that Cassirer provides a useful philosophical framework for tackling not only the crisis of Western culture at the beginning of the twentieth century but also the “post-truth condition” that haunts it today. Next, by invoking Kant’s idea of the “cosmopolitan conception of philosophy,” Truwant argues that the philosophy of symbolic forms was set up to deal with this twofold crisis from the very beginning. This means that Cassirer’s later writings on the sociopolitical task of philosophy did not break with his systematic writings from the s; rather, they reveal the motivation for his earlier thought. Martina Plu¨macher considers the fundamental questions of how signs succeed in representing something that is not currently present, and what exactly they represent. In Chapter , Plu¨macher illustrates in what sense Cassirer characterizes representational thinking as a sign-based, creative mental activity that is also involved in the perceiving of objects and processes. In this way, Cassirer develops a new conception of representation that goes beyond both traditional representationalism and imitation



 

theory of knowledge. First, the representational character of perceiving, thinking, and understanding enables a contextual, situated, and perspectivized way of knowing. Second, the processes of representing and knowing are not passive imitations of the world but active processes of orienting our perceiving, speaking, thinking, and acting. Third, the organizing activities of representation are supported by certain orders of knowledge. These three aspects allow Plu¨macher to specify and to spell out the pragmatic tone in Cassirer’s philosophy of human consciousness. The key concepts and arguments of Cassirer’s philosophy of mind are further discussed by Guido Kreis in Chapter . Kreis argues that for Cassirer, the mind is non-atomistic in the sense that mental occurrences are always already “symbolically pregnant” with significance. This leads to a functionalist model of the mind, which understands the mind as neither a physical body nor a metaphysical substance, but rather the system of our representational contents. On the one hand, Cassirer criticizes the attempts at a physicalistic naturalization of the mental. Kreis considers this critique in view of the normative dimension of judging and the representational content of recollection and memory (when directed against Bertrand Russell). On the other hand, when rejecting the Cartesian mentalistic framework, Cassirer argues that thoughts are always bound to their expression in language, and as such have a natural place in the social sphere. According to Kreis, this leads to a notion of nature that leaves room for normativity and representational content, or to Cassirer’s understanding of “objective spirit.” Situating Cassirer in a historical perspective, Daniel O. Dahlstrom (Chapter ) casts light on prominent lines of convergence and divergence between Husserl’s phenomenological analyses and Cassirer’s philosophical studies. The general topic of the first line of convergence is logical theory, as Husserl and Cassirer both argue for the autonomy of logic, the promise of set theory, and the intensionality of concepts. Other lines of agreement include their common rejection of empiricist accounts of abstraction and universals, their embrace of a Kantian philosophical legacy, and their respective commitments to the primacy of meaning and self-described versions of idealism. Nevertheless, the philosophies of Husserl and Cassirer diverge from one another in significant ways, primarily in view of the thematic range of their investigations and their respective insistence upon intuition and the sign or symbol as the basis of human consciousness and cognition. Dahlstrom focuses on differences in Husserl’s and Cassirer’s analyses of intuitions and perceptions that Cassirer himself also pronounced.

Introduction



Finally, in Chapter , Sebastian Luft revisits Michael Friedman’s famous claim that Cassirer’s philosophical vision has the potential to overcome the split between analytic and continental philosophy. This chapter first formulates some criteria for a post-split philosophy, namely a balance between historical sensitivity and systematic focus, a priori and empirical truths, conceptual analysis and descriptive synthesis, and exegesis and jargon. Next, Luft shows why and how Cassirer’s thought lives up to each of these criteria in his own writings as well as in characteristic discussions with some of his contemporaries, in particular Husserl and Heidegger. The conclusion of this chapter explains how Cassirer combines these criteria by installing the interdependence of transcendental idealism and cultural pluralism. Luft presents these as the two most important aspects of Cassirer’s work, both in terms of actual cultural practice and the way in which philosophical and scientific scholars account for it.

 

Cassirer’s Philosophy of Culture

 

Interaction between Language and the Other Symbolic Forms Robert S. Leib

This chapter explores the ways in which language is related to the other symbolic forms in Cassirer’s philosophy of culture. Like myth, religion, art, and science, language is a distinct symbolic form, i.e., a form of expression “of something spiritual through sensory signs” that is “grounded by a principle that marks it as a closed and unified fundamental process” (WY ). As such, language forms an ontological and epistemological basis for cultural life. At the same time, it always appears in the context of other human activities, so there is no language as such but only “world languages,” which are clearly different from one another in nontrivial ways. This means that whenever we talk about language as a symbolic form, we are forced to think of it relationally, in and through the different aspects of language that come into focus through the perspectives of the other forms. For example, language for science is pure signification, for art it is a sensuous palette, and for myth it is a reservoir of magical powers and abilities. When speaking of the form of language, therefore, we are always speaking of a particular medium for expression that reorganizes itself in keeping with the symbolic form with which it allies itself. This mediation is complex and multidimensional, so we must first impose some kind of grid of intelligibility on the linguistic function in order to analyze it. Throughout this chapter, I track what I believe are the three most important functions of language, which rearrange themselves in the style of the form for which it is the medium (e.g., myth, religion, art, science): () sign function, () mediation between the “I” and the world, and () ability to encapsulate a “worldview” as a totality for consciousness. The first section describes the three basic functions of language in detail. The second section offers an analysis of these functions when viewed through myth in particular. In the third section, I extend this analysis of language to religion, art, and science, following the ways in which these symbolic forms work to limit the influence of mythical thought. In the 



 . 

fourth section, I turn to historical language, arguing (i) that it is a hybrid symbolic form and (ii) that its “interpretive” use of facts opens the door for a “return” of mythical language in the modern world. I argue, in other words, that myth is an immanent possibility of language, one that cannot be fully exorcised by religion, art, or science, but instead remains active in the “labile equilibrium” of culture.

I Language As the Basis for a Philosophy of Culture Cassirer’s interest in the philosophy of language arises from a unique combination of influences and concerns. According to him, he should be read as a neo-Kantian because he wants to develop the critical project begun in Kant’s three Critiques. However, it is relatively uncontroversial to say that Kant did not adequately address the question of language. In “Language and Art I” (), Cassirer says of Kant that “He gives us a philosophy of knowledge, a philosophy of morality and art, but he does not give us a philosophy of language.” Cassirer blames Kant rather than the critical approach itself for this oversight, arguing that critical philosophy can “fill this gap” if we look at language as “an instrument of human thought by which we are led to the construction of an objective world” (SMC –). In the first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer takes the primacy of function over object to be “the fundamental principle of critical thinking,” and this pushes the Kantian project to ask new questions about nonscientific forms of thought. Cassirer’s ultimate goal is not to assimilate these forms but to distinguish them firmly from the scientific and set them upon their own theoretical bases. Myth and natural language do not arise through science, nor do they work toward the scientific form, but “lie at a deeper, autonomous level of spiritual life.” As they part ways, more complicated forms become possible. Then, religion and art emerge from mythical thought, and theoretical science arises from natural language. According to Friedman, this structure is not teleological but “centrifugal”: “The more primitive forms give birth to the more sophisticated forms arranged around a common origin and center.” For Cassirer, these functionally defined centrifugal projects describe spirit’s multiple efforts to transform the passive world of sense intuition into a world of “pure expression of the human spirit” – a notion he  

Few volumes address the topic in English. See: Schalow and Velkley . Friedman : –.

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



patterns on von Humboldt’s “inner linguistic form” (PSF I: ). There must be other “inner forms” for myth, religion, art, and science, he reasons, which would be their corresponding symbolic forms. Rejecting the requirement for an underlying Absolute unity, Cassirer sees the symbolic forms as related to each other agonistically, as sites of struggle that also help constitute them: “Each becomes what it is only by demonstrating its own particular power against others and in battle with the others” (PSF I: ). A philosophy of culture can thus be described as the attempt to place the forms in articulable relationships to each other. It searches for “a standpoint which would make it possible to encompass the whole of them in one view, which would seek to penetrate nothing other than the purely immanent relation of all these forms to one another, and not their relation to any external ‘transcendent’ being or principle” (PSF I: ; WY –/). Although Cassirer argues that the “content of the spirit is only disclosed in its manifestations,” an investigation of language itself is nonetheless necessary because none of the nonlinguistic forms can develop without “creating a definite substratum” for themselves. Cassirer maintains that language is the best candidate for a unifying substratum because it is the medium of critical perception and analysis. Furthermore, he believes that language is a spontaneous self-showing of spirit, which means that language also entails ontological or world-forming capacities. As von Humboldt wrote, the human being not only “spins language out of himself”, he also “spins himself into it” (WY ). For Cassirer, language “imposes itself between subject and object, between the human being and the reality that surrounds him,” but in a way that does not obscure or impoverish our encounter with that reality (WY ). Any encounter with discourse, whether mythical, scientific, or otherwise, is an encounter with “certain energies of forming” through which this encounter is possible, i.e., it becomes spiritual in the first place (WY ).

II Three Functions of Language I will now describe the three functions that every language appears to have in common but which take on different modalities as language is employed by the other symbolic forms.  

PSF I: , . Again, separate analyses of the image or rite could begin from this point, though a different rubric of its sign functions, mediation, and worldview would be needed. Truwant –: .

 ()

()

()



 .  The basic unit of language is the sign. The sign endows experience with definite form and raises its contents above the immediacy of sense intuition. It both designates and endows its content with spiritual or intellectual qualities (PSF I: ). As Cassirer says in the second volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, “An essential element of the correspondence between the diverse cultural forms is that the sign exerts an active, creative force in all of them – myth and language, artistic configuration, and the formation of theoretical concepts of the world and its relationships” (PSF II: ). The sign yields the positive core around which the centrifugal motions of spirit expand their reach. When distinguishing the linguistic sign from imagistic or ritual signs, it is called a “name.” Language is neither a product of the “I” nor of the world, but a medium in which they are created, distinguished, and given relative significance. Language is not exclusively the subjective moment of surprise, as in Herder’s Origin of Language, nor is it the onomatopoetic repetition of external reality, as in Plato’s Cratylus. Instead, language for Cassirer creates “a new mediation, a particular reciprocal relation between the two factors . . . so creating a new synthesis of ‘I’ and ‘world’” (PSF II: –; SMC –). Language schematizes the structure and relation of the categories of understanding, reason, and judgment; when joined with other symbolic forms, it yields different “worldviews.” As Capeillères argues, this “relational structure” of each symbolic form can be described on two levels: (i) in terms of the qualities of relation – “space, time, and objective connections” and (ii) in terms of the modality of relation – “the more general ‘style’ or specific configuration performed by the global synthesis.” The first level is possible only on the basis of language’s sign function and its mediation. In the first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer states that language must schematize all its “spatial contents and relations,” including temporality, before the name can be sensuously apprehended (PSF I: ; WY –/–). The second level is derived from the way that each of the nonlinguistic forms employs the sign function. For instance, each symbolic form has a different notion of the origin: as magical potency, religious revelation, artistic genius, or scientific principle (PSF I: –). When expressed through names, myth creates gods, religion creates Truth, art creates fictions, and science creates concepts.

Capeillères ; see also PSF I: .

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



When applied to cultural products, these languages yield diverse accounts. For example, what is the Torah? A reserve of divine power? A revelation of divine Truth? The poetic self-rendering of a people? A material object of merely historical-political importance? We must use different styles of language to make each assessment, and the different accounts entail different origins and qualities of relation. For these reasons, it is impossible to subsume myth, religion, art, or science into a common overarching form of language. The philosopher of culture instead describes both the character of cognition in each symbolic form and the agonistic relation they share when surrounding and limiting each other.

III Mythical Language In this section, I will describe the specific style of mythical language in detail. Despite the tension it creates with his Kantian project, viewing language as an essentially spontaneous act of spirit allows Cassirer to discard the principle of allegory in his philosophy of language, a move Schelling also makes in his Historical-Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology (). When examining the oldest texts or accounts of the divine, which quite often coincide, the goal should not be to discern what its names “really mean.” As Bayer writes, “myths are not the results of errors and illusions about the real nature of things. They are products of the way of ordering the world that follows the principles of imagination (fantasia) rather than of cognition.” Myths should not be approached like logical codes, but rather as “tautegories” – self-organized, internally coherent forms. Thus, a philosophy of myth must examine the “autonomous configurations of the human spirit, which one must understand from within by knowing the way in which they take on meaning and form” (PSF II: ). Unlike Schelling, however, Cassirer denies that the diverse configurations of myths presuppose a unified divine power underlying them. Language and myth are self-produced forms of spirit, which have never separated themselves from, nor strive to reunify with, the Absolute, whether theological or scientific (Wissenschaftliche). Thus, Cassirer takes a critical approach to these forms, seeking “the unity of the spiritual principle by which all its particular configurations, with all their empirical diversity, appear to be governed,” instead of their metaphysical origin (PSF II: –). The three functions are thus transformed in the following  

PSF I: . Despite this, they can be compared productively. PSF II: –; see Schelling , / XI .



Bayer : –.



 . 

ways: () the mythical sign functions by producing the world in its own image, () its mediation is a theogonic process, and () its worldview is that of an enactive drama. ()

Mythical signs are potent creative expressions rather than marks of representation, signification, or indication, and the mode of mythical language is evocation rather than description.

Here, Usener’s Götternamen () is an important influence. Like Herder and Schelling, Usener ties the origin of language to the earliest divine encounters – as the “momentary god.” The unknown god appears without announcement, arriving at the same time as “the cry of impression.” For example, Zeus is the thunder and fear of thunder; Iris is the sparkling surprise in the rainbow and the power of the eye that beholds it. As Cassirer writes, “any perceptual content, any object, insofar as it arouses mythical-religious interest, be it ever so fleetingly, can be raised to the level of an independent god, a demon.” In this moment, both the gods and their names are lifted out of the flow of sense intuition. In this first stage of knowledge and culture, consciousness makes no distinction between the content of the thing and the content of the sign: “The name of a thing and the thing itself are inseparably fused; the mere word or image contains a magic force through which the essence of the thing gives itself to us” (PSF I: ). Names thus hold the powers of the gods, and they are kept secret (as esoteric knowledge) in order to guard the use of this power. Because of its potent origin, the mythical sign is mimetic, meaning that it strives to progressively transform experience through its own image: “The sign, as mimetic sign, strives in its form toward an immediate rendering of the content; it strives, one might say, to absorb it” (PSF II: , ). Mythical names and magical signs are both ontological and cosmological. They “draw certain fixed lines through this maze of ‘accidents,’” and attempt “to introduce a definite articulation and a kind of systematic order into them” (PSF II: ). A good example is the way astrology maps out the regions of the sky for the sake of producing and confirming various aspects of the human personality (WY –).   

PSF II: ; see also : “Word and name do not designate and signify, but are and act.” PSF II: ; see also PSF I: n: “It is not merely that we think of the striking lightning, it is the lightning itself that strikes.” PSF II: : “He who knows the true name of a god or demon has unlimited power over the bearer of the name.”

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



When left unlimited by competing symbolic forms, the mimetic sign plays itself out freely across the face of the cosmos. In polytheistic cultures, for instance, any name can stand as a cipher for the whole, pars pro toto, at a given time, not as its “true” representation but as its “real” specification (PSF II: ). () Myth mediates between the “I” and the world by giving strong preference to the world, though we find the two are so interlaced that what would be regarded as subjective experience nowadays has equal claim to complete objectivity for mythical consciousness. Mythical language provides a field in which consciousness of the divine and the divine itself are co-created: Precisely because at this stage there is not yet an independent self-conscious “I,” free in its productions, precisely because we stand here at the threshold of the spiritual process which is destined to delimit the “I” and the “World,” the new world of signs must appear to the consciousness as a fully objectivereality. (PSF II: –)

For mythical consciousness, language is experienced as a “theogonic process” – one in which the god creates itself in and through the human (PSF II: ). Cassirer even describes myth at one point as history from god’s point of view (PSF II: ). In this way, the content of myths are “absolutely real” and absolutely sovereign for mythical consciousness (PSF II: ). () Mythical worldviews are almost always pluralistic, since within myth there are no generalized laws (SMC –). Mythical language instead makes the world into a divine drama where human consciousness plays an ancillary role. In the earliest texts of the West, like the Odyssey, the human is a “plaything of the friendly and hostile, divine and demonic powers” (PSF II: ). In early Greek tragedy, on the other hand, the human hero does not merely represent the god, but becomes it in the midst of a community: The dancer who appears in the mask of the god or demon does not merely imitate the god or demon but assumes his nature; he is transformed into him and fuses with him. Here there is never a mere image, an empty representation; nothing is thought, represented, “supposed” that is not at the same time real and effective. (PSF II: )

The hero who enacts the world as god eventually passes away with the formation of “a new form of ethical self-consciousness,” a moment Cassirer



 . 

locates in Aeschylus’ Eumenides (PSF II: ). Before this time, however, mythical language makes its world fully concrete. It is a world of destiny that recreates itself in its own self-imposed form, casting the “spell” of a community’s present, past, and future. Mythical language binds itself up in an undifferentiated way with things, producing its worldview as indistinguishable from the world itself. From this account, it is tempting to view language and myth as inextricable, but Cassirer does distinguish them in the conclusion of the first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. While both forms begin from the “basic experience and basic form of personal activity,” myth incessantly strives to “weave the world in infinite variations” around some name or other. Language, by contrast, gives greater credence to the “I,” providing “a new form in which it confronts the mere subjectivity of sensation and feeling” for the first time (PSF I: ). While the two are unified in mythical language, the latter begins to develop once they part ways. By “liberating” its sign function, mediation, and worldview from this first mythic form, language may take on other modalities (PSF II: –). We also witness here the separations of sign from content and of sound from signification, events which assist the production of these modalities: “Only when this separation occurs is the sphere of linguistic meaning constituted as such” (PSF II: ).

IV Shifting Modalities of Language in Religion, Art, and Science According to Cassirer, language is its own type of “spiritual fetter,” from which consciousness labors to liberate itself (PSF II: ). We can understand this liberation as moving in three directions: first, away from its emphasis on presence (in religion); second, from its reference (in art); and third, from its individual perspective (in science). Again, these developments are centrifugal and not dialectical, so they develop by limiting each other in different ways. I will describe them in the order Cassirer usually lists them, but Western culture could be analyzed from the perspective of each separately, as Cassirer does with myth, for example, in The Myth of the State. In this section, I will extend my analysis to religion, art, and science. The language of the first two develop out of key limitations in myth’s



For an instance that remains even in Plato’s late works, see: Plato : e–b.

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



potency, while the last arises from a formalization of natural language that denies that potency altogether. a

Religious Language

The function of religious language is not evocation but revelation. In religion, names no longer act by their presence, but begin to indicate aspects of a Truth that never presents itself as such. This indicating requires a formalization of the divine person over and above the drama – the never-present Zeus in whose stead Athena decides in Eumenides. In monotheism especially, the name of god is a name for language itself, while all other names ultimately become divine or infernal predicates. In the transition from myth to religion, the focus of the name shifts from a play of structural possibilities toward a retinue of omens and wonders, the manifestations and expressions of some hidden demonic or divine power (PSF II: ). Thus, () the religious sign functions by producing meaning and Truth, () its mediation is one of willing submission, and () its worldview is soteriological in nature. () In religion, names no longer act but become the bearers of relative truth or falsity, and language becomes a quest to access the plan of some hidden personality (PSF I: ). Religious signs always fall short in presenting Truth; they “point to this meaning but never wholly exhaust it” (PSF II: ). Whereas myth evokes and produces what it names, religion bifurcates name and what is named, the former pointing to the latter, which is never fully present. The religious sign thus always has two sides: the sensuous and the spiritual, or what is said and what is meant: The new ideality, the new spiritual dimension, that is opened up through religion not only lends myth a new signification but actually introduces the opposition between “meaning” and “existence” into the realm of myth. (PSF II: )

The function of the religious sign is therefore analogical or allegorical. Divine names no longer hold power in themselves, but retain whatever potency they have only as a function of their Truth. Thus, divine names are no longer kept secret as they were in the mythic world. Nonetheless, 



Cf. Agamben : : “If, in polytheism, the name assigned to the god named this or that event of language, this or that specific naming, this or that Sondergott, in monotheism God’s name names language itself.” PSF II: . Cassirer also characterizes the religious sign “metaphoric” at two points (PSF II: , ).



 . 

myth remains important here because religion retains a good amount of mythic content (PSF II: ). Where polytheism yields to monotheism, however, the form of this content is altered: all names that can be salvaged become predicates of the Divine One, while those that cannot become infernal. Although religious consciousness remains “so interwoven” with mythical consciousness that “they can nowhere be definitely separated and set off from each other,” religion portrays the vast majority of mythical names as false, framing them as dreams and illusions created by lower daemonic powers (PSF II: –). ()

Religious language mediates between the “I” and the “world” by shoring up much of the ambiguity that is characteristic of myth. As Cassirer says, religious significance rests solely on the fundamental opposition between being and non-being, good and evil, without a middle term (PSF II: , ).

While myth could weave a cosmic truth from any particular occurrence, religion reverses this tendency. Here, the macrocosm takes precedence to such an extent that “true revelation no longer occurs in any particular but only in the whole: the world as a whole and the entirety of the human soul” (PSF II: ). In this bivalent system, true signs ultimately contribute to an earthly vision of heaven, as exhortation or warning, and the subject gains all things through obedience to the Good. Prayer now calls to the absent divine rather than evoking its presence, a practice which becomes infernal and dangerous, and religious consciousness both experiences itself and expresses itself through the mode of longing typified in St. Paul’s “time that remains” (Agamben ). ()

With regard to worldview, religion is soteriological. Here, Cassirer says that transcendental meaning and empirical reality come into contact and “permeate each other” solely around the question of redemption.

Myth’s emphasis on presence is inverted into an eschatology, and the predicates that accrue around the name of God promise their eventual reunification in the destruction of all opposites: “All temporal change, all natural events and human action . . . become an ordered, meaningful cosmos by appearing as necessary links in the religious plan of salvation by taking a significant place in it” (PSF II: ). The difference between orthodox and heretical forms of subjectivity is determined by the extent that one’s expression finds its “anagogical” referent in the transcendent, or in its “immediate historical manifestation, the Church,” which takes the lead in interpreting signs – miracles – and guards the community against heresy (PSF II: ).

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms b



Artistic Language

Cassirer never wrote a volume dedicated to art or aesthetics (SMC ). Art was not a systematic component of the philosophy of symbolic forms either, though it is consistently listed along with the others. In the  lecture, “Art and Language I,” Cassirer, however, shows us that “lyrical” or “poetic” language belongs to its own symbolic form. Art originates from genius and produces fictions when expressed in language (WY ). When turning from religion to art, we can see clearly that these symbolic forms are not dialectically produced. Unlike religion, art aims to produce a “purely immanent validity and truth” rather than a necessary divine one: “It does not aim at something else or refer to something else; it simply ‘is’ and consists in itself.” For this, genius draws upon a power “still embedded in magical representations and directed toward specific magical aims,” but because its names are spun out of human genius rather than divine power, the result is a separate and self-contained “image world” resting on its own “center of gravity” (PSF II: –). Thus, () the poetic sign functions by producing heroic characters, () its mediation brings the patron of a work into the hero’s world, and () its worldview is alchemical in nature. () Artistic genius eschews the analogical name in favor of an unabashedly constructed one – the positing of a hero, a Falstaff or a Faust, which the poetic function brings to life. As Cassirer says, The name creates, so to speak, a new focus of thought, in which all the rays that proceed from different directions meet each other and in which they fuse into that intellectual unity which we have in view when speaking of an identical object. Without this source of illumination our world of perception would remain dim and vague. (SMC )

As with scientific language, artistic language aids perception, but where science turns toward the production, collection, and reference of true facts, art takes consciousness in an alternate direction. In art, the name is released from the mode of reference because genius constructs accounts of things that did not previously exist. This is not a misuse of language but a feature of the sign function itself: “What is common to language and art is the fact that neither of them can be considered as a mere reproduction or imitation of the ready-made, given outward reality” (SMC ). Like myth, the artistic sign is active, born out of an imagination that is “productive, not merely re-productive,” but because of its avowed human origin, artistic language produces works instead of beings (SMC ). Unless such a work is theologically themed, it does not point toward Truth and salvation, and



 . 

even where it contains mythological themes, no god ever appears. Rather, artistic names lift potential perceptions out of the flow of experience as characters. When consciousness accepts these figments, language alters its sense of “I” and world and offers a different worldview for a time. ()

Cassirer is not clear on the mediation of “I” and the world in art but, following the previous description, we may say that the artistic sign doubles each of them in the creation and patronage of works. Spirit labors as genius to produce its own world through the positing of a hero.

In art, “we do not simply react to outward stimuli and we do not simply reproduce the statement of our own mind. In order to enjoy the forms of things we have to create these forms” (SMC ). The positing of a Falstaff or a Faust calls for the construction of a world in which that name may be brought to life. The artist disappears under her genius, but she does not fall under its spell entirely; she knows that she must return from that world in order to share it with others. Rather, genius enthralls her for a time, producing an account in which all mythical, religious, and descriptive elements are subsumed within the lyrical or poetic function. Later, the patron shares in this activity, receiving the poetic words that are “fused and melted with their meanings” in the sensible presentation of a world (SMC ). Hence, all parties involved are partially responsible for the production of an artistic world, and they achieve this by limiting or denying cosmological and empirical truths. Distinct from the “logical language” of critical assessment, “lyrical language” serves as the shared, mediating field in which genius and patron temporarily share an alternate world. ()

With regard to its worldview, art “enchants us by introducing us into its own world, the world of pure forms” (SMC ). Like myth, art cannot be separated from its form; it is not a vehicle for concepts, but it is not a mere phantasmagoria either.

The lack of space between determinative and regulative positing needed for this synthetic activity means artistic language can redound upon the worldview within which the work is created: “Every great poet is a great creator, not only in the field of his art but also in the field of language. He has the power not only to use but to recast and regenerate language, to mold it into new shapes” (SMC ). In the hands of artists such as Shakespeare and Goethe, the artistic function becomes an “alchemical” process of transmuting language and conjuring up our deepest emotions; over time, the work of genius enriches both a language’s vocabulary and

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



its forms of expression (SMC –). Alchemy is based upon “the transferability and material detachability of attributes and states”; it is therefore possible to encounter a Falstaff or a Faust in daily life (PSF II: ). Lyrical language plants something of that fictional world into the patron’s consciousness, which is then available as a frame for nonfictional experiences. Convincing oneself, for example, that “the better part of valor is discretion” in a tense moment, or that one faces a “devil’s bargain” at work, seems to require that consciousness see itself as part of those heroes’ dramas in its present world. c Scientific Language In science, language achieves the descriptive function many philosophers tend to equate with language itself. Language and science have a shared concern for the logos, but eventually they diverge on this point. Plato’s concern for a principled articulation of the Forms is an initial scientific project, but modern science wants to leave behind the realm of forms for abstract ordinality. In the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer argues that scientific language is anathema to mythical language both in its notion of the sign and in the universal character of its relational structure. At its base, science agrees with religion that signs and their meanings are fully distinct. Yet, the scientific function is so antipathetical to religion’s mythic content that this is as far as their kinship goes. While religion is grounded in revelation and works toward reshaping the world, science gains its origin in principle and works toward discovering the concept of a world. Thus, () the scientific sign functions by means of pure ordinal signs and relations, () its mediation diminishes the subject in lieu of the concept, and () its worldview takes the form of a systematic totality. () The scientific sign denies that the name is a part of, and as such holds power over, the thing that is named (PSF III: n). As pure signification or simple “abbreviation,” names can claim “no independent value, no autonomy” (PSF III: ). The name is only a token, something substitutable for the being in its absence. However, since the economy of names is inherently nonrational (something Herder praised deeply), names continually threaten to obscure the thing named. Science thus works upon language in the manner that religion works upon the mythical. Religion cannot dispense with myth because myth provides the content that needs to be formalized. Nonetheless,



 . 

religion destroys the concrete character of the mythical signs by giving each of them an allegorical, transcendental purpose. Science goes further than this, seeking to destroy not only their sensuous basis but also their representative function. Hence, Cassirer writes that in science, the processes of dematerialization and detachment continue; the sign tears itself free from the sphere of things, in order to become a purely relational and ordinal sign. Now it is no longer directed toward any single thing which it aims to “represent” directly, to set before the mind’s eye in its intuitive contours. It aims rather to mark out a universal, a determination of form and structure which is manifested in the individual example but can never be exhausted in it. (PSF III: )

This “concept sign” does not acquire random material but itself produces the material that it needs in order to overcome the ambiguity inherent in names and ensure complete signification (PSF III: ). The material and perspectival nature of world languages remain the only obstacles to this achievement. ()

This concern for the purely ordinal means that science rejects the mediation between “I” and world, aiming to express itself in terms of pure relationality. In science, “the spirit must progress to a pure apprehension of the world, in which all the particularities resulting from consideration of the apprehending subject are effaced” (PSF III: ).

One of these particularities seems to be natural language (PSF III: ). Science cannot totally reject language because language taught science to survey the whole of existence and fostered its growth even in the rejection of the other symbolic forms (PSF III: ). Yet, the scientific principle aims at a pure concept that language, given its sensuous basis, cannot provide. Thus, at the spiritual level, Cassirer speaks of the movement of the concept itself and not the consciousness of the experimenter: “The concept strives for a strict, unambiguous correlation between sign and signification” to such an extent that “concept signs must form a self-contained system” (PSF III: ). By producing its own matter (i.e., the natural number series), scientific language is surprisingly akin to art. Both aim at “orders of the possible, not of the real,” but science eschews the productivity of genius in favor of axiomatic principles (PSF III: , ). Thus, the concept sign is uniquely suited for objective universality: It strives to “reach out beyond the whole of space and time, beyond the limits of intuitive representation and of all representability” rather than to present alternate versions of them (PSF III: ).

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



() The worldview arising from logical language produces a complete classification of reality based on a universal principle – first by kinds, and then in its totality (PSF III: ). Mythical potency prevented the world from being brought under such a univocal totality, but in science we find the opposite order of determination. In order to be a sign of anything, the name must already have a systematic place within the whole: Every new concept that is set up in scientific thought is related from the outset to the totality of this thought, to the totality of possible concept formations. What it signifies and is depends on its meaning in this totality. All truth that can be attributed to it is bound to this continual and thoroughgoing verification with respect to the whole range of the contents and propositions of thought. From this it follows that concept signs must form a self-contained system. (PSF III: )

In a way, every symbolic form is self-contained, but in science we experience a particular concern for systematicity that myth and art do not share, and toward which religion, even as theology or apologetics, can only strive. Science therefore cuts ties with natural language and sets its sights on the world of mathematics.

V Historical Language and the ‘Return’ of Myth In this section, I argue that historical language is a hybrid of elements from the three previously discussed modalities of language. As we have seen, each one of these modalities was developed in order to limit the influence of myth. However, the novel combination of functions in historical language actually weakens the bulwark that religion, art, and science had erected against mythical language. Although Cassirer mentions the problem of history in conjunction with the problem of myth in his introduction to the second volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, he only explicitly addresses it later in his career. In “The Philosophy of History” () and Essay on Man (), Cassirer describes history as a function by which spirit produces its own ledger. History is not a science that produces “concordance with the facts” of what happened in the past but a process of symbolic interpretation – a human science that synthesizes scientific principle and artistic genius (EM –; Bayer, , –). If different symbolic forms are distinguished by the totality of their functions, history should have a sign function, a field of mediation, and a relational structure that, taken together, cannot be reduced to the other forms.



 .  a Hybrid Historical Language

In addition to the primary symbolic forms – language, myth, religion, art, and science – Cassirer sometimes mentions other possible forms as well, such as economics, technology, and law. History sits between the primary forms and those others, and it appears to have grown in interest for Cassirer throughout his career. Bayer writes that the unique task of history is “to resurrect the past in all its unique forms and developments.” In terms of its language, however, Cassirer most often describes history as a combination of functions borrowed from the other symbolic forms. Thus, () the historical sign functions by revivifying past names in the present, () its mediation is interpretive and “palingenetic,” and () its worldview is a critical one. ()

The linguistic sign lifts some particular element of the flow of sense intuition, and concretizes it into a meaningful unit. Further, because language is responsible for the construction of temporality as well, its signs can have different temporal inclinations: Mythical signs evoke “presence,” religious signs indicate a “not yet,” artistic signs construct a “never was,” and scientific signs aim to discover what “always is.” The historical sign, for its part, reconstructs “what was” in the present.

In “The Philosophy of History,” Cassirer states that “human civilization necessarily creates new forms, new symbols, and new material things in which the life of man finds its eternal expression,” but this creation becomes impoverished if it lacks a sense of those symbols that have fallen out of use (SMC –). The historian thus interprets the symbols of the past in order to “revivify” them, i.e., “to restore them to a new life and to render them legible and understandable again.” The historical figure tarries close to the mythical sign, which first evoked presence through names to fix them for the future (PSF I: ; EM ). Beyond this, however, mythical and historical languages are clearly distinct. On the one hand, there are the first histories of the gods, like those described by Schelling and Usener, which are always also theogonic, and on the other, there is the kind of history that we first find in Thucydides, which shows a special concern with names of the past as past (EM ). ()



In An Essay on Man, Cassirer identifies a unique function for history, which he calls palingenesis: a rebirth of the past that is necessary for the balanced mediation of the “I” and the world in the present.

Bayer : .



Bayer : .

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



History is not something that can be done once and for all, like the production of annals, but it must be continually taken up. History reverses the creative process of human civilization and “traces all these expressions to their very origin” in order “to reconstruct the real life that is at the bottom of all these single forms. In this sense history is a rebirth of life that without its continual effort would vanish and lose its vital force” (EM ). This is akin to the way in which Cassirer describes artistic language: Each work strives to construct a world whose names and events can be brought to life (SMC ). Historical language has a stronger ontological claim than artistic language, however, because what history evokes both existed and, to some extent, still exists in its effects. This means that, through the mediation of historical genius, the “I” understands its world more deeply by extending its experience beyond its time. Importantly, proper historical mediation is still highly subjective: “The facts of the philosophical past, the doctrines and systems of the great thinkers, are meaningless without an interpretation” (EM –). This interpretation must, therefore, continually be taken up. () The worldview of history initially appears scientific because i) the names it evokes and the world it constructs are intended to describe “the empirical reality of things and events,” and ii) it ultimately seeks “the causal relations between particular phenomena” (SMC ). However, religion has its influence here, too. In An Essay on Man, Cassirer calls the historian “a retrospective prophet” (EM ). But, whereas religious language creates a worldview that scans for signs of the future in the present, historical language works to reorient a culture’s futurity from its past. Employing Goethe’s romantic version of the pars pro toto, Cassirer argues that “human life is an organism in which all elements imply and explain each other.” As such, the meaning of history does not remain locked in the past, as a mere analogy for the present. Rather, it is crucial for a culture’s understanding of the present: “Historical knowledge is the answer to definite questions; but the questions themselves are put and dictated by the present – by our present intellectual interests and our present moral and social needs” (SMC ). History mediates the agonistic struggle of the other forms by taking up elements of each in a new way, lending presence to names of the past, constructing a world in which these figures can be brought back to life,



 . 

and rendering its narrative with as little subjectivity as possible. The final form that a work of history takes depends upon the judgment or, what is the same for Cassirer, the imaginative synthesis of the historiographer. Nonetheless, without history, human life would be a “very poor thing”; it would be restricted to a single moment of time because “the thought of the future and the thought of the past depend upon each other” (SMC ). Without historicization, religious language becomes metaphysically static, artistic language becomes rigidly iconographic, and scientific language becomes dogmatic. History therefore tarries somewhere in the midst of the other forms, giving a critical view on their developments, even though they remain constantly in action. b

The Proximity of History and Myth in German Culture

For Cassirer, a philosophy of culture is possible because the plural functions of symbolic forms “complete and complement one another” (EM ). Since history is both the ledger of these forms and composed out of the same functions, it should play a significant role in developing such a philosophy. However, Cassirer often speaks of myth as a bygone form, something relegated to the margins of cultural life by the “selfliberation” of consciousness achieved in religion, art, and science. Until very late in his career, Cassirer probably would have liked to include history among the forms that provide a cultural bulwark against mythical potency. Yet, when we look closely at one particular form of historicizing contemporary to Cassirer’s age, one which also denies room for the freedom of individual thought, we see that myth finds a way back into the heart of Western culture. In concluding this chapter, I will give a cursory description of the ways in which myth found a way to overpower the three functions of historical language in German culture, as Cassirer details in his last work, The Myth of the State. In the final chapter, entitled “The Technique of the Modern Political Myths,” Cassirer distinguishes between magical and technical means of cultural production. In German culture, the Nazis confused these two means by deliberately leveraging existential notions of “heritage” and “tradition” into their cultural experience of origins, replacing scientific principle with magical potency, and foisting the latter into a central position



Bayer : .

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



in light of which even technological projects were required to cohere. In the transition from a historical-critical culture to a mythico-political one, () names lose their representative and descriptive functions, () the ethical “I” becomes subsumed into some communal mission, and () its worldview is transmuted into a drama of destiny. () As Cassirer warned, the new mythico-political function restricted Germany’s critical sense of history to a single moment of time, into which the divine name of the Aryan was inserted as its palingenetic cipher. Under this mimetic sign, history lost its concern with the real existence of its names, and its conceptual prohibition on prophecy was released as well. In the rise of Aryan culture, spirit worked to absorb the already existent cultural world into an image of its own destiny. Cassirer sees this return to myth clearly in Spengler’s Decline of the West: “Destiny not causality is the moving force in human history. The birth of a cultural world, says Spengler, is always a mystical act, a decree of destiny” (MS ). Writing in America a dozen years after fleeing Germany, Cassirer reflects on the effects of decrees upon the German language: I find to my amazement that I no longer understand the German language. New words have been coined; and even the old ones are used in a new sense. . . . This change of meaning depends upon the fact that those words which formerly were used in a descriptive, logical, or semantic sense, are now used as magic words that are destined to produce certain effects and to stir up certain emotions. (MS )

Michael and Doerr’s Nazi-Deutsch Lexicon, a dictionary of all the new words and special senses in which old words were appropriated for a specifically Aryan view, lists at least twice as many introductions into the German language as Shakespeare achieved in English. Writing on German language in , Steiner argues that this return to myth had permanently destroyed the tradition of German poetic genius: “It is no longer the language of Goethe. . . Something immensely destructive has happened to it. It makes noise. It even communicates, but it creates no sense of communion.” The return to myth also produced an essential antipathy to religious and scientific truth: “The language was turned upside down to say ‘light’ where there was blackness and ‘victory’ where there was ‘disaster’.”  

Michael and Doerr, . Shakespeare is said to have introduced , words and phrases in English.  Steiner : . Steiner : .

 ()

 .  Victor Klemperer, who lived under the Nazi regime through its entirety, describes this transformation of language as equally deadly to a subject’s interiority. Language is not merely “my” means of expression, Klemperer writes, but also increasingly dictates my feelings and governs my entire spiritual being the more unquestioningly and unconsciously I abandon myself to it . . . Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all.

In the gap left by the poisoned ethical subject, these new words hurled forth a mood of urgency and existential dread, directed not at individuals but at the Aryan’s “real” specificity, das Volk. The ‘focal length’ of Nazi discourse, in other words, fell upon the energy of the crowd, which carried its message forward exuberantly at the rallies and parades, and in the style of its writing. In Hitler’s speeches, one still reads of the duties of the individual but, as Klemperer observes, this is only in order to convince the individual to cede her will to that of the movement, the “will of the people.” The mythical operation of binding das Volk into a voracious mass – undertaken by proclaiming a unique historical destiny painted in a semantics specifically tailored to its aims – left the “I” in a world with virtually no space for reflection or dissent. ()

The historical worldview constructed upon mythical thought no longer operated in the realm of science balanced by art but as True prophecy: “Fatalism seems to be inseparable from mythical thought,” Cassirer says here, echoing his much earlier statement that “the mythological process is the process of the truth re-creating and so realizing itself” (MS ; PSF II: ).

Spengler was not primarily proposing a return to the worship of ancient Nordic gods, even though this, too, was a notable strain in popular Nazi culture. He was rather operating in the pre-personal space of myth, which engages with the overall re-schematization of the world, through “an astrology of history” (MS ). Despite his emphasis on destiny, Spengler’s view was not religious but drew the astral map around the name of the Aryan, and then called upon the dasVolk to help instantiate this map through a process of hero worship. He thus proposed a reinterpretation of



Klemperer : .



See for example Hitler : , .

Interaction between Language & Other Symbolic Forms



the past based on pre-religious forms of myth, all the while taking conscious advantage of the constructive function of art. The people need a leader, a hero brought into existence through his own interpretation of history, and this leader asks the people to help transmute their worldview into the drama of his narrative. This wholesale trans-valuation would not have been possible had the Nazis failed to refashion the root functions of language in Weimar culture, a famously liberal and scientific society. For these reasons, language remains an important locus of Cassirer’s analysis of the “labile equilibrium” of culture in his late work. 

 

Cassirer characterizes Spengler’s followers as saying: “If our culture – science, philosophy, poetry, and art – is dead, let us make a fresh start. Let us try our vast possibilities, let us create a new world and become the rulers of this world” (MS ). MS -; see, for instance: Heidegger : . To be sure, image and rite also played important roles in this transformation, and important analyses remain to be given of their roles in relation to language, not only in German culture but in Western and non-Western cultures more broadly.

 

The Status of Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture Samantha Matherne

I Introduction In The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (//), Cassirer undertakes the task of presenting a systematic analysis of the various domains, or what he calls the “symbolic forms,” of human culture. He devotes the first volume to an analysis of the symbolic form of language, the second to myth and religion, and the third to mathematics and mathematical natural science. However, in addition to these symbolic forms, across all three volumes as well as in his other writings on culture, such as An Essay on Man (), Cassirer lists art as another foundational symbolic form. In this chapter, I am interested in the place the symbolic form of art occupies within Cassirer’s larger system of culture. What I want to explore, in particular, is what seems to be an ambiguity surrounding the status of art within his system. On the one hand, Cassirer appears committed to there being a teleological relationship among the symbolic forms, such that human culture progresses from more “primitive” forms, such as myth and religion, toward more “advanced” forms, such as mathematics and mathematical natural science. From this perspective, it would seem that art belongs somewhere between the more primitive and more advanced forms, as a stage along the way toward the latter. On the other hand, Cassirer sometimes speaks of art and natural science in more egalitarian terms, suggesting that they provide “two views of truth” that “are in contrast with one another, but not in conflict or contradiction,” and that they “move in entirely different planes” (EM ). However, if they move in entirely different planes, it becomes less clear how one could represent an advance over the other; they seem to simply be doing something different. So does Cassirer view art as a way station in culture’s progress toward mathematics and natural science? Or does he recognize in art 

I return to debates about his teleological commitments below.



Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



something that contributes to the advance of culture in a way that is, in some sense, incomparable to natural science? In order to clarify Cassirer’s position regarding the place of art in his system of culture, I argue that we need to reassess Cassirer’s teleological commitments. To this end, I argue that Cassirer recognizes at least two teleological orders in culture: the order pertaining to the advance of conceptual knowledge and another order that advances according to intuitive insight. I contend that this more “liberal” conception of Cassirer’s teleology of culture helps us make sense of how Cassirer can at once be committed to the possibility of the teleological progress of culture, while at the same time making room for both art and mathematical natural science to advance culture in irreplaceable ways. In order to make my case, I begin in Section II by presenting Cassirer’s basic framework for the system of culture, which includes a discussion of his teleological commitments. In Section III, I offer a general sketch of Cassirer’s account of the symbolic form of art. Then in Section IV, I address the role of art in his system of culture and I put forth my teleologically liberal interpretation of Cassirer’s conception of cultural progress.

II Cassirer’s System of Culture My goal in this section is to provide a sketch of the basic framework Cassirer develops for analyzing the system of culture. I focus, in particular, on two aspects of Cassirer’s systematic analysis. First, I consider Cassirer’s account of how the “subjective” and “objective” dimensions of culture relate to one another. Second, I analyze Cassirer’s discussion of the systematic relations among the symbolic forms. a The Subjective–Objective System of Culture Cassirer’s commitment to the systematic interconnection between the “subjective” and “objective” aspects of culture emerges most clearly in the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Following his Marburg mentor, Paul Natorp, Cassirer argues that in order to understand  

I shall leave it open whether Cassirer’s treatment of morality, law, or the state (LM ; PSF II: xiv; WY ) might point to other teleological orderings, perhaps of an intersubjectively oriented variety. Cassirer lays out this twofold approach to culture in PSF III: Part I, Ch. , “Subjective and Objective Analysis.”



 

culture as a whole, we must attend as much to our consciousness of the cultural world as to the cultural world itself. Given this commitment, Cassirer maintains that we should, on the one hand, adopt a subjective perspective that examines the structures of consciousness involved in our experience of the cultural world and the cultural objects around us. On the other hand, Cassirer claims that we should adopt an objective perspective in order to consider how those symbolic forms manifest in the cultural world around us, e.g., in the languages we use, works of art we create, mathematical theories we develop, etc. Cassirer, in turn, develops his account of the subjective and objective aspects of culture by examining how they manifest in a generic and specific way. In the former vein, he claims that human consciousness in general is characterized by what he calls the “function of representation” [Repräsentation] (PSF I: ). Cassirer’s basic thought is that it is of the nature of human consciousness to experience everything as in some way representing or “referring” to something beyond itself (PSF I: ). A bit more precisely, Cassirer argues that we experience every particular thing as standing in referential relations not just to other things but also to a broader system of meaning to which all of those things belong. Further, in his view, we experience each particular thing we encounter as, in some sense, representing this broader totality. For example, in a Cassirer-style analysis, when I read Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro, I am conscious of it not as something that exists in isolation; I experience it as standing in relation to, say, other novels in the tradition of early twentieth-century Japanese literature. My consciousness of Kokoro is accordingly structured by my grasp of it as pointing in some sense beyond itself to this broader tradition in which it gains the meaning that it does. For Cassirer, then, human 





In pursuing this twofold approach to culture, Cassirer is following Natorp who argues that we should use both an objective or “constructive” method and a subjective or “reconstructive” method in analyzing culture (see, e.g., PSF III: –). However, he also has in mind Plato’s method in the Republic, arguing that the objective perspective can project the subjective perspective on a larger scale and so help us decipher it: “Human nature, according to Plato, is like a difficult text, the meaning of which has to be deciphered by philosophy. But in our personal experience this text is written in such small characters that it becomes illegible. The first labor of philosophy must be to enlarge these characters . . . The nature of man is written in the capital letters in the nature of the state” (EM ). Although I cannot consider the details here, Cassirer takes the subjective and objective perspectives to be related because, as a Kantian, he is committed to “critical idealism,” a view according to which objects conform to the structures of consciousness. This generic function of representation [Repräsentation] should be distinguished from what Cassirer elsewhere labels the “function of presentation” [Darstellungsfunktion]. The temptation to confuse the two is encouraged by Manheim’s translation of Darstellungsfunktion as “function of representation”; however, the latter is a specific function that characterizes one particular way of being conscious, whereas the former pertains to all consciousness as such.

Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



consciousness in general is characterized by this tendency to experience whatever we come across as pointing beyond itself in these ways. However, in addition to the generic analysis of consciousness, Cassirer argues that there are specific ways in which human consciousness manifests itself. To this end, he distinguishes between three specific functions of consciousness, each of which allows a distinctive pattern of meaning to emerge in our experience. He labels the first function, the “expressive function” [Ausdrucksfunktion] and he claims that this function allows us to experience sensuous phenomena as having “physiognomic” meaning, i.e., as manifesting some sort of emotional or personal characteristic (EM –; PSF III: ). The second function he highlights is what he calls the “presentation function” [Darstellungsfunktion] and he maintains that it is responsible for our experience of the world in “objective” terms, i.e., as populated by objects that are independent from particular subjects (PSF III: ). Finally, he argues that the third function, the “pure significative function,” [reiner Bedeutungsfunktion] enables us to grasp phenomena in terms of “pure relations,” i.e., in terms of ideal patterns of meaning, e.g., laws and principles, which we do not derive from the sensuous world (PSF III: ). Cassirer then couples this subjective analysis of the generic and specific structures of consciousness with an objective analysis of the ways in which the cultural world manifests those structures on a large scale. At the generic level, he claims that there is a generic cultural world that corresponds to the general function of consciousness, a world he calls the “symbolic universe” in An Essay on Man and the “common world” in “Critical Idealism as Philosophy of Culture” (EM , –; SMC –, ). He describes this general world in An Essay on Man as follows: No longer in a merely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe. Language, myth, art, and religion are parts of this universe. They are the varied threads which weave the symbolic net, the tangled web of human experience. (EM )

For Cassirer, then, the symbolic universe is one that serves as the ultimate system of meaning and reference in which every cultural object, whether artistic, linguistic, or mathematical, is situated. At the specific level, Cassirer maintains that there are specific symbolic forms that correspond to specific functions of consciousness. He aligns myth and religion with the expressive function as symbolic forms that organize the world and our experience in more affective and personal terms. He connects language to the presentation function, as something



 

that orients us toward objects and objective structures. Meanwhile, as I shall discuss below, Cassirer maintains that art draws on both the expressive and presentation functions, seeking at once to express what we experience and present something objective. Finally, he claims that mathematics and natural science correspond to the pure significative function, as symbolic forms that order things in terms of ideal relations. From Cassirer’s perspective, then, the subjective and objective dimensions of culture form a kind of system, according to which the cultural world is the objective correlate of the general function of consciousness, and the various symbolic forms are the objective correlates of the specific functions of consciousness. b The System of Symbolic Forms In addition to teasing out the systematic correlations between the subjective and objective dimensions of culture, Cassirer offers an account of the systematic relations among the symbolic forms. Cassirer’s analysis of the system of symbolic forms turns on two fundamental theses, which I shall call the “irreducibility thesis” and the “teleology thesis.” The irreducibility thesis is the thesis that each symbolic form is unique, autonomous, and cannot be reduced to any other symbolic form. Cassirer makes this point in the first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: “None of these forms can simply be reduced to, or derived from, the others; each of them designates a particular approach in which and through which it constitutes its own aspect of ‘reality’” (PSF I: ). Indeed, he sees it as one of the main tasks of his philosophy of culture to elucidate the unique principles and structures that shape each symbolic form. Yet, although the symbolic forms cannot be reduced to one another, Cassirer also defends the teleology thesis, according to which there is a teleological progression among the symbolic forms. Following Kant and Hegel (at least on his reading of their work), Cassirer argues that this progress should be understood as the “progress of consciousness of freedom” (SMC: ). Consciousness of freedom thus serves as the telos that Cassirer takes culture to be oriented around, and he maintains that we can see progress toward this goal in the development of culture:  

I discuss the debates about Cassirer’s teleological conception of culture below. See Truwant –, for a discussion of the role self-liberation and self-understanding play in Cassirer’s teleology of culture.

Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



Human culture taken as a whole may be described as the progress of man’s progressive self-liberation. Language, art, religion, science, are various phases in this process. In all of them man discovers and proves a new power – the power to build up a world of his own, an “ideal” world. (EM )

While Cassirer holds that every symbolic form manifests this freedom, he does not think that they all do so equally. Rather, he distinguishes between more “primitive” forms of culture, which involve less freedom, and more “advanced” forms, which involve higher degrees of freedom. Cassirer develops this position at length in the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Following Hegel, he claims that there is a “ladder” of culture, a ladder on which mathematics and natural science serve as the “relative end” that culture has reached, with myth on the lowest rung and with religion and language in the middle (PSF III: xiv, xv). One of his goals in this volume is to offer a “phenomenology of cognition” [Erkenntnis] that traces the development of culture up this ladder. As Cassirer makes clear, the notion of “phenomenology” he uses in this context is not that of Brentano and Husserl, but rather that of Hegel: For Hegel, phenomenology became the basis of all philosophical knowledge, since he insisted that philosophical knowledge must encompass the totality of cultural forms and since in his view this totality can be made visible only in the transitions from one to the other. The truth is the whole – yet this whole cannot be presented all at once but must be unfolded progressively by thought in its own autonomous movement and rhythm. (PSF III: xiv)

Since Cassirer identifies freedom as the end of culture, his analysis of the progressive unfolding of culture turns on an account of how the various symbolic forms manifest freedom. From the perspective of freedom, he claims that myth belongs on the lower rung of the cultural ladder because it encourages the subject to conceive of herself in passive terms, as subject to mythical forces outside her control (PSF II: ). Even in religion, Cassirer suggests that there is a tendency to think of deities as the source of the principles and laws that we are subject to (EM ; MS –). By contrast, in mathematics and natural science, Cassirer argues that we come to recognize that the ideal relations, principles, and laws that govern the world are “created by thought” and produced “in full freedom, in pure spontaneous activity” (PSF III: ). Moreover, he claims that these 

Cassirer also discusses Hegel’s ladder metaphor in PSF II: xv–xvi, claiming that with his analysis of myth in the second volume he intends to “set this ladder a step lower” (xvi).



 

symbolic forms have historically developed in a way that allows us to be conscious of our spontaneity as the source of these ideal relations. While these teleological commitments are broadly Hegelian in character, Cassirer makes it clear that he does not understand spiritual progress in strictly Hegelian terms. On Cassirer’s interpretation, Hegel thinks that the development of culture involves “nothing but the different and necessary stages of the self-development of the absolute mind” and that it is possible “to give a logical deduction of all [culture’s] single steps and a metaphysical description of the universal plan according to which they evolve from the absolute nature and substance of mind” (SMC ). Cassirer objects to this view on several counts. First, he claims that the development of culture is not necessary, but rather contingent and, as such, is not something for which we could antecedently know the universal plan. In chapter  (“Geist” and “Life”) of the manuscript ‘On the Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms’ () in the so-called fourth volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer holds that this process [of culture] does not follow a single, predefined course leading from a specific beginning to an equally fixed end, which has been determined in advance. Thought does not flow here in a finished riverbed which has been made for it; rather, it must find its own way – it must first dig its own bed for itself. (PSF IV: )

Second, Cassirer argues that Hegel endorses a reductivist account of culture, which makes all symbolic forms as ultimately subservient to and subsumable by “logic”: In [Hegel’s] Phenomenology of Spirit . . . he intended merely to prepare the ground for logic. All the diverse forms of the spirit . . . seem to culminate in a supreme logical summit – and it is only in this end point that they attain to their perfect “truth” and essence . . . Of all cultural forms, only that of logic, the concept, cognition, seems to enjoy a true and authentic autonomy. (PSF I: )

In so doing, Cassirer claims that Hegel ultimately “reduces [culture’s] whole content . . . to a single dimension” of logic and so fails to acknowledge what is unique and autonomous about the other symbolic forms. In short, Cassirer thinks Hegel fails to respect the irreducibility thesis.



To be clear, Cassirer does not think that it is the spontaneity of any particular mind that is responsible for these ideal relations; rather, he is thinking of the spontaneity of “spirit” (Geist) in the sense of our collective human endeavors (PSF III: ).

Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



Third, Cassirer resists Hegel’s account of Aufhebung, according to which the lower symbolic forms would be sublated into the higher forms. In Cassirer’s view, regardless of how far culture develops, there is no end of myth or end of art; rather, all the symbolic forms remain present in varying degrees. Indeed, by Cassirer’s lights, in order to make sense of the rise of fascism during World War II, we must recognize that the great master works of human culture . . . are not eternal nor unassailable. Our science, our poetry, our art, and our religion are only the upper layer of a much older stratum that reaches down to a great depth. We must always be prepared for violent concussions that may shake our cultural world and our social order to its very foundations. (MS )

In his view, then, myth, along with all the other symbolic forms, can never be sublated, but rather persists as part of what gives our human world its text. These criticisms aside, Cassirer nevertheless appears to follow Hegel in attributing a teleological order to the symbolic forms, situating them on the ladder of culture with myth on the bottom and mathematical natural science on top. With this framework for Cassirer’s system of culture in place, I now want to turn to his account of the symbolic form of art and consider where it fits within this broader system.

III The Symbolic Form of Art Although Cassirer initially intended to dedicate a self-standing volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms to art, this plan never came to fruition. To be sure, he mentions art throughout his writings on culture in the s; however, it is not until chapter  of An Essay on Man that he offers an extended account of art. Given the almost two-decade gap between The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms and An Essay on Man, some reconstruction is needed to fit art into his earlier system of culture. My aim in the next two sections is thus to provide a reconstructive analysis of art’s place in his system of human culture. To this end, I shall consider art from the two systematic perspectives I developed in Section II, namely from the 



In a letter to Paul Schilpp, Cassirer writes, “I would give here for the first time a thorough presentation of my theory of aesthetics. Already in the first sketch of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms a particular volume on art was considered but the disfavor of the times postponed its working out again and again” (quoted in SMC ). For other interpretations of Cassirer’s account of art as a symbolic form, see Bayer , and Pollok . See also the lectures on art he delivered in the s, “Language and Art” I and II (), and “The Educational Value of Art” (), which are all included in SMC.



 

subjective-objective perspective (Section III) and the perspective of the system of symbolic forms (Section IV). Beginning with the question of where art fits in the subjective-objective system of culture, Cassirer traces art back to a combination of the expressive and presentation functions. As he makes this point in “The Problem of the Symbol and Its Place in the System of Philosophy,” art is located “between the world of pure expression and the world of pure presentation” (WY ). He claims that art belongs to the “world of expression” because it seeks to express something “subjective” or some aspect of “lived experience” (WY ). For this reason, he takes art to share something with myth and religion. However, Cassirer insists that art also belongs to the “world of presentation,” as a symbolic form that strives to present something objective. In this regard, Cassirer claims that art is like language: In this basic [presentation] function, language does not stand alone. . . . The attainment of objectivity takes place not only by means of the power to give names, but through the formation of images as well. This is the second, highly productive root of every type of objective view. We always gain access to the depiction of the world through the gateway of “presentation”. . . The process of objectification, of “making present” that we met before in language, is found in a kind of new dimension in the different fine arts. (PSF IV: , tr. modified)

In order to explain how art at once expresses something subjective and presents something objective, Cassirer argues that art ultimately seeks to express and present, what he calls, “forms of intuition” or “intuitive forms” (EM –, , ). By an “intuitive form,” Cassirer has in mind the spatial and/or temporal structures of external things or emotions. He takes intuitive forms to be something “subjective,” hence something we can express, because they reflect our lived experience of external things and emotions. That is to say, the intuitive form of something pertains to how we experience it as appearing in space and time. The intuitive form of a tree, for example, is a matter of how that tree spatially and temporally manifests in our experience of it. However, Cassirer also insists that intuitive forms are “objective,” hence capable of presentation, because they are part of the “formal structure” of reality (EM ). The intuitive form of an external thing or an emotion is thus a spatiotemporal structure that is there to be “discovered” (EM ). Insofar as these intuitive forms are objective, Cassirer indicates that, in principle, we can all experience them. For this reason, he sometimes describes intuitive forms in terms of their “universality”:

Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



The realm of plastic, musical, poetical forms . . . have a real universality . . .. Aesthetic universality means that the predicate of beauty is not restricted to a special individual but extends over the whole field of judging subjects. If the work of art were nothing but the freak and frenzy of an individual artist it would not possess this universal communicability. The imagination of the artist does not arbitrarily invent the forms of things. It shows these forms in their true shape, making them visible and recognizable. (EM )

So, in Cassirer’s view, although an intuitive form is indexed to lived experience, it is not indexed to a purely private lived experience; it is indexed, instead, to a lived experience we can share in common, namely a lived experience of an objective spatiotemporal structure. The intuitive form of the tree, for example, pertains to how it shows up not just for me but for us. And it is because intuitive forms are at once something “subjective” and “objective” that Cassirer identifies them as what art at once expresses and presents. In insisting on art’s affiliation with both the expressive and presentation functions, Cassirer resists two dominant trends in aesthetics, namely the trend toward traditional expressivist and mimetic theories. Beginning with the former, although Cassirer does not deny that art involves expression, he denies that art is exclusively expression. Cassirer labels this latter sort of theory a “sentimentalist” theory of art and he attributes it to Croce and Collingwood (EM ). According to Cassirer, the problem with sentimentalism is that not all expressive acts are artistic acts. In his words, “the mere fact of expression cannot be regarded as an artistic fact” (SMC ). Developing this point in a bit more detail, he asserts that the lyric poet is not just a man who indulges in displays of feeling. To be swayed by emotion alone is sentimentality, not art. An artist who is absorbed not in the contemplation and creation of forms but rather in his own pleasure or in his enjoyment of “the joy of grief” becomes a sentimentalist. (EM )

Suppose I, for example, express my gratitude for your friendship in a gushing speech. In Cassirer’s analysis, this is mere expression, not art. In order for an act of expression to be artistic, Cassirer claims that it must involve an element of presentation. And, in virtue of this presentational component, he argues that artistic expression is distinct from mundane acts of expression in the following two ways. To begin, artistic expression requires a “contemplative” attitude toward what is expressed. Artists must gain some reflective distance from intuitive forms in order to



 

grasp the objective structures they involve. For example, Cassirer says that from a contemplative perspective, our emotional life . . . changes its form. For here we no longer live in the immediate reality of things but in a world of pure sensuous forms. In this world all our feelings undergo a sort of transubstantiation with respect to their essence and their character. The passions themselves are relieved of their material burden. We feel their form and their life but not their encumbrance. (EM )

Moreover, Cassirer argues that artistic expression requires creativity. We must figure out how to produce something in a particular artistic medium that makes those intuitive forms present beyond “the sphere of [the artist’s] inner personal life, in his imagination, or dreams, in his emotions or passions . . . [The artist] creates a new sphere – the sphere of plastic, architectural, musical forms, of shapes and designs, of melodies and rhythms” (SMC ). So rather than gushing speeches, according to Cassirer artistic expression requires creating something in an artistic medium that makes the intuitive form, whether of an emotion or of something external that we have contemplated, present in a way that is publicly accessible. In addition to rejecting sentimentalism, Cassirer rejects traditional mimetic theories of art. Once again, Cassirer does not reject the idea that art presents to us objective structures. To the contrary, he argues that the artist has an “awareness” of objective intuitive forms and that she “shows us these forms in their true shape, making them visible and recognizable” (EM ). He furthermore thinks that art’s revelatory capacity is something from which nonartists benefit: The awareness of pure forms of things is by no means an instinctive gift. We may have met with an object of our ordinary sense experience a thousand times without ever having “seen” its form. We are still at a loss if asked to describe not its physical qualities or effects but its pure visual shape and structure. It is art that fills in this gap. Here we live in the realm of pure forms rather than in that of the analysis and scrutiny of sense objects or the study of their effects. (EM )

Nevertheless, Cassirer denies that art is imitative: “Art is not the mere reproduction of a ready-made, given reality. It is one of the ways leading to an objective view of things and of human life. It is not an imitation but a discovery of reality” (EM ). He takes this to be the case because, as we saw above, he thinks that art includes a crucial creative moment. The artist then does not just hold a mirror up to intuitive forms; rather, she creates artistic forms, musical, painterly, poetic, etc., that present those intuitive

Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



forms anew. It is this creative moment that, according to Cassirer, distinguishes the artist from a mere imitator. In order to bring together these strands in Cassirer’s analysis of art, I want to consider a couple of examples. Let’s begin with the case of an artwork that presents the intuitive forms of an external object, as here the temptation toward a mimetic theory is perhaps strongest. Cassirer offers us the case of a landscape painter, such as Emily Carr. In his view, although both the artist and nonartist alike can see the landscape, a painter like Carr regards the landscape with a contemplative mode of sight that enables her to see “the individual and momentary physiognomy of the landscape . . ., the atmosphere of things, the play of light and shadow, [which] is not ‘the same’ in early twilight, in midday heat, or on a rainy or sunny day” (EM ). Having become attuned to this intuitive form, Carr can then create something in a painterly medium, e.g., her “Landscape with Tree” (–), which at once expresses and presents that intuitive form through a blue–green-dominant color palette, sparse use of outlines, the placement of the tree in the upper-left quadrant of the canvas. Far from Carr simply imitating what is given, on Cassirer’s analysis, she brings the intuitive form of the landscape into focus through a contemplative mode of vision and then creates a painterly form that presents that intuitive form to us. Meanwhile, as an example of art that presents the intuitive form of an emotion, let’s consider Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese. Whereas a sentimentalist would argue that Oliver must herself be feeling the emotion of acceptance (among others) expressed in the poem, in Cassirer’s view this need not be the case. What Oliver needs to do is to contemplate the intuitive form of acceptance, and having contemplated it she needs to find creative poetic means that at once express and present this structure, e.g., the mode of direct address; the contrasting images of someone walking on their knees through the desert and geese flying home in the blue sky, etc. From Cassirer’s perspective, this creative presentation expresses the intuitive form of acceptance and allows it to be “seen” by its readers (EM ). Taking stock, according to Cassirer, art is neither mere expression nor mere imitation. Rather, relying on his subjective-objective framework for culture, he treats art, from a subjective perspective, as a symbolic form that is rooted in a combination of the expressive and presentation functions of consciousness. And, from the objective perspective, he claims that art realizes this combination on a large scale, by finding creative means through which it can at once express and present intuitive forms of external objects and emotions.



 

IV Art’s Relation to the Other Symbolic Forms Having established the presentational-orientation of art, I now want to consider the relationship between art and Cassirer’s system of symbolic forms. Let’s begin with the irreducibility thesis. In Cassirer’s view, insofar as art has its roots in a combination of the expressive and presentation functions, it will be set apart from other symbolic forms, such as myth, religion, mathematics, and natural science. Given that art does not manifest the purely significative function at all, Cassirer distinguishes it from mathematics and natural science. And although art does share the expressive function with myth and religion, and the presentation function with language, Cassirer argues that no other symbolic form synthesizes expression and presentation in the way that art does. When it comes to the irreducibility question, Cassirer particularly emphasizes the idea that art cannot be reduced to language. His motives for doing so stem, in part, from his effort to critique Croce, who reduces both art and language to expression (EM , SMC –). However, Cassirer is also motivated to explore the differences between art and language because he thinks it reveals two fundamentally different but crucial orientations within the framework of presentation. Attending to these two different orientations will thus help further clarify the sense in which art is an irreducible symbolic form. According to Cassirer, language is a conceptually oriented symbolic form. In a Kantian vein, Cassirer regards concepts as “general” representations of things, which is why he glosses the conceptual orientation of language in terms of an orientation toward what is “general” and “abstract” (SMC –). For this reason, he claims that language ultimately engages in a “process of abstraction,” as we seek out words and sentences that conceptually “abbreviate” things (EM ). By contrast, Cassirer claims that art has an intuitive orientation. Again in a Kantian spirit, Cassirer understands intuitions as “singular” and “immediate” representations, i.e., representations of particulars that are directly given to us (CPR A/B). In its intuitive orientation, Cassirer claims that art is thus trained on the “concrete” and “immediate appearance” of intuitive forms, and aims to present those intuitive forms in all their “richness and variety” (EM , ). In this vein, Cassirer claims that art engages in the “process of concretion” and offers us an “intensification” rather than an “abbreviation” of reality (EM ). So, according to Cassirer, language is conceptually oriented toward general and abstract presentations, whereas art is intuitively oriented toward concrete and intense presentations.

Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



What is more, Cassirer argues that in virtue of its intuitive orientation, art plays a role in presentation that language cannot play. Indeed, voicing the limits of language, Cassirer states that Language gives us the first entrance into the world of concepts. But concepts are not the only approach to reality. We have not only to understand reality by subsuming it under general class concepts and general rules, we wish to intuit it in its concrete and individual shape. Such a concrete intuition cannot be reached by language alone. (SMC )

From Cassirer’s perspective, art is thus needed to balance language because the further we progress in our conceptual and general articulations of what we experience, the more we lose contact with what is concrete and immediate. It is through art, then, and not language that Cassirer claims our “immediate intuitive approach to reality is to be preserved and to be regained” (SMC ). In this way, Cassirer characterizes art as having a unique role to play in presenting intuitive forms in a concrete fashion. And this achievement, Cassirer claims, cannot be accomplished by language. But what of art’s place in Cassirer’s teleological ordering of the symbolic forms? If we begin with art’s relation to the more “primitive” symbolic forms, Cassirer appears to retain his commitment to the progressive story mentioned above, for he suggests that art is a more advanced symbolic form than myth. At the end of the second volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, for example, he claims that whereas in myth we tend to experience images and intuitive forms more generally as something that act upon us, in art we achieve “a new freedom of consciousness: the image no longer reacts upon the spirit as an independent material thing but becomes for the spirit a pure expression of its own creative power” (PSF II: ). Art thus represents a new stage of freedom beyond myth because we come to recognize that “images” are something we produce through our creative activity. Matters become more complicated when we consider the relationship between art and the allegedly higher forms of mathematics and natural science. As we saw in Section II, Cassirer argues that mathematics and natural science represent the “relative end” of human culture, the highest rungs on the ladder. This being the case, it would seem that art, like the other less advanced symbolic forms, should be situated lower on the ladder of culture than mathematics and natural science. 

See PSF IV: ; and EM : “Science is the last step in man’s mental development and [. . .] may be regarded as the highest and most characteristic attainment of human culture.”



 

However, when Cassirer discusses the relationship between art and science in An Essay on Man, he appears to describe these symbolic forms in more equitable terms. Indeed, at the end of the chapter on art, Cassirer claims that art and science each have a distinctive role to play: Whereas art gives us intuitive insight into the “immediate appearances” of things, science gives us conceptual insight into “first causes . . . general laws and principles” (EM ). Yet even though art is oriented toward the intuitive and science toward the conceptual, Cassirer claims that they involve two noncompeting “views of truth”: The two views of truth are in contrast with one another, but not in conflict or contradiction. Since art and science move in entirely different planes they cannot contradict or thwart one another. The conceptual interpretation of science does not preclude the intuitive interpretation of art. Each has its own perspective and, so to speak, its own angle of refraction. (EM )

Indeed, Cassirer goes on to suggest that art, in fact, discloses the intuitive world to us in a way that science cannot: In ordinary experience we connect phenomena according to the category of causality . . . [W]e are interested in the theoretical reasons . . . of things, we think of them as causes . . . Thus we habitually lose sight of their immediate appearance until we can no longer see them face to face. Art, on the other hand, teaches us to visualize, not merely to conceptualize . . . things. Art gives us a richer, more vivid and colorful image of reality, and a more profound insight into its formal structure. (EM )

It is art alone that gives us this “more profound insight” into the intuitive form of reality, an insight that does not seem to be superseded by the conceptual insight we have through science but rather is a much needed complement to it. Hence Cassirer’s conclusion that “it is characteristic of the nature of man that he is not limited to one specific and single approach to reality but can choose his point of view and so pass from one aspect of things to another” (EM ). Instead of there being some sort of hierarchical ordering between art and science, Cassirer’s line of thought suggests that he regards art and science as symbolic forms that give us two different perspectives on reality, perspectives we are not just free to move between but that are both needed to disclose the full conceptual and intuitive depth of reality. We thus appear to have two competing conceptions of the status of art within Cassirer’s system of culture. On the one hand, he seems committed to a hierarchical ordering of culture, according to which art is less advanced than mathematics and natural science. On the other hand, he defends

Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



a more egalitarian approach to the relationship between art and science, as two forms that provide us with different but equally valuable truths. So how are we to reconcile this tension? There are at least three possible approaches one could pursue here, which I shall call the “ateleological,” “narrow teleological,” and “liberal teleological” approaches, respectively. According to the ateleological approach, Cassirer’s considered view is that there is no teleological ordering among the forms. Indeed, Cassirer’s language in An Essay on Man can be read as pointing in this direction: Language, art, religion, science . . . tend in different directions and obey different principles. But this multiplicity and disparateness does not denote discord or disharmony. All these functions complete and complement one another. Each one opens a new horizon and shows us a new aspect of humanity. The dissonant is in harmony with itself; the contraries are not mutually exclusive, but interdependent: “harmony in contrariety, as in the case of the boy and the lyre.” (EM )

However, the problem with this interpretation is that it conflicts with Cassirer’s account of the phenomenology of culture in the s. And the suggestion that perhaps Cassirer’s view in the s advances beyond the s view is problematic as well because, as we have seen, even in An Essay on Man he continues to speak of the relationship between the symbolic forms in “progressive” terms (EM ). Likewise, his analysis of the rise of fascism in The Myth of the State turns on an account of cultural regression, as myth came to a dominant position again in culture. By contrast, per the narrow teleological approach, art is, indeed, subordinate to mathematics and natural science on the ladder of culture. For, according to this approach, Cassirer is indeed committed to the view that mathematics and natural science are the most advanced symbolic forms. Yet this view not only seems to conflict with the textual evidence regarding the equality of art and science adduced from An Essay on Man above, but also one might worry that while mathematics and science may give us insight into general conceptual relations, it seems they are not adequate when it comes to understanding individual intuitive forms. To be sure, science can draw on intuition; however, in Cassirer’s view, science constantly seeks to





For proponents of a more “pluralistic” or “complementarist” view, according to which the symbolic forms all have equal and distinct value and stand in a “centrifugal” or “vertical” relationship to one another, see Krois : –; Lofts : ; Cornell and Panfilio : , ; and Luft a: Pt. II, Ch. ., Ch. .. See Friedman : , –; Gordon : ; Moss : –; and Skidelsky : .



 

subsume those intuitions under concepts and, in so doing, loses contact with the individuality and concreteness of intuitive forms. Given this concern, the third approach I want to consider, and the approach I shall endorse, is what I labeled the “liberal teleological” approach. This approach is “liberal” in the sense that, instead of identifying only a single teleological order within culture, it acknowledges, at least, two teleological orders in Cassirer’s system of culture: one oriented toward concepts and conceptual knowledge, the other toward intuitions and intuitive insight. In support of this view, I want to look at the introduction to the third volume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. As we saw above, Cassirer suggests that he follows Hegel in giving a phenomenology of cognition, and he indicates that when we look at culture from this perspective, there is, indeed, a teleological progression among the forms as they move us toward a better theoretical cognition of the world: As long as we remain within the sphere of pure epistemology and concern ourselves solely with the presuppositions and validity of basic scientific concepts, the world of sensory intuition and perception is defined only with a view to precisely these concepts and is evaluated as a phase preliminary to them. Then sense perception is the germ from which the theoretical structures of science are expected to unfold . . . The structure of what is perceived and intuited is seen from the outset in the light of one aim [einen Zieles]: scientific objectivization, the theoretical concept of the unity of nature. (PSF III: –, emphasis in the original)

However, Cassirer immediately goes on to suggest that our intuitive experience of the world is not just shaped by our desire to achieve theoretical knowledge: As essential as this trend [Richtung] toward the systematization of experience – toward the universal system of natural science – may be for sensory intuition, it is not the only line of signification [Bedeutungsintention] comprised in sensory intuition. For beside the logical forms into which conceptual scientific thinking fits the world of phenomena stand different forms of a different character [Prägung] and meaning [Sinnrichtung]. We find such forms of spiritual vision at work in the concepts of both language and of myth. (PSF III: , emphasis in the original)

As we see here, Cassirer indicates that while our intuition can be shaped by our conceptual aims, there are other “forms of vision,” which need not be shaped by those aims. To the contrary, from a certain vantage point, intuition can be grasped not simply as a means through which we gain conceptual knowledge but as an end in itself, i.e., as something we strive to

Art in Cassirer’s System of Culture



gain insight of for its own sake. And this, it seems, is precisely what art does: It aims at articulating individual and concrete intuitive forms in all their richness and variety. Though much more needs to be said to flesh this picture out, if we allow for there to be a teleological order among the symbolic forms with respect to intuition, then it seems that a good case could be made that art would constitute the highest rung on that ladder. Art, it seems, involves a free relation to intuitive forms that is not shared by other symbolic forms. As we saw above, Cassirer claims that the artistic process involves a moment of contemplation and creativity, and that both are free activities. In contemplation, rather than being passively under the sway of intuitive forms, we actively set them at a distance from ourselves in order to reflect on them. Meanwhile in artistic creativity, the artist manipulates her medium in productive ways that bring works of art into existence. Art thus has a doubly free relation to intuitive forms, in contemplation and creativity. For this reason, it seems that of all the symbolic forms, art has the freest relation to the intuitive realm as an end in itself, and thus warrants a place atop a ladder of culture, namely one that is organized around the advance of our understanding of intuition. In sum, on the liberal teleological approach to Cassirer’s system of culture, there are multiple ways in which the teleology of the symbolic forms can be ordered, according to the development toward conceptual knowledge or toward intuitive insight. Both orders proceed toward a more universal grasp of their objects and both involve self-liberation. So, in Cassirer’s system of culture, it is neither the case that mathematics and natural science are privileged over art nor that art supersedes mathematics and natural science. Instead, both of these forms represent the highest achievements of human culture, revealing to us our autonomous power in giving shape to the conceptual and intuitive structure of the world.





Making this point about the intuition of our self, Cassirer claims that the intuition of himself as a determinate, clearly delimited individual is not the starting point from which man progressively builds his general view of reality: rather this intuition is only the end, it is only the mature fruit, of a creative process in which all the diverse energies of the spirit are at work and acting reciprocally on one another (PSF III: ). Although Cassirer mentions myth in the above passage, he thinks that the “mode of vision” involved in art allows us to achieve a more perspicuous grasp of intuitive forms than myth: whereas myth immerses us in what we intuit, art makes sensuous forms present to us. Put differently, Cassirer holds that art treats intuition as an “end” in itself, not as a means to something else.



 

V Conclusion In this chapter, my aim has been to clarify the position of the symbolic form of art in Cassirer’s system of culture. To this end, I argued that within Cassirer’s subjective-objective framework for culture, art is a symbolic form that is rooted in a combination of the expressive and presentation functions of consciousness. Rather than art being a mere means of expressing emotion or imitation of reality, I showed that Cassirer conceives of art as something that at once expresses and presents intuitive forms of external objects and emotions. Turning then to art’s relation to Cassirer’s system of symbolic forms, I maintained that insofar as art has its roots in a combination of expression and presentation, Cassirer regards it as irreducible to the other symbolic forms. As for Cassirer’s view of the relationship between art and teleology, I made the case that rather than reading Cassirer’s philosophy of culture as either free from teleology or wedded to a single teleology that places mathematics and natural science alone atop the ladder of culture, we have reason to attribute to him a liberal conception of the teleology of culture, according to which culture can advance as much with respect to conceptual knowledge as to intuitive insight. And in the end, I argued that when it comes to intuitive insight, Cassirer regards art as the highest symbolic form, uniquely capable of showing us the richness and variety of the intuitive world, without and within, that we share.

 

Being in Time History As an Expression and Interpretation of Human Culture Anne Pollok

I

Introduction

This chapter discusses the role of history, seen as historicity (our historical being, and the temporal marker on all human creations and values), historical awareness (our consciousness of our historical situatedness), and historiography (the critical reconstruction of historical events in a narrative) in Cassirer’s philosophy. His philosophy of symbolic forms reflects on all of these aspects in that it employs a critical, historically sensitive reconstruction of the various forms of objectification of human spirit across time. This way it offers the kind of “philosophical anthropology” that the later Cassirer wanted to put at the heart of his endeavors for an encompassing view on the works of humanity. In contrast to the “objectively teleological” approaches to history offered by Leibniz or Hegel, Cassirer, on the one hand, does not assume an inherent teleology that is merely reflected in culture but interprets history as a dynamic and progressive movement of the self-liberation of spirit that must be expressed and manifested by cultural means. In other words: if 

Hegel could also be read in the way that spirit works itself toward clarity by being embodied in culture. The difference, I think, is still in the choice of the subject of change: For Hegel, it is objective spirit, for Cassirer, these are the agents in time. Cassirer is much closer to Enlightenment thinkers such as Mendelssohn (without their reliance on metaphysics) than to radical Idealism. In his notes, Cassirer argues that Hegel puts psychological and historical material “completely onto the same level” and thus, for Hegel, the form of historical becoming is the fulfillment and the perfect paradigm of a logical form. Historical being does not emerge like the mere natural being of organic life in harmless and struggle-less emergence [harm- und kampfloses Hervorgehen], but through the hard and unwilling work of spirit against itself. [. . .] Any true historical change contains a moment of death and of life, respectively, in that life comes out of death, death out of life.” (ECW : ) Cassirer prefers Ranke’s and von Humboldt’s philosophy of history that “shows what happened” rather than fabricates a teleological unfolding of events according to “higher principles” (ECW : –, my translation). Bast  offers a thorough account on Cassirer’s deviation from Hegel.





 

there is a direction in history, this direction cannot be found but must be created both by those in the respective historical situation and the historians tasked to understand said situation: Historical awareness becomes a constructive force in history. For this, the historian must actively engage with our cultural past as a means to elucidate our current standing and inform our future development. Contrary to Heidegger, on the other hand, Cassirer sees this process of self-liberation not as an existential struggle but assumes – much more in the spirit of Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophy – that a proper relation to our history, namely by a more thorough knowledge of its role as a condition of the unfolding and development of symbolic forms, offers a valid answer to the demands of the present. Cassirer engages in historiography as a creative reconstruction in his accounts of the history of science (e.g., Problem of Knowledge in Modern Philosophy and Science,  passim); he develops a philosophical-historical method for such explanations in Form and Function () and the introductions to Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (–); and he finally applies this in his mature account of a philosophy of culture (e.g., The Philosophy of the Enlightenment [], The Logic of the Cultural Sciences [], and An Essay on Man []). This chapter will show that, in all these areas, Cassirer’s own approach pays justice to his fundamental assumption that writing history is a two-sided process that requires the careful but imaginative historian on the one side, and, on the other, the agents in history who direct, in one way or another, their actions toward the future. In this view, the reconstruction of past intentions, plans, and acts elucidates the basic communal and intersubjective structure of symbol formation, thus transcending the limits of the historian’s time. Historians elucidate the complex system of human symbolic formation in culture. To argue for this, I will first discuss whether “history” can be a symbolic form – an idea Cassirer seems to play with in An Essay on Man, but that does not bode well with his considerations on the issue that are scattered throughout his other works (Section I). After a subsequent consideration of Cassirer’s historical method (Section II), I will shortly discuss whether Cassirer’s philosophy of history, as one basic mode of human symbol formation, can ever have a truth value (Section III) – and what “truth” for Cassirer here actually means. Lastly (Section IV), I aim to show how Cassirer’s reflections on history parallel those on art, in that both symbolic forms involve a particular interrelation between what Cassirer calls the 

See on Cassirer’s and Heidegger’s respective replies to the particular demands of their time in  Germany, Krois : .

Being in Time



three Urphänomene (the Basic Phenomena of I, Thou, and Work). In both forms, the “I” constitutes itself in relation to a “Thou” in a “Work” that addresses the other. The “Work” – the artwork and the historical remnant, respectively – thus requires an act of formation as well as an act of interpretation that, if successful, serves as a bridge between “I” and “Thou”. I will argue that the intricate, dynamic relation among these Basic Phenomena is the key to understanding the place of historiography and history, but also of historicity (as a precondition of a reflection on our use of symbolic forms) in Cassirer’s overall philosophy. In my approach to Cassirer’s theory of history, I shall concentrate both on Cassirer’s published works with his explicit imprimatur and – since these are rarely explicitly referenced in secondary literature, yet full of surprises and precision – on his notes, which Cassirer used as extensive Steinbru¨che for his published works. Most importantly for our interest are the notes on history concentrated in the third volume of Cassirer’s Nachlass (ECN ) with which Cassirer furnished his argumentation in the third book of the fourth volume of the Erkenntnisproblem, as well as the notes on philosophical anthropology in the sixth volume (which are nearly all closely related to the Davos debate with Heidegger and showcase Cassirer’s conception of “life”). I will also use notes and works that primarily deal with art and literature, in particular with Goethe’s Faust; a tragedy that Cassirer himself highly regarded and continually returned to 





This view is compatible, albeit with a different stress, with Bast  and Kopp-Oberstebrink : , but it stands in contrast to Enno Rudolph’s view on history as discussed in Barash ; a view that might remind one of Schiller’s Aesthetic Education, according to which art offers the idealized realm of freedom to realize this ultimate idea in the imagination – but I do not agree with Rudolph that Cassirer’s idea of history is radically anti-teleological (Rudolph : ). Indeed, Cassirer does not share the Kantian idea of “nature” nicely, forcing us to develop our inbuilt tendency toward a free society, nor does he agree with Hegel’s idea of absolute reason. Still, to call the unfolding of signification toward perfect abstraction a mere Freiheitsspielraum seems to be a bit over-, well, underblown (Rudolph : ). However, Rudolph rightly stressed Cassirer’s focus in his consideration of history, which is not the Kantian idea of the purposive development of the species but the critical development of the individual (in this sense, Cassirer takes camp closer to Mendelssohn than Kant; and even closer to Wilhelm von Humboldt). As it is, we cannot be overly certain if Cassirer still approved of the thoughts that we find in his notes but not in his published works. I will hence be careful in my judgments, in particular if they are built primarily on his notes. Overall, however, I agree with Kopp-Oberstebrink (: ) that the notes help to clarify many issues that the published worked left open. It is a long-standing trope to mourn the lack of scholarly reflection on Cassirer’s view on history. (Capeilleres ,  gives a short overview of the situation up to the turn of the century.) However, given the extensive work by John Michael Krois on this issue, and a long-standing tradition at least in the German-speaking reception of Cassirer (see, for instance, Braun/Holzhey/Orth , Recki , but foremost the work by Rainer A. Bast [in particular his Habilitation, published ], and, for the Anglophone world, Barash  and Friedman/Pollok ), this diagnosis is problematic.



 

(see Section IV): Time plays a decisive role in the unfolding and solution of the “tragedy” of a restless genius. Since our perception of art and of history overlaps in significant ways, I felt free – whilst being careful – to use Cassirer’s ideas about the former when information about the latter is lacking or ambiguous.

II Is History a Symbolic Form? References to history (in all its forms) are ubiquitous in Cassirer’s writings. Krois, who put history together with symbolic forms in the very title of one of his works on the issue, writes that Cassirer’s “best-known theoretical work, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, interprets historical life philosophically, while his classic historical studies, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy and The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, portray philosophical ideas as living forces in historical epochs” (Krois : ). Ultimately, we cannot neatly distinguish Cassirer’s work into historical and philosophical studies; they all represent various facets of Cassirer’s normative view of history, pertaining to our historical being and to our reflective awareness of this being. This view is normative in that it aims at an awareness and subsequent realization of human freedom. Our reflection on our historical condition (historical awareness) helps us establish ourselves as free agents, since this freedom does not merely mean independence from external factors, but the ability to deal with these factors by giving them a form that allows us to truly inhabit our world. Since we are historical beings, an awareness of our situatedness constitutes the possibility of “dealing with our history” in a constructive, liberating way. Cassirer never tires of stressing the necessity of symbolization that, in his books, does not keep us away from reality, but is actually the key to having a reality at all. Cassirer puts it best in his notes for “Seminar on Symbolism and Philosophy of Language” (Konvolut , Yale ): “It is by symbolic thought that man alone can approach reality. Symbols are not mere masks that hide and conceal the true face of reality; they are, on the contrary, necessary means for discovering and revealing reality.” (ECN : ) 

Krois : , see also Capeilleres : , ,  – most notably, Capeilleres captures the normative direction of history as “self-knowledge,” but also, as a sort of “grammar,” in which the philosophical historian develops a “set of rules that constitute the backbone of the possibility of a meaning that can be communicated universally.” (, my italics). As we will see, Cassirer’s ideas of selfknowledge and freedom imply the ability to reflect and therewith to communicate self-transparently and unimpededly. Following Recki’s argumentation concerning the normative character of culture (Recki : ), we can argue that history likewise belongs to the fundamental mode of our selfassessment and self-formulation, both of which are normatively structured themselves.

Being in Time



Symbols are representational, not physical or presentational (as a definite psychological act) in nature. Representation “includes and harmonises two modes of time; [meaning] that by a present act we direct ourselves to a remote and absent object. . . . Conditions [of consciousness] of this sort can be shown but they cannot be demonstrated.” (ECN : ) As Cassirer further elaborates, symbols bring a distant and past “object of our recollection” to mind and make it present, as if both time frames could actually coexist with one another. But this “sort of reduplication” is exactly what all symbolics offer, and what is the very condition of their possibility. Accordingly, it is useless to consider symbols as “things,” but look at them from the perspective of “meaning”: Meaning is not a thing, it is a [synthetic] relation . . . It contains two elements one of which cannot be reduced to the other. Our consciousness of time is but a special example of this general fact. To think of two different stages of time that meet each other and that penetrate each other at one and the same moment seems to be just as impossible as the mutual penetration of two material elements in time. (ECN : )

However, in symbols this simultaneity becomes possible and even desirable. As such, “symbolism constitutes the very nature and essence of time” and therewith offers human beings a way of dealing with nature instead of submitting to it. Our historical consciousness allows us to thrive as humans: Out of an organic being he becomes a historical being. . . . In language man wins a system of signs and symbols by which he represents reality and with the help of which he attempts to interpret reality. And one of the most characteristic and most important interpretations of reality is the interpretation achieved by history. (ECN : )

The process of symbolization and the interpretation of symbolic forms allow human beings to reflect on their actions and to give them a new direction. But any of these forms of historiography are more than merely curious collections of facts: Rather, historiography “shows us the way to understand the facts and to penetrate to their reason.” (ECN : ) Cassirer even characterizes symbols as human “weapons” in a “struggle for objective truth. It must be admitted that these weapons are dangerous instruments that human knowledge has constantly to be on its guard against them. But human knowledge is not in a position to avoid this danger.” (ECW : ) Appropriate knowledge of history (and its methods) is one key element of prevention; it fosters the process of “self-liberation” (EM ).



 

History can thus be understood as a fundamental manifestation of humanity’s cultural life, which Cassirer marks as a necessary condition for symbolic forms. Any symbolic form is not a mere collection of symbols but a system of symbolic formation under a unifying principle – for history, this would be the comprehension of human acts in their temporality, and their tendency to fall into some kind of structure that we need to understand in order to partake in it, or consciously alter it for improvement. Our understanding of history as a symbolic form might also be validated by Cassirer’s explicit discussion of history – here mainly taken as historiography but with strong references to its foundation in our historical awareness – in An Essay on Man, where it appears sandwiched between art and science and is treated as an inevitable part of the “philosophical anthropology” that Cassirer develops in this book. However, the question remains whether history occupies a more special place in the system of symbolic forms. Similar to language, it seems to obtain a far more fundamental value than other forms such as art, myth, or science. In a sense, language and history can even be understood as the fundamental conditions of the possibility of all other symbolic forms, since these could neither manifest nor be cognized without some way of externalizing and formulating their content, or without reference to time and historical consciousness. Perhaps history is both: a precondition of symbolic formation, but also a symbolic form in itself. On the one hand, history as historiography is the activity to investigate into and form a concrete image of the past (the formation includes a transformation into a medium such as a book, a report, or an exhibition). This indeed seems like a fundamental manifestation of human life in a work, a solid indication for a symbolic form. On the other hand, historical consciousness is a true transcendental, as it is the condition of the possibility for having access to our symbolizing capacity in the first place. It is thus a condition of symbolic formation as such, and of our ability to 





Human beings are fundamentally reliant on symbolic expression. Whenever they leave mere mythical thinking, they hence rely on language. All historical sources as the manifestations of human beings expressing themselves are, in turn, in one way or another reliant on language as well, since humans “never can reject or resist the power of symbolism and symbolic thought.” (ECN : ) In An Essay on Man, Cassirer accordingly references historical knowledge as a branch of semantics (EM ). Kulturleistung is a wonderful German synonym for “Werk,” in that it stresses the characteristic dynamics of Energeia, which Cassirer prefers for his concept of work. See also Göller : , who rightly points out that Cassirer excludes natural history in his considerations. For an analysis of the dynamics of “work,” see Capeilleres : –. In a similar vein as Collingwood : –.

Being in Time



act within these forms. Also, this mode of awareness of time is important for our reflection on the respective historical constellations of other symbolic forms toward each other, which Cassirer describes as different stages of self-liberation. The proper development of a philosophical Weltbegriff thus requires our consciousness of historical time as the condition of becoming and our active grasp on it as the means to avoid passive submission to its forces. Understood this way, history is a fundamental condition of the development of symbolic forms. Our attempts at comprehending and managing their interrelations is what can liberate us – not liberating us from symbolic forms but liberating us to use them as appropriate means of self-expression and as the foundation of a shared, symbolic world; a world that is in and of itself historical (whether we are aware of it or not). All human expressions, all forms of human ways of dealing with our world are not only symbolic (and therewith to a certain extend linguistic) but also historical. A reflection on this historical condition – which is the historian’s task – brings about a new perspective of the human world. In implicit allusion to Leibniz, it seems clear to Cassirer that we can only perceive of the present by reflecting on the past at the same time: “For it is the past that contains the conditions of the present – and to understand an event means nothing else than to recognize its conditions, to go back from a single fact to its origin and its causes.” (ECN : ) In this sense, true critique of current conditions has to be historically informed. What the historian sums up in an historical account is never intended as the full story of “all that ever happened”, but a concentration of the pregnant, “memorable things” (ECN : ). To understand what is indeed memorable, however, the historian has to digest even the less important aspects in order to achieve a “bird’s-eye view” of the whole. She also has to be mindful that the historical remnants, the texts, are not just objects but pieces in need to be deciphered. Historiography is thus a selection, a snippet of our actual history – the understanding, and even more so, the conception of said history has to include both an understanding of the details themselves and their fitting into the whole. Since the whole cannot be known without the parts and the parts themselves cannot be understood without at least a hypothesis about the whole (of the then  

Hence the historian needs to be more of a linguist than a “scientist,” see EM . In this way, Cassirer’s view on history fits well into his view of the Enlightenment period, in which he does not stress the forces of reason and mechanics but the “rejection of dogmatism, openness to criticism, change, a plurality of perspectives, novelty, and individuality” (Krois a: ).



 

current culture), the historian has to work both ways in the hermeneutic circle. Accordingly, “a text is not just something given, but a historical ‘task’ – something to be reconstructed by the methods of philology and critique” (ECN : ). This method of understanding the “big picture” by relating details and grand narratives comes with quite some risks: more often than not, historical evidence in the shape of fragmentary notes, reports, or records does not tell us outright what it means, even less why this piece of evidence is “important.” In order to figure this out, the historian must invest at least some basic assumptions about the – themselves historically determined – criteria for importance. As Cassirer argues in Essay on Man, the historian has to take these assumptions from the present, since they do not yet know about the past. To discern whether this can ever yield reliable results, we need to take a closer look at Cassirer’s theory of historical method.

III Historical Method All works and manifestations of culture necessarily emerge from and stand in the flow of time – their coming into being as well as their presence are shaped by their place in time and culture. This becomes apparent in the multidimensionality of cultural objects: They embody “the dimensions of physical being, symbolic representation, and personal expression.” This means that those remnants from the past never present themselves straightforwardly but contain multiple layers that each require a different kind of interpretation. Historians must untangle all of these: They need to learn not only the language, but also the cultural usages, the everyday treatment of things, rituals, meanings; they need to learn how to distinguish between figurative and literal allusions; and they even need to learn (if possible) about the individuals that created these objects. Writing history means placing these manifestations in a systematic unity that encompasses all these aspects. Like language, historical awareness turns us into participants in culture on a new level of comprehension. Becoming aware of language enables us to participate in the universe of meanings; becoming aware of our historical condition, in turn, enables us to participate in our culture fully, in that we are aware of its becoming and the conditions that led to its present form. This form is embodied in cultural works. The historians thus must analyze these manifestations, the works, on various levels of complexity that span the full range of a culture, but they 

Möckel : .

Being in Time



also need to see these works in connection with their own time. In his notes for a fourth volume of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer references this dynamic with the Goethean notion of Urphänomene, which dynamically connect the starting point, the “I” with other subjects (“Thou”) through “Works.” Historical hermeneutics becomes an “ideal reconstruction” (EM ) of essentially dynamic entities; through the “Works,” the historians unlock the living connection of these works to the agents in history (“Thou”). The most encompassing of these reconstructions is the result of the analysis of becoming (Werdens-Analyse, LCS ) that investigates into the causal conditions of becoming: Why did one historical event lead to another? Which acts led to the formation of a culture? Since culture can never “step out of the stream of becoming,” (LCS ) this analysis is the most fundamental step. However, it is not the first one. Cassirer pairs it with the analysis of work and analysis of form (Werk-Analyse und Formanalyse, LCS ). Analysis of work inquires into the bedrock of culture, namely the individual works with which historians are confronted. Their understanding requires a complex “hermeneutics” (LCS ), because “reading” such works presupposes an “overall view of the works of language, art, and religion.” This kind of a historical reconstruction thus requires the historian to survey not just one text or object but groups of them in order to detect their respective role. This includes reference to an enormous breadth of artificially separated disciplines. The meaning of such a remnant can only be reconstructed if seen in the totality of its cultural, philosophical, social, biographical, psychological, and political references: Werk-Analyse and Werdens-Analyse are clearly mutually dependent. Problems of historical or philosophical nature are opened up for further inspection by the possibility of looking at them from these new angles – the text obtains a contour that includes its cultural and individual aspects, and makes the connection to the historical agents visible. Much like Quentin Skinner later, Cassirer indeed calls for a complete, nonabstract reconstruction of the historical scene that might even include tensions and incompatibilities. After all, we can only discover anything new if we remain open for the aspects that do not seem to work, that resist complete inclusion – we only see what is “characteristic” if we do not let a text blend seamlessly into all others, but frame it adequately, so    

I first argued for this connection in Pollok . LCS  – one is tempted to think that even more fields are necessary here, such as politics and economics. It seems rather typical of Cassirer to neglect these aspects. Kopp-Oberstebrink :  aptly calls this a genetic recontextualization. Kopp-Oberstebrink : .



 

that it can shine in its own light. We need to be able to detect rupture and continuity. We thus decipher works as Energeia, not as finished Ergon, in that we see them as objectification of a social undertaking that spans across time. This corresponds to the other aforementioned step of historical understanding, the analysis of form: Once we come to an understanding of the dynamic conditions of work-formation, we also become capable of grouping and evaluating the works. Our ultimate question then is: What do these works seek to accomplish? What is their “essence” (LCS )? Here, however, Cassirer is suspiciously quiet about the required method. He seems to see this formation of a complex understanding of the “what” of cultural phenomena as one aspect of Gestalt-Sehen, in that these forms and structures seem to jump out at us (reminiscent of Warburg’s rather intuitive grouping of works into different pathos-formulae). Overall, we are supposed to arrive, then, at the possibility of an analysis of acts (Akt Analyse, LCS ) that is supposed to teach us about the mental processes that led to specific cultural formations. Subjective conditions underlie objective formations – and the historian is tasked to bring these subjective conditions to life again. In a way, understanding past texts or objects builds a bridge between the historian and the historical agents, between an “I” and a “Thou.” Both sides, as Cassirer has it, “are not thought of as congealed, fixed, given – but both are searching and finding the other – in continuous mobility and plasticity. Those who are already fixed and done cannot understand history. Only who still ‘is’ in history and ‘has’ a history can see history, and can see a meaning in history.” Historical awareness, usurprisingly, conditions historiography. Only if we are actually engaged with and “need” cultural works are we capable of understanding them as “messages” from the past (EM ). In this sense, Cassirer views our acts of symbolic formation as a defiance of death: Symbols must be “constantly renewed and restored” in our interpretation, in order for them (and therewith, our thoughts) to endure (EM –). Hence the task of the historian is not a mere description or archeological conservation, but an active

  

LCS , see also Möckel : ; and Pollok . Geschichte, Mythos in ECN :  f., my translation, compare with the respective passage in PSF III: . Gordon’s excellent interpretation of Cassirer’s Davos Lectures on philosophical anthropology follows a similar line of argumentation; thus we can see that from quite early on Cassirer from quite early on followed this strategy of defying death by symbolic formation (Gordon : ).

Being in Time



(and somewhat creative) form of preservation through an intellectual synthesis. The objects of culture and we as agents of culture stand in a dynamic relation, a Wechselbeziehung, which Cassirer marks as the fundamental motif (Grundmotiv) of human spiritual (geistig) life (ECN : ). The foremost interest we shall take in history is not a preservation of the past (which we cannot achieve anyways) but to gain an improved direction into the future: [The human being’s] consciousness of the present moment always involves an act of recollection and an act of anticipation. . . . Man is an historical being but he is at the same time an active being. . . . What he seeks in history is not a mere speculation of past events; it is a guide to decisions and actions that are directed to the future. (ECN : )

Without such an outlook we could neither “maintain” nor “enlarge” our existence, or, in other words, could not sustain human life and culture. Cassirer assumes a fundamental dynamics that constitutes it, which “cannot persist without incessantly changing its forms” (ECN : ) – understanding past cultures just means tapping into those ever-changing forms. Understanding but not arresting these dynamics is the decisive step for our “self-liberation.” While mythical thinking wants us to rid ourselves of time (EM , ), Cassirer advises to face our temporality head-on and find ultimate value in it. In this sense, a philosophical anthropology can do no more than to describe the fundamental conditions of human life and human mind – it cannot alter these conditions. Man, it is true, has an eternity and an immortality of his own – an eternity that is denied to all the other organic beings. But this eternity is not an ontological but a symbolic one. It is to be reached in thought, not in physical existence. (ECN : )

This puts us in a new position toward reality, or rather, toward the full picture of the “ideality of man” (ECN : ) – we realize ourselves in symbolic forms, whose ultimate reality is not ontological but symbolic. This does not mean, though, that we should discredit our temporality. We rather need to fully embrace it: We cannot exceed the conditions of experience and we cannot, so to speak, jump [over] time in order to reach eternity. All we can do is to win a total intuition of time and intuition that embraces all its separate stages – that 

See EM –. While this bears some similarity to Heidegger’s view on the essential nature of our temporal existence, what keeps them firmly apart is that Cassirer believes in the universal value of the historical process: Ultimately, by sharing and putting ourselves into works, we escape the pull of time and, by the constant process of historical renewal, achieve our very own, human version of immortality.



  gives us, in one and the same indivisible moment, the past and the future. It is this intuition which cannot be reached but by symbolic thought and by the different forms of symbolism contained in language, art, religion, science. (ECN : )

Hence, the question concerning the role of history leads back to the question about its place within human life; Cassirer calls this the “anthropological question” that grounds every aspect of our philosophical endeavors. We live in a world of representations that we can never “overcome,” but that form the conditions of our existence.

IV Objectivity in History Symbolic interpretation of historical facts is, as we have seen so far, a tricky business. Misunderstanding, or even destruction, is possible from two different sides: first, blunt material destruction of historical remnants, which seems to be the most obvious problem (in particular after one has seen, say, a ,-year-old papyrus). But second, and more dangerous because less visible, is semantic mutilation – employed either willingly, in order to support a specific ideology, or because we invested mistaken background assumptions. This happens in particular when we are dealing with long gone epochs that left little remains for us to work with. These remains rely heavily on our imaginative reconstruction of their integration in the routines, values, rituals, etc. of those times. The historian has to start somewhere, and hence has to use assumptions that contain present-day information to fill in the gaps. As Cassirer asserts quite frankly, the direction of the question, the formulated philosophical interest in the object, determines its reading and guides the imagination – which, as the crucial element of historical understanding, can also become the crucial element of its distortion. Hence, for Cassirer any historical view cannot be a “pseudo-objective” peek into the past but is by itself always already imbued with the consciousness of present and future as well (PSF III: ). Understanding the past is an active and productive endeavor. In The Phenomenology of Knowledge (PSF III: ; ECN : ), Cassirer calls this Bildkraft: The historians use their present and past understanding to  

Note that, again, Cassirer does not mention “history” as one such form; rather, he treats history as the enabling moment for the functioning of these forms. See Cassirer’s notes for a lecture called “The Problem of the Symbol” (ECN : ). The there defended idea of having a world through symbolic formation is taken from the conclusion of the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, and figures prominently in the Davos debate. For its function in that constellation, see Gordon :  passim.

Being in Time



craft an image of their future being in order to direct their actions accordingly. Historical understanding is thus a decisive tool for the active formation of the future. Cassirer does not argue for historical relativism in the sense that our history would be what we want it to look like. Still, he draws our attention to the fact that the meaning that our history has for us is to a degree dependent on our usage of it, or the value we place in it. It seems clear that such a stance comes with quite some risks. To illustrate one danger here: Neo-Nazis are somewhat aware of the literal heap of evidence for the existence of concentration camps, yet they will refuse to use this as evidence. Unfortunately – and our youngest history teaches us this ad nauseam – sometimes people do not have a problem placing themselves outside of the range of rational interrogation. Apart from the threat to deem them irrational, we have very little to hold up against them. In other words, if a society decides to listen to myths rather than rational (and all too often, boring) reconstructions, there is little else than appealing to reason that the historian can do to convince people otherwise. Thus, meaning is never fully independent of value judgments, and the danger of a reversal into myth is always given – a fact that Cassirer was well aware of and discussed extensively in his last work, The Myth of the State. There are two ways to combat the lure of such irrationalism: Enlightenment and art. Before I discuss art in more detail in Section V, a few words on the first option, Enlightenment. If we indeed take freedom as our ultimate goal, then we cannot be satisfied with myths that cater to our short-term interests, but we should treat our view of past and present with questions that enable proper self-understanding. Here the aforementioned Wechselwirkung is at work: In freedom, subjective and objective standards and interests merge. A view on the past that evades certain facts in order to sustain a certain ideology will not be helpful in the long run, as it prevents us from gaining fruitful insights. Such “fruitfulness” never pays heed to the ideology in question but rather elucidates whether all aspects allow an encompassing view of the determining factors of a situation. These situations always are, to a degree, social, and hence include other views as well.  

For further discussion, see Krois : , . See, at least in general direction, Habermas : –. Note that Habermas equates selfliberation, quite rightly so, with civilizing/zivilisieren. Ullrich formulates this as the importance of the normative aspect in respect to philosophical knowledge, which can only be called knowledge “wenn es als bedeutsamer, wertvoller Beitrag zur Realisierung der Freiheit in der Kultur angesehen warden kann” (Ullrich : ).



 

How do we know whether we reconstructed the factors correctly, if our initial assent is not a reliable criterion? It is helpful here to look ar Cassirer’s arguments against those methods of writing history that rest on irrational, mythical means. In the section on historiography in the Erkenntnisproblem, Cassirer turns against the romantic idea of Volksgeist or Kulturseele; these seem to make use of the same organological categories that Cassirer himself favors, but he rejects their mythical backdrop, as the assumption of a common spirit of the people (which ones? why not others?) engages. Cassirer is equally skeptical regarding the introspectionism of the then en-vogue Lebensphilosophie: whereas the Romantics fell prey to a mythical longing for unity, Lebensphilosophie overemphasizes subjective experience. Cassirer seeks to establish a dynamic system of checks and balances instead, in which the Basic Phenomena “I,” “Thou,” and “Work” (as already introduced in Section III) are conditioned by and made meaningful only in relation to each other. The goal of our reconstruction, then, can be neither to align our understanding with a fixed reality out there nor to tap into some obscure feeling, but it is to establish a coherent system of cognition: orders of thought with which we and a relevant group of people can still connect, and which enables objects to be part of that system by contributing their “stories” (i.e., their meaning). Writing history gives new life to the past by offering an encompassing view that does not consider any of its aspects in isolation, but as integral parts of a bigger picture, effectively connecting not just “facts” and events but also agents. In this sense, a proper understanding of our history can only come about through a heightened sense of interrelations among people – synchronously, but also across the ages. Surely we cannot become directly acquainted with either the past or the 





See Möckel : – for an instructive list of forms of historiography that overemphasize one phenomenon over the others. The best account for the I–Thou–Work relationship in reference to its normative force can be found in Gregory . Göller, in his very informative but weirdly thesis-less paper “Ernst Cassirer u¨ber Geschichte und Geschichtswissenschaft,” calls this hermeneutisch-semantische Wissenschaft (Göller : ). Cassirer later universalizes the historical mode to all understanding: The totality of consciousness is not accessible through sensation or perception but presupposes an “act of reflection”: “Human consciousness is, as it were, Janus-faced. In a physical sense it is bound to a single moment, to a mere here and now. But it overcomes these boundaries; it has a double face – one directed to the past[,] the other directed to the future.” (ECN : ) As Cassirer points out, a good portion of creativity is needed to actually understand anything: “To the true historian such material is not petrified fact but living form. History is the attempt to fuse together all these disjecta membra, the scattered limbs of the past and to synthesize them and mold them into new shape.” (EM , see Knizhnik ). Again, contra Heidegger, these people do not have to belong to “my tribe” at all – historians can also engage with foreign cultures, and it is quite obscure to me why this should ultimately lead to academic “complacency” (as Gordon :  summarizes Heidegger’s standpoint).

Being in Time



future and its people; yet, thanks to the work of the historian, we gain an understanding of their respective motifs, ranges, and limitations of agency. The view into our past can tell us about the many attempts of finding or establishing the good life – being aware of their respective failures might also safeguard us from reenacting these mistakes. However, all of this turns on the precondition that we indeed accept freedom as the fundamental value. How else could history help us to avoid the pitfalls of ideology? For this, Cassirer refers to art.

V Art and History Before we discuss the connection of art and history with respect to emotional effectiveness, we need to consider the similarities between the two more generally. In his notes for the  lecture “The Problem of the Symbol” (ECN : –), Cassirer distinguishes between the different symbolic forms according to their relation to time. Religion looks ahead into the future, for the heavenly, better life (), while myth looks back into a supposed Urwelt, an original being. Art, in contrast, is pure presence, which we experience through our reflection, or contemplation of the artwork (Betrachtung [Reflexion], ). Cassirer even calls this the first “free” relation to our world: We enjoy the experience without further strive. An artist does not merely mime some given material but subjects their material to formative forces (gestaltende Kräfte) “by which the human being ideally drafts [entwirft] an image of their being, and in this scheme [Entwurf] truly discovers themself as an inner and external being.” (ECN : , my translation) For Cassirer, artistry is thus closely related to selfdiscovery made communicable. The artists express themselves in and through a formative power with which they treat their material to find a fitting expression for insights that go beyond everyday life and personal issues. Following Goethe, Cassirer agrees that artistic imagination does not invent some fantastic story to hide or copy reality, but that through artistic form-giving reality is unveiled, i.e., made more distinct and clear in its outline (ECN : ). What Goethe calls “style” (Stil) is a perfect relation of objectivity and individuality. A true artist does not just invent but



Cassirer cites Schiller’s notion of “play” (ECN : ) as one form of such contemplation; the Kantian roots of this concept are hard to miss.



 

pronounces the true essence (Wesen) of things, which, taken abstractly by itself, would be inaccessible: “Art gives us an ‘ideal’ description of human life by a sort of alchemistic process: it turns our empirical life into the dynamic of ‘pure forms’.” (ECN : ) Note, however, that all of these forms stay in close relation to the personality of the artist whose reality they express. By putting their works out there, the contour of artistic personality is revealed, but it reaches beyond individual interests by making its content communicable through artistic form. The mode of historical reflection is very similar to our capacity of aesthetic perception: In such a contemplation, presence and past are seen as a unity (PSF III: ). However, the pull of the future (see Section III) hinders this contemplation from being truly “disinterested”: We are still concerned about our future, after all. But the historian gives their objects, which are bound to the “empirical reality of things and events . . . a new shape; it gives [them] the ideality of recollection.” (ECN  ) This “ideality” is still a sister of art’s “pure forms” insofar as it offers a “a great realistic drama, with all its tensions and conflicts, its greatness and misery, its hopes and illusions, its display of energies and passions.” (ECN : ) In contrast to art, this drama addresses our emotions as well as our critical intuition. Hence, our becoming aware of our historicity is akin to a feeling, but this is experienced by way of an intuition that allows for critical distance – we experience the past as alive and close, even if we are not fully involved in it by keeping an “inner clearness and calmness – of the lucidity and serenity of pure contemplation.” (ECN  ) Cassirer’s view on contemplation (Schau) is fundamentally informed by Goethe, who, as Cassirer reads him, only appreciated history if he could grasp it intuitively (ECW : ). Goethe cherished such contemplation for its productivity, and sneakily reversed its direction: “There is no past to which one ought to wish herself back to; there is only the eternally new that forms itself out of the widened elements of the past. True nostalgia must be productive, create something new and better.” For Goethe, 





“So dru¨ckt sich im Stil des Ku¨nstlers eine freie und reine Kraft der Gestaltung aus: aber diese Gestaltung fu¨hrt von der Wahrheit und vom Wesen nicht weg, sie umgibt sie nicht mit einem täuschenden Schein und Flitter, sondern sie schliesst uns diese Wahrheit erst auf und lässt sie fu¨r unseren inneren Blick verstehen [sic].” (ECN : ) PSF III: . Cassirer here refers to Bergson, whom he views as the only thinker who developed an adequate theory of temporary thinking, although Bergson underestimated the inner unity of past, present, and future, which Cassirer rather understands in reference to Augustine; see PSF III: . ECW : –, from a letter to Friedrich von Mu¨ller on November ,  (in: Goethes Gespräche, Bd. III,  f., here , my translation). He, Goethe, “feels life as a perpetually self-renewing, mysterious circle, which includes youth and old age and carries both forth in one stream” ().

Being in Time



knowledge of history cannot be piecemeal, but has to be the result of a synthetic power of our imagination. This enables us to see connections and understand “common problems” as well as “ideal connections” among seemingly distinct people or events (ECW : ). For Goethe, knowing about those sources of his own culture was an important means to correct his own works – it would be ridiculous, he holds, if he did not know where his ideas originated. Therefore, one must “connect the productive with the historical”, a stance that Cassirer calls the “true key to Goethe’s view on history . . . He rejected all things historical where they appeared as mere matter (Stoff ), and required it instead as the medium, and as a necessary means to discover the form of his own being and his work.” (ECW : –, my translation) Goethe’s relation to time and history comes to the fore in his Faust drama, in particular in the development from Faust  to Faust . Cassirer holds that whereas the protagonist had turned longingly to the past in the first part of the drama, the relation to the past changes significantly in the second part (ECN  ). The past is still present, now not as the goal of all longing nor as mere nostalgia, but it has become “plastic, palpable, and lively.” The effect of this on the audience is somewhat paradoxical: We simultaneously feel as if the past, shown in the colorful swirl of allegorical action, were alive again, and, at the same time, as if the action stood outside of “place and time” entirely (ECN  ). Time gains a new transparency and fluidity. In this sense, Cassirer declares, Faust  is neither mysticism, a mere and overly scholarly “late work,” nor even Begriffsdichtung, but it showcases a new outlook onto our future through an embrace of the past. In a way, this is very similar to what the historian is supposed to do. Whereas the artist Goethe transports the audience onto this plane by the imagination, the historian has to use historical narrative to offer a new intuition of time. As discussed in Section II, in their reconstruction of the past, the historian connects past and present, creating an “objective anthropomorphism” (EM ) that shows what is characteristic of humanity: “By making us cognizant of the polymorphism of human existence, [history] frees us from the freaks and prejudices of a special and single moment.” (EM ) As Cassirer puts it in his notes on 

 

Like Cassirer in the s and s, Goethe also insists on considering biographical connections in order to understand an event or work not just by itself but also in relation to its creator (ECW : ). ECW : ; see Goethe : . This term is often used as an insult, suggesting that the respective artwork is not trusting its creative force and reverts to dull philosophy instead.



 

anthropology, this complex understanding of time allows us to integrate the dimensions of past and future into our understanding of ourselves: [The human being] is not carried away by the stream of time but he is able to emerge from it; to look at its course taken as a whole and to discern the single elements, the different aspects and phases of this course. It is quite a different thing to be influenced by the past and to depend on it in a physical way [than] to know the past – to recognize it as an integral part and as a necessary condition of our present life. (ECN : –)

Taken together with Cassirer’s notes on Goethe, we can see that Cassirer appreciates the link to artistic presence in historiography: A past understood as lively is the only one that can unlock our outlook to the future in a fruitful way. This Cassirer takes to be Goethe’s standpoint as well, as he required history to have “practical value” in that it sets ablaze the “striving of those born later.” History brings us a “different and new perspective on time” (ECN : ) in that it – artfully but critically – turns what was dead and gone into working material for present and future. In its similarity to art, history can develop quite an emotional impact in our contemplative way of beholding it, and, if done right, could indeed foster the process of self-liberation. The aforementioned Neo-Nazi might still be unwilling to let this count, but, as Cassirer hopes, our society might have a rather powerful tool to counteract their lies in both history and art.

VI Conclusion A refined understanding of our history, and thus a strengthening of our historical awareness, ultimately influences our stance toward the nature of reality as well. In the wake of a discussion of Enlightenment, Romantic, and Historicist attempts to develop an encompassing philosophy of history, the last volume of the Erkenntnisproblem comes to a somewhat skeptical (in the Kantian sense) result (ECW : ): The power of historical thinking and its influence over all areas of thought necessitate a different foundation of philosophical thought itself; it calls for an end of dogmatic metaphysics and the strictly deductive method. The emerging historicism of the nineteenth century helped bring together the isolated special disciplines, in that it offered a new unifying reading of our world in the dynamics of becoming and change (ECW : ). However, as  

ECN : : “Und die geschichtliche Vergangenheit, wenn sie in ihrer wirklichen Tiefe gesehen und erkannt wird, schliesst immer zugleich ein neues Bild der Zukunft auf.” “Streben des Nachgeborenen”: In a letter to Kanzler Mu¨ller, April , , in: ECN : .

Being in Time



Cassirer also notes, historicism went too far, in that it translated all of philosophy into a mere moment within history. But so many philosophical “solutions,” even though they initially ask a very good and fruitful question, prove to be unsuccessful for the same reason. At least, the historicist movement of the late nineteenth century set a common task to include our awareness of the passing of time, and of the historical nature of any cultural expression into an encompassing philosophy of humanity. As Cassirer concludes the Erkenntnisproblem, it is this common task that helps us refine what we need to do, what the elements of our task might be, and how best to address them – together (he explicitly refers to this as a “shared task”). Cassirer, the Enlightenment thinker of the twentieth century par excellence, remains a cooperative optimist in the light of failure, and wants our engagement with history to play a key role in the process of human self-liberation, as argued in this chapter. This view on history does not put the temporal dimension of our experience as absolute, but argues that the dynamic methods of the historian allow our past to play a productive role in the design of our future. The historically sensitive philosophy of symbolic forms enables us to own our past, present, and future as social and free members in the dynamic world of cultures. This is indeed not a small feat to learn from history.

 

Science As a Symbolic Form: Ernst Cassirer’s Culture of Reason Massimo Ferrari

I Introduction As an outstanding spokesman of Marburg Neo-Kantianism, Ernst Cassirer was deeply concerned with both the historical development of modern science and its current outcomes in the age of theory of relativity and quantum physics. Despite his impressive and influential work in this field, the common picture of Cassirer as a philosopher of culture has often led scholars to underestimate the role science plays in the framework of his philosophy of symbolic forms. Cassirer’s major goal – the transformation of Kant’s “critique of reason” into a “critique of culture” – however by no means entails that he overlooks the role of science as the central core of Western civilization. As Cassirer writes in his late An Essay on Man, “science is the last step in man’s mental development and it may be regarded as the highest and most characteristic attainment of human culture” (EM ). On the one hand, Cassirer’s functionalistic understanding of scientific knowledge is intimately tied with the history of self-liberation from the concept of substance that began with Galileo’s scientific revolution and resulted in the focus of contemporary physics on purely mathematical symbols. On the other hand, for Cassirer, science has broad cultural significance because it is at once the pivotal point of modern culture and remains influenced by other symbolic forms such as myth, language, and art, and ways of world understanding in general. This contribution takes into account three key aspects of Cassirer’s philosophy of science in order to suggest that Cassirer essentially attempts to outline a veritable “culture of reason.” First of all, Cassirer retraces the origins of modern science by locating it at the core of European thought since the early Renaissance. In this view, science represents the “theoretical self-awareness” of a new era of Western civilization and involves from its very beginnings a cultural dimension that embodies, as Cassirer will later say, a specific symbolic form amid others. The historical example worth 

Science As a Symbolic Form



considering in particular is Kepler, whose scientific work symbolizes, through the astronomical figure of the ellipse, both the emancipation of human culture from the previous image of the universe and the selfaffirmation of scientific reason toward the astrological heritage. Second, the crucial passage from Substance and Function to The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms clearly shows how Cassirer extends his early epistemological view into a broader philosophy of culture, thereby bridging the gap between natural sciences and human sciences. By developing this project, Cassirer has not, however, abandoned the original Neo-Kantian framework that grounds his theory of culture that also encompasses scientific thought. Finally, just this commitment to Neo-Kantianism can explain why Cassirer in his last work still stresses that “there is no second power in our modern world which may be compared to that of scientific thought” (EM ).

II Science between History and Philosophy Since the early days of his career, Cassirer was engaged in the historical and systematic reconstruction of the rise of modern science. This is well documented in his first book (), which was devoted to the “scientific foundations” of Leibniz’s philosophical system. This investigation of Leibniz as a seminal mathematician and physician of his time constitutes Cassirer’s first attempt at grasping the scientific roots of modern philosophy. The next step in Cassirer’s project devoted to the “prehistory of the critique of reason” (ECN : X) is the masterful book The Problem of Knowledge in the Philosophy and Science of the Modern Time, which first appeared in –. These two volumes (ECN  and ) serve as a testament to Cassirer’s very fruitful insights into the development of epistemology in connection with, and reliance on, the modern mathematical science of nature. This central feature of Cassirer’s work is closely related to his commitment to Marburg Neo-Kantianism, which is usually either scarcely considered by scholarship or solely remembered as a more biographical, rather than a properly philosophical, background of Cassirer’s thought. While there are certainly many important differences that gradually emerge on  

See ECW . Cassirer’s interpretation of Leibniz has been recently analyzed by Moynahan : –. For a detailed account of Cassirer’s position within the Marburg School, I allow myself to refer to Ferrari .



 

the road from early Neo-Kantianism to the final outcome of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer always remained faithful to at least the essential methodological premise of Hermann Cohen’s and Paul Natorp’s Neo-Kantianism. According to Cohen, whose  book Kant’s Theory of Experience is doubtless the “Bible” of the Marburg School, transcendental philosophy rests on the Faktum of the mathematical science of nature. This “fact,” as Cohen suggests, is both historically determined and steadily changing. An analysis of its conditions of possibility would discover the synthetic principles and epistemological foundations of mathematical science itself. For this reason, Cohen maintains that the usual term “theory of knowledge” is misleading because it seems to rest on the psychological structure of mind, and that the proper description of Kant’s reformulated project would be “the critique of knowledge” (Erkenntniskritik). Accordingly, transcendental philosophy deals neither with the constitution of the human subject nor with his cognitive capacities, but rather with the “meta-level” of epistemological reflection about the a priori conditions of scientific knowledge. In short, the “critique of knowledge” aims to uncover the a priori presuppositions and foundations of scientific thought beginning with the given, historically determined “fact” of natural science. This is precisely what Cohen, and the Marburg School in general, call the “transcendental method.” In particular, Marburg Neo-Kantianism was devoted to an investigation of the history of mathematics, especially mathematical science, which aimed to show how infinitesimal analysis, non-Euclidean geometries, modern logic, and profound transformations in physics at the turn of the twentieth century had deeply changed the Faktum to which transcendental philosophy refers. Moreover – as is demonstrated by Natorp’s studies on Descartes’ theory of knowledge, Hobbes, Copernicus, Galileo, and Leibniz – this historical and systematic insight was also connected with the ambitious project of revisiting the history of philosophy with regard to its relationship to the development of science or, in other terms, to the changing “fact” of science in modern times. It was nonetheless Cassirer who first understood the true significance of the historical and mutable dimensions of this “developing fact” for a Kantian epistemological project. As a consequence, more deeply than his   

Cohen : –. Cohen : –. An illuminating overview is offered by Natorp in the  lecture “Kant and the Marburg School” (see Natorp ). Sieg : – has documented in detail Natorp’s early historical work.

Science As a Symbolic Form



Marburg predecessors, he bound the fate of critical philosophy to its relationship with the development of the exact sciences. Cassirer thus located the sole enduring task of a critical inquiry based on the transcendental method in the “continually renewed examination of the fundamental concepts of science, . . . which simultaneously involves a thorough subjective self-examination of the critique itself” (ECW : ). However, if the “fact” of science is “in its nature a historically developing fact,” (ECW : ) then philosophical reflection about the forms of knowledge that ground this “fact” must be characterized by a fundamental dynamism – a dynamism that is intrinsic to the transcendental method and that enables its extension to all areas of objective cultural forms. As Cassirer writes in the introduction to the first volume of The Problem of Knowledge: The “fact” of science is, and will of course remain, in its nature a historically developing “fact.” If this insight does not yet appear explicitly in Kant, if his categories can still appear as finished “core concepts of reason” in both number and content, the modern development of critical and idealistic logic [here Cassirer is referring to Cohen’s Logik der reinen Erkenntnis] has made this point perfectly clear. By the forms of judgment are meant the unified and active motivations (Motive) of thought which pass through the manifold particular formations and are continually put to use in the generation and formulation of new categories. (ECW : –)

Thus, Cassirer’s impressive reconstruction of the problem of knowledge in the modern age is at the same time the result of his Neo-Kantian apprenticeship and the highest proof of his original approach to the epistemological reflection about the scientific Faktum with which the transcendental method deals. Cassirer’s main idea is that science and philosophy must be mutually connected: Modern philosophy and modern science constitute a unique whole and, more precisely, the understanding of the problem of knowledge must consider both philosophers such as Descartes or Leibniz as well as scientists such as Galileo, Kepler, or Newton. According to Cassirer, the traditional history of philosophy has, for the most part, neglected the essential ways in which the rise of modern science contributed to the deep changes that occurred in philosophical thought. In the early modern age, scientists and philosophers worked together on a new image of both nature and the universe, which also entailed a radical break from the previous conception of the human being. For Cassirer, the final outcome – and the final goal – of this history is Kant’s critical philosophy. He intended to continue the ambitious project that the young Natorp had sketched in his early book on Descartes’ theory of knowledge (), namely to outline the “prehistory” (Vorgeschichte) of



 

Kant’s critical philosophy through a philosophical and historical examination of its sources in the philosophy and scientific thought of Descartes, Galileo, and Leibniz. These are the founders of the idealistic tradition in the sense of Marburg “logical idealism,” whose origins Cohen, and later Natorp himself, saw in Plato’s theory of ideas. Cassirer emphasizes that the realization of this peculiar history is based on the strict collaboration between more general epistemological assumptions and historical enquiry (ECW : VII). Within the framework of Cassirer’s own reconstruction of this kind of “history of pure reason” in Kant’s sense (CPR –), it is particularly worthy to stress that Cassirer insists on the proper cultural significance of the rise of modern science. As he states in the first volume of The Problem of Knowledge, modern science is also a cultural form, a way in which the spirit of early modern culture since the Renaissance shows one of its most typical characteristics. According to Cassirer, science is connected to the various intellectual energies that have contributed to the rise of the early modern age, from Humanism to the Scientific Revolution. In this sense, science represents the core of the “theoretical self-awareness” of a new era in human culture, which has in turn displayed its genuine force only through the new scientific image of the world (ECW : IX). Cassirer therefore draws attention to the interweaving of “the currents and the energies of the spiritual culture” and the rise of modern mathematical science (ECW : XI), pointing out that the history of the problem of knowledge can be regarded as a history of philosophy conceived from a particular point of view. In other words, this signifies that the problem of knowledge can serve as a guideline for interpreting more generally the “history of the spiritual culture” (ECW : –). Interestingly, Cassirer here uses the expression “life of knowledge” (ECW : ), which seems to be related to Wilhelm Dilthey’s understanding of the relationship between the emergence of natural sciences and the new era of European culture in the Early Modern. Indeed, Cassirer aims to show that the origin of modern science lies in the age of Humanism and Renaissance, so that it represents a cultural power capable of framing a new epoch not only in a strict epistemological sense. The revolutionary import of this turning point will remain a core issue along the whole development of Cassirer’s work.  

This aspect of Cassirer’s affinity with Dilthey’s reconstruction of the origins of modern thought has been convincingly stressed by Möckel : . Even in the later period of his intellectual life, Cassirer underlines the radical novelty of the early modern age that was represented most notably by Galileo, whose main achievement was the essential transformation of scientific thought due to a new concept of truth that resulted in an “ethics of

Science As a Symbolic Form



However, what is important to emphasize in this context is the manner in which Cassirer highlights “the a priori and its history.” At stake here is the function of a “general logical structure” underlying the history of scientific thought and assuring thereby both the continuity and the unity of reason, despite its perpetual involvement in the historical progress of science (ECW : ). Cassirer’s main intention consists, therefore, in showing the common thread that connects the development of both modern science and philosophy with the proper goal of scientific theories, namely the resolution of the alleged “given” object in the pure functions of knowledge. Anticipating the core issue of Substance and Function, which one could call a systematic sequel to the historical-philosophical reconstruction offered in The Problem of Knowledge, Cassirer accordingly defines the “concept of function . . . as the logical model (Vorbild)” and the immanent télos of the development of scientific knowledge (ECW : ). Cassirer here deals with an intricate philosophical history that starts with the criticism of substantial forms in Renaissance philosophy (ECW : ) and culminates in a new concept of knowledge intimately bound to the progress of modern science. Knowledge no longer consists in mirroring a world of given “things” independently from any conceptual framework but is built upon the mental structures organizing experience. This entails a vindication of the autonomy of thought as it is essentially exhibited through the pure mathematical relations toward the data of experience. This increasing autonomy is just what modern science since Galileo has gradually brought into focus of European thought, showing thereby that the history of modern philosophy could not be actually understood without any reference to “exact science” (ECW : ). The great champion of a similar battle against the metaphysical concept of substance is precisely Galileo in Cassirer’s view the pioneer of the pure concept of function who paved the way for further, epoch-making developments in mathematics and science from Descartes and Leibniz onwards (ECW : –). In a nutshell, Cassirer will thereby affirm that the most significant epistemological insight of modern science is the recognition of the “primacy” (Vorrang) of the concept of function over the concept of

 

science“ (ECW : , ). In Mathematische Mystik und moderne Naturwissenschaft (), Cassirer explicitly employs the term “revolution” to describe the profound historical and scientific break that characterizes Galileo’s new science of nature (ECW : ). This is actually the title placed at the top of two pages of The Problem of Knowledge (ECW : –); this expression does not appear in the main text. Note that the concept of function was at issue already in Cassirer’s first work on Descartes and Leibniz, written between  and  (ECW : , ).



 

thing, as it has been highlighted through the Erkenntniskritik (ECW : , ). This paradigm shift will remain the point of reference for the late Cassirer as well, in particular with regard to his insightful overview of theory of knowledge and exact sciences in the nineteenth century: Here Cassirer talks once again about “the primacy of the concept of order over that of measurement” (PK IV: ; ECW : ).

III

The Final Goal and the Cultural Significance of Science

It is no wonder that Cassirer defines the concept of function as the outcome and, at once, the goal of both mathematical science of nature and its epistemological justification (ECW : ). As indicated above, in – Cassirer masterfully outlines a “teleological” history – from Galileo’s mathematical explanation of nature up to Kant’s “revolution in the way of thinking” – based on the intellectual fight between the metaphysical concept of substance and the new ideal of knowledge endorsed by modern science. In Cassirer’s words, this is the epistemological movement “from things to relations” (ECW : ). In line with Marburg Neo-Kantianism, Cassirer once again stresses that Kant’s greatest achievement in the history of philosophy was the subordination of empirical data to the pure, constitutive functions of knowledge (ECW : ). For this reason, Cassirer argues that a veritable alternative tension exists between the traditional concept of substance and the modern scientific way of thinking in terms of function – a way that was initially discovered by mathematics but came to dominate all natural sciences. The road to Cassirer’s outstanding book Substance and Function () was thus opened. Two different but akin problems are approached therein and can be summarized in what Cassirer calls “the general schema and model according to which the modern concept of nature has been moulded in its progressive historical development” (SF ). This “general schema” is the concept of function that we have already encountered in Cassirer’s earliest works on Descartes and Leibniz. The first step in order to grasp this “schema” consists, for Cassirer, in the rejection of the traditional theory of abstraction. An abstract concept is no longer, and quite differently from Aristotelian tradition, understood as a generalization of the common features and properties of single empirical data but as a general rule according to which we can generate an order of elements. As Cassirer states, “a sensuous manifold is conceptually apprehended and ordered, when its members do not stand next to one another without relation.” By contrast, the veritable meaning of “abstraction” is that of a procedure

Science As a Symbolic Form



that can generate a necessary sequence of members “according to a fundamental generating relation” (). The peculiarity of abstraction depending on such a relation is gained through the standard view of conceptualization valid in mathematics, i.e., by assuming that single cases – as numbers – are only conceivable as grounded on “the universal validity of a principle of serial order” (). The second step consists in emphasizing in any field of scientific knowledge not only the functional role played by concepts as rules forming series but also the dependence of scientific knowledge on conceptual assumptions or theoretical presuppositions. According to Cassirer, there is no “given” and no “pure” experience; sense perceptions as such are “mute” and therefore need the logical function of concepts in order to become objective facts. Interestingly enough, Cassirer quotes Johann Wolfgang Goethe, one of his philosophical mentors, in this context: “From a new side, it is seen how far, as Goethe said, all that is factual is already theory; for it is only the thought of the necessary determinateness of phenomena, that leads us to arrest a single transitory observation, and establish it as a fact” (). Later on, Cassirer will conclude that this enlargement of the concept of theoria, as it has been formulated by Goethe, enables the human spirit to consider it as “the end, the telos of the human spirit” that consists, as Hegel would say, of the movement conducing the spirit to its self-comprehension (PSF III: XV). Hence, science participates in an essential way in the process of grasping the “whole” (“the truth is the whole,” Cassirer echoes Hegel’s famous dictum). Science is usually viewed as the theoretical form par excellence in understanding reality; and it was just by looking at this crucial issue that Cassirer had conceived of his very influential book Substance and Function, as he himself points out in  in the preface to The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. But this fundamental question concerning the nature of knowledge has in the meantime undergone a reassessment in virtue of the enlargement of “the concept of theory itself.” As Cassirer explains, “there are formative factors of a truly theoretical kind which govern the shaping not only of the scientific world view but also of the natural world view implicit in perception and intuition” (PSF I: XV). Furthermore, Cassirer’s interpretation of a priori forms as “living,” “moving,” and “flexible” forms is not confined within the epistemological context of modern physics alone. In the final pages of his book on Einstein, Cassirer argues that a plurality of dimensions or directions can be ascribed to the a priori forms of space and time, freed from all particular content. So, for instance, it seems quite suitable to distinguish physical



 

space from psychological, mythic, or aesthetic space, as well as physical time from psychological, mythic, aesthetic, or historical time. The possibility then arises to define different modalities within a common a priori, i.e., form-giving ordering function, or – using the terminology of the late cultural theory Cassirer sketches here for the first time – to anchor the different “symbolic forms” in their symbolizing function. In this sense physics represents in no way – and quite differently from Cassirer’s contemporary opponents – a separate realm of philosophical reflection but is interconnected with other cultural domains: It is the task of systematic philosophy, which extends far beyond the theory of knowledge, to free the idea of the world from [any] one-sidedness. It has to grasp the whole system of symbolic forms, the application of which produces for us the concept of an ordered reality . . . Each particular form would be “relativized” with regard to the others, but since this “relativization” is throughout reciprocal and since no single form but only the systematic totality can serve as the expression of “truth” and “reality,” the limit that results appears as a thoroughly immanent limit, as one that is removed as soon as we again relate the individual to the system of the whole. (SF )

A crucial point emerges from this entanglement of philosophy of science and philosophy of culture. For Cassirer, there is no doubt that the “wealth and variety of forms of knowledge and understanding of the world” requires a pluralistic view according to which “no individual form can indeed claim to grasp absolute ‘reality’ as such and to give it complete expression” (). In order to outline this fundamental insight regarding the task and the object of critical philosophy, Cassirer points out that myth and scientific knowledge, and aesthetics “are examples of . . . diverse modalities” of consciousness and knowledge; in a broader sense, modalities of the spirit (). Conversely, each specific form of organizing experience working within the different symbolic forms – such as space, time, and causality – represents different ways of world construction. So, for instance, the psychological or mythical space is clearly distinct from the geometrical space, and the historian’s way of understanding time is in no way identical with that of the physicist (, ). To sum up, “reality” is the outcome of a manifold of perspectives connected with each other. As one of these perspectives, science is in turn a modality of the symbolic whole that we call “culture.” Cassirer’s book on Einstein’s theory of relativity aims to answer the challenge that modern physics poses to a Neo-Kantian philosophy of science. On the one hand, Cassirer thus sets out to defend a notion of

Science As a Symbolic Form



relativized a priori as an alternative to that of synthetic a priori, which, as early Logical Empiricism diagnosed, faltered in the light of Einstein’s relativity theory. On the other hand, Cassirer aims to defend Kant’s epistemology, which he considers to be still valid, from possible misinterpretations (e.g., the rigid interpretation of a priori forms by Logical Empiricism). Beyond this, the crucial point for Cassirer is the idea that the mathematical and natural sciences are by no means a simple annexe to a philosophy of culture but rather constitute the veritable core of any human intellectual achievement. One can understand Cassirer’s works from the s primarily as developing his insight. From a historical and genetic point of view it is of the greatest importance to locate this conceptual movement in the time of the crucial passage from Cassirer’s early epistemological work to the philosophy of symbolic forms as philosophy of culture. We are now well informed about this passage, which has been often depicted as a sudden illumination that occurred in  while Cassirer was returning home in a streetcar. A manuscript dated June , , indeed documents Cassirer’s attempt to outline a “philosophy of the symbolic” (Philosophie des symbolischen) that focuses on the function of symbol in order to bridge the gap between the “inner” and the “outer” side of lived experience. In order to shed light on the structure of concepts as such, for Cassirer one first needs to explain the “symbolic moment” (das symbolische Moment). Leibniz’s ideas of a universal language of signs and a mathesis universalis represent the first step in the direction of grasping this logical nature of the concept. According to Cassirer, “we are dealing here with the understanding of the ‘symbolic element’ as constitutive of the logical itself, that is as element of conceptual function as such.” These early statements concerning the symbolic function are thus of paramount importance because they clearly  



Schubbach : –. Schubbach : – was the first to publish this first draft of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. The text is available in the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library (Yale University) among multiple other manuscripts from Cassirer. Schubbach : . About forty years later, in An Essay on Man, Cassirer seems to have in mind these early reflections when he, referring to Leibniz’s conception of mathematics as the general expression of relations, states the following: In this regard the history of mathematics does not differ from the history of all other symbolic forms. Even for mathematics it proved to be extremely difficult to discover the new dimension of symbolic thought. Such thought was employed by mathematicians long before they could account for its specific logical character. Like the symbols of language and of art, mathematical symbols are from the beginning surrounded by a sort of magical atmosphere (EM ).



 

demonstrate the intimate link between a theory of the concept and a theory of the symbol. This backdrop finds a clear confirmation in Cassirer’s preface to the first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (): I first projected this work, whose first volume I am here submitting, at the time of the investigations summed up in my book Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff (Berlin, ). These investigations dealt essentially with the structure of mathematical and scientific thought. When I attempted to apply my findings to the problems of the cultural sciences, it gradually became clear to me that general epistemology, with its traditional form and limitations, does not provide an adequate methodological basis for the cultural sciences. It seemed to me that before this inadequacy could be made good, the whole program of epistemology would have to be broadened. Instead of investigating only the general premises of scientific cognition of the world, it would also have to differentiate the various fundamental forms of man’s “understanding” of the world and apprehend each one of them as sharply as possible in its specific direction and characteristic spiritual form. Only when such a “morphology” of the human spirit was established, at least in general outline, could we hope to arrive at a clearer and more reliable methodological approach to the individual cultural sciences. (PSF I: )

The first step toward this “morphology of the human spirit” can be found, not incidentally, in the lecture “The Form of Concept in Mythical Thinking” that Cassirer delivered in Hamburg in . This lecture tackles the specific way of conceptualization in mythical thinking, starting from the inner structure of concept already elucidated in Substance and Function. Since myth is also a form that organizes the experience of the world according to its own “categories,” the structure of mythical concept itself demands a closer inquiry. To be sure, it seems paradoxical to speak of categories of mythical thinking; yet “the renunciation of the logical scientific form of connection and interpretation is not synonymous with absolute arbitrariness and lawlessness.” By contrast, the mythical thought “is grounded in a law of its own kind and imprint” (Prägung) (WY ). For Cassirer, mythical thinking thus exhibits a peculiar way of conceptualizing that seems nonetheless akin to conceptualization in general. Since concepts generally order sensuous elements according to a principle of ordering as well as a synthesis of the manifold, Cassirer can claim that all formation of concepts, regardless of what domain or material it may take place in, be it “objective” experience or that of merely “subjective“ representation, implies a certain principle of combination and “sequencing.” It is only by this principle that particular “formations” (Gebilde),

Science As a Symbolic Form



particular configurations with fixed contours and “properties,” can be extracted from the constant flow of impressions. The form of this sequencing determines the species and genus of the concept. (WY )

Mythical concepts then do not represent the similarity of things given in experience; they are rather the precondition that enables us to pose similarities and differences among them. Cassirer speaks in this context of “the work of spirit.” This typical expression of Cassirer’s philosophical lexicon signalizes, in a very pregnant manner, that the real fundamentum divisionis of the experienced world lies not in things but in spirit: “The world has, for us, the shape (Gestalt) that spirit gives it” (WY ). We can conclude that Cassirer’s early attempts to broaden the epistemological program developed in Substance and Function nonetheless convey more continuity than rupture with his early reflections as a Neo-Kantian philosopher. It is exactly the issue of concept formation that allows a further step in shaping the philosophy of culture that would constitute the focus of Cassirer’s work in the s. From then on, science, art, myth, language, and history will be at the core of his thought.

IV Renaissance Thought and Modern Science In The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, published twenty years after The Problem of Knowledge, Cassirer offers a detailed account of the intrinsic relationship between the rise of modern science and the heritage of Renaissance culture. It is worthy to be emphasized that this wonderful book is composed in deep connection with the milieu of the Warburg Library. Specifically, it is influenced by the image of the Renaissance that Aby Warburg himself had elaborated in his fascinating inquiries into the rebirth of Paganism and ancient astrological beliefs in the early fifteenth century. The aim of Cassirer’s book is to expose the roots of Renaissance philosophy as a profound source for the development of modern thought, thereby presenting that dramatic historical period as a point of reference even for contemporary philosophy in Germany in a time of crisis, such as in the s. Cassirer focuses in particular on the symbolic forms (religion, art, science) that constitute the cultural background of the modern scientific image of the universe, from Nicholas Cusano to Giordano Bruno. According to Cassirer, both a new sentiment of life and the increasing emancipation of natural science from the dark 

Eilenberger : –.



 

power of magic and astrology made it possible to conceive nature in a new light, namely as the object of mathematical measurement rather than something that can only be approached purely qualitatively. In a broader sense, the scientific worldview is therefore the result of a new image of man, now placed at the center of the world as a Prometheus unbound (IC –). Even when interpreting Renaissance philosophy, Cassirer remains a philosopher and historian of modern science in the tradition of Marburg Neo-Kantianism. When reading, for instance, the chapter devoted to the problem of subject and object in Renaissance philosophy, it is not difficult to notice the characteristic language of the “Marburg Cassirer.” He deals here with the possible reconciliation between necessity and freedom, nature and art, body and mind; and the solution of the question resides exactly in the correlation that we have to establish between two terms that are at first glance opposed to each other: The antinomy freedom-necessity is transformed into a correlation. For the common characteristic joining the world of pure knowledge to that of artistic creation is that both are dominated, in different ways, by a moment of genuine intellectual generation. In Kantian language, they both go beyond any “copy” view of the given; they must become an ‘architectonic’ construction of the cosmos. As science and art become more and more conscious that their primary function is to give form, they conceive of the law to which they are subject more and more as the expression of their essential freedom. (IC )

Modern science from Leonardo to Galileo has followed this road, and especially Galileo embodies in Cassirer’s eyes the authentic mathematical “Platonism” in the Renaissance age. The book of nature is surely written in mathematical language, but in order to read it we need the building of hypotheses that transform the Platonic ideas into the modern concept of function. In short, an interpretation of Galileo as a Platonist and, to some extent, as a Neo-Kantian epistemologist is at the core of Cassirer’s historical as well as systematic reconstruction of the rise of modern science during the Renaissance. In addition, Galileo is now also seen as the scientist opening the “intellectual space of reflection” (Denkraum der Besonnenheit), to quote Warburg’s celebrated motto. Cassirer refers to this motto but reformulates and reinterprets it in the sense of the Platonic lógon 

Note that in this context Cassirer deals extensively with the problem of artistic form in the Renaissance and acknowledges his debt to Erwin Panofsky. The reference to Panofsky cannot be analyzed here in detail; yet it remains interesting that Cassirer stresses that The Problem of Knowledge did not sufficiently perceive “the significance of the aesthetic factor in the discovery of the modern concept of nature” (IC  fn.).

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didónai that has liberated Athens from Alexandria: that is, the original mathematical Platonism from its misleading transformation operated by Neo-Platonism (IC ). In addition to his strict commitment to Neo-Kantianism, Cassirer’s original interpretation of Renaissance philosophy is also developed in close relationship to Warburg, whose extraordinary library in Hamburg was a boundless source of inspiration for Cassirer since the early s (Ferrari : –). Cassirer himself has time and again acknowledged his debt of gratitude toward the Warburg-Kreis, dedicating with warm feelings The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy to Warburg. Even more significant is that during their first encounter in Kreuzlingen (in April ), where Warburg was hospitalized for his depression, both thinkers recognized Kepler’s decisive contribution to the rise of modern Western civilization in assuming the geometrical ellipse as rightly describing the orbit of planets (ECN : –). The agreement between Cassirer and Warburg surely explains why both experienced their collaboration as a powerful philosophical event, though a corresponding and substantial disagreement cannot be neglected. What is at stake here is no less than the question whether the birth of modern science can be interpreted in the sense of an enduring polarity between magic (or astrological beliefs) and mathematical physics, or as a progressive self-freeing of reason from the dark powers of prescientific culture. The first line of interpretation is that of Warburg, the second (at least at that time) is Cassirer’s. According to Warburg, the transition from the age of Renaissance and Reformation to the age of science in no way constitutes a linear progress. The victory over magic, astrology, and faith in the dark force of destiny is never reached once and for all. In other words, mankind remains permanently engaged – as Warburg says in a letter to Cassirer dated December ,  – in the “critique of the pure unreason” (Kritik der reinen Unvernunft) (ECN : ). And, for 

See IC, page not numbered: The work I am presenting to you on your sixtieth birthday was to have been a purely personal expression of my deep friendship and devotion. But I could not have completed the work, had I not been able to enjoy the constant stimulation and encouragement of that group of scholars whose intellectual center is your library. Therefore, I am speaking today not in my name alone, but in the name of this group of scholars, and in the name of all those who have long honored you as a leader in the field of intellectual history. Similar statements can be found in the preface to the second volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, where Cassirer warmly thanks Warburg, Fritz Saxl, and the Hamburg Library (PSF II: XVIII).



 

Warburg, Kepler embodies the precarious transition to modern age, because his commitment to astrological heritage and mystical Platonism clashes with the pure mathematical structure of modern astronomy. Hence, a fundamental polarity characterizes Warburg’s view of the birth of modernity, since the scientific worldview always is continuously threatened by the return of irrational or even barbaric forces. By contrast, Cassirer believes that the cultural importance of Kepler’s work consists precisely in renewing the Platonic tradition, in particular in articulating a new relationship between mathematics and experience, or between idealism and scientific conceptualization. Kepler developed a “holistic” conception of mathematical science that overcomes the initial primacy of geometry. The result is a physics of principles as constants upon which the mathematical science of nature rests (ECW : –). The discovery of the elliptic geometrical form of orbits is thus a scientific and philosophical transformation – as Cassirer points out again in  – that eventually identifies the scientific knowledge as knowledge of laws (ECN : ). Therefore, Kepler’s metaphysical Platonism can be interpreted as an anticipation of Kant’s critical idealism. Even more importantly, in Cassirer’s opinion, Kepler has definitively abandoned the dangerous field of astrology, thereby embracing the “full freedom of the new scientific spirit” (ECW : ). In the end, Cassirer seems to be closer here to Einstein than to Warburg. Indeed, Warburg visited Einstein in September  and submitted to him his opinions about Kepler’s discovery of astronomical ellipses. Warburg did not convince Einstein of his view regarding the intimate link between the survival of the past and the development of modern science. In a newspaper article published on November , , which should be read as an answer to Warburg, Einstein would later claim that Kepler’s “magnificent” contribution to modern science consisted in shaping hypotheses that anticipate experience. Science would not bloom without using hypotheses, although they are not confirmed by experience. This “Kantian insight,” one could eventually say, recalls Cassirer’s interpretation.

V Closing Remarks Science is “the last step in man’s mental development” (EM ). This quote from An Essay on Man most clearly epitomizes Cassirer’s view of  

Bredekamp andWedepohl : –. Bredekamp ; Bredekamp and Wedepohl : –.



Einstein : –.

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science as a cultural power enabling the comprehension of our human world. Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Helmholtz, Planck, Einstein – all these great scientists have done genuine theoretical, “constructive” work that expresses the productivity of human mind in general: This spontaneity and productivity is the very center of all human activities. It is man’s highest power and it designates at the same time the natural boundary of our human world. In language, in religion, in art, in science, man can do no more than to build up his own universe – a symbolic universe that enables him to understand and interpret, to articulate and organize, to synthesize and universalize his human experience. (EM –)

At the end of his life, Cassirer was thus still convinced that an authentic philosophy of culture rests on the pivotal role of science as the symbolic form that accomplished the long way from substance to function. Concluding the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer states that modern physics, and in particular the general theory of relativity, has completely “transposed” the substantial into the “functional” (PSF III: ). Next, he adds that “physics has definitively left the realm of representation and of representability in general for a more abstract realm. The schematism of images has given way to the symbolism of principles” (PSF III: ). Here, the history of (symbolic) reason has achieved its final goal or, in more precise conceptual terms, has shown the “limit idea” toward which it perpetually tends. In the manuscripts for a projected fourth volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer holds that every symbolic form contributes to this goal, namely working “toward the transition from the realm of ‘nature’ to that of ‘freedom’” (PSF IV: ). Yet, the last stage, the stage of theoretical knowledge, “creates a new form of objectification” that goes beyond, and is clearly delimited from, language and myth (PSF IV: ). Cassirer’s claim that science represents “the last step” of human culture does not, however, signify an endorsement of a kind of scientism. On the contrary, Cassirer intends to establish a significant connection between science as symbolic form and the other symbolic forms, all of which support the self-liberation of man according to an ethical orientation that affirms the primacy of freedom over nature. This is also the reason why Cassirer criticizes the physicalism of the Vienna Circle, claiming by contrast that the function of spiritual expression (Ausdrucksfunktion) cannot be 

Recki, : –.



 

reduced to the realm of psychological and embodied experience – as Rudolf Carnap does in the Logical Construction of the World. In other words, the language of physics is only a particular language, while philosophy has to deal with all the languages of human culture, thereby overcoming the “narrow” basis assumed both by the Vienna Circle and Carnap (ECN : ). The proper task of philosophy consists, therefore, both in questioning all the forms of understanding of the world (Weltverstehen) and in opening the conceptual space for the “construction of the ‘cultural world’” (Aufbau der ‘Kulturwelt’) that is irreducible to the natural world (PSF IV: ). Once again, by conceiving in this broader sense the task of critical philosophy, Cassirer has not abandoned his former commitment to Marburg Neo-Kantianism. For both Cohen and Natorp, the renewal of Kantian philosophy consisted in shaping a philosophy of human culture, albeit still restricted to the classic Kantian bounds of knowledge, ethics, and aesthetics. For his part, Cassirer insists repeatedly on the decisive methodological assumption of the philosophy of symbolic form: Its transcendental method questions the condition of possibility of a “factum” – first of all the factum of science. In view of a philosophy of culture the factum is the “work (Werk)” of culture itself that has to be inquired into its “systematic ‘form’” (PSF IV: –). As Sebastian Luft rightly remarks, “the main intent of [the Marburg school] was from the outset a broadening of the critique both in method as well as scope.” To broaden the philosophy of culture developed by the Marburg School is precisely Cassirer’s great challenge in order to open the “space of culture” and examine the human existence as a “being-in-the culture.” Within this ambitious research program, science as symbolic form represents the key for disclosing a new road to contemporary philosophy. The culture of reason is devoted to the animal symbolicum, which has apprehended since long how the scientific understanding of the world is at least the presupposition for governing it through rational means.  

ECN : ; see Möckel : –. Luft b: .



Matherne .



Luft b: .

 

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation The Final Stage of Cassirer’s Philosophy of Physical Science Thomas Ryckman

I

Introduction

According to Toni Cassirer’s memoir (, ), while still in Hamburg, Cassirer began to work on Determinismus und Indeterminismus in der modernen Physik. After the Cassirers left Germany on March , , most of the monograph was written in exile at Oxford in  and . The foreword, dated December , states that the manuscript was completed the previous April in Göteborg, where Cassirer had taken up a university position in August. However, Krois () notes that Cassirer visited Niels Bohr in Copenhagen on February , , to discuss the completed manuscript and further, later that day, in a letter to a colleague in Sweden (Elof Åkesson), wrote that the book could now be published following this “thorough” (eingehende) conversation with Bohr. Any subsequent modifications to the February manuscript were then completed by April. From published correspondence, we know that prior to publication Cassirer had also solicited reactions from Erwin Schrödinger. Cassirer’s letter of September , , to the Warburg Institute’s director Fritz Saxl suggests that Schrödinger, living in Oxford from October  until the summer of , read parts of a draft manuscript. Determinism and Indeterminism first appeared obscurely in the original German in November  in the Göteborgs Högskolas Årsskrift, a journal understandably little-known outside of Sweden. Early in , a monographic separatum with the abovementioned foreword was published in Göteborg by Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag. Cassirer posted copies to leading physical theorists, including Einstein, Max von Laue, Hendrik A. Kramers, 

Cassirer (ECN : ) stated his wish to “once again” (noch einmal) show the manuscript to Schrödinger, who however could not be located. Schrödinger had left Oxford and not yet taken up his new position in Graz; see Moore ().





 

Werner Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Max Born. The preface by Yale physicist-philosopher Henry Margenau to the English translation () reports that Cassirer approached Margenau with the idea of translation of an updated version just a few months before the latter’s sudden death by heart attack on April , . For reasons described by Margenau, the translation by chemist O.T. Benfey was considerably delayed, appearing only in , and is now long out of print. The foreword to Determinism and Indeterminism hints at a shift of epistemological attitude. On the one hand, Cassirer stressed continuity with his earlier works of Erkenntniskritik (, ) and the characteristic Marburg postulate of the fact of physical science (Faktum der Wissenschaft). In particular, Cassirer affirmed that the viewpoint of Determinism and Indeterminism is largely the one that he had already laid out twenty-five years earlier in Substance and Function, and had been further confirmed by the advance of physical theory, in particular, by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics: The fundamental viewpoint, in accordance with which I have dealt with these problems [certain basic questions of the new physics of quantum mechanics], does not differ essentially from that of my Substance and Function. This viewpoint is, I believe, still justifiable. Indeed, I think I can now justify it better and formulate it more precisely on the basis of the development of modern physics than was the case earlier. (ECW : ; DI xxxiii)

On the other hand, Cassirer admonished that epistemology must always be prepared to revise its presuppositions in step with the advance of science, and therefore conceded that “there is certainly a great deal in the earlier investigations that I would not maintain today in the same sense or that I at least would justify differently” (ECW : –; DI xxiii). Cassirer previously alluded to continuing controversies over quantum foundations, citing Eddington’s jocular remark that a warning (“Structural Alterations in Progress – No Admittance Except on Business”) to “prying philosophers” might be posted over the entrance gate to the new quantum physics. While Born, Heisenberg, Jordan, and Pauli had, to varying extents, aligned with Bohr’s nebulous doctrine of complementarity and 

See the various letters acknowledging receipt in ECN . Krois (: ) also cites a February  letter to Bohr presumably accompanying a presentation copy, thanking Bohr for their discussion in Copenhagen. A letter from Schrödinger dated May , , presumably acknowledging receipt, is not in this volume but in the restricted collection of the Max Planck Institute for Physics (WernerHeisenberg-Institut), Munich.

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation



wave–particle duality, Schrödinger, as Cassirer undoubtedly knew, persisted in a decades-long attempt to find a wave ontology underlying quantum discreteness. Cassirer’s admission that these foundational controversies involve “questions generally agreed to be as yet far from their ultimate solution” appears prescient today in the light of continuing dispute over quantum foundations. Still, Cassirer’s declared aim in Determinism and Indeterminism is “to prepare the ground for a common inquiry”. Just what ground is this? A tendency to focus on the continuity between Determinism and Indeterminism and Substance and Function downplays the extent to which Cassirer now viewed his growing distance from the founders of the Marburg School, Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp: My connection with the founders of the “Marburg School” is not loosened and my debt of gratitude to them is not diminished when it turns out in the following investigations that I have been led, in the epistemological interpretation of the basic concepts of modern physical science, to essentially different results than those in Cohen’s Logik der reinen Erkenntnis () and Natorp’s Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften (). (ECW : –; DI xxiv)

Cassirer does not explicitly name these different results, but a reasonable hypothesis is that the further transformation of the symbolic character of physical theory in quantum mechanics is both anticipated and receives illumination within the encompassing philosophical framework of symbolic forms. As will be shown below, in the algebraic formalism introduced by Paul Dirac, Cassirer judged quantum mechanics to mark a decisive advance of symbolic methods not only within physical theory but also in empirical science as a whole.

II Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics: A Brief Synopsis Determinism and Indeterminism principally aims to establish two related theses, the first more general, the other quite specific. The broader thesis claims methodological and architectonic continuity between classical and quantum physics once the causal principle is understood “critically,” that is, as the demand for strict functional determination according to law. The second and narrower thesis identifies the principal epistemological problem 

Ruger ; Beller .



 

initiated by quantum mechanics as lying not in the failure of the causal concept but in the transformation of the concept of physical state. Four of the five parts of Determinism and Indeterminism (up to chapter ) concern the so-called crisis of causality allegedly due to the Heisenberg uncertainty relations. Cassirer argues that this verdict stems from a misleading but widespread assumption that Laplacian determinism obtains within classical physics. Understood critically, the law of causality is merely the general mandate of conformity to law containing the postulate of “comprehensibility of nature,” as Helmholtz already maintained for classical physics. Then the so-called crisis of causality within quantum mechanics, the supposed abandonment of the causal concept, is better termed a “crisis of visualization” (Krise der Anschauung) (ECW : ; DI ). The latter crisis bears neither upon the concept of cause nor the category of cause and effect. Rather, it indicates that the “essential epistemological problem” posed by quantum mechanics lies elsewhere, in the quantum mechanical transformation of the notion of physical state of an object. On account of the Heisenberg uncertainty relations and the principle of superposition, quantum states cannot be associated with cognate classical concepts in the same manner as in previous physics. In Bohr’s doctrine of complementarity, the new notion of state reflects the fact that classical dynamical (momentum, energy) and kinematical (space and time) descriptions of quantum phenomena are each necessary yet mutually exclusive. However, the concluding pages of chapter  show that Cassirer was above all impressed by Dirac’s presentation of quantum mechanics, which adopts, related to yet distinct from Bohr, a completely symbolic approach to the epistemological problem presented by the new notion of physical state.

III

Symbolic Algebra of States and Observables

Dirac’s great text, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, appeared in . The “principles” are above all the “Principle of Superposition of States” and the “Principle of Indeterminacy” (i.e., the Heisenberg uncertainty relations). Many translations followed and further editions appeared in , , and ; the latter remains in print. Following the widely 

Bohr : : “The very nature of the quantum theory thus forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealisation of observation and definition respectively.”

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation



adopted bra and ket notation introduced in the third () edition, Dirac’s Principles established a nearly universally used symbolic language for quantum mechanics. The preface, dated May , , laid out Dirac’s philosophy in pursuing and developing an abstract symbolic approach to quantum mechanics. In classical physics “one could form a mental picture in space and time of the whole scheme,” but in quantum physics it has become clear that “nature works on a different plan.” Quantum laws are fundamental yet “(nature’s) fundamental laws do not govern the world as it appears in our mental picture in any very direct way, but instead . . . control a substratum of which we cannot form a mental picture without introducing irrelevancies.” Dirac’s point was the following: in classical physics, physicists were long accustomed, and even taught, to employ the heuristic of visualizing the evolution or interactions of a physical system, creating mental images in which objects possessed definite properties at all times and definite trajectories in space or in space-time. But by , in view of an inconclusive debate over Anschaulichkeit between Heisenberg and Schrödinger and unsuccessful attempts to subordinate “particle” concepts to those of “waves” or vice versa, it had become clear that this classical heuristic introduced “irrelevancies” pertaining not to Nature but to the limits of human imagination and the representational conventions of classical physics. To Dirac, even designating quantum mechanics with the term “wave mechanics” (as did Schrödinger) is misleading, since the quantum mechanical notion of superposition “is of an essentially different nature from that occurring in the classical theory.” Although influenced by Bohr’s Como declaration of the need for “a renunciation as regards the causal space-time co-ordination of atomic processes,” Dirac was neither a supporter of the “finality” of complementarity nor of the claims of Heisenberg, Born, and others that quantum mechanics was a “closed theory.” Later on in his career, Dirac even held out hope for a deterministic theory underlying quantum mechanics, much in the manner of Einstein. Dirac identified two methods for presenting the mathematical form of the new theory. The first is the customary “method of coordinates or  



  Dirac : v. Dirac : . Bohr : . Dirac wrote to Bohr on December , , “I am afraid I do not completely agree with your views. . . . I believe that quantum mechanics has its limitations and will ultimately be replaced by something better, . . . I cannot see any reason for thinking that quantum mechanics has already reached the limit of its development.” (cited by Bokulich : –) See Bokulich : –.



 

representations, which deals with sets of numbers corresponding to these quantities.” The second is the symbolic method Dirac termed “transformation theory.” For Dirac, the theory of relativity taught that the “use of transformation theory . . . is the essence of the new method in theoretical physics.” Here wave mechanics and matrix mechanics are simply different points of view regarding the same physical phenomena, depending on a preferred choice of variables. The new method underscores that “the important things in the world appear as the invariants (or more generally, the nearly invariants, or quantities with simple transformation properties) of [the mathematical] transformations.” Dirac’s transformation theory is a “symbolic method, which deals directly in an abstract way with the quantities of fundamental importance,” namely, probabilities of outcomes of measurements. Although the customary method of coordinates has the advantage of mathematical familiarity, the symbolic method is preferred as it “seems to go more deeply into the nature of things.” This is because quantum mechanics is “built up from physical concepts which cannot be explained in terms of things previously known to the student, which cannot even be explained in words at all.” In virtue of its use of abstract symbols, the symbolic method skirts the entire debate over intuitive representation (Anschaulichkeit) to deal directly with the new notion of physical state, cutting through the ambiguities and irrelevancies of particular representations that, in any event, are related by transformation theory. The symbolic method thus does not attempt to portray or represent microphysical processes but maintains that “the only object of theoretical physics is to calculate results that can be compared to experience.” In Dirac’s notation, Greek symbols ψ, φ, etc., are used to represent states of a dynamical system, each symbol standing indifferently for a particular wave function referring to particular states such as particle position ψðx Þ or particle momentum (its Fourier transform ψ ^ ðpÞ). The symbols are given meaning through an analysis according to stipulated algebraic axioms. 



Transformation theory, independently developed by Dirac and P. Jordan in early , is a formalism presenting in full generality the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics. It arose from problems encountered in matrix mechanics in attempting to use canonical transformations (changing the canonical coordinates of position, momentum, and time (q, p, t) while preserving the form of Hamilton’s equations) in strict analogy with classical mechanics. The fundamental object of transformation theory is a complex probability amplitude hajbi (in Dirac bra|ket notation) that represents the probability of finding the value a of some observable A after finding the value b of another observable B; transformation theory governs the transition from the eigenvector basis of A to the eigenvector basis of B:  Dirac : v. Dirac : .

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation



In , the Dirac symbolic algebra comprises a linear space with an inner product over the field of complex numbers ℂ, but the nature of this space is not further specified. In this regard, Dirac followed Weyl (), who had introduced the idea that each quantum state could be represented as a vector (of modulus ) in a “system space.” In Göttingen at roughly the same time, John von Neumann () had taken the now-standard further step of employing functional analysis while identifying the state space of quantum mechanics as an abstract Hilbert space (). After the appearance of von Neumann’s book, the Dirac symbolic calculus of states and observables was defined on Hilbert space, while its bra/ket notation (Dirac ) incorporated into the third () and later edition of Principles has become nearly universally used among both physicists and philosophers.

IV Relevance of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms In the final chapter of the  monograph on Einstein’s theory of relativity, Cassirer’s discussion takes an abrupt turn to the distinction between “theoretical scientific knowledge” and “other form – and meaning – connections of independent type and independent lawfulness” (ECW : ; SF ). Whereas Substance and Function and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity assumed the characteristic focus of Erkenntniskritik on exact science, Cassirer now vastly expanded its scope. A “truly general Erkenntniskritik” will investigate, besides theoretical knowledge, other forms of understanding of the world i.e., ethical, aesthetic, and so on, each incommensurable with any other, and each insufficient in itself to completely grasp and bring to adequate expression “reality” (Wirklichkeit) as such. The study of the transformation in exact science from concepts of substance to those of function, i.e., to relations and operations on relations, becomes the study of various and complex systems of symbols, the symbolic forms through which a synthetic view of the world is constructed in myth, religion, language, art, and science. Yet, the notion of a determinate totality of forms of understanding still exists as a regulative Idea, 



As was subsequently shown, the formal machinery of Dirac’s abstract symbolic calculus together with his use of ad hoc mathematical notions (e.g., “delta functions”) can be rigorously justified in the setting of abstract Hilbert space by combining the latter with Laurent Schwartz’ theory of distributions, giving rise to the notion of a “rigged Hilbert space” introduced by I. Gelfand and A. Vilenkin much later (de la Madrid ). See Ryckman () for details of Dirac’s symbolic calculus and its restatement in the bra/ket notation.



 

opening the door to the possibility of a systematic philosophy that will grasp and elucidate the “totality of symbolic forms” (das Ganze der symbolischen Formen) and their possible interrelations (ECW : ; SF, ). The development of such a systematic philosophy of culture became the project that occupied most of the remainder of Cassirer’s life. More closely considered, the mandate of this generalized Erkenntniskritik is to investigate symbolic forms constructed by the processes of mind (Geist) across the entire spectrum of culture. The philosophy of symbolic forms seeks to identify the formative patterns by which “the energy of mind” (Energie des Geistes) attaches specific meaning – content to signs and symbols in language, the mythical – religious world, the arts, as well as in the human and natural sciences. According to the famous definition of “symbolic form,” the concrete sign connected with this constructive mental activity reveals that “consciousness is not satisfied to receive an impression from outside, but rather that it permeates and connects each impression with a free activity of expression (mit einer freien Tätigkeit des Ausdrucks.).” The overarching assumption of the philosophy of symbolic forms is the idea of what Cassirer later termed “symbolic pregnance,” whereby the symbolic process itself has both “differential” and “integral” moments, reciprocally relating the “representing” and the “represented” such that single existing particulars are only determined as such by being given a directional meaning, as ordered within some structure (ECW : –; PSF III: -). In this way, the objective reality of “things” (as considered in what Husserl called “the natural attitude”) is seen as a world of meanings, of self-created signs and images. The overall argument of the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is that such a development requires a further Copernican transcendental turn away from “thing-like” concepts, from the Darstellungsfunktion (function of representation) to the Bedeutungsfunktion (function of signification). In this way, the philosophy of symbolic forms reverses the traditional “striving of ontology to transpose problems of meaning into problems of pure being” (ECW : ; PSF III: ).



ECW : : “Unter einer ‘symbolischen Form’ soll jede Energie des Geistes verstanden werden, durch welche ein geistiger Bedeutungsgehalt an ein konkretes sinnliches Zeichen geknu¨pft und diesem Zeichen innerlich zugeeignet wird. In diesem Sinne tritt uns die Sprache, tritt uns die mythisch-religiöse Welt und die Kunst als je eine besondere symbolische Form entgegen. Denn in ihnen allen prägt sich das Grundphänomen aus, daß unser Bewußtsein sich nicht damit begnu¨gt, den Eindruck des Äußeren zu empfangen, sondern daß es jeden Eindruck mit einer freien Tätigkeit des Ausdrucks verknu¨pft und durchdringt.”

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation



The first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, subtitled “Language,” appeared in . The introduction to this work restates the problem of Erkenntniskritik to be that of surveying the special sciences, including the cultural sciences, with the aim of discovering whether the “intellectual symbols” by which specialized disciplines “consider and describe reality” are merely autonomous, existing side by side, or whether they are “diverse manifestations of one and the same basic human function.” If the latter is confirmed, the task becomes that of “setting out the general conditions of this symbolic function and illuminating the principle” governing their concrete diversity. Arguably Cassirer did not find an adequate solution to these questions until some years later, when midway through writing the second and third volumes of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (the latter completed in , published in ), his thought underwent a further “symbolic turn.” Quite possibly as the result of his affiliation from  to  with art historian Aby Warburg’s Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek in Hamburg, Cassirer came to realize that “language could not be taken as the prototype and model for a philosophy of symbolism.” By at least , Cassirer had come to regard the Ausdrucksfunktion (function of expression) that is formative of mythical and religious thought, as the ground of all other forms of cognition and symbolic formation. According to Krois, Cassirer at that time recognized that the second volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (), subtitled “Mythical Thought,” should have initiated the series. There is evidence, however, that the sought-for principle relating the diverse forms of understanding, and hence unifying the three published volumes of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, was not clearly formulated until “Das Symbolproblem und seine Stellung im System der Philosophie,” a  paper on the general topic of the symbol problem in philosophy. For the first time Cassirer outlined a kind of general parameter space (ein allgemeinstes gedankliches Bezugssytem) intended to encompass all possible symbolic forms. The space is comprised along three orthogonal axes of meaning function, namely, expression, representation, and signification. Each particular symbolic form is to be referred to this space with 



ECW : : “[Die philosophische Kritik der Erkenntnis] muß die Frage stellen, ob die intellektuellen Symbole, under denen die besonderen Disziplinen die Wirklichkeit betrachten und beschreiben, als ein einfaches Nebeneinander zu denken sind, oder ob sie sich als verschiedene Äußerungen ein und derselben geistigen Grundfunktion verstehen lassen. Und wenn diese letztere Voraussetzung sich bewähren sollte, so entsteht weiter die Aufgabe, die allgemeinen Bedingungen dieser Funktion aufzustellen und das Prinzip, von dem sie beherrscht wird, klarzulegen.” (Cf. PSF I: .) Krois : .



 

the objective of fully describing and determining its “orientation” (Orientierung) (ECW : ). Also for the first time Cassirer posited a third and highest sphere of meaning function, that of “pure meaning” (reine Bedeutung), distinguished from the sphere of representation on the ground of its complete independence of any intuitive shaping (Gestaltung): This function attained its symbolic force “so to speak [by] swimming in the free aether of pure thought.” Signs possessing such a meaning function neither express nor stand for anything; rather, they are “signs in the sense of mere abstract coordination (Zuordnung)” – not surprisingly, Hilbert’s axiomatization of geometry is mentioned as the essential paradigm of this mode of meaning function (ECW : ). Elaborating this theme is the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, subtitled “Phenomenology of Knowledge.” The intended sense of “phenomenology” here corresponds roughly to that employed by Hegel in outlining the different “shapes” of Geist. Cassirer’s target is not consciousness per se but its manifestations partitioned by the three functions of symbol formation mentioned above. The “modalities” of symbol formation are the corresponding tendencies of objectification, dynamically ranging from the primary subjective sources of meaning in perceptive and intuitive consciousness, progressing to the concept of object as the representation of a thing in space and time, continuing further to objective theoretical-scientific knowledge, and ultimately entering the realm of implicitly defined pure meanings in modern axiomatic mathematics. Beginning with expressive meaning, the primitive form of symbolic meaning, each level serves as the precondition for the next higher level. Expressive meaning invests experience with affective or emotional meaning, i.e., desire, fear, wonder, pleasure; the Ausdrucksfunktion is the meaning function underlying mythic and primitive religious belief. Natural language is the principal vehicle for the Darstellungsfunktion, the representative function of thought. It is the medium for understanding the everyday world of things in space and time, and so considered as representations in intuition. Furthermore, it gives rise to the logic of propositions and the propositional copula by which properties are attributed to objects, enabling reference to objects outside or beyond the speaker’s location and so transmission of information. The final, and highest, form of symbolic meaning is that of the Bedeutungsfunktion or significative meaning. This realm of theoretical knowledge establishes a new forum that hauls before it “all hitherto reliable witnesses to reality – sensation, representation, intuition” (ECW : ; PSF III: ).

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation



In multiple texts, Cassirer identifies the Greek concept of number as the crucial first step in the development of theoretical-scientific knowledge and hence of the Bedeutungsfunktion. Originating in mysticism, in the Pythagorean hypostatization of number as the ultimate reality, the number concept has progressed through stages of mathematical nominalism in which language is indispensable for the representation of the meaning of number concepts. With Dedekind, the concept of number is grounded simply in the “ability of the mind to relate a thing to a thing,” i.e., in the notion of Zuordnung, entirely independently from representations or intuitions of space and time. With the concept of number first arises a form of knowledge firmly separated from perception and intuition. In fact, significative meaning is presupposed in all scientific concept formation but is exhibited in its purely structural form only within the “pure category of relation” (i.e., logic of relations). Cassirer recognized the Bedeutungsfunktion as yielding in the limit a fundamentally distinctive type of symbolic functioning, possessing a specific meaning yet neither requiring nor allowing an intuitive substrate or object. The illustrious precursor of this ideal limiting form of the Bedeutungsfunktion is found in the work of Leibniz, “one of the most consistent exponents of the rigorously formalist point of view” who recognized that “‘intuitive’ and ‘symbolic’ cognition are not separate but indissolubly connected” (ECW : ; PSF III: ). Leibniz’s ideal Characteristica Universalis aspired to be a calculus allowing the contentual composition of any concept to be expressed by purely abstract symbols that are signs for primitive concepts where algebraic “operations with ‘signs’ replace operations with ‘ideas’.” In this calculus, a mathematically rigorous proof would convey the power of conviction by replacing a succession of distinct acts of thought (Denkschritte) with the pure simultaneity of overview (Überblicks) of all of them, the ideal limiting pole of understanding and comprehension. Leibniz’s “proof theory” (Beweistheorie) provides the ideal of such an achievement, one that can be attained only by symbolic thinking and that by its very nature . . . does not operate with the thought contents themselves, but associates a definite sign to each thought content and by virtue of this coordination achieves a compression (Verdichtung) through which it becomes possible to concentrate all the terms of a complex chain of proof into a single formula, and embrace them in one glance as an articulated totality. (ECW : –; PSF III: )



ECW : , ; PSF III: , ; DI, -; Ryckman .



 

Period statements of Hilbert resurrected, and moreover provided acute expression of, Leibniz’s fundamental idea. Recalling Hilbert’s famous statement “in the beginning . . . is the sign” (am Anfang . . . ist das Zeichen), Cassirer observed that Hilbert’s appropriately called Beweistheorie, or the formalization of logical and mathematical reasoning for the purpose of attaining consistency proofs of mathematical theories, similarly shifts the process of “verification” from specific content to “symbolic” thinking (ECW : ; PSF III: ). Signs are given first in sensuous intuition, yet thanks to their form and rules of combination, they make possible the clear display of objects, in all their parts, concerning which inferences are made. In this way, signs of pure symbolic thinking emancipate thought from “the dangers and ambiguities of mere reproduction” (ECW : ; PSF III: ). The highest type of symbolic meaning comes into play when the meaning of a term is implicitly defined, that is, when its meaning is bestowed solely by the term’s relations to other terms occurring in the axioms and deductive inferences of an axiomatized theory. The constructive nature and activity of the mind receives highest exemplification in the formation and use of abstract symbols, implicitly defined within a formal axiomatic system or closed symbolic calculus. Such a mode of objectification is an attained and attainable goal of pure mathematics but exists merely as a regulative idea in physical theory. Establishing physical objectivity completely through precisely defined abstract relations is an ideal toward which theoretical knowledge progresses; on account of the openness of experience, this remains an aim that can never be conclusively established. Unlike mathematical objects that are ideal, actual physical objects can be determined only in the form of a “limiting idea” (Grenzidee) (ECW : ; PSF III: ). Even as implicit definition in pure mathematics is identified as the limiting pole of “pure meaning” of the Bedeutungsfunktion, Cassirer noted already in  that when the symbols of an abstract-formal doctrine of relations pertain to knowledge of actual things (and not to the ideal objects of mathematics), a new methodological ideal is formed that transforms the very meaning of natural scientific cognition. In the physics of relativity and quantum mechanics, theoretical knowledge in natural science can be seen to manifest the 

ECW : : “[S]ondern wo [einer abstract-formalen Beziehungslehre] auf die Wirklichkeitserkenntnis u¨bergreift und diese dem neuen Ideal gemäß bestimmt. Man kann sagen, daß es eben diese methodische Neubestimmung, diese veränderte Grundansicht vom Sinn des Naturerkennens und von den Mitteln, deren es sich zu bedienen hat, gewesen ist, die die Krisis in der modernen mathematischen Physik herbeigefu¨hrt hat.”

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation  tendency of modern mathematics, namely, to renounce representation and all mediation of intuition, and to attempt to construct a realm of meanings no longer bounded by the horizons of sensuous experience or intuition. In this regard, the symbolic spaces of axiomatic mathematics and mathematical (theoretical) physics can both be considered functional spaces of “pure meanings.” They differ only in that the former are “constructed” (i.e., formally determined) manifolds of ideal ojects, while the latter remain merely “hypothetical” manifolds of actual objects. We will now consider how Dirac’s  presentation of quantum mechanics both confirmed and encouraged Cassirer’s extension of this limiting pole of the Bedeutungsfunktion to physical theory.

V Purely Symbolic Quantum Mechanics At the beginning of the third chapter of Principles, entitled “Symbolic Algebra of States and Observables,” Dirac provided a general overview of a “typical calculation”: One is given that a system is in a certain state in which certain dynamical variables have certain values. This information is expressed by equations involving the symbols that denote the state and the dynamical variables. From these equations other equations are then deduced in accordance with the axioms governing the symbols and from new equations physical conclusions are drawn. One does not anywhere specify the exact nature of the symbols employed, nor is such specification at all necessary. They are used all the time in an abstract way, the algebraic axioms that they satisfy and the connexion between equations involving them and physical conditions being all that is required. The axioms, together with this connexion, contain a number of physical laws, which cannot conveniently be analysed or even stated in any other way.

Presumably with reference to this passage, the final paragraph of chapter  of Determinism and Indeterminism concludes a discussion of the methodological tendency of quantum mechanics toward abstract symbolism with a brief account of implicit definition as “one of the most important advances in the modern logic of mathematics” (DI ). In (axiomatized) mathematical theories, a concept does not possess a determinate designation or meaning independently of its relations to other concepts. Rather, its significance is inherited from the structure of the relations in which the concept appears: “These relations themselves determine and completely 

Dirac : .



 

exhaust the being expressed in mathematical concepts” (DI ). This structural determination of meaning is naturally a characteristic difference between physical and mathematical concepts. Yet, Cassirer states that “modern quantum mechanics . . . tended more and more” toward the structural determination of meaning characteristic of an abstract symbolism. He then paraphrases nearly verbatim the above passage from Dirac’s Principles – a footnote clarifies that “this treatment appears most clearly in Dirac’s presentation of quantum mechanics.” To Cassirer, the sole remaining difference between mathematical concepts and those of quantum mechanics (as presented in Dirac’s treatment) is simply that the former are constructed to satisfy the axiomatic conditions imposed on them; quantum concepts belong not to a “constructed” manifold but to a “hypothetical” one, with the appointed task of saving the phenomena in the most uniform and simple manner. The “form” of such concepts is never final but must always take into account the possibility of recalcitrant experience. Recalling the discussion above, the Darstellungsfunktion is the mode of symbolic form corresponding to the notion of “state” in classical physics, the predication of spatial, temporal, and other definite properties to an object. In classical physics, as well as in both empiricist and rationalist epistemologies, talk of causal determination and even of what a “thing” is presupposes that at a given time specified properties or attributes definitely do, or do not, belong to an object. Determinism and Indeterminism argues that this mode of absolute determination has to be abandoned in quantum mechanics since it cannot answer “with what justification can we presuppose such a ‘state’ when knowledge lacks every access to it” (ECW : ; DI ). In contrast, the new quantum mechanical notion of “state” is only a relative determination of being; nothing is “in itself” that is not “for us,” i.e., that cannot be expressed as empirical knowledge in some sense. By satisfying the specified quantum conditions, the new mode of determination reverses the relation between “thing” and “attribute”: 

ECW : –; DI : Modern quantum mechanics thus tended more and more to begin by not positing definite realities, which are subsequently brought into relation with each other, but . . . starts out with the establishment of certain symbols expressing the state and the dynamic variables . . . From these, on the basis of definite axiomatic presuppositions, other equations are derived, and physical consequences drawn from them. At first it is not necessary to dwell on the exact significance of the symbols in a particular case. Only at a later stage of consideration are the representations of the abstract symbols examined – in other words things are attributes are examined which satisfy the rules valid for the interrelationship of the symbols.

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation  This type of determination dictates limits to the ‘being’ (‘Sein’ ) that we can attribute to things in nature; it is not the in itself determined being (Sein) that sets permanent limits to knowledge and remains impenetrable in its absolute intrinsic nature (absoluten Wesenheit) (ECW : –; DI )

Dirac and Cassirer understood that the more abstract approach to the notion of state had been initiated in the special theory of relativity by the use of Lorentz transformations between inertial frames, and then greatly extended by the requirement of general covariance in general relativity. Just as the same intrinsic relations between space-time events are independent of particular coordinate designations, so the canonical transformations of Dirac’s quantum mechanics are transformations from one representation of observables to another representation of the same observables. In referring to the new notion of “state” in quantum mechanics, each recognized the further significance of the “symbolic method.” On account of the Heisenberg uncertainty relations and the principle of superposition, the notion of “state” must not and cannot be associated with cognate classical concepts nor with intuitive content; rather, it is best considered in terms of abstract symbols. As noted above, Dirac’s book exposited quantum mechanics from the standpoint of an abstract “symbolic method” on the ground that the theory’s concepts “cannot . . . be explained adequately in words at all.” At this point it will be apparent how Dirac’s presentation of quantum mechanics, in particular his emphasis on the novel transformation of the notion of physical state and on the epistemic value of using abstract symbolic methods to express this new state of affairs, resonates with the overarching dialectical development of Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms. For this reason presumably, Determinism and Indeterminism praised Dirac for placing the principle of superposition at the center of his exposition of quantum mechanics, and so underscoring the fundamental transformation of the concept of physical state. The new notion shows that quantum physics has abandoned the old mode of absolute determination, connected with the symbolic form of classical physical theory (Darstellungsfunktion), and in its place adopted the principle of relative determination, one that manifests the abstract level of symbolic functioning of the Bedeutungsfunktion, bounded as it is by the Heisenberg uncertainty relations and dependent, as Bohr insisted, on the particular experimental 

Dirac : v.



 

context for measuring a given observable. To be sure, light or matter can be “pictured” as a wave or a particle, but neither can be represented as a “thing” in the classical sense, something absolutely determined in itself independently of the instruments of observation. Nonetheless, the relative mode of determination of quantum mechanics remains the “highest degree of relative determination of which physical knowledge is capable.” Cassirer elaborates on this point in a reference to §§ – of Dirac’s book: For if for the definition of a physical system we allow only such elements of determination that satisfy the conditions expressed in the uncertainty relations, if we are satisfied with “maximal observations,” i.e., with the greatest number of independently compatible observations, then we can bring these into a sharply defined relationship with each other. We can then establish the theorem (Satz) that when a maximum observation of a physical system is made, its subsequent state is completely determined by the result of this observation – and this theorem can be employed as the axiom to express what we regard as the ‘state of a system’ in the sense of atomic physics. (ECW : ; DI –)

As an ensuing quotation from Dirac makes clear, the “complete determination” referred to above is in general probabilistic, where in special cases the probability may be unity. In any case, the relative determination of the quantum state by measurement results from the Heisenberg uncertainty relations’ placement of epistemic “conditions of ‘accessibility’” (Zugänglichkeit) on any attribution of physical properties to an object. Abiding the transcendental formula, “the conditions of the possibility of experience are the conditions of the possibility of the object of knowledge”: In Cassirer’s epistemological examination of quantum mechanics, the “conditions of accessibility” are “conditions of the objects of experience” (ECW : ; DI –). By formulating “conditions of accessibility” that restrict physical knowledge to attestable phenomena rather than metaphysically latent properties, the Heisenberg uncertainty relations acquire a “purely critical meaning” (rein kritischen Sinn) in place of the skeptical message they appear to convey from the standpoint of the classical concept of physical state (ECW : ; DI ). The Cassirer–Dirac emphasis upon the symbolic character of quantum mechanics has not been superceded; it even gains new stature as the dialectical antithesis of attempts to ontologize the wavefunction or to regard quantum mechanics as a “black box,” purely instrumental theory. 

Dirac: , .

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation 

VI The Wavefunction as Symbol Discussions in quantum foundations and philosophy of physics have recently returned to an old question: How, and in what sense, can (or even should) one be a realist about quantum mechanics? In contemporary terms, this is posed as an issue of adopting a realist or antirealist stance with regard to the wavefunction ψ. Realism or antirealism about the wavefunction is then seen as a choice between the no-collapse dynamics of either Bohm or Everett (both might be termed distinct versions of wavefunction fundamentalism) and some version of collapse dynamics via the “projection postulate,” i.e., the abrupt break from unitary Schrödinger evolution that sends the wavefunction into a definite state (eigenstate) of a measured observable. Nowadays scientific realism is generally taken to be the claim that scientific theories (or models) are literally or approximately faithful (i.e., true) representations of reality. In Halvorson’s instructive overview (), wavefunction realism should be understood as making claims concerning which properties of ψ are representationally significant. For the realist, such properties must be properties in addition to those manifested within experimental practice, for here realists and antirealists alike agree, inasmuch as each classically described experimental preparation is associated with a unique quantum state, verified by the statistics of measurement outcomes. Realism about the wavefunction demands the existence of other representationally significant properties. Yet, surveying several possible candidates, Halvorson argues that it is not at all clear just what these properties are and, in any case, whatever they may be, they appear not to matter to practicing physicists. In view of these difficulties, a symbolic forms perspective on wavefunction realism suggests a different avenue of approach to notions of representational significance that supposedly undergird ontological claims. While “representation” has many different senses (Goodman, ), its core meaning is a notion of similarity: “X represents Y only in case X is similar in some respect to Y.” What can be said when ψ is X and the real quantum state (with its representationally significant properties) is Y? In what respect is ψ similar to Y? Over many decades Cassirer pointed to the symbolic character of knowledge in the physical sciences, a development that was first highlighted by Hertz following his teacher Helmholtz, but, as Cassirer observed, was emphasized even more strongly by Duhem (e.g., ECW : ; PK IV: ). It is instructive that Cassirer identified an unstable tension within this new conception of physical knowledge; whereas the Hertzian Bild-conception of physical theory is still phrased



 

in the language of the copy-theory of knowledge, for Hertz the symbols of physical theory are paraphrased as mental images, in fact misleading mental images (innere Schienbilder oder Symbole). Indeed, Duhem goes so far as to state that “applied to a symbol the words ‘truth’ and ‘error’ no longer have any meaning.” The representational character of the symbols of physical theory no longer requires a “vague demand for a similarity of content between image and thing” but is “a highly complex logical relation, a general intellectual condition, which the basic concepts of physical knowledge must satisfy.” The abstract representational character of quantum mechanics in Dirac’s transformation theory illustrates how this takes place. Dirac’s preference for an abstract “symbolic method” on the ground that the theory’s concepts “cannot . . . be explained adequately in words at all” signaled to Cassirer a transition within physical theory to a new genus of symbolic formation “above” the mode of symbolic formation of classical physical theory (Darstellungsfunktion). Accompanying this transition is a principle of relative determination, one manifested in the abstract level of symbolic functioning of Dirac’s noncommutative algebra, bounded by the Heisenberg uncertainty relations and dependent on the mode of observation employed. While implicit definition in axiomatized pure mathematics establishes the limiting pole of “pure meaning” of the Bedeutungsfunktion, Cassirer understood Dirac’s symbolic method as illustrating the fact that theoretical knowledge in natural science manifests the same tendency to renounce all mediation of intuition in representation, and to construct a new realm of concepts no longer bounded by the horizons of sensuous experience or visualization. Pure mathematics and mathematical (theoretical) physics together occupy distinct ranks in the symbolic functional space of “pure meanings.” The constructive nature and activity of mind exemplified in the formation and use of abstract symbols, defined within an axiomatic system or symbolic calculus, signals theoretical striving for a higher objectivity that disregards any particularity of perspective. This is a goal toward which theoretical knowledge progresses and aims but at least in physics can never be conclusively determined, establishing the physical object only in the form of an “idea of limit” (ECW : –; PSF III: –). The philosophies of both Cassirer and Dirac indeed had a common influence as both were strongly influenced by Hilbertian axiomatic pure  

Duhem : . Dirac : v.



ECW ; ; PSF I: ; quoted by Halvorson : –.

Quantum Mechanics As the Ultimate Mode of Symbol Formation  mathematics. Hilbert’s ideas about axiomatization in turn appear to have been influenced by the epistemology of symbols articulated by Hertz in his famous introduction to his posthumous Mechanics. For both, symbolic methods acquire heightened significance in the context of physical theory, encompassing “actual things” of physics rather than ideal objects. From the perspective of the philosophy of symbolic forms, Dirac’s Principles of Quantum Mechanics exemplifies the Bedeutungsfunktion’s fundamental impetus even as symbols pertain not to ideal objects of mathematics but to objects of experience. In particular, this impetus is to renounce any concept of meaning tied to sensuous presentation, intuition, or spatialtemporal representation, and to create in its stead a new domain of “pure meaning.” To Dirac, the “symbolic algebra of states and observables” is particularly suited to quantum mechanics because the latter concerns matters that “cannot . . . be explained adequately in words at all.” For Cassirer, Dirac’s symbolic method provides palpable evidence that the problem of objectivity in contemporary physical theory can no longer be viewed in terms of the representation of objects but itself has become a “pure problem of meaning.” What is termed the object of knowledge “is no longer a schematizable, intuitively realizable ‘something’ with definite spatial and temporal predicates [but] a point of unity . . . a mere ‘X’ in relation to which representations have synthetic unity” (ECW : ; PSF III: ). This development has been made possible through the use of abstract symbolic methods, a terminus ad quem or limiting case of “pure meaning” that oversteps the bounds and limitations of intuition and representation. Cassirer’s reorientation of Erkenntniskritik through the philosophy of symbolic forms sought to bring epistemological investigations of the exact sciences into the vastly broader orbit of an attempt to theoretically grasp how signs, invested with specific meaning through their cultural function, are created, expressed, and interrelated. Mathematics and theoretical physics are no longer an exclusive focus; rather, they are but aspects in a phenomenology of knowledge, although they remain “the highest and most characteristic attainment of human culture” (EM ). The widened perspective does not, and should not, imply that epistemology takes no further interest in particular problems within the special sciences. But the parameters of such investigations have been enormously expanded. They are no longer to be considered solely in autonomous isolation, insulated from other domains of culture where other, and culturally earlier, modes of 

Hilbert .



 

symbolic expression are exclusively found. While not losing sight of the specific scientific details, epistemological investigations in physical science are also to be viewed in relation to these other cultural manifestations of symbolic representation, receiving illumination from, and in turn illuminating, other symbolic forms. It is from this perspective that Cassirer could recognize the traditional “striving of ontology to transpose problems of meaning into problems of pure being” and attempt to reverse it.

 

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production Nicolas de Warren

Disappear then into the abyss? I could also say: arise!

—Goethe, Faust, II (Act I)

One of his lesser-known essays, Cassirer’s “Form and Technology” has been regarded as an outlier among his voluminous writings. Written in  after a productive decade that witnessed the transformation of Cassirer’s thinking into a philosophy of symbolic forms, “Form and Technology” represents a momentary yet revealing turn of Cassirer’s voracious philosophical appetite to a theme with which his thinking is rarely associated. Aside from scattered observations on tools and technical activity in other writings, the theme of technology never formed into an abiding concern for Cassirer, unlike other German thinkers, for whom technology became in the aftermath of the First World War a paramount and pressing concern of inquiry (Spengler, Klages, Anders, Dessauer, and Ju¨nger; and, after the Second World War, Heidegger). During the Weimar Republic, reflection on technology channeled a heightened cultural unease with the acceleration of technological innovation and expansion of technological power over modern life. Much of this Streit um die Technik – involving intellectuals, academics, artists, and engineers in a flurry of publications and public lectures – was animated by an ambivalence between optimistic and pessimistic images of modern technology, as exemplified with the contrast between the utopic search for unity between aesthetics and technical proficiency of the Bauhaus and Fritz Lang’s dystopian vision of humanity devoured by mechanization in Metropolis. Cassirer’s own contribution to this interwar debate appeared in a collection of essays entitled Kunst und Technik. As the editor Leo Kestenberg observes in his preface, “The relations between art and technology (Technik) stand today at the center of widespread interest.” 

Kestenberg : .





  

An important reformer of music pedagogy, Kestenberg introduces these essays as reflections on the “roots” of art and technical activity (Technik, a term that shall throughout this contribution be translated as either “technical activity” or “technology”) through their synthesis – a clear profession of affinity with the approach of the Bauhaus. These collected reflections are presented as a statement of intellectual responsibility for an age in which technology has become its “motor” and “strongest driving force” (stärkste Triebkraft). All facets of modern life – social, cultural, economic, political – are becoming ever more transformed by technological means, including, the basic concepts and practice of aesthetics. The essays in this volume examine the arts (with an emphasis on music) with regard to recent innovations: the record player, radio, film, photography, and the microphone. Standing apart, Cassirer’s lead essay offers a broad philosophical vision of the unity between spirit (Geist) and technology, thus framing the subsequent essays with their individual points of interest. “Form and Technology” does not merely provide a framework for the essays in Kunst und Technik. More significantly, it offers a correction for the conspicuous omission of technology from Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in which the symbolic forms of language, myth, and conceptual thought were explored in an encompassing phenomenology of knowledge (albeit, as Cassirer stresses, not in Husserl’s sense of phenomenology but more closely aligned with Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit). Insofar as Cassirer’s philosophy of history, as first formulated in Freedom and Form and further developed in Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, establishes a narrative of modernity, this absence of any prominent consideration of technology is all the more striking given the rising arc of technology as a problem of modernity and the extent to which, as Cassirer himself acknowledges in his  essay, the contemporary age is defined by the “primacy of technology.” Such an omission of technology from Cassirer’s own philosophical thinking during the s would seem as striking as the omission of language from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. As Cassirer remarks in “Kantian Elements in Humboldt’s Philosophy,” “the attempt to critique reason without providing a critique of language appears to be Kant’s real,  

For information on Kestenberg’s general biography as well as his relationship to Cassirer, see Feilchenfeldt : –. For the historical contextualization of Cassirer’s essay (with an emphasis on the novelty of the radio during the s) and Kestenberg’s volume, see Krois b: –.

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



incomprehensible oversight. . . .” This oversight, corrected by a number of Kant’s contemporaries, amounted to an oversight of language as an “organ, a living tool of reason” (WY ; my emphasis). In an analogous manner, it could be argued that until Cassirer’s  essay, an “incomprehensible and real” oversight of Cassirer’s philosophy of culture resided with this absence of any recognition of the philosophical challenge of technology for modern culture. And yet suggestively, Cassirer’s conception of language as a “living tool” admits by implication the significance of Technik within a philosophy of symbolic forms. As Denkorgan, the symbolic form of language would already invite a comparison between language and tools, given the former’s characterization as a “living tool.” In drawing extensively on von Humboldt and Goethe, Cassirer’s argument that language is an organ of spirit rejects an “instrumental” understanding of language as an external appendage to spirit. Language is of spirit, a manifestation of the “creative force” and “energy” of spirit itself. Language is a “living tool,” as symbolic form, through which spirit creates meaning in the world as well as realizes itself through its own creative activity; it is not a means to an end but a form of mediation and end in itself. This position against an “instrumental” understanding of language in favor of language as a “living tool” inscribes a place for a nonutilitarian conception of tools in the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms without, however, any further elaboration of tool usage and technical activity specifically as such. Incorporating a reflection on Technik within the project of symbolic forms would appear, moreover, to be an imperative given how Cassirer’s narrative of modernity centers on the reconciliation between “form” and “freedom.” In its progressive self-realization and world-configuration since the Renaissance, humanity passed through an historical integration of different cultural activities into a whole, as guided by the ideal of autonomy, not in the merely Kantian sense of morality (Sittlichkeit) but as the autonomy of humanity as “spirit” (Geist) and “culture” (Bildung). As Cassirer writes in The Logic of the Cultural Sciences, “In the ‘symbolic forms,’ which are characteristic of his essence and his ability, the human has, as it were, found the solution to a task that organic nature as such was incapable of solving. ‘Spirit’ has achieved what was denied to ‘life’” (LCS ). As Cassirer explains his philosophical project, “the ‘philosophy of symbolic forms’ grows from the critical transcendental question and builds upon it. It is ‘pure contemplation,’ not of a single form, but of all – the cosmos of pure forms – and it seeks to trace this cosmos back



  

to the ‘conditions of possibility.’” In the passage from “life” to “spirit,” the formation (Bildung) of humanity developed through the “humanization” of culture as well as the “cultivation” of humanity as a whole. Yet, it is this self-realization of freedom through a unified culture of spirit that technology, in its modern manifestation, would seem to threaten fundamentally. Is the fate of modernity synonymous with the tragedy of culture in the age of technological production? While it is not surprising that in the midst of the Second World War, Cassirer’s final study in The Logic of the Cultural Sciences seeks to redress Simmel’s diagnosis of “the tragedy of culture,” responding to the tragedy of culture was already a dominant and pressing motif shaping Cassirer’s thinking during the s. As Cassirer remarks, “this tragic impact of all cultural development is, perhaps, no more evident than in the development of modern technology.” The omission of technology from Cassirer’s cosmological phenomenology of symbolic forms would thus represent an oversight that would threaten its systematic ambition as “eine Reise um die Welt,” or mapping of “das wirkliche Ganze.” It betrays a blindness to the challenge of technology for the realization of culture as the “totality of spiritual forms” understood as objectifications of spirit. The world is constituted through different activities of spirit (geistige Tätigkeit) in their historical development; yet, in a world increasingly dominated by technological transformation, does technology represent a “spiritual” activity, and hence, an objectification of spirit? Is technology of spirit or does spirit fall victim to technology in the modern world? Just beyond the horizon of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, it is this fundamental question of spirit in the age of technological production to which Cassirer turns in . Even as “Form and Technology” would appear to be an occasional writing, it significantly stages a confrontation between Cassirer’s vision of the spirit of culture and the power of technology – a power that in different philosophical quarters was seen as marking the end of spirit through the subjugation and surpassing of humanity. Whether with Oswald Spengler’s “Faustian culture” or Ernst Ju¨nger’s “Titanic destiny,” the transformative modernity of technology was widely (and diversely) perceived as heralding the end of cultured





PSF IV:. As Cassirer remarks, “the philosophy of symbolic forms directs its regard not exclusively and not in the first place to pure scientific, exact apprehensions of the world [Weltbegreifen], but to all directions of understanding the world [Weltverstehens]” (PSF I: ). For the importance of Simmel’s “tragedy of culture,” see Skidelsky : –.

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



humanism, for which Cassirer’s philosophical thinking stood as its most sophisticated and, perhaps, final expression in its search for a middle position between these two extremes.

I

The Promethean Challenge of Technology

The obviousness of technology’s impact on modern life obscures the challenge of how to understand its philosophical significance. It would seem self-event, as Cassirer notes at the beginning of his essay, that the significance (Bedeutung) of technology in the modern world is adequately gauged by the magnitude of its material effectiveness (Wirkung). In terms of its effective power, technology’s significance would seem beyond question and everywhere on display as the “factuality” of the “primacy of technology.” Among various human activities, technical activity – the production and employment of tools to change the world according to human purpose – would seem to be a subdomain of human activity, one particular form of human creation. With the advent of modernity, this subdomain of human activity achieves an usurped universality in transforming culture as a whole. What characterizes the modernity of technology is not merely its quantitative or qualitative increase in power but its totalizing reach in reconfiguring and reducing the plurality of human meaning-making activities to the measure of utility and technical effectiveness. Given this technological transformation, it would seem that “even the strongest counterforces to technology, even those spiritual potencies that are most distant from technology in their content and meaning, seem able to actualize themselves only insofar as they become conjoined with technology and, through this alliance, become imperceptibly subjected to it” (WY ). Spirit (Geist) has become hostage to the predicament of a technological culture within which it no longer remains at the center of world-shaping activity, as argued most insistently by Gu¨nther Anders, for whom technology as such functions as the veritable agent of history. The human has become obsolete. As decried by a host of Cassirer’s contemporaries, nothing would seem to stand opposed to this age of technological subjugation and the usurped universality of technological production. Framed exclusively by an understanding of technology as effective power, the Streit um die Technik not surprisingly oscillated between the extremes of optimism in the transformative power of technology for human progress 

See Anders .



  

and pessimism in the destructive power of technology for human flourishing. Given how the contemporary age is dominated and defined by technological activity, it would be expected that philosophical thinking would have kept pace with this historically “incomparable development of technology.” But, as Cassirer observes, philosophical reflection has yet to fulfill this expectation. On the contrary, rather than think through the significance of technology, philosophy finds itself in the situation of having become unsuspectingly determined by instrumental rationality. Different domains of philosophical inquiry have been impacted by technology’s expanding power in terms of how technological images and metaphors structure philosophical thought itself. In this vein, Cassirer characterizes pragmatic theories of truth as bearing the imprint of technological significance (Bedeutung). Truth, on such a pragmatic view, is said to be measured by effectiveness and utility. Although Cassirer does not in this context refer to Husserl, the twofold critique of Technisierung and psychologism in the Prolegomena of the Logische Untersuchungen could be cited in further support for Cassirer’s contention that the proliferation of technology shapes the hidden plot of philosophical thought. In the Logische Untersuchungen, Husserl rejects the reduction of thinking to technique (the manipulation of signs) as well as to the empirical contingency of psychological process (the manipulation of mental representations). The collapse of thinking into mechanism (semiotic or psychological) characterizes an age under the sway of technical activity. As Cassirer more generally observes, the landscape of philosophy as a whole remains beholden to an uncritical understanding of technology as effective, material power. Even philosophical movements fashioned in opposition to mechanization and instrumental reason, as with Lebensphilosophie, still remain spellbound to an image of technology as material power. Appeals to the vitality of life against the perceived “vampiric and soul-destroying power” of technology – in the dramatic pronouncement of Ludwig Klages – tacitly accept the significance of technology as effectiveness,



This situation still defines the question of technology today. As David Rothenberg remarks, Much contemporary criticism of technology tends to fall into one of two camps. The first fears technology as a monolithic megamechanism, rejecting it as a threat to our human being. The second also imagines technology to be an entity separate from humanity, but one that will most fulfill human purpose when it is allowed to pursue its own inner logic (: xiv).

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

or power, against which a counterpower, “life,” becomes valued and duly affirmed. Such an opposition between the vital élan of life and the material forces of technology produces a reciprocal mystification of life as well as a mythologization of technology. Life becomes mystified into an irrational force on par with, or exceeding, the power of technological effectiveness, while technology, as a negative image of vitality, becomes mythologized into an autonomous and uncontrollable power. Regardless of whether a hyper-valuation of life motivates an overcoming of technological subjugation or superlative resignation from the reign of technological production, such optimistic and pessimistic outlooks subscribe to an understanding of technology as essentially a force external to human life. When seen in this manner as organized around an opposition between “life” and “technology,” various philosophical movements can be regarded as symptoms of the predicament of spirit in the age of technological production. In a declaration that signals the direction of Cassirer’s own reflections against the polarizing tendencies within the Streit um die Technik, the “essence and basic determination of spirit (Geist) does not tolerate any external determination,” even when, as with the contemporary age of technology, spirit entrusts itself to the “foreign power” of technology. Against the mystification of life and the mythologization of technology, Cassirer proposes to reclaim technology as a “spiritual” activity, not against the contemporary age of technology but through it, as an essential manifestation of spirit itself. Even if spirit in the modern world, as Cassirer seems to concede, cannot “repel and conquer the power to which it is subjected,” in thinking through the (purported) “alien power of technology,” as in truth a manifestation of spirit, spirit can “strike back against every external determination, against the mere fatality of matter and the effect of things” (WY ). Without disregarding the elements of power and mastery in terms of which proponents as well as detractors of technology assess its significance, Cassirer inscribes technology within the element of creation and autonomy. This approach to technology seeks to retrieve philosophical thought from its uncritical subjugation to a technological measure of significance (Bedeutung), or instrumental rationality, as well as provide an understanding of technology in its spiritual (geistig) significance, thus guarding against a regression of cultivated spirit to the irrationality of life, as represented by Lebensphilosophie. The stakes for spirit in the age of 

Klages :  (cited in WY ).



  

technology could therefore not be higher. Spirit can only enter completely into a harmonious cultivated form of humanism in the modern world through this reconciliation with technology in thinking technology in a “non-technical manner,” that is, not exclusively in terms of effectiveness, but in terms of its sense-creating form. This philosophical mindfulness (Besinnung) concerning the power of technology would finally achieve the autonomy of spirit, not as determined by the power of technology (as effectiveness) and equally not in opposition to the humanization potential of technological power. Toward this end, Cassirer proposes that a critical reflection must inquire into the “conditions of possibility of technical effective action and technical configuration.” Under the heading of critical philosophy, in the mold of Kant’s thinking as reformulated in the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, technology – a theme which, as Cassirer remarks in self-critique, “has not yet been seriously integrated within this [critical] circle of philosophical self-reflection” – must be understood as a form of sense-creation (WY ). The Kantian distinction between “being” and “validity,” whereby the “being” of an object is grounded in the a priori forms of its constitutive validity, or valid form of (possibly) being-known, becomes transformed in Cassirer’s thinking into the distinction between “being” and “sense” (Sinn). When transposed to the theme of technology, this critical shift from the question “what is it” (quid facti) to “how is it constituted” in its “sense-form” (quid juris) – symbolic form – shifts the focus from the significance (Bedeutung) of technology as forma formata (formed form, or created form; the produced technical artifact and its effective power) to technology as forma formans (forming form, or creating form; the technical producing of an artifact and its expression of human creativity; WY ). This symbolic reduction of technological artifacts and effectiveness, as forma formata, to technical activity and creation, as forma formans, leads to the discovery of the idea (or form: Cassirer liberally switches between speaking of the Idea and the Form of technology, in both instances: eidos) of technology as a sense-creating activity. In considering technology in terms of its constitutive idea, as the idea (form) of technical activity expressed and embodied in any given technology, Cassirer suggests that a reflection on the “ground of technology” can instructively look back to Plato’s discussion of techne in the context of his doctrine of ideas. 

For this primacy of the question of sense over the question of being in Cassirer’s reformulation of Kant’s transcendental thinking, see de Warren .

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



It is not accidental that Plato fashioned an ontological distinction between “true being” and “appearance” on the basis of an understanding of techne. As Cassirer remarks, “When Plato develops the relationship between the ‘idea’ and ‘appearance’ and seeks to justify it systematically, he seeks to ground it not in the figures of nature but in the works and formations (Gebilde) of techne” (WY ). A technical artifact is fabricated as a means to further human purpose (telos) on the basis of envisioning an Idea (eidos), the artifact’s design, that becomes exhibited in the fabricated artifact itself. Technical artifacts, or “formations,” are based on the “gaze upon the original form as exhibited in the spirit of the first inventors” (WY ). Technical activity is guided by contemplation and design, or, in other words, the creative shaping of form itself. Whereas the assigned purpose of a technical artifact determines what it is (i.e., what it is for), an Idea governs how it is created, or fabricated, into what it is for. By the same token, this contemplative dimension of techne, as practical contemplation, grounds theoretical contemplation, thus diminishing the difference between techne and theoria. Springing from intellectual design (eidos), a tool is not merely a means to further human purpose through material power; every fabricated artifact exhibits an intellectual form of creation and hence, a thinking. For Cassirer, this Platonic insight that technical activity is governed by an intellectual form of seeing proves crucial toward an understanding of technology as a symbolic form. A technical artifact, as created for human purpose by purposeful human activity, does not express meaning (as with words and signs) but exhibits the intrinsic meaningfulness of its own creating activity. Cassirer’s own understanding of technical activity bears the imprint of this Platonic emphasis on the intellectual creation of technical artifacts. Elements of chance, accidental discovery, or experimentation in design seem not to play an essential function in this conception of the underlying intellectual activity of technological production. As with the demiurge in Plato’s Timaeus, an intellectual vision of an eidos, and hence, for Cassirer, an intellectual activity of spirit, underlies technical production. Rather than consider technology exclusively in terms of its effectiveness and purpose, technology must be seen in its original Idea as a formcreating activity. As Cassirer writes,



As Hoel notes, Cassirer’s understanding of technology breaks with established distinctions between theoretical, practical, and technical modes of reasoning (: ).



   If, instead of beginning from the existence of technological works, we were to begin from the form of the effective action of technology and shift our gaze from the mere product to the mode and type of production . . . then technology would lose the narrow, limited, and fragmentary character that otherwise seems to adhere to it (WY ).

Such an approach to technological activity as sense-creation distances itself from taking any position, positive or negative, regarding technology’s moral value. As implied within Cassirer’s distinction between technological “purpose” (telos) and “form” (eidos), there is an intrinsic and grounding “purposelessness” to the autonomy of technical creation as “spiritual form,” irrespective of the uses (and abuses) to which technological effectiveness may fair. Cassirer effectively side-steps the debate of whether technology is a blessing or a curse, which defined much of the Streit um die Technik among his contemporaries. Any ambiguity of techne as pharmakon (as explored more recently in the writings of Bernard Stiegler in the wake of Jacques Derrida’s seminal essay on Plato) becomes suspended with Cassirer’s phenomenological reduction of technology, as framed by the “natural attitude” of assessing technology as power, to its grounding symbolic form. As Cassirer remarks, moral assessments of the advantages or disadvantages of technology for life are “foreign to the pure creative will (Gestaltungswillen) and pure creative power (Gestaltungskraft) of technology” (WY ). Such assessments are said to be “merely subjective expressions” that do not impinge upon the “essence” of technology. By contrast, reflection on technical activity along the lines proposed by Cassirer aims to deliver a “norm about merely subjective expressions” through a symbolic leveraging of technological power by means of its “lawgiving” form. As Cassirer remarks, “Goethe says that when a human being acts meaningfully, he always and simultaneously acts as a lawmaker” (WY ). Once technology’s essence as a symbolic form has been revealed as its spiritual ground, human beings can reclaim their standing as both the giver and receiver of technical gifts.

II

Technology As Symbolic Form

With this shift of consideration, Cassirer understands technological activity as an “externalization” of spirit in its symbolic “process of configuration.” This symbolic dimension of technological activity becomes apparent in the affinity between language and technology, here understood primarily as tools. The comparison between linguistic signs and tools represented a common theme among discussions of language and technology in

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



nineteenth and early twentieth-century German thought. In one such influential comparison, Max Eyth, an engineer who pioneered mechanization procedures in agriculture, identified in “Poetry and Technology,” language and tool usage as distinctive of the human species. Cassirer’s esteem for Eyth as “an eloquent pioneer in the spiritual sovereignty of technology” is revealing of the current of Weimar humanism, inspired by the writings of Goethe, that shapes Cassirer’s reflection on technology. Eyth was a prominent representative of a uniquely German synthesis of poet and engineer during the late nineteenth century. Aside from innovations in engineering, Eyth was an accomplished artist (drawing and watercolors), successful novelist, and popular travel writer. As a pioneer of the “spiritual sovereignty” of technology, Eyth’s writings feed into the Technikeuphorie sweeping through the German Bildungsbu¨rgertum at the end of the nineteenth century. For the review Das Literarische Echo, Eyth was nothing less than “the first authentic poet of modern technology (der erste eigentliche Dichter der modernen Technik).” According to this poet of modern technology, the origins of word and tool can be traced back to the “imperative of survival of human beings in a hostile world.” In echo of the Myth of Prometheus in Plato’s Protagoras, Eyth conceives of human beings in contrast to animals as “defenseless” and “exposed to nature.” This existential exposure impels the desire to achieve mastery over the environment through the development of technology and language. Armed with word and tool, human existence elevates itself from existing “more helpless and weaker” than other animals to standing sovereign “over every living thing on earth” (WY ). In following Eyth’s recognition of an “inner affinity” between language and technology, Cassirer shifts, however, its meaning away from purely instrumental means for securing human survival. Language and tools are not merely means for survival in compensation for an original “weakness” and “helplessness” of human life. Instead, language and tools are different ways of worldconfiguration and parallel expressions of an “original power of logos.” Cassirer thus rejects Eyth’s underlying view of human existence (prevalent among the nineteenth-century thinkers) as organically deficient, or, as expressed in the Prometheus narrative in Plato’s Protagoras, as lacking in  

See Todrowski (). For a discussion of Eyth’s image of the technical inventor in his novel, see Thomé . Das Literarische Echo –. Interest in the poet-engineer as well as the relation between poetry and technology was widespread before and after the First World War. See Zimmermann ; and Wolff .



  

determinate nature. On this image of deficient life, or, as Anders would later reformulate this thought, of original estrangement from the world, technology as well as language are seen as circuitous means to attain power and mastery over nature. For Cassirer, by contrast, as expressions of the original phenomenon of life in the mold of Goethe’s Urphänomenon, technology and language are different forms of “apprehending” (Fassen) the world through symbolic mediation. In speaking about the world and acting on the world with tools, each form of doing configures the world anew in meaningful ways, thus transforming human agency in the world in ways that reach beyond the organic limitations of human life. In contrast to a conception of technology as mere mastery over nature, technological effectivity becomes seen in turn as a medium for the self-realization of human agency into higher and other forms of agency beyond the prescriptions of its organic finitude. Cassirer’s distance from Eyth is revealing of an alternative image of Prometheus, taking its cue from Goethe, that shapes his response to the challenge of technology in the contemporary age. In Goethe’s celebrated poem, the figure of Prometheus is positioned in-between the gods and humans; he is less than the gods, though he addresses Zeus in the familiar form of Du, and more than human, as the deity who steals from the gods to save humankind. Goethe’s Prometheus embodies the spirit of rebellion against the authority of myth as well as the elevation of human existence from bare life to creative spirit. The myth of Prometheus unbinds itself from myth to reveal Prometheus as the aspirational figure of human spirit itself. Through such transfiguration, Prometheus is no longer the god who  

For an astute analysis of Plato’s Prometheus, see Ferrarin : –. Within the threefold schema of the concept of Urphänomenon, the unmediated use of the human body to act on the world represents the level of doing. In acting on the world, life becomes aware of itself as an I, as “internally unbounded” and “externally bounded.” Technological artifacts and tools represent the level of work as objectifications of life that “transcend” life.” As Cassirer writes, “the transition to the ‘enduring’ work (product) and to the tool as something which is ‘always to be applied in the same way’ is what actually opens up to mankind the ‘objective’ sphere, the sphere of ‘things.’” Works covers a broad category of fabricated artifacts, including, for Cassirer, “speech and writing.” But, a strange turnabout occurs. These works no longer belong to us; they mark the first level of ‘alienation.’ They stand in an order of their own, which follows objective standards [. . .] These works belong now more to the outer world than to us. They are also no longer recognizable in full measure. These works are in a certain sense more than their creator and so possess a peculiar kind of ‘transcendence.’ The work has a unique ousia – a form or eidos, which persists as something enduring. It is this peculiar form of “transcendence” in the tragedy of culture that Cassirer seeks to reclaim for spirit (PSF IV: –).

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



gives to humans what humans cannot provide for themselves, for in this humanized form, humankind becomes Promethean. This image of Prometheus unbound from mythical consciousness can be seen as the underlying schema of Cassirer’s reflections on technology. In revealing the essence of technology as the externalization of spirit, the significance of technology becomes reclaimed from any idolization promising human salvation or mythologization as “vampiric and soul-destroying.” Cassirer’s intellectual effort consists in this Promethean gesture of stealing technology back from the authority of any myth, including, and most pressingly, the myth of a technological “Titanic” power bereft of spirit. This demythologization of Prometheus is the implicit subtext of Cassirer’s construal of the “deep opposition” between magic and technology. The “form” of technology first distinctly “opens itself up” in the emancipation from magical consciousness. This passage from magical to technological consciousness is synonymous with the passage from “primitive peoples” to “civilized peoples.” As Cassirer writes: “Humans from an earlier stage are distinguished from those of a later stage, just as magic is distinguished from technology. The former may be designated as homo divans and the latter as homo faber” (WY ). Under the influence of Lucien Levy-Bruhl’s notion of participation, Cassirer considers “primitive” magical consciousness as an orientation toward a world that does not encounter the world as an objective, knowable world. Magical consciousness participates in the world immanently without any ontological differentiation between “the subjective” and “the objective.” Magical comportment toward the world can be understood as the implementation of a meaning-generating activity that seeks to configure nature according to human desire. In magical consciousness, nature is not encountered or imbued with any independent form of existence but, on Cassirer’s assessment, as entirely dependent and malleable to human desire. The magical world is populated with things, but such things are not encountered as setagainst (Gegen-stand) human consciousness; humans exist alongside things of the world within an enchanted medium of reciprocal malleability. 

This “deep opposition” between magic and technology critically hinges on refuting any notion of magic as the embodiment of a “proto-scientific” view of the world, as argued in Frazer’s The Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings (the first volume of The Golden Bough). Frazer’s understanding of magic as the attempt to control nature through the application of technical means based on faulty thinking nonetheless recognized magic as an understanding of the causal properties, laws of association, and patterned sequence of natural occurrences, thus providing a rudimentary basis for the historical development of scientific reasoning. Cassirer rejects Frazer’s account since “it awards magical comportment a signification that vindicates it as an achievement that is reserved for technological comportment” (WY ).



  

Magic is thus an attempt to “captivate and subjugate” through what Cassirer calls “the omnipotence of desire and affective phantasy,” albeit unconsciously, since magical consciousness is not itself aware of its own desire for omnipotence. Its unconscious desire for omnipotence attests in fact to its de facto impotence. Whereas magic enchants the world in the service of desire, technological consciousness transforms desire into the will, and hence, for Cassirer, represents the primordial manifestation of human freedom. With the advent of technological activity, human life becomes transformed in achieving an attitude toward the world and gaining a meaning-forming activity that are deemed “theoretical” in the sense that “human beings no longer attempt to make reality amendable to their desires with various methods of magic and enchantment, rather they take it as an independent and characteristic ‘structure’” (WY ). The desire for omnipotence becomes thus transfigured into a will to gain control over the world in recognition of the world as independent from human volition. For Cassirer, what animates technology is not a drive to omnipotent power but a will to knowledge in the service of power. Technological activity discloses the “proper meaning of existence and events – reality as cosmos – as order and form – stands out” (WY ). This transfiguration of omnipotent desire into tempered freedom expresses itself in defining the circuitousness of technical means. Unlike magic, technological consciousness reveals itself not only in the ability to seize its goal but also in the particular ability to distance itself from the goal and to leave it at this distance, “letting it stand” there. It is only this letting-stand of the goal that makes an “objective intuition” possible, and intuition of the world as a world of “objects” (WY ).

A tool is a circuitous means for achieving an intended purpose, since it is only by means of a tool’s usage that an intended purpose may (or may not) be successfully achieved. Magic obviates the circuitousness of action through an imagined immediate efficacy. The intended aim of a magical practice is “precisely anticipated” in its representation as apparent with two of its most prevalent forms: word-magic (the incantation of words) and image-magic (the casting of a spell on images). Along with the technological consciousness of circuitousness, technical activity is determined by an opportunity cost. Had a given tool not been used, another choice of action or use of another tool could present itself as an alternative course of action. No matter how efficiently deployed, technical activity always involves a degree of opportunity costs. With magic, however, the circuitousness

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



of human action is reduced to zero, since a magical practice does not fail in any comparable manner as with the failure of a tool; there are no opportunity costs with magical practice. Magic, as a desire for omnipotence, is an idealized technique that obscures the Idea of technology; it is an idealized technique insofar as magical practice is costless and promises the immediate achievement of desire; it obscures the idea of technological activity, however, insofar as it obscures the degree of opportunity costs involved in technology as well as the creative source of technological activity in the human intellect. This explains the prevalence of ascribing the origins of technology (as well as language) to divine powers among homo divans. Technological activity establishes a contemplative attitude toward the world through which nature is disclosed as structured through possibilities. Technological comportment “discovers nature” as an intelligible order standing opposed (Gegen-stand) to human consciousness as something to be known. The design, fabrication, and employment of technical artifacts must be based on a knowledge of material properties, causal interactions, and optimal conditions for success. Such an attitude toward the world does not merely discover preexisting possibilities but objectifies possibilities through the fabrication of tools. Through technological knowing in doing, tools function as structuring forms of mediation between intention and goal. Tools are employed within a consciousness of possibility, not only knowing-how but a knowing of possibilities within which choices have to be made and followed with consequence. With the use of the unaided hand, the human employs the body to achieve a goal without any mediation; the hand reaches immediately for its intended object. With tools, a distance toward the world occurs through its objectification. The hand on its own, without the mediation of tools, does not, on this account, intellectually grasp and hence objectify the world; it is only with the tool, as the hand’s mediation, that the hand comes to grasp (begreifen) the world as an objective set of possibilities within which human actions navigate. It is, in other words, only through the mediation of tools that things in the world can become constituted as Vorhanden. Cassirer contends, moreover, that the unmediated use of the body does not manifest a knowledge (Wissen) of its own effective activity. Consciousness is entirely absorbed in the use of the body on the world such that the world does not appear through this action as “an objective figure” to be comprehended. In this pre-technological mode of what could be called, following Heidegger, 

For the ideas of zero-opportunity cost and circuitousness in magic and technology, see Gell : –.



  

Zuhandenheit, the technique of the body remains itself taken for granted and veiled, as it were, inseparable thematically from the employment of the body itself. By contrast, the use of a tool does not merely extend the functionality of the hand in its grasping but transforms the natural grasping of the hand into a “conceiving” (begreifen) of the world as objective. Technological mediation effects a comprehension (ergreifen) of the world. This technological objectification of the world into possibilities of action cannot occur without the temporal projection of an intended future, or “fore-seeing.” With this “fore-seeing” (Ab-sicht), consciousness gains “fore-sight” (Voraus-sicht), not with regard to the future but in terms of future possibilities as well as different possible futures. Knowledge of the tool as “for something” opens onto the world as structured by “vectormagnitudes,” or possible courses of action, along with a “new direction of seeing” (Blickrichtung). Inscribed within a nexus of usage, as structured through different “vector-magnitudes” of possible action and reference (i.e., to other tools), consciousness “fore-sees” its intended goal as the condition for understanding how to use a tool, while the use of the tool provides the means for attaining this intended goal. Although underdeveloped in Cassirer’s own discussion, the “new direction of seeing” (Blickrichtung) and “vector-magnitudes” of action embedded in technological activity must also be seen as its social, or intersubjective, dimensions. The objectification of the world through technology is as much a social objectification of new possibilities of conduct: collective fabrication and use of tools, coordinated action, inheritance of tools, privilege of tool possession, etc. Among the numerous contributions to the nineteenth-century debate surrounding the origin and development of language and tools, Ludwig Noiré’s Ursprung der Sprache () argued in this direction that the development of language and tools depended on human sociality. Under the sway of von Humboldt, Noiré argues that language did not emerge from reason, but, on the contrary: “Die Sprache hat die Vernunft erschaffen, vor der Sprache war der Mensch vernunftlos.” Language is a Denkorgan, but unlike von Humboldt, Noiré identifies its origin with collective action. Collective undertakings promoted and became in turn further facilitated through linguistic communication. As he writes, “Es war die auf einen gemeinsamen Zweck gerichtete   

Implied within Cassirer’s account is what Marcel Mauss termed les techniques du corps. The parallels with Heidegger’s discussion of equipment in Sein and Zeit are indeed striking. For Cassirer’s reference to Heidegger’s notion of Zeug, see PSF IV: . Noiré approvingly cites from Lazarus Geiger’s Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft (). For the historical context of this debate about language, see Knobloch .

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



gemeinsame Thätigkeit, es war die urälteste Arbeit unserer Stammeltern.” Acting in concert with others motivated the formation of vocalized sound patterns, which, at first produced involuntarily, progressively accrued into identifiable and repeatable vocal exclamations. Patterns of sounds would have had to be collectively remembered, understood, and reproduced. What conditioned this emergence of language was a “common feeling” (Gemeingefu¨hl) of participating in a shared enterprise. Such a “common feeling” served as the affective basis for shared forms of understanding and communication. In a passing reference to Noiré’s Das Werkzeug und seine Bedeutung fu¨r die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Menschheit (), Cassirer acknowledges this nexus between tools, words, and collective actions. As he remarks following Noiré, “the original sounds [of words] originated not in the objective intuition of substance but in the subjective intuition of action” (WY ). Noiré’s thesis is here that words originally referred not to things but to actions and objects of actions and hence, collective undertakings. In Das Werkzeug und seine Bedeutung fu¨r die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Menschheit, Noiré attempted to demonstrate that the names of tools (Werkzeuge) in multiple Ancient languages stemmed from their original goal and purpose (Verrichtungen) and, on this basis, argues that language predates the systematic development of tools, i.e., technology. His general point, however, is that “die Sprache bezeichnet in ihrem Ursprunge die Dinge der objectives Welt nicht als Gestalten, sondern als Gestaltete.” Cassirer’s understanding of technology as symbolic form of mediation does not subscribe to a common image of technology as an extension or projection of the human. As Cassirer writes, “The tool no longer belongs 

   

Noiré : . Interestingly, Noiré’s argument anticipates Michael Tomasello’s view that the emergence of linguistic signs depended on shared reference among individuals to the same object or situation as well as the ability of individuals to project reciprocally their own perspectives onto one another’s. See Tomasello : f. Emphasis on the human specificity of shared pointing would also seem to have a forerunner in Noiré’s writings. Noiré’s argument for the foundational function of “social being” (Collectivwesen) draws from Ludwig Feuerbach’s Philosophie der Zukunft. See also Cassirer’s remark in PSF IV: : “Here we agree with Noiré’s thesis that language and tools develop from a single basic disposition in mankind”. Noiré : . As proposed in what is often regarded as the first thematic work on the philosophy of technology, Ernst Kapp’s Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik, and subsequently argued with different inflections in Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man and David Rothenberg’s Hand’s End. As a developed reformulation of Aristotle’s characterization of the hand as the tool of tools (De Anima, a), Kapp proposed that technology is morphological projection, and hence extension, of human organs. Through such an unconscious projection,



  

immediately, like the lived body and its limbs, to the human being: it signifies something detached from its immediate existence, something that has itself consistence, a consistent existence that can far outlast the life of the individual human being” (WY ). This objectification of the tool, in terms of which nature as such becomes objectified, defines the paradox of technological works. On the one hand, the independence of technological artifacts from the activity of their own fabrication (as well as the agent of creation) underlies the “tragedy” of technological culture: Spirit becomes hostage to and alienated from its own technical works (forma formans becomes reified and obscured in forma formata). On the other hand, technological activity allows for a transformative self-knowledge of spirit through its technical fabrication. The emancipation of technology beyond the organic barrier of the human body allows for new ways of seeing the world, acting on the world, and technical fabrication. Flight, as Cassirer notes, only became possible once technological thinking abandoned the imitation of birds and any morphological analogy with human organism (WY ). Much as language – the “tool of spirit” – emancipated itself from sound to become symbol, technology – the “spirit of the tool” – emancipated the human from organic life.

III The Promethean Promise of Technology Numerous are the issues raised with Cassirer’s “clean” opposition between magical consciousness and technological consciousness, not all of which can be meaningfully pursued here. This opposition cannot be taken to mean that technical artifacts and tools were not in usage among “primitive humans are able to gain knowledge of their own organic bodies and powers. Technology, in Kapp’s view, is not only an extension of the human order to gain mastery over the world, it is also a means for self-knowledge. In a comparable vein, McLuhan understands technology as artificial extensions that allow for an increase in human cognitive and sensory abilities: “It is a persistent theme of this book that all technologies are extensions of our physical and nervous system to increase power and speed” (McLuhan : ). Whereas the mechanical age, for McLuhan, is characterized by the extension of human bodily powers by technical means, the modern age of media is characterized by the extension and, most critically, the amplification of human sensory organs and cognitive functions. The media age represents the progressive externalization of human consciousness into technological forms. A similar view is also articulated in Hand’s End. As Rothenberg writes, “Techniques can extend all those human aspects for which we possess a mechanical understanding, that is, we know how it works” (: ; see also Arnold Gehlen, Man in the Age of Technology). Philip Brey more recently advances a modified form of this basic thesis: Technology is not a morphological projection of the human body (Kapp) nor an extension of human intention (Rothenberg) but an extension of the means by which human intentions are realized. As Brey writes, “An instrument such as a long stick, a ladder or chainsaw extends one’s ‘action horizon,’ and one suddenly finds oneself able to realize one’s intention” ().

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



peoples” whose basic worldview was ruled by magic (and myth); Cassirer himself refers to technical artifacts among “primitive peoples.” For the Ewe peoples, as he notes, the blacksmith’s hammer was considered a “mighty deity, to which they pray and offer sacrifice.” Evidently, Homo divans employed various tools and developed different technological skills and abilities of use to an impressive degree of sophistication; one need only recall the architectural feats of the Incas at Machu Picchu (a civilization that did not possess written language) or other monumental forms of architecture. For the artisans of “primitive peoples,” the production of a technical artifact could not depend on anything other than the kind of technical knowledge that Cassirer finds articulated in Plato’s analysis of techne. An Ewe artisan fabricates a hammer in view of its intended purpose (telos) according to an envisioned design, or eidos. An Uwe artisan must likewise possess a reliable knowledge of material properties (hardness of bone, etc.) and objective structures of the world, thus drawing from “objective intuition.” Even if the hammer is imbued with magical properties and said to be “given by the gods,” the skills required to forge metal cannot itself be a purely magical act; otherwise, a functioning hammer could never have been fabricated. Cassirer’s “clean opposition” between magic and technology, between Homo divans and Homo faber, cannot therefore be understood in exclusive terms, as between magic or technology. In The Myth of the State, Cassirer refers to Malinowski’s observation that “even in primitive societies the use of magic is restricted to special field of activities. In all those cases that can be dealt with by comparatively simple technical means man does not have recourse to magic” (MS ). As Malinowksi himself writes, “when the native has to produce an implement, he does not refer to magic” but instead employs learned skills (cutting, etc.) and engages an inherited tradition of knowledge (choice of materials, physical properties, etc.). Cassirer here endorses, more clearly than in his  essay, this qualification that magic is only resorted to when a given task proves to be (too) dangerous (as with hunting) or especially uncertain, that is, as a function of an underdeveloped technological base and knowledge. As with the example of the Ewe hammer, magic serves an adjunct purpose as a “technique of enchantment” that narrates a symbolic frame of significance for technology. Magic establishes a symbolic purpose in representing and codifying a meaningful framework for technical activity. As described in Malinowski’s Coral Gardens and 

For this notion of magic as technique of enchantment, see Gell : –.



  

Their Magic, technological activity and effectiveness are embedded within a magical narrative of “symbolic commentary” in terms of which technology becomes symbolically effective; for example, with the ascription of social status and political power to technical artifacts and their creators or owners. Whereas the world of Homo divans is threatening and dangerous, the progressive triumph of Homo faber over Homo divans represents a disenchantment of the world in rendering the world an object of knowledge and theatre of human mastery. This difference between the enchanted world of magic – the enchantment of risk and danger – and the disenchanted world of technology – the management and manipulation of risk and danger – corresponds to a difference in self-knowledge. As an illustration of Homo divans, the Uwe artisan has not achieved any freedom from a magical consciousness of his own technological activity. A magical interpretation of technological activity, as with the perception of the hammer as “from the gods,” gives symbolic significance while masking the genuine human source of technical activity. Expressed in Cassirer’s discourse, magical consciousness can be seen as providing a fundamental metaphor for technical activity. This enchantment of technological activity effects a transference of meaning from one symbolic order to another, and hence, an obfuscation of the latter as a means for self-knowledge: Technical activity is given magical or mythic significance along with its non-magical technical effectiveness. When recast as the entwined juxtaposition of magic (technique of enchantment) and technological activity (technology of mastery), Cassirer’s analysis can be regeared to identify two insufficient (insufficient, that is, with regard to the potential of transformative self-knowledge through technical activity) understandings of technical activity: Technical activity understood metaphorically as magic and technical activity understood literally in terms of its (exclusively) visible effectiveness. If the former view characterizes technological comportment for Homo divans, the latter characterizes technological comportment in the contemporary age, against which Cassirer’s argument primarily sets itself. Within Cassirer’s humanist narrative, technological activity became progressively liberated from 



Gell speaks of Malinowski’s work as “still the best account of any primitive technological-cummagical system.” In Gell’s summary of Malinowski’s basic insight, “It is because non-magical is effective, up to a point, that the idealized version of technology which is embodied in magical discourse is imaginatively compelling,” (Gell : ). For this notion of mythology as “fundamental metaphor,” a notion derived from Max Mu¨ller, see WY .

Spirit in the Age of Technical Production



magical enchantment. Plato’s philosophical reflection on techne marks the advent of a conceptual trajectory of understanding of technology that has freed itself from magical or mythical consciousness (despite the prevalence of myth in Plato’s dialogues). Much as Cassirer charted the passage from mythological thought to conceptual thinking in the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, “Form and Technology” outlines a parallel passage from Homo divans to Homo faber. The historical demythologization of technology produced, however, an overly literal understanding of technology as effectiveness (Wirksamkeit) and mastery over the world. Viewed from Cassirer’s critique of technology, the magical enchantment of technology of the Uwe artisan as well as the modern disenchantment of technology as effectiveness fail to grasp technology as a symbolic form through which spirit attains a new form of self-realization and self-knowledge. Although the magical enchantment of technology (Homo divans) would seem to stand diametrically opposed to the sobriety of technological effectiveness (Homo faber), both techniques of understanding are defined by an inability to understand technology as the self-mediation of spirit, and hence, as opening onto a new form of self-knowledge in the history of spirit. Cassirer’s own efforts to think the essence of technology as symbolic form and, in this manner, reclaim in a Promethean gesture technology from myth, old or new, moves along a trajectory between “enchantment” and “disenchantment.” 

In The Myth of the State, Cassirer writes that “our modern political myths seem a very strange and paradoxical thing,” since these myths blend what seems entirely separate, to whit, what in  Cassirer insisted were entirely opposed: magical consciousness and technological consciousness. Modern totalitarian politics is distinctive, however, combining Homo magus and Homo faber. As Cassirer perceives in a way he did not (and perhaps could not anticipate in ), “it has been reserved for the th-century, our own great technical age, to develop a new technique of myth” (MS xx) – myth according to a plan and design or, in other words, myth as political technique. It is beyond the power of philosophy, he notes dryly, to destroy such political myths.

 

Political Myth and the Problem of Orientation Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis Simon Truwant

In the final years of his life, Cassirer’s thought took a political turn that may come as a surprise to many of his readers, both then and now. After all, Cassirer was and still is usually considered in either one of two, complimentary, ways: positively as a historian of philosophy, or negatively as a neo-Kantian system builder whose Enlightened idealism remained utterly detached from the Zeitgeist of the interbellum. The witness reports of the  “Davos debate” between Cassirer and Heidegger, which depict a clash between an erudite yet uninspiring professor and a provocative but charismatic reformer, both recorded this view and firmly established it in collective memory. Countering this view, my contribution aims to demonstrate the inherent and remaining societal relevance of Cassirer’s philosophy of culture. My central claim is that the philosophy of symbolic forms formulates a critique of and response to two dialectically related crises of culture: an intellectual crisis resulting from a lack of overall cultural unity and orientation, and a political crisis resulting from the political sphere overstepping its legitimate boundaries. As such, I will argue, Cassirer provides a useful philosophical framework for tackling not only the crisis of Western culture at the beginning of the twentieth century but also the “post-truth condition” that haunts it today. Furthermore, this framework allows me to demonstrate that Cassirer’s later writings on the sociopolitical task of philosophy do not break with his systematic writings from the s but rather reveal the motivation for his earlier thought. Section I of this chapter recounts Cassirer’s analysis in The Myth of the State () of the political crisis of his time, and explains how the new  

Levinas and Poiré (): –; Blumenberg (): ; Habermas (): –; and Skidelsky (): –, . This picture was confirmed by Rudolf Carnap (), and Ludwig Englert (: ), and picked up by Karl Jaspers (: –), and Leo Strauss (: –), among others.



Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



phenomenon of political myth challenges the main principles of his philosophy of culture. In Section II, I argue that this political crisis should be understood as the result of a broader, intellectual crisis that Cassirer describes in An Essay on Man () as a “crisis in man’s knowledge of himself.” Section III goes beyond Cassirer’s own writings: I first elaborate on the dialectic relation between these crises, and then draw a parallel to the political and intellectual moments of the contemporary crisis of truth in the so-called post-truth era. Finally, relying on Kant’s idea of the “cosmopolitan conception of philosophy,” Section IV outlines how Cassirer’s entire philosophical project, the philosophy of symbolic forms, was set up to deal with this twofold crisis from the very beginning.

I

The Dangers of Political Myth

Cassirer’s analysis and critique of political myths in the posthumously published The Myth of the State builds to a large extent on his earlier writings on mythical thought, most notably the second volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms and Language and Myth (both ). As before, Cassirer still dismisses any attempt to reduce myth to mere emotion and passivity, as well as any theory that depicts the mythological worldview as incoherent and inconsistent. Instead, he maintains that mythical thought is grounded in symbolic expressions that are fundamentally distinct from animal reactions insofar as they aim toward objectifying our sense-perceptions (MS –; PSF II: –). To this goal, “even the uncivilized man . . . has to develop and use some general forms or categories of thought,” so that mythical thinking “never lacks a definite logical structure” (MS ). Like all forms of human culture, myth presents “a unity in the manifold”, in this case a universe governed by “the universality and fundamental identity of life” (MS ; PSF II: , , ). Furthermore, Cassirer still holds that mythical thought lies at the origin of all human civilization, as a basic symbolic form out of which all other cultural domains have developed: “Even science had to pass through a mythical age before it could reach its logical age: alchemy preceded chemistry, astrology preceded astronomy” (MS ; PSF II: xiv–xv; LM ). Yet, in  Cassirer feels the need to revisit this symbolic form because of a revival of mythical thinking in contemporary culture in the shape of “modern political myths”. In the opening paragraph of The Myth of the State, he claims that we must understand “the preponderance of mythical thought over rational thought in some of our modern political systems” if



 

we wish to comprehend the “severe crisis of our political and social life” (MS ). Cassirer’s earlier analysis still holds for the content and inner function of the modern myths, which do not differ from that of ancient ones: “If we try to resolve our contemporary political myths into their elements we find that they contain no entirely new feature. All the elements were already well known” (MS ). What is entirely new, however, is the “technique” by means of which these myths are developed, or even the mere fact that they are being deliberately fabricated at all: Myth has been described as the result of an unconscious activity and as a free product of imagination. But here we find myth according to plan. The new political myths do not grow up freely; they are not wild fruits of an exuberant imagination. They are artificial things fabricated by very skillful and cunning artisans. It has been reserved for the twentieth century, our own great technical age, to develop a new technique of myth. Henceforth myths can be manufactured in the same sense and according to the same methods as any other modern weapon.

The idea that myths are being manufactured on the basis of a technique and plan implies that they serve a purpose that is external to their inner content and logic. In their modern shape, mythical thought has become a means, or a weapon, for political domination. Used in this manner, both political speech and political action adopt defining characteristics of mythological thought. Political speech subordinates the semantic function of language for a magical one: instead of describing actual political problems and formulating realistic solutions, ordinary words get charged with new meaning or altogether new words are coined merely for the sake of “stirring up . . . violent passions.” Political action, in turn, becomes guided by prescribed rituals that on the one hand lend each civil action absolute





MS –; ECN : ; ECN: : “What formerly appeared to be an ungovernable process was subject to a severe discipline. It was brought under control and trained to obedience and order. Our modern political myths are by no means the outgrowth of a dark or mythic power. They did not, slowly and unconsciously, grow up from the “national spirit.” They were made deliberately and destined for special purposes. They were brought into being by the word of command of the political leaders. That was one of the greatest triumphs of modern political warfare. It became the very center in the new art of political tactics and strategy. From now on myth was no longer an incalculable and uncontrollable thing. It could be made at pleasure; it became and artificial compound manufactured in the great laboratory of politics. What we find here is one of the greatest paradoxes in human history. It is a myth that in a sense is completely rationalized. Myth remains irrational in its content, but it is very clear and conscious in its aims.” (my emphasis) MS –; see also ECN : : “Even in its primitive, in its ‘naive’ and unsophisticated form, myth does not . . . give us a mere ‘representation’ of the world. Its principal role is to arouse emotions and to prompt man to certain actions.”

Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



weight – violating a rite is a crime punishable by expulsion from society or even death – while “their steady, uniform, and monotonous performance” on the other hand takes away all individual responsibility – only the tribe or the state has moral and political value (MS –; ECN : –). In this context, political leaders “take charge of all those functions that, in primitive societies, were performed by the magician. The politician becomes a sort of public fortuneteller” whose vision of society must inevitably become the law (MS ). On the basis of Cassirer’s earlier writings, we can distinguish two reasons why he finds such political myths problematic cultural products. First, since he considers mythical and political thought as two autonomous symbolic forms, each constituting a worldview on the basis of generically different logics, they should not be merged with or subordinated to each other. Throughout his oeuvre, Cassirer establishes the independence of the symbolic forms – myth, language, religion, art, science, politics, economy, law, and technology – by grounding them in distinct “functions” of symbolic consciousness. In a Kantian fashion, he views cultural domains not as representing a preexisting world but rather as spontaneous formations, “each of which produces and posits a world of its own . . . by virtue of which alone there is any reality” (LM ; PSF I: –). Furthermore, Cassirer at various occasions insists that each function of consciousness has “a particular way of seeing, and carries within itself its particular and proper source of light” (LM ; PSF I: ; SMC ). On this basis, myth, language, science, and politics all “constitute their own aspect of ‘reality’” (PSF I: ). This means that our cultural domains establish fundamentally distinct perspectives that cannot be derived from or reduced to each other: “In defining the distinctive character of any spiritual form, it is essential to measure it by its own standards. The criteria by which we judge it and appraise its achievement, shall not be drawn from outside, but must be taken from its own fundamental law of formation” (PSF I: ). Concretely, political speech and action should not rely on magical reasoning (or the ‘expressive function of consciousness’) for its organization of the public sphere. Politics also may not become a vehicle for establishing certain myths: laws and political institutions should not function as symbols that enforce a mythological worldview. In The Myth of the State,



For an overview of the different functions of consciousness that Cassirer discusses throughout his oeuvre, consult Truwant (–): –.



 

Cassirer therefore characterizes political myth as an illegitimate and incoherent blend of two different logics: Our modern political myths appear . . . as a very strange and paradoxical thing. For what we find in them is the blending of two activities that seem to exclude each other. The modern politician has had to combine in himself two entirely different and even incompatible functions. He has to act, at the same time, as both a homo magus and a homo faber. . . . It is this strange combination that is one of the most striking features of our political myths.

Second, since Cassirer views the evolution of human culture as a gradual, steady development toward the critical self-awareness of human consciousness, the surprising return of myth poses a threat to the progress of Western civilization. As already mentioned, for Cassirer cultural products derive their objective status not from an outside world that they represent but from symbolic consciousness that constitutes a meaningful reality in the first place. Therefore, cultural progress cannot consist in the development of more and more “objective” symbolic forms in the sense that later forms such as science provide a more accurate picture of the world than the original form of myth – in this regard, no cultural domain is “better” than the others. However, Cassirer does maintain that certain forms have a more accurate self-understanding than others, and that natural science and mythical thought are on the respective opposites of this spectrum. In Cassirer’s critical view, the progress of human culture thus lies in the increased recognition of cultural products as cultural products, i.e., as products of spontaneous human consciousness. If Cassirer considers scientific thought as more “rational” than mythical thought, this is then not because one is based on reason and the other on emotion but because only the former fully acknowledges the subjective conditions of possibility of its worldview: Although myth, language, and art interpenetrate one another in their concrete historical manifestations, the relation between them reveals a definite systematic gradation, an ideal progression towards a point where the spirit not only is and lives in its own creations, its self-created symbols, but also knows them for what they are. (PSF II: )

In An Essay on Man, written around the same time as The Myth of the State, Cassirer accordingly holds that “human culture taken as a whole may be 

MS . In the lecture notes “The Myth of the State: Its Origin and Its Meaning. Third Part: The Myth of the Twentieth Century,” Cassirer speaks of a “a strange fusion” and a “paradoxical alliance” between political and mythical thought (ECN : –).

Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



described as the process of man’s progressive self-liberation. Language, art, religion, science, are various phases in this process” (EM ). With the rise of political myths, this process however comes to a halt, and Cassirer is forced to revise his view on the development of human culture. While science and technology may still, successfully, rely on rational methods, he now acknowledges that in man’s practical and social life the defeat of rational thought seems to be complete and irrevocable. In this domain modern man is supposed to forget everything he has learned in the development of his intellectual life. He is admonished to go back to the first rudimentary stages of human culture. Here rational and scientific thought openly confess their breakdown; they surrender to their most dangerous enemy. (MS )

We here find a profound change of mind in Cassirer’s thinking, as he not only admits to a temporary standstill but at once to the fact that the continuity of cultural, rational, progress can never be guaranteed: Human culture is by no means the firmly established thing that we once supposed it to be . . . Our science, our poetry, our art, and our religion are only the upper layer of a much older stratum that reaches down to a great depth. We must always be prepared for violent concussions that may shake our cultural world and our social order to its very foundations.

The self-awareness of a culture thus perpetually remains threatened by the possible return of dogmatic worldviews. Cassirer nevertheless holds that we should continue to aspire to the progress of human civilization, and that it is the main duty of philosophy to actively enable this. He berates pessimistic or fatalistic thinkers like Oswald Spengler and Martin Heidegger for abandoning this duty and “slowly undermin[ing] the forces that could have resisted the modern political myths” (MS ). While their philosophies did not cause the political situation in Nazi Germany, their ideas about the inevitable decline of civilization (Spengler) or the fundamental Geworfenheit of



MS ; see also –: “In politics the equipoise is never completely established. What we find here is a labile rather than a static equilibrium. In politics we are always living on volcanic soil. We must be prepared for abrupt convulsions and eruptions. . . . For myth has not been really vanquished and subjugated. It is always there, lurking in the dark and waiting for its hour and opportunity.” Chiara Bottici sharply analyses Cassirer’s different takes on the “return” of myth in the published version of The Myth of the State and the Nachlass edition (ECN : –): According to the latter text, myth was never actually conquered by reason, and the rise of political myth in the twentieth century does not mark a sudden regress to unreason but an original manifestation of an enduring element of human culture (Bottici : –).



 

human nature (Heidegger) shaped the atmosphere in which dangerous political myths could thrive: But the new philosophy did enfeeble and slowly undermine the forces that could have resisted the modern political myths. [By giving] up all hopes of an active share in the construction and reconstruction of man’s cultural life [such] philosophy renounces its own fundamental theoretical and ethical ideals. It can be used, then, as a pliable instrument in the hands of the political leaders. (MS ; ECN : )

Cassirer likewise admits that philosophy is not capable of destroying political myths, as these are “impervious to rational arguments” (MS ). However, philosophical reflection can make us understand our adversary – “which one needs to know in order to fight” – by carefully studying “the origin, the structure, the methods, and the technique of the political myths” (MS ). This is, in a nutshell, Cassirer’s motivation and outline for writing The Myth of the State; he concludes this work with an apology for having underestimated the threat of political myth for too long, and a plea to the reader to “not commit the same error a second time.”

II “The Crisis of Man’s Knowledge of Himself” In Section I, we have seen that the rise of political myths challenges the two central motivations that shaped Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms: the acceptance of truly diverse cultural domains and a commitment to the rational progress of human civilization. Before we consider how Cassirer manages to wed these ideals and formulate a philosophical response to the political crisis of his time, it is worth considering how this crisis came about. In other words, we should first attempt to understand the atmosphere in which political myths could develop. Partly, as Cassirer acknowledges, this atmosphere is formed by the problematic socioeconomic situation in Germany after the First World War (MS ) – in such a context, fatalism is bound to gain traction. In Cassirer’s other writings from the s and s, we however find an additional explanation for the political crisis that would lead to the Second World War: on multiple occasions, Cassirer signals a broader intellectual crisis that undermined Western culture as a whole. His response to the political crisis represented by the “myth of the state” will also have to take this intellectual crisis into account. If mythical thinking is the “volcanic soil” (MS ) of all culture that perennially threatens the progress of civilization, there needs to be an additional, specific reason that triggers its eruption. Why did political myths surge

Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century? Cassirer confirms that such a “violent concussion” could only occur under certain conditions: In quiet and peaceful times, in periods of relative stability and security, this rational organization [of society] is easily maintained. It seems to be safe against all attacks. [However,] in all critical moments of man’s social life, the rational forces that resist the rise of old mythical conceptions are no longer sure of themselves. In these moments the time for myth has come again. . . . This hour comes as soon as the other binding forces of man’s social life, for one reason or another, lose their strength and are no longer able to combat the demonic mythical powers.

According to Cassirer, the cultural atmosphere in which political myths could emerge was thus one in which “reason has failed us” (MS ). On this basis, we can specify our question in the following ways: What caused “the rational forces to no longer be sure of themselves” at the beginning of the twentieth century? What is the “one reason or another” that made them “lose their strength”? Why, and in what way, had reason failed us? Cassirer hints to the answer to this question at the beginning of The Myth of the State. In his quest to understand the “power of mythical thought,” he first states that “we must know what myth is before we can explain how it works” (MS ). Cassirer however immediately adds that such knowledge is hindered by a peculiar problem: “In this case the most disconcerting feature is not the lack, but the abundance of our empirical material. We seem now to be in possession of all the facts . . . As regards our data the chain seems to be closed; no essential link is missing. But the theory of myth is still highly controversial” (MS –; ECN : ). He then proceeds to review several existing theories and point out their respective inconsistencies (MS –). What is relevant to us, however, is that according to Cassirer a clear insight into the nature, and hence the workings, of myth is missing not despite, but precisely because of our increased factual knowledge about this cultural domain. This increase comes, after all, with a diversification of often conflicting viewpoints: The problem has been approached from every angle. Both the historical development of mythical thought and its psychological foundations have 



The Myth of the State focuses exclusively on the Nazi ideology. While this may render Cassirer’s analysis of modern political myth too narrow (see Bottici ), I will later argue that it applies to some of the dominant political myths of the twenty-first century as well. MS –; see also : “As long as these forces, intellectual, ethical, and artistic, are in full strength, myth is tamed and subdued. But once they begin to lose strength chaos is come again. Mythical thought then starts to rise anew and to pervade the whole of man’s cultural and social life.”



  been carefully studied. Philosophers, ethnologists, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists have their share in these studies. [Yet] every school gives us a different answer; and some of these answers are in flagrant contradiction of each other. (MS )

While the development of reason brought us an abundance of empirical data, it also presented us with an increasingly difficult task of synthesizing our knowledge into an insightful or meaningful whole. It is important to note that this problem is caused not just by the overwhelming quantity of said knowledge but also by its qualitative and often conflicting content. Insofar as reason itself has brought forth this predicament, one could indeed proclaim that it has, in a significant way, failed us. Interestingly, in An Essay on Man Cassirer detects the exact same difficulty with regard to our knowledge of human nature: No former age was ever in such a favorable position with regard to the sources of knowledge of human nature. Psychology, ethnology, anthropology, and history have amassed an astoundingly rich and constantly increasing body of facts. Our technical instruments for observation and experimentation have been immensely improved, and our analyses have become sharper and more penetrating. We appear, nevertheless, not yet to have found a method for mastery and organization of this material. When compared with our own abundance the past may seem very poor. But our wealth of facts is not necessarily a wealth of thoughts. Unless we succeed in finding a clue of Ariadne to lead us out of this labyrinth, we can have no real insight into the general character of human culture; we shall remain lost in a mass of disconnected and disintegrated data that seem to lack all conceptual unity. 

EM . Cassirer was not the only prominent European thinker of his time who considered the abundance of available scientific data as a profound threat to the status of reason and the fate of human culture: see also Albert Schweitzer’s  The Philosophy of Civilization (: –); Max Scheler’s  The Human Place in the Cosmos (: ); Martin Heidegger’s  Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (: ); and Edmund Husserl’s  The Crisis of the European Sciences (: –). Cassirer provides a brief history of thought – which I will render even more briefly here – in order to underscore the novelty of this predicament. In the eighteenth century, he holds, the situation was completely reversed. Faced with a limited amount of information, we still managed to systematize our knowledge in a satisfactory and useful manner: we knew “how to compare, to organize, and systematize the known facts; but we [had] not cultivated those methods by which alone it would be possible to discover new facts” (EM ). This starts to change in the nineteenth century: with the general acceptance of Darwin’s theory of evolution, such method was generally accepted and “our problem is simply to collect the empirical evidence” (EM ). Yet, Cassirer points out, once the method of discovery was established, the method of systematization in turn came under scrutiny: “What became more important for the general history of ideas and for the development of philosophical thought was not the empirical facts of evolution but the theoretical interpretation of these facts” (EM ). Cassirer here criticizes empiricist thinkers who “would show us the facts and nothing but the facts”, leading to the current situation in which “the unity of human nature appears extremely doubtful” (EM ).

Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



To be clear, Cassirer does not claim that in previous times there were no disputes about the essence of our being. However, he holds that there was still always “at least a general orientation, a frame of reference,” be it the framework of metaphysics, theology, mathematics, or biology, that “successively assumed the guidance for thought on the problem of man and determined the line of investigation” (EM ). This changed by the beginning of the twentieth century: multiple scientific disciplines tried to occupy the dominant cultural viewpoint, but none of them managed to secure such guiding role for culture as a whole: An established authority to which one might appeal no longer existed. Theologians, scientists, politicians, sociologists, biologists, psychologists, ethnologists, economists all approached the problem from their own viewpoints. To combine or unify all these particular aspects and perspectives was impossible. (EM )

This intellectual crisis cuts even deeper, Cassirer continues, since “even within the special fields there was no generally accepted scientific principle.” Instead, scientists increasingly relied on their own personal “conception and evaluation of human life.” Once again, but now on a much larger scale, it appears that “reason has failed us.” On the one hand, the successes in amassing factual knowledge led to a failure to comprehend the relation among the different cultural domains. Cassirer considers this a problem because without an encompassing narrative human culture disintegrates into “a mere aggregate of loose and detached facts” (EM ), instead of forming a meaningful, harmonious whole. In his view, the character of a culture is determined precisely by its unifying principle: “Human culture derives its specific character and its intellectual and moral values, not from the material of which it consists, but from its form, its architectural structure.” In other words, what distinguishes one (historical) culture from another is the particular, hierarchical way in which the different cultural domains that it contains are mutually interconnected. Yet, at the beginning of the twentieth century such orientational structure has dissolved in an ocean of meaningless facts, leaving the human being adrift in an ever-expanding world. Cassirer remarks that this predicament affects the very foundations of human culture: “That this antagonism of ideas is not merely a grave 

EM . As Ernst Wolfgang Orth puts it, “Kultur wird bestimmt je nach dem Akzent, der eine grade fu¨hrende Einzelwissenschaft oder eine speziell orientierte philosophische Richtung [setzt]” (Orth : ).



 

theoretical problem but an imminent threat to the whole of extent of our ethical and cultural life admits of no doubt” (EM –). On the other hand, the maturing of the human sciences around the turn of the century not only led to an unprecedented expansion of knowledge about the human condition but also severely challenged the modern notion of rationality. As anthropology, sociology, psychology, and the study of myth broadened our understanding of the human nature, it became clear that the term “reason” was no longer suited to accurately or exhaustively define us, at least not in its traditional meaning. Cassirer calls this “the crisis in man’s knowledge of himself” (EM ). Whereas Cassirer wrote The Myth of the State in response to a political crisis, An Essay on Man was thus motivated by a broad intellectual crisis that challenged both our understanding of the world and of ourselves. Cassirer never addresses a possible connection between these two crises. Yet, his picture of a culture that lacks a guiding perspective and has a troubled understanding of reason clearly fits his description of the atmosphere in which political myths could erupt. As said before, it follows that for Cassirer any philosophical response to this political crisis will have to tackle the larger intellectual crisis – the failure of reason – first.

III The Challenge to Objective Truth In Sections I and II, I have explained Cassirer’s diagnosis of the political and intellectual crises of his time, and inferred that these crises are best understood in close connection to each other. In order to further deepen this understanding and in order to subsequently formulate a philosophical cure for this twofold cultural crisis, I now turn to Cassirer’s inaugural lecture at the University of Gothenburg, “The Concept of Philosophy as a Philosophical Problem” (). This lecture adds two more elements to Cassirer’s crisis analysis, namely the idea of “objective truth” and the Kantian notion of “philosophy in cosmopolitan sense.” These respective notions will enable us to grasp the continuous societal relevance of Cassirer’s philosophy today (this section) and project his response to the cultural crisis of his – and perhaps also our – time (Section IV). Like An Essay on Man, Cassirer’s Gothenburg lecture also addresses the broad intellectual (and moral) crisis of the early twentieth century. However, since the topic of this lecture is not the uncertain nature of the human being but of philosophy, the locus of the intellectual problem 

Capeillères : ,  and Gaubert : – also point to this connection.

Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



shifts from reason to objectivity or objective truth: “Is there really something like an objective theoretical truth[?] In a time in which such questions can be raised, philosophy cannot stand aside, mute and idle. If ever, now is the time for it again to reflect on . . . its systematic, fundamental purpose, and on its spiritual-historical past” (SMC ). Despite this different focus, Cassirer’s concern appears to be the same as in : The cultural atmosphere in which the possibility of objective truth can be reasonably questioned is arguably the same as the one in which a guiding and unifying principle for all cultural meaning is lacking – in the absence of such “general orientation,” all we are left with are meaningless facts on the one hand and merely subjective viewpoints on the other. Further anticipating An Essay on Man, Cassirer adds that this crisis of objectivity not only affects the overall unity of human culture but each separate cultural domain as well: “Without the claim to an independent, objective, and autonomous truth, not only philosophy, but also each particular field of knowledge, natural science as well as the humanities, would lose their stability and their sense” (SMC ). Finally, as in , Cassirer warns that this situation endangers the fruition of human culture as such, and points to philosophy in order to remedy this: “Thus, in our time, it is not only a general methodological demand, but a general cultural fate that couples philosophy with the special disciplines of knowledge, and which binds them closely to each other” (SMC ). Framing the intellectual crisis of Cassirer’s time in terms of objective truth allows us to explain its relation to the political crisis more clearly. In a draft of “Judaism and the Modern Political Myths” (), Cassirer describes the peculiar attitude of modern political myth to the notion of truth: Did the makers of these myths act in good faith – did they believe in the ‘truth’ of their own stories? We can hardly answer this question; we cannot even put it. For one of the first steps of the new political theory was to deny and destroy the very concept of ‘truth’ which is implied in this question. What we call ‘objective truth’ – we were told – is a mere illusion. To inquire into the ‘truth’ of the political myths is, therefore, as meaningless and as ridiculous as to ask for the truth of a machine-gun or a fighter-plane. Both are weapons, and weapons prove their truth by their efficiency. (ECN : )

As we have seen, the crisis of human culture analyzed by Cassirer consists of two moments. The first moment is an intellectual crisis: Following the diversification of and conflicts between specialized scientific disciplines that each establish their own objective worldview, the notion of objective truth became increasingly unstable. In dialectical response to this, a political



 

crisis arose that marks the second moment of the larger crisis of culture: Political actors exploited the weakened belief in objectivity in order to abandon this idea(l) altogether. However, while proclaiming that there is no “objective truth” beyond the distinct scientific or cultural worldviews, these politicians at the same time tacitly asserted their own worldview – i.e., their political myths – as the sole and complete truth. Hence, the uncertainty about truth “as such” dialectically results in a dogmatic reassertion of a particular conception of truth. Framing both moments of the cultural crisis of the early twentieth century in terms of objective truth also allows us to argue for the persisting societal relevance of Cassirer’s thought. More specifically, it allows us to draw a parallel between this crisis of and the “post-truth” crisis at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This contemporary crisis of truth, I will now argue, also consists of an intellectual and a political moment that stand in a dialectical relation to each other. Many political commentators and politicians agree that the political system that governed Western societies since the defeat of Nazism, liberal democracy, is currently being threatened at the core. Depending on one’s outlook, this political crisis is either caused by the rise of populist and extremist political parties that challenge the democratic institutions and principles or by the decreased democratic legitimacy of said institutions and the centrist parties that traditionally upheld them. In this context, Cassirer’s ideals of cultural diversity and rational progress are once again being challenged. Twenty-first-century politics is also characterized by the deliberate but problematic merging of different cultural domains. For one, political myths are once again on the rise: The political projects to “Make America Great Again” or to make the United Kingdom “sovereign again” by “taking back control” relied on political speech that aimed to evoke emotions rather than contribute to policy debates, on a notion of political action that relegates all responsibility from the individual to a mythical idea of “the people,” and on a celebration of politicians as magicians who embody the will of this people and whose political vision as such forecasts 



See Cassirer, “Judaism and the Modern Political Myths” (), in: ECN : : “The political leaders of the Weimar Republic were not equal to this task. They completely failed to understand the character and the strength of the new weapon used against them. In their sober, empirical, ‘matter of fact’ way of thinking they had no eyes for the dangerous explosive force contained in the political myths. They could scarcely be prevailed upon to take these things seriously.” Cassirer, The Myth of the State (), ECW : : “There is nothing in the world to restrict the power of the myth of the state. To mythicize man’s political life means at the same time to mythicize all other human activities. There exists no longer a separate sphere that has a value of its own. Philosophy, art, religion, science are under the control of the new ideal.”

Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



the inevitable destiny of a nation. What we witness here is, on the surface, a reliance of politicians on magical tools, but more profoundly a deliberate subordination and weaponization of the entire political sphere for the sake of nationalist mythical thinking. The resulting political myths leave no room for an alternative worldview on any level: Within the political sphere all other ideologies are cast aside as alienating and violating the will of the people; the politicization of art, language, history, and science leaves no room for other independent cultural domains either; and politics is populistically understood as a direct and complete expression of life. As such, the self-awareness that is required for the rational progress of human culture is overthrown by a dogmatic and static nationalism that recognizes nothing outside itself. When searching for the cause of this political crisis, we once again cannot ignore the socioeconomic circumstances – the effects of globalization, the financial crisis, and the migration crisis have without a doubt contributed to the resurge of nationalism in the twenty-first century. However, this surge also occurred against the background of an intellectual crisis that echoes the one Cassirer described in An Essay on Man. Today, reason is failing us again insofar as our collective success in producing knowledge is no longer matched by our psychological capacities to reasonably process it. The technological inventions of the internet, the twenty-four-hour news cycle, and social media initially promised to change society for the better by democratizing knowledge, opening up our minds to a diversity of cultural perspectives, and keeping us at all times informed. However, these products of human culture also led to information overload: We are nowadays faced with an unorderly amount of facts and viewpoints, bombarded with a continuous stream of news updates, and even subjected to technological warfare for our attention. If today’s 



Twenty-first-century politics not only merges with mythical thought but also with economy and science. The resulting blends of cultural domains, namely neoliberalism and technocracy, would also be deemed illegitimate cultural products by Cassirer because the political domain is used for nonpolitical ends and becomes reliant on a discourse and logic that is alien to it. Fabricated according to plan, neoliberalism (an economic myth if you will) likewise entirely subjects the will of the individual citizen to the rules of the market system, conceives of the principle of the invisible hand as a natural law, and therefore allows no external or internal variety: “There is No Alternative” within the economic and political realms, and the economization of politics, art, and science suppresses the autonomy of the other symbolic forms. The term “information overload” was first coined by political scientist Bertram Gross, who defined it in the following way: “Information overload occurs when the amount of input into a system exceeds its processing capacity” (Gross : ). This phenomenon is mainly researched in the fields of management and business psychology but seems to have become a broad cultural issue with significant political implications due to the changing media landscape.



 

citizens are uninformed or badly informed, this is then not due to a lack of available information but rather to an abundance of – often conflicting – facts and opinions. As it has become impossible for individuals to assess this overload of information in a rational manner, we more than ever judge it based on its conformity to our own preexisting opinions, worldview, and self-image. In this cultural atmosphere, any unifying principle is lacking, leading to the now popular relativistic or even fatalistic attitude to just “agree to disagree.” Finally, we can also understand these political and intellectual crises of the early twenty-first century as two moments of one crisis of objective truth. The political strategy that led to the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and the victory of the Leave Campaign in the Brexit referendum is commonly known as “post-truth politics.” The Oxford English Dictionary, which subsequently declared “post-truth” as Word of the Year , defines this as “relating to or denoting circumstance in which objective facts have become less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” This strategy consists, on the one hand, in deliberately targeting, and often bombarding, citizens with unreliable or outright false information (“alternative facts”), and on the other hand in discrediting the traditional sources and gatekeepers of reliable information, i.e., scientists (“experts”) and journalists (“the mainstream media”) – leading to the odd situation in which conspiracy theories are more popular than ever while serious journalism is labeled “fake news.” These techniques of disinformation are maintained until people either believe the misleading information or they can no longer tell it apart from reliable information and give up on this distinction altogether. The deliberate attempt to undermine the role of objective truth for public discourse is only successful, however, because it exploits an already weakened belief in the attainability of objectivity, due to the aforementioned problem of information overload. Yet, at the same  



There is a vast amount of literature on the psychological mechanism of confirmation bias; see for example Nickerson (). Similarly, the Gesellschaft fu¨r Deutsche Sprache elected “postfaktisch” as German word of the year , describing it in the following way: “dass es in politischen und gesellschaftlichen Diskussionen heute zunehmend um Emotionen anstelle von Fakten geht. Immer größere Bevölkerungsschichten sind in ihrem Widerwillen gegen ‘die da oben’ bereit, Tatsachen zu ignorieren und sogar offensichtliche Lu¨gen bereitwillig zu akzeptieren. Nicht der Anspruch auf Wahrheit, sondern das Aussprechen der ‘gefu¨hlten Wahrheit’ fu¨hrt im ‘postfaktischen Zeitalter’ zum Erfolg.” The blueprint for these “post-truth” techniques, which today are most famously employed by climate change deniers and the anti-vaccination movement, was developed by the tobacco industry in the s (Oreskes & Conway ; Rabin-Havt & Media : –; McIntyre : –; Pillot de Chenecy : –).

Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



time this attack serves to maintain or install authoritarian, political and economic, regimes that dogmatically prescribe what is or can be true.

IV The Cosmopolitan Task of Philosophy Having presented Cassirer as an insightful critique of both his and our own time in the previous sections, we can now at last look into his philosophical response to the crisis of culture. Since Cassirer does not believe that philosophy can directly tackle political myth – likewise, philosophical argumentation seems powerless against a post-truth discourse that rejects such reasoning altogether – this response will have to aim at the underlying intellectual crisis, i.e., at the problem of a guiding principle for human culture as a whole. Although Cassirer’s crisis analysis only emerges in his later writings, in this section I will argue that we find such a response in the very project of his philosophy of symbolic forms. In other words, Cassirer’s entire oeuvre can in hindsight be understood as motivated by the twofold cultural crisis of his time. Cassirer’s Gothenburg lecture is instructive in this regard as well. In line with The Myth of the State, Cassirer here also reproaches Spengler’s “pessimism and fatalism” (SMC ), while admitting his own failure to acknowledge the changing cultural atmosphere in due time: “I do not exclude myself and I do not absolve myself. . . . We have all too frequently lost sight of the true connection of philosophy with the world.” But unlike in any other text, he further specifies this “true connection” in a way that echoes Kant’s notion of a “cosmopolitan conception of philosophy”: “The question of the connection of all knowledge to the essential aim of human reason itself, arises today more urgently and imperatively than ever before, not only for the philosopher, but for all of us who partake in the life of knowledge and the life of spiritual culture” (SMC ). This reference can help us retrace the societal motivation for Cassirer’s philosophy of culture. In “The Canon of Pure Reason” in the Critique of Pure Reason () and again in the Jäsche Logic (), Kant distinguishes a cosmopolitan from a scholastic conception of philosophy. While scholastic philosophy aims at “nothing more” than the “systematic unity of knowledge,” cosmopolitan philosophy is “the science of the relation of all cognition to the 

SMC . In contrast, Cassirer praises Albert Schweitzer for seeing the problem and proclaiming philosophy’s task as early as the s (SMC -; see also “Philosophy and Politics,” in: SMC -, and “Albert Schweitzer as a Critic of Nineteenth-Century Ethics,” ECW : –).



 

essential ends of human reason.” As such, philosophy in a cosmopolitan sense is concerned with “that, in which everyone necessarily takes an interest” (CPR Af/Bf ), or in those “questions which [human reason] cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself” (CPR Avii). Kant initially lists scientific cognition (What can I know?), morality (What should I do?), and religion (What may I hope?) as such interests (CPR A/B) but later adds anthropology, or the question “What is the human being?” as our ultimate, overarching concern. Despite their distinct aims, scholastic and cosmopolitan philosophy are however still mutually related: While the philosopher in cosmopolitan sense must rely on the technical skills of the scholar in order to answer these existential questions (CPR A/B; CPPP ), the cosmopolitan concept “has always grounded,” i.e., originally motivated, the scholastic concept of philosophy (CPR A/B). Throughout his oeuvre, Cassirer also describes the task of philosophy in two distinct yet complementary ways. On the one hand, he maintains that philosophy should strive to reveal the systematic unity of human culture beyond the diversity of the cultural domains: The task of philosophy, as the most general and encompassing theory of spiritual forms, is to simultaneously apprehend each form in its individuality and in its systematic relations, so that one and the same determination secures its singularity and indicates its position within the totality of spiritual modes of understanding. (ECN : )

Cassirer repeats this claim from “Goethe und die mathematische Physik” () in “The Concept of the Symbol” (c. –) – “[Philosophy] must strive to comprehend every symbol in its place and recognize how it is limited and conditioned by every other symbol” (PSF IV: ); in “Philosophy and Politics” () – “Philosophy is the great effort of thought to embrace and unify all the different activities of man – to bring them into a common focus” (SMC ); and again in An Essay on Man – “Philosophy cannot be content with analyzing the individual forms of human culture. It seeks a universal synthetic view that includes all individual forms” (EM  ). According to lecture notes from , he even warned his students that “if we do not presuppose such a fundamental unity, human civilization becomes enigmatical and unintelligible” (ECN : ).



CPR A-/B-; SMC –.



Kant (): :.

Reading Cassirer in Times of Cultural Crisis



On the other hand, Cassirer also repeatedly designates self-knowledge as the aim of philosophy. As we have seen earlier, Cassirer considers the complete self-awareness of human consciousness as the goal of human culture, and holds philosophy responsible for guiding this process. In the opening sentence of the third volume of The Problem of Knowledge (), he thus holds that “among the many attempts to summarize the intent of critical philosophy in a brief expression, the declaration that the spirit of criticism consists in the ‘self-reconciliation’ (Selbst-verständigung) of reason‘ is probably the most succinct and precise.” Similarly, in the fourth volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (c. –), he defines philosophical knowledge as “the self-knowledge of reason” (PSF IV: ), and An Essay on Man begins by endorsing the idea “that self-knowledge is the highest aim of philosophical inquiry” (EM ). Put differently, it was the continuous aim of Cassirer’s critical philosophy of culture to ward off a “crisis in man’s knowledge of himself.” We can understand Cassirer’s consistent desire to grasp the systematic unity of all cultural products as his scholarly conception of the task of philosophy of culture, and Cassirer’s invariable strife for self-knowledge as his take on the cosmopolitan task of such philosophy. Like Kant, Cassirer considers these two views on the task of philosophy as necessarily interconnected: The essence of man is to be found nowhere but in his works – in those fundamental activities on which all social life and all cultural life is based. To understand man we have no other way than to inquire into these activities. We have no more reliable access to the knowledge of human nature than by exploring the nature of language, of art, of science, of religion, of morality. (ECN : –)

Cassirer makes the same point in the first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms – “[In] the different directions taken by its original imaginative power . . . we see reflected the essential nature of the human spirit – for it can only disclose itself to us by shaping sensible matter” (PSF: I , ), and in An Essay on Man – “There is no other way to know man than to understand his life and conduct” (EM ). Hence, achieving knowledge about our own nature relies on establishing the unity of human culture but adds an existential dimension to this systematic endeavor. At the same time, such self-knowledge provides the key to securing the systematic unity of human culture: the human being, critically understood 

ECW : ; my translation.



 

as symbolic consciousness, is the unifying principle of the diverse cultural domains and their conflicting views of objective truth. I have hereby only shown that Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms was intended, from its early conception onward, as a response to a cultural crisis that only really festered as his career developed. Spelling out Cassirer’s actual response would require a thorough, systematic analysis of his thought, in particular the way in which it both emphasizes the diversity of the cultural domains and endorses the “functional” unity of human culture as a whole. I cannot offer such an account of Cassirer’s overall philosophy here. However, by explaining how his crisis analysis can aid our understanding of our own political and intellectual atmosphere, I already hope to have demonstrated the continuous relevance of Cassirer, viewed as a politically engaged thinker, today. 



Cassirer considers (“subjective”) symbolic consciousness and (“objective”) human culture as two sides of the same coin – the former is nothing but the foundation of the latter, which in turn solely exists as the expression of the former (see Truwant b: –). It is no wonder, therefore, that Cassirer views the “crisis of objectivity” and the “crisis of human self-knowledge” as inevitably bound up with each other (cf. Section II). I have attempted to do this in Truwant (–; a; and b).

 

Cassirer’s Philosophy of Consciousness

 

Rethinking Representation Cassirer’s Philosophy of Human Perceiving, Thinking, and Understanding Martina Plu¨macher

Human beings are mentally concerned not just with what they are currently doing and perceiving. They are capable of remembering past experiences, anticipating future events, drafting complex future scenarios, and even creating fictional worlds. Human thinking essentially is an imagining and realizing of something that is currently not sensuously present. This imagining has been labeled a ‘representing’ (Latin: ‘repraesentare’) since ancient times. How can the astonishing abilities of representation be explained? What exactly is it that is represented and comes to mind? These questions lead to the center of various philosophical efforts to understand and explain human thinking. To Ernst Cassirer, the key to answering these questions lies in the examination of the human ability to understand and establish signs. Signs are known to be vehicles that call something into consciousness that is currently not present. So the question is, how do signs succeed in doing that. How and what exactly do signs represent? Following Leibniz, Cassirer formulates the thesis that thinking articulates itself in symbolic acts, and hence thinking and symbolic acts are inseparable (PSF I: ; ECW : ). Accordingly, he also emphasizes the human “symbolic imagination and intelligence” (EM ; ECW : ). In what follows, I will illustrate in what sense Cassirer characterizes representational thinking as a sign-based, creative mental activity that is also involved in the perceiving of objects and processes. I argue that Cassirer describes the representational character of perceiving, thinking, and understanding as a contextual, situated, and perspectivized way of knowing. With this position, Cassirer dissociates himself a) from a traditional understanding of signs as passive copies of the world and b) from the idea that the reference of signs is mediated by mental representations. Translated from German by Hadi Nasir Faizi



Scheerer et al. (): f.





 u¨

This contribution is structured into seven parts. First, I discuss Cassirer’s way of elucidating the representational function of linguistic and pictorial symbols by means of “natural” signs in the perceiving of objects and processes. Based on this, the second section shows that Cassirer does not see the reference function and the semantic content of signs as mediated by mental representations. Rather, he considers reference and meaning of signs to be rooted in practices of action (including the practice of using signs). The third section illustrates Cassirer’s rejection of the traditional understanding of representation as a depiction of the world in the mind. The fourth section shows how Cassirer emphasizes the genuinely productive function of signs. Starting from the key concept of Cassirer’s theory of representation, the “symbolic pregnance,” the fifth section demonstrates that the representational functions of signs always evolve in a contextual and perspectival way. The sixth section treats the preconditions for contextual and perspectival representations and marks the important role of orders in knowledge that are crucial for representations. The seventh section summarizes the characteristics of Cassirer’s theory of representation.

I

Representational “Natural” Signs

If we want to comprehend the phenomenon of representation and understand the role of representational signs and entire sign systems for human thinking and acting, we have to, according to Cassirer, “go back to ‘natural’ symbolism.” In his view, “the force and effect” of linguistic, pictorial, and other signs would be “a mystery if they were not ultimately rooted in an original spiritual process which belongs to the very essence of consciousness” (PSF I: f.; ECW : ). Cassirer’s term “natural symbolism” refers to signs that were not specifically created for communication but rather occur in the environment and in practical action. A “natural” sign is everything that affects, that is perceived as significant and meaningful – for example the specific wind that precedes a storm and announces it, or the coloring of a fruit that promises edibility and optimal taste. Signs of this kind are based on the fact that people interestedly perceive their environment, especially with regard to what they can expect or what they can use and utilize. Perceiving things and processes is, in this sense, a selective activity that includes anticipating possible events, possible experiences, and possible actions. These representations are always tied to certain significant objective features. According to Cassirer, it is a remarkable fact that the perceiving of an object is also linked to other objects and events. As a transcendental

Rethinking Representation



philosopher, Cassirer asks for the conditions of possibility of this phenomenon. His answer is that we need to presuppose a cognitive ability to put phenomena into a context. Cassirer speaks of a mental function of connecting different phenomena. He calls it “the basic function of signification” (PSF I: ; ECW : f.) and characterizes it as “a genuine a priori” in “the building of consciousness.” This function is foundational to thinking in the sense that without it, all thinking, even noticing a similarity between different things, would be impossible (ECW : ). The connecting of different phenomena is thus at the same time an interpretational activity. In view of this, Cassirer also labels the basic function of thinking the “hermeneutic function” (ECW : ). Cassirer reformulates Kant’s argument that intuition (Anschauung) takes place “insofar as the object is given to us; but this in turn, is possible only if it affects the mind in a certain way.” As Kant demonstrated, the perceiving of things and processes is not a passive absorption of sensuous impressions. It is rather a phenomena-structuring and -interpreting activity in which experience constitutes itself. Modifying Kant’s conception of a priori forms of sensible intuitions and a priori categories of the mind, Cassirer speaks of a priori “basic relations” that underlie the experience of objects (PSF I: ; ECW : ). These relations include spatial and temporal relations, causal relations, purpose–means relations, the relations of typical and incidental, thing and property, unity and multiplicity (PSF I: , f.; ECW : f., f.). Cassirer illustrates the transcendental philosophical idea that experience- and knowledge-constituting relations are always already actively at work in human perception. Hence, structures of experience and knowledge are already present in every perception. Cassirer illustrates this point by using a mathematical metaphor: Just as the differential equation of a moving body expresses the trajectory and general law of its motion, we must think of the general structural laws of consciousness as given in each of its elements, in any of its cross sections – not however in the sense of independent contents, but of tendencies and directions which are already projected in the sensory particular. This, precisely, is the nature of a content of consciousness; it exists only in so far as it immediately goes beyond itself in various directions of synthesis. (PSF I: ; ECW : ) 



In this context, Cassirer explicitly explains his agreement with Paul Natorp, who had stated in his Allgemeine Psychologie nach kritischer Methode () “that all genuine consciousness is relation, and that is to say that not presentation but representation is the original factor” (Natorp : , cf. PSF III: ; ECW : ). Kant (): A/B – hereafter indicated as ‘CPR’.



 u¨

However, these various directions of synthesis only come to mind successively. Perceptual objects always become conscious under specific aspects. They become conscious and are considered, e.g., in their spatial relations, in aspects of their development and change, in temporal relations, under causal aspects, as similar to or different from each other, as means to purposes, or as an exemplification of a term. Which perspective is taken and pursued is context- and situation-dependent. The possibility of a different comprehension of sensuous phenomena is based on our human structures of perceiving, experiencing, and knowing. In this sense, Cassirer sees representation as a specifically perspectivized grasping of a sensuous phenomenon that (as a component of a relation) points to other phenomena. According to Cassirer, every mental activity is induced by something sensuous. At the same time, it is an interpretation of this sensuous input that is expressed in actions (and also in articulating signs). The mental “basic function of signification” underlies every comprehension of something as a sign. This function also is a condition of possibility of “artificial symbols,” i.e., arbitrary signs specifically created for representational purposes (PSF I: f.; ECW : f.). In order to understand the latter, one has to closely consider how and what “natural signs” represent. For this purpose, let us turn to one of the above mentioned examples. A fruit that has come into view, e.g., a blackberry, affects a person. The berry promises a certain taste sensation. In other words, the perceived fruit represents the gustatory experience typical of blackberries by its color, shape, and size, i.e., those properties that show the state of its ripeness. The knowledge of the relation between the shape and color of the fruit, its state of ripeness, and its taste does not have to become conscious. It is neither necessary to remember taste sensations nor to draw conclusions from seeing the shape and color of the fruit about its ripeness. The ripeness of the fruit is seen directly. People with “blackberry experience” who, e.g., feel like eating a berry when seeing a blackberry bush, reach purposefully for a shiny black fruit consisting of plump round pellets. They do not reach for a bright red smaller berry. The knowledge of the relation between the color, shape, and size of the berry and its taste and materiality during consumption is an implicit presupposition of their acting. This practice is 

Cassirer argues against empiricist as well as rationalistic theories of perception insofar as the former reduce the representational function of perception to mnemic phenomena and the latter explain this function by unconscious conclusions (see PSF III: –; SF: ; ECW : –; ECW : f.).

Rethinking Representation



based on a learned relation between these sensuous phenomena without this relation having to be explicitly reflected upon. Just like the fruit’s ripeness, the taste sensation correlated with it is also a representational content of perceiving the fruit. Given that such representational perceiving and understanding of an object (as ripe, edible, and of fruity and sweet taste) also implies the ability to distinguish the object from others (e.g., other edible things and flavors), Cassirer says, Every “simple” quality of consciousness has definite content only in so far as it is apprehended in complete unity with certain qualities but separately from others. The function of this unity and this separation is not removable from the content of consciousness but constitutes one of its essential conditions. Accordingly there is no “something” in consciousness that does not eo ipso and without further mediation give rise to “another” and to a series of others. For what defines each particular content of consciousness is that in it the whole of consciousness is in some form posited and represented. Only in and through this representation does what we call the “presence” of the content become possible.

Just like natural signs, those signs specifically created for communicational purposes also cause mental activities through their sensuous shape. They are not trivial sounds, gestures, indentations, lines, etc., but in their intersubjective use they are charged with a specific meaning. In contrast to natural signs, their sensuous shape is not a part of what is represented (PSF I: ; ECW : ). For example, the sentence “ripe blackberries taste sweet” is neither a blackberry nor a taste sensation. The sentence articulates and represents knowledge about the relation between the state of ripeness of fruits and their taste by means of representational signs even in those situations in which blackberries are not available. The advantage of artificial symbolism is its free versatility in different situations. Artificial symbolism is created to bring “complexes of meaning” (PSF I: ; ECW : ) into the “actuality of consciousness” (PSF I: ; ECW : ). The requirements for the representational functioning of artificial symbolism are culturally learned performances of signs including knowledge about their meaning and reference. Just like natural signs, artificial signs function in specific practices of action and are an expression of practical knowledge. Practical knowledge of the taste of blackberries is a requirement in order for the sentence “ripe blackberries taste sweet” to represent the taste specific to blackberries. A competent speaker who knows various fruits but not blackberries can surely understand that the sentence is about 

PSF I: ; ECW : f., cf. SF: , ; ECW : , f.



 u¨

the sweet taste of ripe fruits. But he or she cannot associate it with a vivid imagination of a ripe blackberry and its taste. To sum up my first paragraph, Cassirer sees the origin of representational signs in the human cognitive capability of connecting different objects and events. Due to this capability, humans are able to conceive a phenomenon as evidence of objects and events. In these cases, a “natural” phenomenon functions as a “natural” sign. Based on this human capability of understanding, natural signs and artificial signs (such as linguistic signs, pictures, maps, etc.) endowed with representational functions become possible. The communicative use of these signs within activities establishes their meaning and reference.

II Representation without Representationalism Influential traditional philosophers of language concluded from the fact that language refers to real objects and can evoke vivid imaginations that it is a sign-mediated copy of the objective world in the mind. Medieval philosophy even spoke of a double existence of things – a real existence and an existence of things in the mind. In , Franz Brentano, the father of modern theories of intentionality, took up this idea in order to characterize the mental. The mental, according to Brentano, consists in the ability to direct thoughts and emotions toward objects. Following the medieval notion of the mental existence of things, he interpreted this intentional “reference to a content” as an “immanent objectivity.” Cassirer rejects the idea of a copy of the world in the mind just as decidedly as he rejects the correlated idea of the mental representation of objects. According to him, the verbal or pictorial reference to objects is a function of representing signs that does not require an additional mental representation of the denoted object. Sentences about objects can evoke vivid imaginations, but they do not have to do so in order to be comprehensible. The referential functions of signs do not necessarily require the visualization of the reference objects. Hence, Cassirer rejects Brentano’s famous talk of the “mental ‘inexistence’” of objects. In Brentano’s view “the function of meaning seems to be explained by a substantial existence”

  

From Aristotle (): a, to Frege (a); (b), representationalistic concepts of signs were advocated in this sense. Cf. on the discussion of concepts of representation in medieval times: Adriaenssen (). Brentano (): f.

Rethinking Representation



(PSF III: ; ECW : ). For Cassirer, the objects of imagination – e.g., in memories, pictures, verbal expressions – are not at all duplicates of objects outside the mind. To him, what becomes conscious in pictures and other signs are knowledge and experience. On the one hand, there is conceptual knowledge of the reference and meaning of signs, e.g., in the case of blackberries, knowledge about blackberries. On the other hand, there is experiential knowledge, for instance about blackberries and their taste. The experiental knowledge is the implicit background of the comprehension of the sentence. Cassirer extensively argues against the idea that the relation between intuition (Anschauung) and concept (Begriff) is mediated by mental representation. A distinctive text concerning this issue can be found in the second volume of Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, especially in his discussion of George Berkeley’s views (ECW : –). Berkeley had rejected John Locke’s deliberation that a drawn triangle could represent the concept ‘triangle’ in the form of an abstract general imagination. For the nominalist Berkeley, only concrete particular imaginations exist. A concrete single imagination can only become general “by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort.” Cassirer replies in the following way: Going through the extent of a concept is accidental and incidental for the comprehension of its content. Because aside from the fact that an infinite number of different specimens that can never be exhausted in the actual imagining of the single case can fall under one general concept, comparing the single case with others already requires that a general point of view is previously fixated under which it occurs.

In a geometrical proof, a drawn triangle can directly represent all triangles of its kind insofar as the “general rule for the recognition of the single cases,” which constitutes the “core and content of the knowledge,” is recognized in it (ECW : ). In The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer emphasizes that “what holds together the various structures which we regard as examples of one and the same concept is . . . the unity of a rule



 

Cassirer sees this relation as a special case of representational intuition (Anschauung). The repeated discussion of this topic in various writings and contexts points out the importance Cassirer attributes to it: i.a. PSF I: f.; PSF III: –; ECW : f.; ECW : f., –; ECW : f. Berkeley (): . ECW : . See also Cassirer’s comment on the then intensely discussed question of whether concepts should be comprehended starting from their extension or (as Frege suggested) the concept logically precedes the extension (PSF III: –; ECW : –).



 u¨

of change, on the basis of which one example can be derived from another and so on up to the totality of all possible examples.” (PSF III: ; ECW : ) This argument marks the point that the relation between the phenomena (the rule of change) must be presupposed in order to be able to view a phenomenon as exemplary of all cases of the same kind, i.e., as a case of a concept. Strictly speaking, representation in this case is not a substitution, as Berkeley suggested. To Cassirer, an objective phenomenon does not substitute other phenomena but can be seen as an exemplification of a concept. In summary, Cassirer rejects mental representationalism, because representational signs do not need to trigger imaginations known as mental images. To understand a sign is to know its communicative use. In addition, to understand a concept does not mean to play through all the different subordinated cases. It rather means to be able to orient acting and speaking in accordance to the concept and, if required, to be able to exemplify the concept.

III

Signs That Perspectivally Generate Human Reality

In the Kantian line of thinking, representations activated by virtue of signs cannot be a copy of a conscious-independent reality. After all, Kant had made it clear that objects of experience are to be distinguished from the things in themselves (CPR A). Cassirer points out a noteworthy difference concerning human knowledge. He explains that “we do not know ‘objects’ as if they were already independently determined and given as objects – but we know objectively, by producing certain limitations and by fixating certain permanent elements and connections within the uniform flow of experience.” (SF: ; ECW : ) This assertion highlights the point that cognition is a sensuous-phenomena-organizing and relationgenerating activity. In this activity, knowledge is generated by distinguishing and fixating certain relations, e.g., between objects of a kind and their features or between certain circumstances and their necessary consequences. The verbal judgment has a crucial influence on these processes. It fixates the generalizations located in our experiences and it encourages further generalizations. The verbal judgement also supports the distinction between object types. Let us, for example, have a look at simple judgments of the form “Blackberries differ from raspberries in that they. . . .” What then follows is the determination of the distinctive features. Such distinctions of objects are made by determining certain distinctive features. The distinction of kinds is not predetermined by nature. Rather, it also depends

Rethinking Representation



on which differences are important in human activities. The “value” of a concept, Cassirer emphasizes, lies in the orientation it achieves. It does not lie “in its copying of definite objects, but in its opening up of new logical perspectives, so permitting a new penetration and survey of an entire problem complex.” (PSF III: ; ECW : ) Language and other sign systems are part of practices of action and cognition. Designation, description, and analysis of objects and processes take place within the perspectives relevant for the respective practices of action and cognition. Cassirer defines language as a symbolic form of expression particularly crucial for personal interactions, because generalized experiences of all kind can articulate themselves in language, and language supports intersubjective cognitive processes. Insofar as language also enables people to represent objects and processes in different perspectives, it can become a vehicle for the discussion of these perspectives. Language is thus apt to function as a medium of the intersubjective exchange and the reflection of knowledge and experience. Cassirer’s concept of symbolic forms draws attention to different perspectival directions of understanding and shaping reality. In the symbolic forms the “‘polydimensionality’ of the cultural world” emerges (PSF III: ; ECW : ). It is not by accident that Cassirer first formulated the concept of symbolic forms in his examination of Einstein’s theory of relativity (SF/ECW : chapter ). After all, modern physics with its tendency to universalize its special forms of cognition poses one of the sharpest challenges to all other kinds and ways of understanding and shaping reality. In the closing chapter of his paper on Einstein’s theory of relativity, Cassirer argues for the insight that the specific way physics describes reality is neither the only one nor the only correct one. Since the type of cognition of physics only captures and shapes the physical aspects of reality, it cannot, from the view of a critical theory of cognition, claim to develop an all-embracing concept of reality: “Physical thought strives to determine and to express in pure objectivity merely the natural object, but thereby necessarily expresses itself, its own law and its own principle.” (SF: ;



Just think of the fact that the term ‘dog’ excludes wolves in everyday language or that we distinguish between herbs and weeds. Cassirer has illustrated the culture dependence of conceptualization especially using the example of conceptualization in archaic cultures. From his studies on mythical thinking, he concludes “that the classes and kinds of being are not, as naïve realism assumes, once and for all and in themselves determined, but that their distinction must first be achieved and that this achievement depends on the work of the mind.” (ECW : ).



 u¨

ECW : ) Other types of understanding and shaping reality can discover other aspects. Biology, for example, presents us the “cosmos of the biological,” chemistry presents the “cosmos of chemical processes,” and medicine illustrates the “world of disease and cure.” To Cassirer, these are ‘worlds of meaning’ that emerge from specific practices of action and cognition and at the same time orient them insofar as our life processes and processes of cognition are shaped in light of them. The philosophy of symbolic forms thus emphasizes the intrinsic connection between shaping, understanding, and knowing reality. Cassirer characterizes the symbolic forms as configurations towards being: they are not simple copies of an existing reality but represent the main directions of the spiritual movement, of the ideal process by which reality is constituted for us as one and many – as a diversity of forms which are ultimately held together by a unity of meaning. (PSF I: ; ECW : )

These “configurations towards being” are of perspectival character. They draw attention to specific aspects of objects and at the same time fade out other aspects.

IV Thinking in Representational Signs Cassirer completes his arguments against mental representationalism and copy theories of reality by explaining how signs represent. He starts with the question of what we can expect from signs. We cannot expect to fully replicate in language and pictures what we have experienced. When experiencing a situation, we capture more details than verbal and/or pictorial signs can express. No verbal description, e.g., can entirely capture and reproduce our experiences of another person and the specific atmosphere of a face-to-face interaction: “Measured by the limitless richness and diversity of intuitive reality, all linguistic symbols would inevitably seem empty; measured by its individual concretion, they would inevitably seem abstract and vague.” (PSF I: ; ECW : ). Cassirer points out that the importance of signs “consists not so much in what they stabilize of the concrete, sensuous content and its immediate factuality, as in the part of 

This aspect is also emphasized by Henri Bergson in “Introduction á la métaphysique” (). Compared to the completeness of sensuous experiences of reality, Bergson characterizes the depiction of reality by means of signs as deficient. Cassirer however, as we will see, does not share this Bergsonian position.

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this immediate factuality which they suppress and pass over.” (PSF I: ; ECW : ) Signs direct and focus attention to specific aspects of objects. From the variety of aspects in which an object can be present to a person, they single out certain aspects and mark their relevance. In this way, signs work perspectivizing and help make possible focused information, specific request, as well as communication of specific knowledge. A chemical formula, for example, does not represent a chemical substance in its sensuous features “but represents it as a sum of potential ‘reactions,’ of possible chains of causality which are defined by general rules.” (PSF I: ; ECW : ) The significant achievement of human signs is their creative productivity: By means of signs, new objects and courses of action can be created in light of which people broaden their possibilities of experiencing reality and shaping their lives. Examples of this are the sciences, which, by means of signs, create entire worlds of knowledge and new research areas. Even an ordinary city map is an example of how perspectivizing symbols can create objects and aspects that would be inaccessible without the appropriate symbolization. What a city map shows – complex spatial relations of streets and urban areas – cannot be experienced in the mere perception of a city. The city map isolates the purely spatial aspects of the object experience from other aspects (e.g., of visual, olfactory, or motoric kind). That is how a sign system enables people to consider, e.g., spatial relations and structures. Sign systems of maps made it possible to further examine the epistemic object ›space‹ and let spatial structures become independent objects of our thinking. In this sense, Cassirer emphasizes that the limitations of a description and depiction to certain aspects as well as the emphasis on “certain ‘pregnant’ factors” constitute “the true force of the sign” (PSF I: ; ECW : ). To Cassirer, the development of specific sign systems is the requirement for the variety of cultural practices of action and worlds of knowledge. Like Leibniz, he does not view signs as “simple copies of an existing reality” but as instruments of thinking: “For the sign is no mere accidental cloak of the idea, but its necessary and essential organ. It serves not merely to communicate a complete and given thought-content, but is an instrument, by means of which this content develops and fully defines itself.” With emphasis on the productivity of sign-supported mental activity, Cassirer



PSF I: , ; ECW : , ; see also PSF III: f.; ECW : f.



 u¨

also states that it is not the task of language (or other sign systems) “to repeat definitions and distinctions which are already present in the mind, but to formulate them and make them intelligible as such.” (PSF I: ; ECW : ) Determining distinctions, regulations, and definitions is important when objects, processes, and courses of action need to be examined, explained, and described more precisely. “Doing and thinking” are “originally united” because the “formative shaping” constitutes their common root (ECW : ). In human culture, artificial signs include tools, technical apparatuses, and other artifacts that have a sign function insofar as they invite specific actions. In his treatise “Form und Technik” (), Cassirer illustrates the role of tools and technology for the formation and development of the human ability to imagine real possibilities of changing and shaping the world. In the specific use of tools and technology, people learn that reality is (“regardless of its strict and irreversible legality”) a “modifiable” matter. It “provides the human will and action with a scope of vast range.” (ECW : ) According to Cassirer, this ability to anticipate and design the future developed because symbol systems (especially technology as a symbol system) made it possible to plan actions. He describes the “symbolic future” characteristic of human beings as a “theoretical idea of the future”: “It is more than mere expectation; it becomes an imperative of human life, . . . an ethical and religious task” (EM f.; ECW : ). This statement marks the point that the shaping of one’s life includes more than taking precautions with regard to an expected shortage. Rather, this shaping is oriented by ideas of a good life, even when these ideas, such as ethical and politically reformist ones, cannot be entirely realized. The particular “symbolic future” reserved to human beings includes treating “the impossible as if it were possible” (EM: ; ECW : ). To sum up, in his analysis of the value of signs, Cassirer does not accentuate the point that reality is represented in signs. Instead, the term ›representation‹ marks both the knowledge activated by virtue of signs and the meaning of these signs. The latter has to be understood as the function of the signs in human interaction and practices of action. A crucial part of this function of signs is orientation in reality. This orientation also needs ideals that guide acting and shaping. In addition, Cassirer’s analysis shows that by virtue of signs and especially language, human beings become capable of reflecting and discussing their activities. Signs enable us to discuss whether we deal with relevant aspects or not, and which aspects we should consider.

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V Contextual Symbolic Pregnance Signs are used in specific contexts of action. Hence, the understanding and the use of signs are part of people’s practical knowledge. People know which symbolic expression is required in order to, e.g., navigate attention, set topics, or coordinate common action. The context of communication and action helps determine the meaning of signs. Cassirer demonstrates how contexts influence sensory experience and the meaning of signs using the example of a drawn line. According to his example, a line can in one context represent a mathematical function and in another, for example in an aesthetic attitude, an expressive feeling. Displayed in an art museum, the same line is usually observed under aesthetic points of view. Contexts can suggest specific points of view of consideration and interpretation. At the same time, however, Cassirer emphasizes the fundamental freedom of changing points of view: “It is characteristic of the nature of man that he is not limited to one specific and single approach to reality but can choose his point of view and so pass from one aspect of things to another” (EM ; ECW : ). Cassirer also deems it important to note that, in the change of viewpoints, what is sensuously perceived also changes. The aesthetic view perceives something different than, e.g., a mathematical view. In an aesthetic view of the line, we perceive the way the line is placed on the surface, its flow, the virtual dynamics or balance, its virtual spatiality, the method of color application, and the materiality of the canvas. In the perception of the line as an exemplification of a mathematical function, however, the individual traits of the drawing are unimportant and often overlooked (PSF III: f.; ECW : ). Cassirer calls the inseparable and direct relation between the sensuous experience and the meaning of a sign “symbolic pregnance”: “By symbolic pregnance we mean the way in which a perception as a sensory experience contains at the same time a certain nonintuitive meaning which it immediately and concretely represents” (PSF III: ; ECW : ). This determination marks the role of the ideational or epistemic point of view from which something is perceived. With new aspects of perception, not only different things come into the focus of attention, but what is perceived can also phenomenally change in fundamental ways. The change of the sensuous phenomenon in the change of points of view was the subject of vivid debates in perceptual psychology around the 

See PSF III: –; ECW : –; cf. ECW : ; ECW : .



 u¨

turn of the twentieth century. Cassirer refers to this debate in great detail. By means of a memorable example introduced by physiologist Ewald Hering, he illustrates his own view, which differs from theories of perception according to which one and the same “material of sensation” (physical stimuli or sensuous data) is simply understood and interpreted in different ways. The example is about a person who is taking a walk in the forest and sees a white spot on the trail at some distance. He assumes it is spilled lime until he notices the incidence of the sunlight. All of a sudden, the spot does no longer look white but gray-brown (PSF III: ; ECW : ). Cassirer explains that when the person is initially thinking of lime, the category of substantiality is leading. In view of the incident sunlight however, the person takes the point of view of causality, and the brightening of the trail becomes visible in this perspective. Generalizing, Cassirer states that “the direction of ideation drives the purely optical phenomenon into very definite channels.” The “identity of the point of reference” prescribes “the path of recognition and representation” (PSF III: ; ECW : ). Opposing both empiricist and rationalistic theories of perception, Cassirer emphasizes the irreducible gestalt quality of all sensuous phenomena: In genuine representation the mere material of sensation is not subsequently made into the representation of an object and interpreted as such, by having certain acts performed upon it. Rather, a formed total intuition stands before us as an objectively significant whole, filled with objective meaning. . . . For there is no seeing and nothing visible which does not stand in some mode of spiritual vision, of ideation. A seeing and a thingseen outside of this “sight”, a “bare” sensation preceding all formation, is an empty abstraction. The “given” must always be taken in a definite aspect and so apprehended, for it is this aspect that first lends it meaning.

Points of view and contexts are correlated with each other. On the one hand, contexts determine which points of view are relevant and which are not. (E.g., nowadays we would usually not come up with the idea that there might be lime spilled on a forest trail.) On the other hand, contexts can actively be altered when we change points of view. (E.g., when standing in front of a picture of a drawn line in a museum, we might also ask which  

Hering (): ff. PSF III: f., ; ECW : f., . With this position Cassirer distanced himself from the Graz school of Gestalt psychology around Alexis Meinong and sided with the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology around Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Köhler. His argumentation regarding this matter can already be found in Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff (chapter , part II).

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mathematical function is symbolized by the line. With that question we enter a mathematical context.) Such correlations of points of view and contexts presuppose an organization of knowing and thinking – an organization that allows a reasonable segmentation of knowledge and makes possible that experience and knowledge are activated according to situations. Cassirer does not explicitly spell out this aspect of his concept of symbolic pregnance and his philosophy of symbolic forms. He presupposes orders of thinking and of the organization of knowledge and experience in actions when he emphasizes that in every representation the overall context of consciousness comes into play (PSF I: ; ECW : ). He does, however, acknowledge the role of orders in knowledge for the phenomenon of symbolic pregnance. In the introduction to the chapter “Symbolic Pregnance” in the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, he accentuates the “manifold meaning-groups, which . . . are systematically related to one another and which by virtue of this relationship constitute the totality that we call the world of our experience.” (PSF III: ; ECW : ) As will be shown in Section VI, Cassirer extensively examined examples of a collapse of these organizational orders in cases of neurological disorders. In cases of these disorders of, e.g., speech and movement, a systematic change of viewpoints cannot be achieved, and parts of the language-supported knowledge cannot be recalled.

VI Orders of Knowledge in the Background of Representations Orders of knowledge are usually not explicitly conscious in our thinking and acting. Yet, they are not fiction. This point becomes apparent as soon as we ask ourselves the question of how it is possible for us to react appropriately to situations and signs. Comprehending situations and understanding signs cannot be reduced to a mere associative activation of knowledge and experience. After all, as Cassirer points out, everything that is in some way similar to something else or bridges to a different content can be a cause of association (PSF I: ; PSF III: ; ECW : ; ECW : ). Associative ways of thinking often appear but are not relevant to action in most contexts (the fine arts and their free associations being an exception). If mere associations guided all our actions, our world would become chaotic, and complex actions could not be carried out successfully. The appropriate reaction to situations and signs can also not be explained by the internalization of conventions and habituations. Habituations may



 u¨

play an important role in our behavior, and they contribute to reacting appropriately. However, the creativity of human behavior cannot be handled in an intellectually satisfying way with recourse to habituations. Rather, being able to react appropriately (e.g., in a philosophical debate or in search for the reason why an instrument is not working anymore) requires the activation of certain parts of knowledge. While this may seem obvious, it becomes remarkable as soon as we realize how big the treasure of human knowledge is. The entirety of our knowledge, also of details, is never fully available to us, not even partially at all times (and luckily it does not have to be). It is a particular feature of our cognition that we perceive and think action-related and that we do not just have to follow stereotypical patterns. We are able to activate parts of our knowledge that are situationally reasonable and help us master new challenges. This ability requires an action-related order and the organizational order of our knowledge. These orders also enable us to change points of view and perspectives. Cassirer has dealt with the question of how flexible, perspective-changing thinking is possible. He was particularly interested in pathological disorders of these normally well-functioning abilities, because he believed an answer might provide clues as to how perspective-changing thinking became culturally possible. With the help of his cousin Kurt Goldstein, Cassirer learned about aphasia and related disorders that leading neurologists (Goldstein himself, Henry Head, and Adhémar Gelb) classified as disorders of the symbolic perceiving, thinking, and acting. They had observed that patients were able to execute many of their everyday actions but faced difficulties once they were asked to carry out symbolic operations, for example to arrange colors by different points of view, to execute calculations, to draw a sketch of their own room, or to demonstrate something in a playful way. Cassirer extensively studied clinical reports and personally interviewed patients regarding their cognitive dysfunctions. He characterized the limitations of the ability of symbolic action and symbolic expression as a difficulty in the free positing and free removal of a center of coordinates, and also in the transition between systems based on different centers. The fundamental unities must not only be fixated, but precisely in this fixation must be kept mobile, so that it remains possible to change from one to the other. (PSF III: ; ECW : ) 

This led to a chapter of about ninety pages in length in the third volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms entitled “Toward a Pathology of the Symbolic Consciousness” (see PSF III: –; ECW , –).

Rethinking Representation

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As an illustration, let us consider the ability to orient within the range of colors. Cassirer describes the difficulties of a patient suffering from color amnesia. These difficulties become obvious when, e.g., the patient is asked to label and arrange colors based on their common names such as blue, yellow, or red (PSF III: –; ECW : –). However, the patient was well able to pick out from available color samples the specific shade of color that matched with the color of a certain object (e.g., a strawberry or a violet). When labeling colors, he was also able to associate them with the color features of objects and to use color names “such as sky-blue, grass-green, white as snow, red as blood, etc.” While the ordering principle of colors as features of objects was available to the patient, Cassirer notes that he however lacked “the principle of systematic articulation through which the normal individual dominates the world of color.” (PSF III: ; ECW : ) This systematic arrangement of colors that seems so natural to us today consists in a relational order of the colors by shade and brightness. These relational orders go back to color theories and correlated color circles established in the seventeeth century. These symbol systems of colors made it possible to assign a position relative to others to the different chromaticities, e.g., to locate yellowgreen between rich yellow and rich green or to arrange brightened (white-tinted) colors by their level of brightness. According to Cassirer, the ability to have relational systems mentally available concerns different dimensions. First, it requires prescinding from the concrete sensuous object and independently considering symbolic relations. Second, it requires fixing a value at will and making it the “central point.” Third, it requires establishing the relation to other values from there. With knowledge of such systems, the “central point” can be shifted and varied. The same abilities are also required when it comes to calculations or the drawing of spatial structures. In the use of signs, human beings make use of numerous epistemic orders, for instance of colors, numbers, spaces, tools, practices of action, professions, or scientific disciplines. Cassirer views these orders as a “scaffold” for mental operations that, as long as it is cognitively available to people, allows them a free variation of points of view and contexts. In the context of his treatise on the “Pathology of the Symbolic Consciousness” in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Cassirer again references the phenomenon of “symbolic pregnance”: 

See Gage ().



 u¨ The normal perceptual consciousness – and this is one of its basic traits – not only is filled and permeated by definite vectors of meaning but can in general vary them freely. For example, we can consider an optical figure from this or that point of view; we can apprehend and determine it in regard to one factor or another. And whenever the form of determination changes, something different stands out as essential; thanks to our new vision, something different always becomes “visible.” (PSF III: ; ECW : f.)

In order to be able to change points of view and perspectives, two aspects are important. On the one hand, we must be able to have recourse to the epistemic orders, because they enable us to associate different perspectives, e.g., to understand them as different comprehensions of one and the same object (PSF III: ; ECW : ). In Cassirer’s terms, epistemic orders function as “coordinate systems” that enable us to set the centers of orientation flexibly. On the other hand, the role and function of taking and changing points of view and perspectives need to be understood, too. This means knowing what happens in a change of view and what consequences result from this change (cf. ECW : ). Only in conjunction do these abilities enable us to make free changes of view on objects and to have at the same time a “freedom of survey” (PSF III: ; ECW : ). In his analysis of “pathologies of the symbolic consciousness,” Cassirer accentuates the role of cultural sign systems that promote changes of perspective: For perception gains this freedom only by progressively filling itself with symbolic meaning – by interposing definite forms of spiritual vision and spontaneously passing from one to another. This is possible only when the attention does not fasten upon a single sense impression but merely uses the particular as a kind of road sign, pointing the way to the universal, to definite theoretical centers of meaning. (PSF III: ; ECW : )

Orders of knowledge are created, communicated, and put into effect by distinctions regarding what belongs where and to what. Philosophy offers numerous examples of such orders, as it is virtually philosophy’s business to provide orders in thinking. In nonphilosophical everyday life, orders are also activated and communicated that express as well as shape orders in knowledge: think, e.g., of conversations about who is professionally accountable for which problem, which cases are covered by a general rule and which are not, or what concepts encompass and how they are to be distinguished from other concepts. We also communicate, e.g., about the proper perspective and basis for arguing, while at the same time we

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clarify how perspectives and premise–inference relations can be different from and relate to one another. To sum up, we need orders of knowledge to orient ourselves within the variety of activities and their points of view that have been culturally developed by means of signs. With regard to orders of knowledge, Cassirer does not restrict the concept of representation to the reference of signs. Representation arises from what is intentionally connected, especially with regard to possible consequences and continued actions.

VII Conclusion: Cassirer’s View on Representation Cassirer developed a conception of representation without representationalism, i.e., ) without the presupposition that reality is perceived through the glasses of the mental, and ) without the presupposition that representation is a copy of reality. The term ›representation‹ is instead used to denote the human mental capability to realize the significance of an object or an event for activities by mobilizing appropriate complexes of experience and knowledge. Cassirer views experience and knowledge of reality neither as a depiction nor as a construction of reality but as an intelligent orientation in reality. What is represented are not objects but contents and forms of knowledge and experience. Hence, Cassirer’s concept of representation does not locate the representational relation between signs and objects of the “external world” but between a sensuously present phenomenon and a complex of experience and knowledge. However, significance is neither independent of the needs and requirements of acting nor of the challenges of thinking. Signs are understood and interpreted in contexts of action. The thereby activated knowledge opens up spaces of interpreting and shaping activities. This way, the sensuously present can also be put into new contexts. Cassirer provides an understanding of the concept representation that addresses this situational and context-related generation of meaning. Basically, he understands this generation of meaning as a creative cognitive act.

 

Cassirer’s Philosophy of Mind From Consciousness to “Objective Spirit” Guido Kreis

This chapter is dedicated to core issues of Cassirer’s philosophy of mind. Cassirer is well known for his sympathetic reception of Gestalt psychology, which he acknowledged as supporting his views on the holistic structure of the mind (). Less well known is Cassirer’s independent, transcendental argument in favor of this holistic structure, which lays the transcendental ground for the concept of the symbol and the entire philosophy of symbolic forms (). This account of the mental enabled Cassirer to strongly reject the physicalist reduction of the mental to physical nature; I shall in particular discuss his anti-physicalist arguments against Russell (). Finally, these latter arguments forced Cassirer to reconsider the relation between mind and nature, and lead him to the conception of objective spirit that is crucial for his philosophy of culture; the transition from mind to objective spirit is arguably Cassirer’s most original contribution to the philosophy of mind (). Before we consider Cassirer’s argumentation, some notes on terminology are required. First, Cassirer uses the term “consciousness” synonymously with “mind”; a philosophy of consciousness is, on his account, a philosophy of mind in general, and not a special theory of phenomenal consciousness or second-order consciousness. Cassirer follows the broadly Kantian assumption that whatever occurs in the mind we can also become consciously aware of. Second, the term Geist is ambiguous. In one sense, it signifies the mind, and a philosophy of Geist is thus a philosophy of mind. However, it can also mean spirit, such that a philosophy of Geist can also be a philosophy of spirit. I recommend reading Cassirer as establishing such a theory in an entirely secular and rational way that leaves behind the theological connotations of the term “spirit”: Spirit is the realm of human culture. In Cassirer’s view, mind and spirit are connected in such a way that the latter is the manifestation of the former. Third, I will use the term “mental occurrence” to refer to any particular item of the mind. I prefer this neutral term to others such as “idea,” “representation,” or “mental 

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

state,” since all of them carry metaphysical presuppositions about the nature of the mental with them that I wish to avoid.

I The Holistic Structure of Sensuous Experience: Cassirer and Empirical Gestalt Psychology Cassirer’s sympathetic reception of Gestalt psychology is symptomatic for his general account of the mind. Empirical research demonstrates that even the simplest mental occurrences are always already Gestalten, i.e., complex wholes. This holistic account is directed against alternative theories of the mind. Many philosophers, typically from the Empiricist tradition, assume that the most basic mental occurrences are atomic elements, out of which all complex elements are constructed by mental operations, whereas their content is passively received and entirely uninterpreted. Cassirer rejects this view. His argument comes in two versions. The first is empirical and draws on Gestalt psychology. The second presents a transcendental argument in favor of the holistic structure of the mind (more on this in Section II). In order to understand these arguments, it will be convenient to have an overview of the model against which Cassirer argues. He critically discusses not only properly empiricist accounts of the mind but also mechanistic or physicalist ones, as well as models centered on the notion of association, none of which would necessarily have to be associated with Empiricism. However, for lack of a better term, I shall simply refer to the following set of claims as the “Empiricist” model: () The basic sensuous elements of the mind are simple and atomic elements. (atomism) () In receiving a basic sensuous element, the mind remains passive. (passivity) () The content of a basic sensuous element is in no respect the result of interpretative mental activities. (uninterpreted content) () The complex elements of the mind are constructed by mental activities that operate on the ground layer of simple and atomic elements. (layer model) This model assumes a ground layer of basic sensuous elements that have been called impressions, sensations, sense data, sensory stimuli, or perceptions, respectively. () claims that these elements are not complex and cannot be broken up into more basic components. () states that no mental activity is involved in receiving them, and () concludes that their content is entirely uninterpreted, as any interpretation would already



 

involve mental activity. Finally, () claims that these elements make up the ground layer of the mind; it is only when mental activities operate on it that complex elements are accomplished. Cassirer’s empirical strategy against this model draws on the results of Gestalt psychology. A Gestalt quality is an internally organized mental whole that cannot be broken into more basic real components, as the whole exhibits qualities that neither its elements nor their sum have. Ehrenfels had introduced the notion in , and Cassirer first discussed it in Substance and Function (SF –). Cassirer later refers to Köhler, who established two “Ehrenfels criteria” for Gestalt qualities. The first quality is suprasummativity, the second transponability. Consider the perception of a melody, which, as a whole, has characteristics that the single tones do not have. The melody can be solemn, while none of its tones is. Hence, a Gestalt quality is more than the sum of its elements: It is “suprasummative.” Further, every melody can be transferred into different keys without losing its characteristics: They are “transponable.” For Köhler, suprasummativity is a necessary yet not sufficient criterion for Gestalt qualities, while transponability is sufficient yet not necessary, since there can be Gestalt qualities which are not transponable. On the Empiricist model, suprasummativity and transponability are unintelligible: Since all complex mental items are supposed to be composed of atomic elements, none can have qualities that are qualities neither of its elements nor of their sum. Similarly, since different atoms make up different complexes, the transposition of a melody cannot, on that account, have the same characteristics as the original melody. The atomism assumption, on Cassirer’s reading, cannot do justice to the empirical evidence provided by Gestalt psychology: “What is truly empirically . . . given in the domain of consciousness, is never the particular elements . . ., but it is rather always a manifold variously structured and ordered by relations of all sorts, – such a manifold as can be separated into particular elements merely by abstraction.” (SF ) Accordingly, the assumption of atomism should be replaced by the assumption that the basic sensuous elements of the mind are always already complex wholes. In The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms III, Cassirer extensively refers to the work of the Berlin group of “Gestalt theory.” He takes particular interest in     

On the layer conception that is involved here, see Conant (): –. See Krois (): –; Krois (); Poggi (); Plu¨macher (); Andersch ().   See Ehrenfels (). Köhler (: –). Ehrenfels (: –). Ehrenfels (: ). See also Köhler (: –). Ehrenfels (: ); Köhler (: –).

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

two findings from research on color perception. The first is the perceptual constancy of surface colors under varying light conditions. We typically experience the color of an object as constant, regardless of whether it is seen in plain daylight or in candlelight at night. This is unexplainable on the Empiricist model, since different light conditions produce different stimuli on the retina, which should in turn correlate to different color experiences (PSF III: –; ECW : –). Second, Cassirer points out that experiments show that we comfortably switch between different “modes” of color perception. Color can be experienced as either plain color, i.e., as a color quality of a certain shade; or surface color, i.e., as a property of a spatiotemporal object; or as spatial color, i.e., as filling a three-dimensional space. This too is unexplainable on the Empiricist model, since on that account we should expect three identical color experiences, as the stimuli are the same in all three cases. Cassirer draws two conclusions from this. The first is that the empirical evidence would be unintelligible if we insisted on the complete passitivity of the mind in sensuous experience. This means that claim () of the Empiricist model cannot do justice to the empirical evidence: “We do not merely ‘re-act’ to the stimulus, but in a certain sense act ‘against’ it.” (ECW : ) Accordingly, the assumption of passitivity should be replaced by the assumption that mental capacities are active even in those cases in which some empirical content is given to the mind. Note that this does not mean that nothing is given to the mind. Cassirer merely points out that everything that is given to the mind is already given in a way that also involves mental activity. Adopting a term coined by Alva Noë, for whom “perceiving is a way of acting,” we might call this an “enactive approach” to sensuous experience. Similarly, the empirical results would also be unintelligible if we would insist on the assumption of uninterpreted content. Hence, claim () of the Empiricist model cannot do justice to the empirical evidence either: “As a matter of fact, . . . perception does not stick to [the] kaleidoscopic succession of images but constructs true perceptual forms out of them.” (ECW : ) Accordingly, the assumption of uninterpreted content should be replaced by the assumption that every sensuous mental content involves interpretative activities of the mind. This idea is captured by Cassirer’s notion of “symbolic pregnance”:  

PSF III: –, –. Compare also the summary in ECW : –. On the Berlin group, see Ash ().  PSF III: –, with reference to research by David Katz. Noë (: ).



  By “symbolic pregnance” we mean the way in which a perception as a “sensory” experience contains at the same time a certain non-intuitive “meaning” which it immediately and concretely presents. Here we are not dealing with merely “perceptive” data, on which some sort of “apperceptive” acts are later grafted, through which they are interpreted, judged, transformed. Rather, it is the perception itself which, by virtue of its own immanent organization, takes on a kind of spiritual (geistige) “articulation” – which, being ordered in itself, also belongs to a determinate order of meaning. (PSF III: )

As the passage shows, Cassirer’s rejection of the first three claims of the Empiricist model also makes the layer assumption () unintelligible. If interpretative activities of the mind are already involved in sensuous experience, then sensuous and interpretative aspects never occur in isolation from each other. Accordingly, there can be no ground layer of uninterpreted sensations. Cassirer expresses this most clearly in a draft of the second chapter of the planned fourth volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms from : We . . . had to reject . . . the conception that the process of “symbolic formation” is a mere reconstruction of a given world of sensation . . . – as if to the latter, taken as a basic and original layer, merely a kind of intellectual “superstructure” had to be added. We saw that instead each particular intellectual viewpoint itself already determined that which perception as such consists in. (PSF IV: –)

Accordingly, we should replace the layer model by the assumption that sensuous and interpretative aspects are always already interwoven in all mental contents. Everything that is given to the mind is already given in light of some interpretation. In sum, Cassirer arrives at the following holistic model of the mind: () () ()





The basic sensuous elements of the mind are complex wholes. (holism) In receiving or having a basic sensuous element, the mind is active. (activity) The content of a basic sensuous element of the mind already involves interpretative activities of the mind. (symbolic pregnance)

I have altered the existing translations of Cassirer’s writings, in particular those from PSF, throughout. In quotations from Cassirer’s works that are not published in English, translations are entirely my own. See Kreis () for an elaboration of this idea.

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

() There are no isolated layers in the mind. In every single element of the mind, sensuous and interpretative aspects are always already inextricably interwoven. (interwovennes) Cassirer’s empirical argument for the holistic structure of the mind can best be reconstructed as an inference to the best explanation. On the holistic model, ()–(), the evidence established by Gestalt psychology can be made intelligible; on the Empiricist model, ()–(), it cannot; hence, we should prefer the former. Cassirer however also developed a transcendental argument in favor of the holistic structure of the mind that is entirely independent from empirical data.

II The Holistic Structure of the Mind: Cassirer’s Transcendental Deduction of Symbolic Representation Cassirer’s nonempirical argument is contained in section III of the introduction to The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms I (PSF I: –). At the beginning of the subsequent section, he calls it a “kind of critical ‘deduction’” (erkenntniskritische ‘Deduktion’) (PSF I: ). This deduction has close affinities to a transcendental deduction in Kant’s sense. In the first stage of his argument, Cassirer assumes that there is at least one mental occurrence, e.g., a perception. This is uncontroversial even for Empiricists. Cassirer then argues that in order for there to be any such mental occurrence at all, it is necessarily required that it belong to someone who entertains it: “What makes the particular perception a perception, what distinguishes it as a ‘perceptual’ quality from any material quality is precisely its ‘belonging to the I’” (PSF I: ). Ascribability to the subject is here the crucial property of mental items that distinguishes them from all other, nonmental items. This property of a mental item also “originally inheres in each single one already” (PSF I: ), in the sense that it is a necessary and a priori, and hence transcendental, condition of mental occurrences. This is reminiscent of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the categories of the understanding in the Critique of Pure Reason: “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me that could not be thought at all, which is as much as to say that the representation would either be impossible or else at least would be nothing for me.” (CPR B–) Kant’s claim is here that every mental occurrence must be ascribable to a subject that actually entertains it. He also gives a concise reductio argument 

Cassirer had already given a first version of this argument in SF –.



 

to support this. Assume that some mental occurrence cannot be ascribed to anyone. It then follows that it is either irrelevant to everyone, including the subject that entertains it, or that my mental occurrence is not my mental occurrence, or more generally, that some mental occurrence belongs to no one’s mind, which is inconsistent. Hence, the assumption was false, and every mental occurrence must be ascribable to its subject. Cassirer adopts this claim in a slightly modified version, replacing the term “subject” by the functional expression “a whole of mental occcurences”: In order for there to be any mental occurrence at all, it is a necessary condition that it is an integral moment of a whole of mental occurrences. In the second stage of his argument, Cassirer introduces two necessary conditions for such a whole. The first is that it is numerically identical: The mind is exactly one whole that cannot at any point be separated into fragmented portions. In a discussion of Hegel, Cassirer points out that Geist “forms a completely concrete unity,” in such a way that “there is no sudden breach or leap, no hiatus by which it breaks into disparate ‘parts’” (PSF III: ). We might substantiate Cassirer’s claim by help of a reductio argument similar to Kant’s. Assume that the mind is not one, but many, i.e., that there is at least one portion of mental occurrences that is completely isolated from the rest. This would mean that there are at least two fragmented portions of mental occurrences that are both in complete isolation from each other. Yet, they belong to the same mind and are thus not in complete isolation from each other. Hence, the assumption is inconsistent. The other necessary condition of a mental whole is that, in order for it to be numerically identical, it must be organized as a system. Cassirer argues that “the manifold of possible forms of connection” in consciousness has to be “unified in a highest concept of a system” (PSF I: ). In Cassirer’s view, two structural features are required for some manifold to have a systematic organization. First, the elements under consideration must stand in such a unity that every element is both connected with, and distinctly separated from, every other element of that manifold. It is in virtue of these relations that a given mental occurrence has a determinate content at all: “Every ‘simple’ quality of consciousness has a determinate content only in so far as it is apprehended in continuous unity with certain other qualities, and in continuous separation from them.” (PSF I: ) This principle assumes that determination of content is achieved through negation of, and separation from, all other contents of a whole. Second, Cassirer points out that such a network of relations assigns to each single element a unique position within the whole: It is a “fundamental characteristic of

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consciousness . . . that every position of a part already encompasses the position of the whole . . . in regard to its general structure and form” (PSF I: ). In sum, this means that a mental system is a manifold of mental occurrences in which every element is related to every other, and to the whole, in such a way that it has determinate content and a unique position. Cassirer claims that, for there to be a numerically identical whole of mental occurrences, it is a necessary condition that it is a system in this sense. We might again substantiate this claim by a suitable reductio argument: Assume that the mind is not systematically organized. It would then follow that there is at least one mental occurrence that does not have a unique position in the whole. That, however, would in effect mean that it is isolated from the rest, which would violate the requirement of numerical identity. Hence, the assumption was false, and the mind must be systematically organized. On the third stage, Cassirer argues that there is a set of “basic relations” (PSF I: ) or basic “forms of connection” (PSF I: ), each of which actually establishes the systematic unity of the mind with regard to every particular mental content. He gives four examples of such relations: space, time, substance, and causality (PSF I: –). As the latter two indicate, the concept of a basic relation is a successor of Kant’s notion of a category. Any such “mode of combination” is defined by Cassirer as “a specific law of ordering,” “by means of which certain series within the whole of consciousness are created” (PSF I: ). Cassirer here uses an analogy of categories to mathematical functions, which are laws of ordering that define a relationship between variables, and thereby create a series of values (ECW : –). Consider the basic relation of time. Cassirer introduces time as a law of ordering with the specific content of “succession.” (PSF I: ) What is achieved by the application of this law is an order of succession of all mental contents, such that every mental content is, in relation to every other, either prior, simultaneous, or posterior. Time thus realizes an organization of a mental manifold in which every occurrence is related both to every other and to the whole, in such a way that it has a unique temporal position within the whole and that its content has a definite temporal determination. On the fourth stage, Cassirer draws the conclusion of his argument: For there to be any mental occurrence at all, it is a necessary condition that they are subject to the basic relations of the mind. It is precisely because any mental occurrence always already stands under the basic relations that it is an integral moment of the mind as a whole. This is a nonempirical, transcendental condition, “a constitutive condition of all



 

content of experience” (SF ). It holds, as the argument has shown, necessarily and a priori of every mental content. The very existence of a mental content is dependent on its being integrated into a mental whole through the basic relations (PSF I: , SF ). The holistic principle of Gestalt psychology has thus found a transcendental foundation in the holistic ground structure of the systematically organized mind. Finally, Cassirer rephrases this result in terms of expression, representation, and symbolization. First, he points out that every mental occurrence, as being subject to the basic relations of the whole mind, expresses both these basic relations – conceived as rules of ordering – and this whole: “Every particular originally belongs to a definite complex and in itself expresses the rule of this complex” (PSF I: ). Second, Cassirer reads this as a mode of representation: “What defines each particular content of consciousness is that in it the whole of consciousness is in some form posited and represented.” (PSF I: ) Mathematical analogies are once again helpful here. Consider the following series of numbers: , , , , , . . . This series represents the square function f(x) = x, since it is the series of values of that function when applied to the natural numbers. By analogy, we might say that the temporal determinateness of a given mental occurrence represents the overall rule of the basic relation of time, which is succession. It thereby also represents the unity of the mind as a whole in one of its respects, viz., temporal order. Cassirer uses a similar mathematical analogy when he says that any particular mental occurrence is like a differential that represents its integral (PSF I: –, SF ). As early as in Substance and Function, Cassirer had introduced the term “symbol” to account for the peculiar mode in which a particular mental content represents the mental whole: “The particular given impression does not remain merely what it is, but becomes a symbol of a thoroughgoing systematic organization, within which it stands and to a certain extent participates.” (SF ) In the introduction to The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms I, Cassirer reintroduces the term “symbol,” albeit in a modified way: The fact that every particular content represents the mental whole is now called the “‘natural’ symbolism” of consciousness – in contrast to the “‘artificial’ symbolism” of culture, “which consciousness creates in language, art, and myth” (PSF I: ), and which is thus the domain of manifestation of the former. The significance of the symbol terminology is obvious. The symbol, or “natural” symbolism, is the transcendental ground for the philosophy of symbolic forms in general. Because the symbol is the ground structure of the mental, it is also the ground structure of culture, since culture is the manifestation of the mental.

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It is crucial to note another aspect of Cassirer’s terminology. Representation is defined as the exhibition (Darstellung) of one mental content in the other, or of the mental whole in a particular content (PSF I: , , ). However, this use of the concept of representation is highly idiosyncratic given the standard representationalist account of mental content, according to which mental representation is to be explained in terms of reference to extramental entities. Some representationalists add to this the even stronger claim that mental representations are copies of their extramental correlates. Cassirer rejects the “copy theory” of mental representation (PSF I: –), as well as the very idea that mental representation should be explained in terms of reference to extramental entities. By contrast, he defines mental representation exclusively in terms of intramental relations. What brings about representational content of a mental occurrence is in the first place the network of relations to other mental occurrences in which it holds a unique position.

III Cassirer’s Anti-physicalist Strategy Cassirer’s account of the holistic structure of the mind had a significant impact on his views on the relation between mind and nature. It leads him to a clear rejection of the reductive naturalization of the mental to physical nature. The concept of physical nature is the predominant conception of nature in modern science and philosophy. Physical nature is the totality of all entities having no other than physical properties, i.e., properties that they possess in virtue of their causal relations to others. Nature in that sense is thoroughly physical, so everything in nature is a physical entity. It is also exclusively physical, so nothing in the world is not a physical entity. In such an account, however, the mental poses a significant problem. Mental occurrences appear to possess properties that are only possessed by them, and which physical entities never possess: They have representational content. The threat of an ontological dualism between the physical and the mental thus arises. The proper way to avoid it, on the physicalist’s account, is the reduction of the mental to the physical. Reductive physicalism is the view that there is no property of mental occurrences that cannot be sufficiently described by the causal properties of the physical occurrences they are realized in. One of the prominent philosophical disputes of Cassirer’s time was the debate over psychologism, i.e., the naturalists’ attempt to identify the logical laws of thinking with the physical laws guiding the events in



 

the brain. Cassirer criticizes the attempts of Mill and others to establish an Empiricist foundation of logic and mathematics (SF –, –), and emphatically agrees with Frege and Husserl’s fundamental critique thereof (PK IV: –). Cassirer also discusses naturalistic tendencies in the then contemporary philosophy of mind in two major review articles, of which his review of Russell’s The Analysis of Mind is particularly interesting here because of its explicit rejection of reductive physicalism (ELD –). Since the reductive physicalist’s claim is a universal claim, it will be sufficient to establish just one counterexample in order to reject it, i.e., to identify at least one property of at least one type of mental occurrences that resists reduction to causal properties. For Kantians, the most promising candidates are normative properties. It is in the spirit of anti-psychologism when Cassirer insists “that the moment of pure logical validity is as such an absolutely unique characteristic, and it is therefore neither capable of, nor dependent on, a deduction and justification from a foreign domain of validity,” which includes that “the logical laws do not allow for their dissolution into natural laws of the psychological flow of representations” (EL ). Cassirer points out that the strict universality of logical laws cannot possibly be reduced to causal laws of empirical psychology, which could at best have inductive generality. Similarly, Cassirer insists on the “logical significance” of the judgment, which he sees in the fact that a judgment expresses “a certain objectively valid state of affairs,” such that the truth of a judgment holds independently of any individual thinker’s taking it to be true (EL –). Therefore, the logical laws of truth cannot be reduced to the causal laws of empirical psychology. The emphasis on the normative property of objective validity is crucial here. Consider the mental activity of judging. Every act of judging must include a commitment to the truth of the judgment in question. Any such commitment does in turn imply the tacit acknowledgment of a reciprocal responsibility to defend the claim with appropriate reasons. These normative features of judging, however, cannot be described in causal terms. For example, consider what Cassirer says about the prospects of sufficiently describing the justificatory relation to a reason in a physical explanation: “Reasons are not to be found on the level of physical explanation of nature,  

See Kusch () for a helpful survey. “Erkenntnistheorie nebst den Grenzfragen der Logik” (), ECW : – – hereafter indicated as “EL”; “Erkenntnistheorie nebst den Grenzfragen der Logik und Denkpsychologie” (), ECW : – – hereafter indicated as “ELD.”

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

whether those of classical physics or those of quantum mechanics; they cannot even be envisaged on this level” (DI ). This line of reasoning contains the material for an anti-physicalistic argument, though Cassirer never explicitly presented it in that way. As we have just seen, all mental acts of judging have normative properties that cannot be sufficiently described by reference to causal properties alone. It then follows that it is not true that there is no property of mental occurrences that cannot be sufficiently described by the causal properties of the physical occurrences in which they are realized. Hence, reductive physicalism is wrong. In addition to this argument, which Cassirer inherited from the Kantian tradition, he also developed an original argument supported by the symbolic structure of the mind. It can best be reconstructed from Cassirer’s account of recollection, which he also developed through a critical discussion of Russell’s The Analysis of Mind. Suppose that I am now recollecting the first time when I saw the Great Wall of China twenty-five years ago. Assume, further, that I have not been recollecting it during the last twentyfive years. On a reductive physicalist account of the mental, the model of causal memory traces might seem helpful here. It had been reformulated by the German biologist Richard Semon as a theory of “engrams,” to which Russell refers. Russell introduces an engram as a certain effect that a given stimulus has on an organism, pointing out that it “must consist in some material alteration in the body of the organism.” On that account, perceiving the Great Wall twenty-five years ago had certain causal effects on my mind, and whenever I have a recollection of it, traces of the original effects are reactivated. Russell, however, recommends a more modest version of this model when introducing what he calls mnemic causation, which is a distinctive kind of causality in addition to physiological causation. Whereas the latter merely depends on the present state of an organism and a given stimulus, mnemic causation is in addition also dependent on a third component, namely a past occurrence in the history of the organism (AM ). Russell then identifies the distinctive feature of recollections with the fact that they are accompanied by “a feeling of belief which may be expressed in the words ‘this happened’” (AM ). Against this, Cassirer argues that the content of my recollection of my seeing the Great Wall twenty-five years ago contains two elements to which Russell does not do full justice. First, my recollection represents the Great Wall as something that has been experienced by me in the past and hence contains a self-reference to the subject. Against this move, we 

Russell (: ) – hereafter indicated as “AM.”



 

might point out that it is Russell’s declared ambition to develop a naturalistic account of the mental without ever referring to the subject, since he considers this “a logical fiction” (AM ): “If we are to avoid a perfectly gratuitous assumption, we must dispense with the subject as one of the actual ingredients of the world” (AM ). However, from Cassirer’s point of view it should be expected that the dismissal of the subject will run into serious problems, since it is a necessary condition of all mental occurrences. Cassirer argues that these problems indeed surface as soon as one takes into account the second feature of recollections that Russell neglects. The aspect of having happened in the past is not a mere addition to a perceptional content but rather an integral element of what I am aware of when I remember my first seeing the Great Wall twenty-five years ago. A recollection is not just a reanimation of a former perceptual content but rather an entirely different content. Cassirer expresses this critique in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms III: That the past in some way still exists substantially in the present . . . does not suffice to explain . . . the knowledge of the past as past. For precisely when the past “is” in the present, . . . it remains obscure how consciousness can nevertheless view it as not being present, how the being of the past can recede into temporal distance. (PSF III: )

A few pages later, he specifies that even though “engrams” and traces of the prior may still be present, these factual residua do not in themselves explain the characteristic form of the relation to the prior. For this relation presupposes that a manifold of time determinations is posited within the indivisible moment of time, that the total content of consciousness given in the simple “now” is, as it were, distributed over present, past, and future. . . . The theory of “mneme” can at best explain only the actual non-existence of the prior in the posterior, but it cannot make intelligible how the content that is given here and now, is getting organized in such a way that several of its determinations are singled out and assigned a position in the deep structure of time. (PSF III: –)

For Cassirer, a recollection is thus always the representation of something in the past as something in the past. This is a claim about the content of a recollection. By contrast, the causal history of memory traces (“engrams”) leads to a claim about the organic constitution of the physical occurrences in which recollections are realized: Either causal traces of the prior perception are materially preserved in the brain or no such traces are present. The first of these options would indeed explain the actual presence

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of (part of ) my prior perception of the object of my recollection. However, this does not square with how we actually experience recollections. It is after all crucial that the object of a recollection is only virtually, but never actually, present. Similarly, though the causal history does allow for the entire lack of causal traces, this would only explain the actual absence of the object of the recollection, which again does not square with our experience of the peculiar virtual presence of something. It cannot capture the representation of something as having been present long ago. In the second passage just quoted, Cassirer provides an alternative account of recollections. The content of my present recollection of something in the past as something in the past presupposes, first, the systematic unity of time as being differentiated in past, present, and future moments. Put differently, any single moment in time represents, in virtue of its relations to all others, the systematic whole of time. Second, my present recollection also presupposes the representation of that systematic structure and unity of time in my present recollection. Only then can my recollection be experienced as a present recollection at all, which occupies a determinate position in time that is distinct from all other, past and future, positions in time. This, however, also helps to explain the peculiar virtual mode in which the object of my recollection is present in that recollection. It can naturally refer to a mental occurrence that I have been entertaining at a past position in time, since the systematically organized manifold of time positions is represented in it. Similarly, my prior perception of the object of my recollection is neither materially present nor absent; rather, it is represented in the content of my recollection. Assuming that relations of representation hold between the content of my present recollection and all my prior mental occurrences, we can indeed see how the peculiar virtual presence of the past object might be captured. This analysis contains the material for Cassirer’s argument against physicalist reductionism from recollections. As we have just seen, the contents of recollections stand in relations of representation and signification to the contents of other mental occurrences that can never be sufficiently described by reference to causal properties alone. Recollections are a counterexample against the universal claim of reductive physicalism. It once again follows, for Cassirer, that reductive physicalism is wrong. This specific argument from recollections allows for generalization. Recollections, for Cassirer, are paradigmatic cases of the symbolic structure of the mind. Recall that on his account it is a necessary condition for there to be a mental content at all, that it stands in distinct differential relations to all other contents of a whole of mental contents, in such a way that these



 

relations, and in virtue of them also the whole, are represented in the mental content under consideration. Hence, we find the same peculiar presence of something absent, which is characteristic for recollections, in the content of just every mental occurrence. The content of every mental occurrence is the virtual presence (the symbolic representation) of the whole system of mental contents. Again, none of the relations of representation that hold between mental contents can be sufficiently described by reference to causal properties alone. Relations of representation are categorically different from material causal relations, such that the properties of the former cannot possibly be reduced to the properties of the latter. It follows that, on Cassirer’s account, the universal claim of reductive physicalism is in no single case of mental occurrences true. Hence, reductive physicalism is, for Cassirer, wrong on all accounts. This sketch of the general anti-physicalist argument can be derived from Cassirer’s The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, though he never stated it in exactly this way.

IV From Mind to Objective Spirit It is the ambition of reductive physicalism to avoid the threat of ontological dualism. If we accept Cassirer’s anti-physicalist arguments, can we then still think of a reasonable strategy to avoid dualism? Given that the reduction of the mental to physical nature is unsuccessful, one could still try to reduce physical nature to the mental. Cassirer never considered any such approach, so there is no need to discuss it here. Assuming, then, that reduction is unavailable in both directions, two options remain: Either all reality is ultimately neither mental nor physical, or all reality is ultimately both mental and physical. The first option is commonly referred to as neutral monism, which has been prominently advocated by Russell. In The Analysis of Mind, Russell holds that “our world is to be constructed out of . . . ‘neutral’ entities, which have neither the hardness and indestructibility of matter, nor the reference to objects which is supposed to characterize mind” (AM ). For Russell, the neutral entities are sensations, e.g., noises and patches of color (AM –), and images (AM –), and both physical entities and mental occurrences are logical constructions out of this neutral “stuff” (AM ). Cassirer critically discusses Russell’s neutral monism in his review (ELD –), claiming that ultimate reality in Russell’s sense must still allow for a “common denominator” of matter and mind, viz., causality (ELD –). This is a fair reading insofar as the construction of both

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physical and mental entities is introduced by Russell as a causal construction. For Cassirer, however, this means that “the concept of ‘intentionality’ has been . . . reduced to a purely causal relationship” (ELD ). In other words, the same arguments with which Cassirer rejected the physicalist reduction also apply to neutral monism as a whole, since it is dependent on the successful reduction of the mental to physical nature. For Cassirer, Russellian monism is therefore not an acceptable strategy against dualism. The second option considers the possibility that ultimately all reality is both mental and physical. A position on these lines that has recently attracted discussion is panpsychism, the view that the mental is a component of physical nature. Chalmers has discussed a version of panpsychism according to which some microphysical entities have phenomenal consciousness. Since this would rescue us from dualism, we have, in Chalmers’ view, good reasons to believe in it. Nevertheless, the construction is highly artificial. It is very difficult indeed to understand what it could mean that microphysical entities have phenomenal consciousness. While Cassirer did not discuss panpsychism, he nevertheless recommended a philosophy of objective spirit that does involve a version of the view that ultimately all reality is both mental and physical. However, everything depends on how we understand “mental” and “physical” here. Cassirer’s philosophy of objective spirit is the view that everything that is natural is also spiritual (geistig), and that everything that is spiritual is also natural. Initially, that does not sound any less mysterious than panpsychism, but I shall argue that we can give it a clear and intuitive meaning. For a start, let us consider Cassirer’s analysis of cultural objects: A cultural object has its place in space and time. . . . And insofar as we describe this . . ., we have no need to go beyond the sphere of physical determinations. On the other hand, however, in this sphere the physical itself appears in a new function. . . . This appearance of a “sense,” which is not detached from the physical but is embodied by it and in it, is the factor common to all those contents that we denote by the term “culture.” (LCS –)

Cultural objects, e.g., linguistic expressions, artworks, religious objects, or artifacts, are in part physical objects, as they are made of sound, ink, marble, or wood. We can give a physical description that captures their physical “body.” At the same time, however, any merely physical description of  

 For an overview, see Bru¨ntrup and Jaskolla (). Chalmers (). See Kreis (): chapters –, for a reconstruction of Cassirer’s philosophy of objective spirit.



 

them is incomplete, as it leaves out another essential feature. Cultural objects after all also express a sense, e.g., a linguistic meaning, an aesthetic ideal, the idea of a divine being, or a certain purpose. This sense is “embodied” in the physical aspect of the object. Hence, every cultural object is at once physical and expresses an intellectual (geistig) sense. To see why this is relevant for avoiding dualism, we should realize that the passage just quoted implies two profound conceptual revisions. First, Cassirer leaves behind the identification of nature with purely physical nature, i.e., the domain of physics. Nature, for Cassirer, is primarily the world that includes cultural objects. It is the ordinary world of our everyday life, with which we are always already acquainted. It is also an inhabited and social world, since we interact with each other in it. In this way, Cassirer recommends a strikingly simple revision of our concept of nature: Instead of being restricted to physical nature, nature is ultimately our social world. This revised conception has strong affinities to Husserl’s lifeworld, Wittgenstein’s forms of life, Strawson’s social naturalism, and McDowell’s reanimation of second nature. Conceived in this way, nature leaves room for normativity and representational content. A linguistic expression and an artifact, e.g., which naturally occur in our social world, express a sense and have normative properties. They are organized according to the rules of grammar or handcraft, and their use follows the social norms of some discourse or practice. We saw that for Cassirer, the normative and representational properties of mental occurrences cannot be reduced to physical nature. We now see that cultural objects naturally exhibit these properties out there in our world. However, calling the latter “cultural” is still misleading, as this might imply a separation from nature proper. Against this, Cassirer emphasizes that nature is cultural, and conversely, that culture is natural throughout. Note that this is neither an elimination of physical nature nor social constructivism. For Cassirer, embodiment in physical nature is a necessary condition of cultural objects, which sets significant limits to cultural production, since no one is in a position to create objects that positively violate causal laws. Still, embodiment in physical nature is not sufficient for culture. Physical nature is integrated into our social world, while the latter cannot be reduced to it. The physical description of the social world has its own right as the account that science gives us; at the same time, it methodologically abstracts from the social and symbolic dimension of our world and is therefore not a complete description of the world we live in. Cassirer’s second fundamental revision is that of the concept of the mental. He rejects a core assumption of the Cartesian mentalistic

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framework: the idea that the mental is ultimately the realm of “inner” experience, as contrasted to the “outer” realm of spatiotemporal objects. Cassirer is highly critical of the “inner”/“outer” contrast. Any cultural object is an (“outer”) object that carries a specific sense, which is the manifestation of a representational content. In turn, this means that (“inner”) representational content exists as (“outward”) manifestation in spatiotemporal objects. I suggest reading Cassirer’s revision in the sense of an “externalization” of the mental into the representational content of cultural objects. There is evidence that this is indeed the underlying assumption of the philosophy of symbolic forms. First, Cassirer adopts Wilhelm von Humboldt’s expressivist principle of the boundedness of thought to language: In order to entertain a thought at all, it is a necessary condition that we articulate a sentence of a (natural) language that expresses this thought. Hence, there cannot be thinking without its expression in language: “Language is not a mere transposition of thought into the form of words; rather, it is essentially involved in its original positing. . . . The idea is not before language; it becomes in language and through language” (WY ; see also WY –) It follows that all thought-related, conceptual mental content is bound to its manifestation in linguistic expressions. Language use is, however, overt, social, and public. Therefore, all thinking happens in the social and public sphere of interlocuting human subjects. Cassirer further applies Humboldt’s principle to intellectual and interpretative activities in general: In order to engage in any such activity at all, it is a necessary condition that we express it in the figures of expression of some symbolic form. It follows that every such activity happens in the social realm of culture – out there, and not merely “in the head.” Second, Cassirer claims that an analysis of the mind can only be established through a “reconstructive analysis” of culture. In the chapter on method in The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms III, he claims to discuss the question of the structure of . . . consciousness . . . without subscribing to the method of either natural scientific psychology, which makes use of causal explanation, or pure description. We take our departure rather from the problems of objective spirit, from the figurations in which it consists and exists; . . . we shall attempt by means of reconstructive analysis to find our way back to the . . . conditions of their possibility. (PSF III: )

If we analyze the manifestations of mental content in cultural objects, we will be able to reconstruct, by way of analysis, the intellectual activities behind that manifestation, and their conditions of possibility, i.e., the categorical basic relations. Cassirer here adopts and extends Natorp’s



 

reconstructive method of critical psychology. To mention a random example, Cassirer analyzes the linguistic factum that the Somali language possesses three different definite articles, the use of which is determined “by the spatial relation of the person or thing in question to the speaker” (PSF I: ), as a manifestation of intellectual activity that is governed by the basic ordering function of space. In general, the point is that we are indeed only able to understand consciousness and its structure by analyzing its manifestations in cultural objects. For Cassirer, what we call “consciousness” or “mind” is hence nothing over and above its manifestation in figures of expression. To sum up, we can say that Cassirer’s expressivism aims at a naturalization of the mental, but it is clearly not reductive in the physicalist sense. After Cassirer’s revision, “nature” signifies our social world with its everyday objects of culture, into which physical nature is integrated; while Geist means the system of representational contents manifested in cultural objects. It is then indeed the case that, first, everything that is natural in this sense is also geistig, since it expresses a sense, and, second, that everything that is geistig in the sense just discussed is also natural, since it is embodied in the physical aspects of cultural objects. These are the two defining claims of Cassirer’s philosophy of objective spirit. Although this is admittedly only a first rough sketch of this philosophy, we can now begin to see how Cassirer strives to avoid the threat of ontological dualism.

V Conclusion In this chapter, I reconstructed Cassirer’s philosophy of mind as a transition from consciousness to objective spirit, i.e., a transition from the mental to the realm of culture as the manifestation of the mental. We have seen that, for Cassirer, the mind is non-atomistic in the sense that mental occurrences are always already “symbolically pregnant” with significance. First, I reconstructed Cassirer’s empirical argument for the holistic structure of the mind with reference to the experimental results of Gestalt psychology. Second, I turned to the nonempirical, transcendental argument that Cassirer conducts in favor of the holistic structure of the mind, which lays the transcendental ground for the concept of the symbol and the entire philosophy of symbolic forms. Third, I discussed Cassirer’s critique of the attempts at a physicalistic naturalization of the mental. Three of Cassirer’s arguments have been presented. The first was an 

For details, see Luft (a): ch. .; and Truwant (b).

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argument from the normative dimension of judging. The second and third arguments focused on the representational content of recollections in particular, and of mental occurrences in general, and were directed against Russell’s The Analysis of Mind. I finally turned to the constructive aspects of Cassirer’s critique. One of his major moves is the rejection of the Cartesian mentalistic framework. For Cassirer, thoughts are always bound to their expression in language, and as such have already a natural place in the social sphere. Nature, as Cassirer sees it, is the social realm of interacting human subjects, and conceived of in this way, it indeed leaves room for normativity and representational content. This is the core idea of Cassirer’s philosophy of objective spirit. After Cassirer’s conceptual revisions, “nature” signifies the social world we live in, which is the realm of human culture into which physical nature is integrated; while Geist means the system of representational contents manifested in cultural objects. The upshot is that, for Cassirer, everything that is natural in this sense is also geistig, since it expresses a sense, and everything that is geistig is also natural, since it is embodied in the physical aspects of cultural objects. This transformation of philosophy of mind into a philosophy of objective spirit is Cassirer’s original contribution to philosophy of mind.

 

Cassirer’s Philosophical Method

 

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities Daniel O. Dahlstrom

Born fifteen years after Husserl and fifteen years before Heidegger, Cassirer is the architect of a philosophical approach that has close affinities with those of both phenomenologists. Since both Cassirer and Heidegger studied under the direction of thinkers who were driving forces behind Neo-Kantianism at the time, since they shared an enthusiasm for both interpreting and critically appropriating Kant’s theoretical philosophy, and since each appreciated the philosophical importance of the history of philosophy (Cassirer’s renown as a historian of philosophy was already well established by the time Heidegger starts graduate studies), one might expect the affinities with Heidegger’s thought to be more salient. Indeed, Heidegger’s analyses of several themes (e.g., language, being-with, spatiality, the derivativeness of knowledge and selfhood) bear striking resemblances to treatments of cognate themes in the three volumes of Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Heidegger himself recognizes a certain degree of convergence. After touting the contribution that Cassirer’s study of mythical thinking makes to ethnology but also questioning whether the study’s Kantian approach is sufficiently fundamental, Heidegger nonetheless relates how Cassirer – at a  meeting of the Kant Society in Hamburg – had expressed agreement on the need for the sort of existential analysis that Heidegger was sketching there. These affinities with Heidegger’s phenomenology deserve a separate treatment. But there is something to be said for beginning the investigation of these affinities with a review of the ways Cassirer’s thought resonates with Husserl’s investigations. After all, Husserl comes on the scene first and exercises a major influence on Cassirer, as he does on   

Husserl –; Cassirer –; Heidegger –. I am grateful to James Kinkaid for critical comments on an earlier draft of this contribution. Heidegger (: n). For valuable work in this connection, see Möckel (: – and : –); Bösch (: –); Orth (: –); Luft: (: –); Plu¨macher (); and Kreis ().





 . 

Heidegger. The lines of convergence between Cassirer’s philosophy and the thinking of Husserl as the founder of modern phenomenology are, in fact, no less profound and unmistakable. Nor are the reasons – at least in broad strokes – for their common approaches hard to find. In a way barely registered by Heidegger, Husserl and Cassirer consciously undertake their philosophical analyses with an appreciative understanding of contemporary developments in logic and mathematics. The main objective of this contribution is to cast light on prominent lines of convergence between Husserl’s phenomenological analyses and Cassirer’s philosophical studies. Logical theory is, not surprisingly, the general topic of the first of these lines of convergence, as Husserl and Cassirer both argue for the autonomy of logic, the promise of set theory, and the intensionality of concepts. Other lines of agreement include their common rejection of empiricist accounts of abstraction and universals, their embrace of a Kantian philosophical legacy, and their respective commitments to the primacy of meaning and self-described versions of idealism. In Section I, I review these lines of agreement along with the differences in accent that accompany them. Against the backdrop of this review of convergences, I devote Section II to identifying salient points of divergence between Cassirer and Husserl.

I Convergence a The Autonomy of Logic Like Husserl (but also following Herman Cohen’s lead), Cassirer takes aim at psychologistic interpretations of logical and mathematical theories but without neglecting to provide an account of the thinking underlying them that insures their a priori status. As Husserl puts it in Logical Investigations (), while “natural (causal)” relations of mathematical and logical activities belong to the subject matter of psychology as a natural science, their “ideal relations and laws form a realm for themselves.” He accordingly insists repeatedly on pure logic’s “independent,” “self-contained,” “a priori,” and “ideal” character (LUI , , –, , ). Nine years later, in Substance and Function, Cassirer also speaks of pure logic’s self-sufficiency or independence (Selbstständigkeit), and declares that scientific knowledge contains a truly ideal character (Idealität) that is not 

Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen (–), Part I. Halle: Niemeyer,  – hereafter the two parts of this text are cited as “LU I” and “LU II.”

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established through any correlation with subjective “presentations” (Vorstellung) and acts of thinking on the part of psychological individuals (ECW : , , ). Instead, the truth of judgments about “ideal relations” – “determined and unequivocally prescribed by the ‘nature’ of the members themselves” – “is known once and for all with the insight [Einsicht] into the necessity of the connection” (ECW : ). Notably, the use of the term Einsicht in just this manner plays a comparably strategic role in Husserl’s thinking, as he employs it for various cognitive intuitions (straightforward, categorial, eidetic). b The Paradigmatic Theory of Manifolds Both Husserl and Cassirer recognize the necessity but also the difficulty of moving beyond the traditional Aristotelian logical theory and its singleminded focus on generalization (a genus–species model of universals) (LU I: , , , , ; ECW : –). Husserl, for example, insists that generalizing is “totally different” from the formalizing “in the purely logical sense” that plays, he adds, such an important role in mathematical analysis, such as the move from space to “the Euclidean manifold.” Similarly, for Cassirer, the task of mathematical concepts of exact sciences is different from the Scholastic task of developing generic concepts – the sorts of concept that Aristotle derives from biology conceived as a descriptive science. Cassirer holds that Aristotelian logic’s dependency upon the conception of substance as a “thing-like substrate” blinds it to the significance of the category of relation, the cornerstone of “the logic of the mathematical concept of function” that is also the prototype of the modern conception of nature (ECW : f, f, , , ). Yet he also notes how old habits die hard even among modernity’s severest critics of the Aristotelian realist framework. Thus, when a modern nominalist like Berkeley contests the reality of universals, he does so without questioning in the slightest “the validity of the customary explanation of the concept,” namely that it is to be explained as a universal genus, the common component of similar things. Modern psychological derivations of concepts, Cassirer submits, simply transpose this traditional schema from things to ideas, from the outer world to the world within (ECW : ff ). Along with their awareness of the limitations of traditional conceptions of logic, a deep appreciation of the prospects of the theory of manifolds (forerunner of axiomatic set theory) motivates Husserl and Cassirer’s 

Husserl () – cited hereafter as Ideen.



 . 

efforts to steer logic in a new direction. Such a theory encompasses “all possible deductive systems” in a formal sense, as Husserl puts it. A “manifold” here signifies a domain determined solely by being subject to a theory of a certain form; “that is to say, certain linkages [Verknu¨pfungen] are possible for its objects, linkages that are subject to certain fundamental laws of this or that determinate form.” The import for formal logic is patent: Predicates typically signify determinately formed manifolds of objects; open sentences (e.g., x is tall) also stand for manifolds, classes of things for which the sentence is true. Mathematicians developed the theory of manifolds initially for arithmetic and geometric concepts and operations. Spaces and numbers, understood in determinate ways, make up distinct manifolds, e.g., a theory of Euclidean space or a theory of negative numbers. A manifold that is understood in a way that encompasses and determines other manifolds constitutes a manifold of manifolds or, equivalently, a theory of manifolds. The geometrical doctrine of “n-dimensional spaces” (Euclidean and nonEuclidean) and the arithmetical doctrine of complex systems of numbers are thus paradigmatic instances of theories of manifolds – albeit falling short of “the most general idea of a doctrine of manifolds,” namely “a science that develops essential types of possible theories in a definite way and investigates their law-like relations to one another” (LU I: ). For these reasons, theories like Cantor’s represent not only a singular breakthrough for mathematical theory but also the catalyst for Husserl’s and Cassirer’s respective attempts to put their own stamp on the logic of science. Thus, in  Husserl calls the theory of manifolds – mathematics’ “finest flower” – a partial realization of the “final and supreme goal of a theoretical science of theory in general” (LU I: v, ). In  Cassirer deems it “the common goal” for diverse logical inquiries, and the means to “their ideal unity” (ECW : ; f, f ). c The Intensionality of Concepts A further point of convergence of Husserl and Cassirer’s thought is their insistence upon the primacy of conceptual content (intension) over a concept’s extension. Thus, they both reject logical attempts to define or  

 LU I: ; see Hartimo (: –). LU I: ; Husserl, Ideen: –. See, too, LU I: , – and ECW : f, , . For their later views on manifolds, see Husserl (: ); and ECW : –, . In the final chapter of The Phenomenology of Knowledge, Cassirer argues for the indispensability of “constructive manifolds” and contrasting empirical, factual manifolds (ECW : , ).

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



determine concepts simply through their extension. In an  review of Schröder’s Vorlesungen u¨ber die Algebra der Logik, Husserl criticizes the author’s attempt to give a purely extensionalist account of classes. Albeit without targeting Schröder by name, Cassirer makes the same general point (indeed, following a passage explicitly glossing Husserl positively): “The concept’s content cannot be reduced to the elements of [its] extension [Umfang] since both . . . belong to intrinsically diverse dimensions” (ECW : ). Two decades later, Cassirer echoes these criticisms, this time with Schröder as the explicit target (ECW : –). Yet, instead of mentioning Husserl in this connection, he enlists arguments from both Frege (including Frege’s own remarks on Schröder’s lectures) and Russell (albeit while also noting their lack of consistency on this score). According to Cassirer, “it is apparent that [the logical calculus] cannot replace the pure analysis of meaning but that it can invariably only put the latter into the most rigorous and simplest formulation” (ECW : ). Of course, providing meaning with the logically appropriate formulation is not small change. As Cassirer goes on to argue, concepts are grounded in relations of various contents at every level of knowledge, and the challenge is not to conflate the form of those relations (the conceptual manifold that determines or governs the contents) with the contents themselves (the empirical manifolds). The virtue of the symbolic language of the logical calculus is that it takes this distinction in thought (gedankliche Unterscheidung) and “places it to a certain extent right before our eyes” (ECW : ). If we consider a concept not in terms of a list of items falling under it (i.e., extensionally) but rather in terms of the propositional function φ(x) (i.e., intensionally), the function and the variables or, alternatively, form and content are both differentiated and related to one another. d Abstraction, Concept Formation, and Universals Husserl gives his signature account of universals – “the ideal unity of species” – through a sustained critique of modern empiricist theories of

 

See, too, Husserl (: –); as well as Hamacher-Hermes (: –); and Willard (: –). Cassirer’s reference to Lotze’s “drastic” example of a class including “cherries and meat” (ECW : ) anticipates his invocation of Russell’s criticism of building such aggregate classes as the one that combines “a teaspoon with the number ” (ECW : ). See, too, however, Cassirer’s critique (in the second chapter of Substance and Function) of Frege’s and Russell’s attempt to define numbers solely in terms of extensional equivalence of classes.



 . 

abstraction. Having conflated consciousness as a whole with what is perceptibly given by the senses, these theories cannot do justice, he contends, to obvious differences in one’s consciousness when what is perceived – or, better, the sensory content of what is perceived – is in each case the same. While seeing a house’s red door, we may intend () this “intuitively individual” red hic et nunc (though painters among us are probably more likely to do so), () this red as a feature (attribute) of the house, () the red as an instance of the species of red, () the species “red” itself, or () red as a color, i.e., a species falling under a genus: “For all these manners of construal, one and the same sensory intuition can function as the foundation under certain circumstances” (LU II: ). Cassirer advances a similar criticism of Lockean-inspired theories of abstraction, contending that these theories “confuse the categorial forms on which everything determinate about the perception rests with parts of this very perceptual content itself” (ECW : ). He also appeals to a similar differentiation of the “manners of appearance” (Erscheinungsweisen) of a color like red, emphasizing the invariable function of exhibiting that is proper to each manner of its appearance (such that even in experiments that “reduce” colors to mere impressions, they cannot be equated with mere sensations). Just as Husserl stresses the prerogatives of the “form of consciousness” over the sensory matter at hand, so Cassirer stresses that the same appearance of a color means something different, “depending upon the context in which we take it” (LU II: ; ECW : f ). As one might expect, given their criticism of empiricist theories of abstraction, both Husserl and Cassirer reject the reduction of a universal to individuals falling under it (LU II: –; ECW : –). Having noted empiricists’ obliviousness to differences in the manners of consciousness and corresponding objects, Husserl immediately makes a critical observation, also explicitly embraced by Cassirer, about an aspect of the empiricist strategy for denying ideal objects. The observation concerns the strategy of propping up the denial by appealing to similarities in what is experienced. According to this appeal, talk of universals amounts to talk of likenesses as in a case, for example, when we say that two people have the same hat, meaning not that they share identical hats but that each hat is sufficiently like the other (the German distinction between derselbe und dergleiche). In the view of both thinkers, this appeal is little more than a sleight-ofhand, since to designate two things as alike, it is necessary – on pain 

Their criticisms of traditional empiricist theories of abstraction do not prevent them from endorsing certain conceptions of abstraction (LUII, , , ; ECW : , f ).

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



of regress – to identify the aspect in which they are alike, namely “the aspect . . . and here lies the identity” (LU II: ). In order to determine that they are alike in being red, it is necessary to consider them in that same respect, not in respect to something else or to some likeness. Explicitly endorsing Husserl’s “pure phenomenology of consciousness” in this regard, Cassirer similarly charges that the empiricists’ assumption of the likeness of contents presented (Vorstellunginhalte), far from being self-evident, presupposes that the relevant contents are considered in the same respect: “The identity of the aspect, the viewpoint under which the comparison takes place is something sui generis and new opposite the very contents compared” (ECW : ). In other words, there is “no immediate sensory correlate” in contents compared – e.g., a past and a present perception – that can serve as the basis for grasping them both as identical; that basis is an act peculiar to thinking alone (ECW : ; ECW : ). The inability of empiricism to countenance identity of the sort that can be grasped in thought but lacks a sensory correlate can be traced in part to its failure to differentiate between contents or objects of perception and the act of perceiving them. In Locke’s favored terminology, the contents and acts of the mind are all simply ideas. In a chapter devoted to Locke’s theory of ideas, Husserl identifies this lack of clarity about ideas themselves as Locke’s “basic violation.” The breach is demonstrated by the fact that – among other things – Locke’s theory conflates the presentation (Vorstellung, idea) and what is presented, with the result that the object becomes itself an idea (LU II: ). Comparing modern with Scholastic thinkers, Cassirer makes an analogous point (ECW : ). Husserl further observes that there is also no place in Locke’s theory for “the difference between presentation in the sense of intuitive presentation (appearance, hovering ‘picture’) and presentation in the sense of presentation 



Husserl notes six indications of this lack of clarity in Locke’s theory where “ideas” signify both () any object of inner perception (in effect, any mental experience) and () intentional experiences (although the latter is a narrower class than the former). The theory also () confuses presenting and presented (as mentioned above), () features of objects with contents of the act of presentation (e.g., sensations), and () features that belong to a species and that are parts of objects. Finally, () the theory fails to uphold the difference between intuition and meaning (as also mentioned above) (LU II: f ). According to Cassirer, Scholastics understand universals in terms of a generic component common to several things, where the abstraction of that component from things yields the universal. He contends that, far from altering this basic conception, modern empiricist thinking simply transposes it into the realm of the mind such that the universal is the generic component of several representations. The difference is that the Scholastics regard the component as something in things extra mentem, whereas for the empiricists both the universal and all instances of it are alike “ideas.”



 . 

of meaning” (LU II: , ). Lacking this distinction, Locke is forced to develop an account of a “universal idea” (literally, the image of a triangle that is somehow not isosceles, scalene, equilateral, and so on) whose absurdity is mistakenly taken by Berkeley and others to entail the impossibility of any universal concept (LU II: ). In a parallel way, Cassirer takes empiricist writers to task for collapsing the consciousness of concepts into consciousness of an idea or part of an idea (ECW : ; ECW : ff ). Thus, channeling his inner Husserl, Cassirer observes that “the objects treated by pure logic simply do not coincide with the individual contents of perception” (ECW : ). Similarly, Cassirer concurs with Husserl that attending exclusively to a particular part of an object is of no help. Husserl discusses two versions of this strategy, advanced by Mill and Berkeley, respectively. While denying that we have general concepts, Mill contends that we have the ability “to attend exclusively to certain parts of the concrete idea,” allowing them to determine by association, particularly association with names, what we subsequently think. As a result, we reason about “those parts only, exactly as if we were able to conceive them separately from the rest.” We can think about red and all that relates to it by attending exclusively to the red part of the apple, a capacity enhanced by the association of “red” with red parts (attributes) or “the class of objects which possess” those attributes. Although Berkeley rejects Locke’s doctrine of universal ideas, he follows suit in establishing universal reference by appealing to the power of exclusively attending to one feature in abstraction from others and from “all individualizing features” (LU II: ff ). These accounts, Husserl submits, ignore our “evident” experience of the difference between naming and attending to a species, and naming and attending to a part of an object or even a class of objects. Far from being equivalent to a red part of an object, or a class of objects with red parts, the meaning of the species dubbed “red” is what identifies that part and explains the membership of objects in the same class. Husserl points out that whereas any part of a perceptible object is individual (like the object itself ), when we make judgments about red, we are making judgments 



According to Husserl, Locke’s doctrine amounts to “psychologically hypostatizing universals,” deeming them something real in consciousness alone. Husserl points out that what is real (in or outside consciousness, e.g., a headache or a sunset) possesses a temporal, fleeting character absent from the content of a universal. Unlike a real sunset, the meaning of “sunset” does not last only as long as the sun continues to peek over the horizon. Meanings, like universals generally, are not real but ideal. Mill (: ff; LU II: f ).

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



about neither any individual thing nor any individual group. Attending to something individual (this red part of the apple or the red parts of a bushel of apples) can never amount to consciousness of the species. As long as the selective attention is focused on a part of the object, its object is “a feature that really dwells in [the object]” and, as such, something individual (LU II:, f ). Attending to that feature is accordingly not the same as intending the unity proper to the species, as is borne out by the fact that what is true of the former is not true of the latter. While the red of the door has its time and place, its extension and intensity, the same does not hold for the species “red” (LU II: ). Driving home the same points, Cassirer observes that sensory experiences concern one or more individual objects “exclusively” and, as a result, no accumulation of particular cases ever produces “the unity of the species that is meant in the concept.” Mere attentiveness, he adds, loses any traction as the genuine capacity for concept formation. Since attentiveness can only separate or combine components already given in the perception, “it can lend them no new logical function.” Aping Husserl’s observations and even his examples on this score, Cassirer notes that “from the standpoint of the purely descriptive analysis of processes of consciousness,” it is one thing to pick out the distinctive red color from the complex perceived as a house, quite another thing to “look upon ‘the’ red as a species” (ECW : ; ECW : f, , ). Alongside sensory content one must distinguish its meaning, a meaning that is the work of different logical characters of acts: These characters of acts that differentiate the unified sensory content by impressing it with various objective “intentions” are also a completely originary feature [Moment] psychologically; they are their own manners of consciousness that can in no way be reduced to consciousness of sensation or perception. (ECW : f )

As this text from Substance and Function makes clear, Cassirer does not shy away from characterizing conscious acts, in Husserlian terms, as “intentions.” Indeed, the entire passage draws unmistakably upon Husserl’s critique of empiricist recourse to a doctrine of attention in order to explain universals. It is therefore not surprising to find Cassirer, in a footnote at the end of the passage, referring to Husserl: “For all of this [zum Ganzen], see especially Husserl, Logical Investigations, Volume , Number II: 

Husserl offers the following example: When we say of the number  that it is prime relative to , we are speaking of “the ideal, timeless unity” of that species and not a particular group of four things (LU II: ).



 . 

The ideal unity of the species and the modern theories of abstraction” (ECW : n). e

Kantian Legacy: Spontaneity, Synthesis, and Constitutive Enablement

In addition to these commonly structured early ambitions, the Kantian roots of Husserl’s and Cassirer’s respective philosophical projects present a further point of convergence. Kant’s “transcendental” philosophy, i.e., his preoccupation with establishing the allegedly a priori conditions in the human mind that make knowledge possible at all, casts a long shadow over both philosophical enterprises (albeit far more self-consciously and deliberately in Cassirer’s case). This convergence is evident in their joint embrace of Kant’s view that () () ()

at every level of cognition, a spontaneous (irreducible) productive activity on the part of the mind is in play (CPR B, B); cognition takes place only through a synthesis of intuitions and thinking (CPR B); and a priori syntheses of this sort enable, constitute, and govern experience (CPR B, B).

In what follows I refer to these three points as the Kantian themes of spontaneity, synthesis, and constitutive enablement. “Intentionality” is Husserl’s term for the distinctive act of the mind in which it directs itself to some object whether it be something dreamt or perceived, thought or imagined, and so on. As such, it is not to be confused with a passing, involuntary sensation, a physiological reflex, or, indeed, any of its objects. Our awareness of intentionality is largely pre-reflective and pre-thematic (pre-scientific), although this does not rule out the capacity for it to be an object of reflection or even the subject matter of phenomenological reflection (the theme of phenomenology as a science). It is precisely and quite distinctively an act of the mind. Yet given its irreducibility, this Husserlian conception of intentionality captures much of the force of the Kantian affirmation of consciousness’ spontaneity. Husserl also insists on this active character of consciousness in his account of our grasp of ideal objects. After indicating different ways of construing the same sensory experience, he notes that “their ‘origin’ lies in the ‘manner of consciousness’ not in the changing ‘material of knowledge’” 

On reasons for skepticism about the apparent agreement expressed in this note, see Möckel (: f ).

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



(LU II: ). As noted above, we can look at the same red patch as an attribute of an object or as a color: “Given the identity of the intuitive foundation, the difference can only lie in the character of the act” (LU II: ). Later on, Husserl further underscores this active character in terms of the difference between the universality of the psychological association of similar signs with similar objective features and the universality that pertains to the intentional content of the logical experiences themselves. In an attempt to drive home this distinction, Husserl discusses how the meanings of such expressions as an A, all A, and the A belong solely to the respective act of meaning (the intention of that meaning) and not to any individual presentation or psychologically contingent act (LU II: –). Versions of the first two Kantian themes – spontaneity and synthesis – are unmistakable in Husserl’s analysis of knowing. Thus, he conceives knowing as itself an activity, one that builds on but is irreducible to two other acts, that of intending something in its absence (i.e., thinking, meaning) and that of intending it as present (i.e., intuiting, perceiving it). In the ideal case, what is intuited “fulfills” (adequately presents) what is intended but absent in the former act. Husserl explicitly dubs the knowing, so construed, an “identifying synthesis,” i.e., an act of identifying (or, alternatively, intuiting the identity of ) what is emptily intended but absent with what is perceptually or intuitively present (LU II: , , f, f, , , , ). Husserl’s version of the third theme – constitutive enablement – differs from Kant’s by not presupposing a (comparable) set list of categories and principles. However, for Husserl, knowledge in general – including the knowledge that makes up experience in particular – is made possible, constituted, and governed by an a priori unity, namely the unity of what is meant or signified and what is intuited or perceived (LU II: ). For whatever can possibly be meant, there is a priori some possible intuition that constitutes consciousness of its fulfillment (Erfu¨llungsbewußtsein) (LU II: , –). To be sure, there are various degrees, levels, and







The ideal case would be one in which a perception or intuition, rather than a remembering or imagining, fulfills or makes present “in the flesh” what is meant or thought and does so completely, i.e., omitting nothing from what is meant or thought. On the ideal differentiation of possible and impossible meanings, see LU II: ff. Husserl defines a possible meaning as one that essentially has a fulfilling sense or, equivalently, as one where “there is a complete intuition in specie whose matter is identical with its [the meaning’s] matter” (LU II: ). LU II: –. Husserl affirms this constitutive co-dependence on both sides, i.e., the side of what is meant or intended and the side of what is perceived; see LU II: , .



 . 

kinds of fulfillment, and “the ultimate fulfillment,” a completely adequate fulfillment, is an ideal, something never realized in what is traditionally called “outward-directed perceptions.” Nevertheless, in a manner at least analogous to the third Kantian theme, Husserl identifies an a priori condition that constitutes and accordingly governs whatever counts as knowledge, including the typically inadequate knowledge that makes up experience. In  Cassirer signals his own commitment to the theme of spontaneity with the slogan “in the beginning is the act” (ECW : ). Hearkening back once more to the critique of traditional and empiricist theories of abstraction, Cassirer insists, like Husserl, on the need for logical theory to sort out the different sorts of distinctive act or, as Cassirer prefers to call them, “categorial functions” that those theories fail to discriminate (ECW : ). The all-important difference between perceptual contents and the species that unites them is, as he puts it, “categorial and belongs to the ‘form of the consciousness’” (ECW : ). Hence, Cassirer likewise stresses that the determination of number is tied “not to objects, whether of outer or inner actuality, but to acts of apperception” (ECW : ; see also , f ). Similarly, in later writings Cassirer makes clear that the respective synthesis (the form of combination) is “grounded in the transcendental subject and its spontaneity,” and yet is “rigorously ‘objective’” (ECW : f ). Based partly upon Cassirer’s own observations (ECW : ), the point is often made that his use of “phenomenology” is of Hegelian rather than Husserlian heritage. Nonetheless, in his review of the meaning of the cult, Cassirer also speaks of the need for “phenomenological consideration,” the antithesis of Hegel’s “dialectical construction,” to demonstrate what Hegel tries to advance on the basis of such a construction (ECW : ). Accordingly, when elaborating on the theme of synthesis, Cassirer repeatedly helps himself to the language of Husserl’s phenomenological analyses. For example, echoing Husserl’s talk of empty and filled intentions, he characterizes a propositional function’s necessary preparatory role in knowledge by way of noting that it “intends a definite meaning but does not yet fulfill it” (ECW : ). He notes that “simple phenomenological reflection” tells us that a concept is “something totally different from the mnemonic image,” not in the least because it must “annul ‘presence’ in order to arrive at a ‘representation’” (ECW : ). Like Husserl, Cassirer regards this play of empty and fulfilled intentions, or absence and presence, as central to knowledge on every level. Finally, Cassirer is obviously pursuing constitutively enabling conditions at every step of his philosophy of symbolic forms. In his general

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



introduction to the first volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, where he poses the problem that the concept of symbolic form is intended to answer, he appeals to Kant’s Copernican revolution in thinking, i.e., to begin not by determining being’s properties but by analyzing the conditions on which any knowledge of being rests. For Kant, however, the objects that were thereby disclosed (as the correlate of the synthetic unity of understanding) only enabled the form of objectivity that science can grasp. In other words, it did not exhaust all of reality “since not all the efficacy of the human spirit is comprised in it by far” (ECW : ). In this way, Cassirer introduces his project of expanding the Kantian theme in order to investigate constitutively enabling conditions of language, myth, and artistic intuition: “With this, the critique of reason becomes the critique of culture. It seeks to understand and demonstrate how all cultural content . . . insofar as it is grounded in some universal principle of form, has as its presupposition an original act of the [human] spirit” (ECW : ). f Idealism and the Primacy of Meaning As a further indication of their shared Kantian heritage, each thinker sustains a distinction between the real and the ideal, while regarding his philosophy as a form of non-metaphysical, epistemological idealism. For example, after contrasting idealism with “relativist and empiricist psychologism,” Husserl is quick to add that idealism is meant here epistemologically, not metaphysically (LU II: ; LU I: ). Likewise contrasting his epistemological approach with metaphysical interpretations (ECW : f, , , ), Cassirer also affirms the “logical idealism of mathematics” (ECW : ) as well as “ideal” objects, processes, and correlations (ECW : , , f, , ). As these cited passages indicate, both thinkers differentiate epistemological idealism from any metaphysical speculation and identify their own philosophies with the former. Thus, far from following the lead of, or even coinciding with, psychology or metaphysics, Husserl submits that epistemology has to be understood as proceeding in advance of them (LU I: ; LU II: ). Whereas metaphysics’ fatal move, in Cassirer’s view, consists in separating correlative, mutually dependent viewpoints within the domain of knowing (e.g., viewpoints of thinking and being, subject and object, or change and identity), analysis of the concept of experience dissolves their metaphysical separation by taking up into itself “their essential conceptual content” (ECW : ff, f ). After introducing his expansive embrace of the



 . 

Kantian project (such that “the critique of reason becomes the critique of culture”), Cassirer adds that in the effort to demonstrate that culture’s content presupposes “an original act of the human spirit,” “the basic thesis of idealism finds its genuine and complete corroboration” (ECW : ). In keeping with their shared endorsement of a version of idealism (in contrast to a naturalism or realism), for both thinkers the question of meaning takes precedence over the question of causation. Some of the relevant texts in this regard have been cited above in connection with their shared commitment to the autonomy of logic (e.g., LU I: ; ECW : , f ). Cassirer follows Husserl’s lead in taking seriously the “problem of meaning” and the need to affirm its “ideal” character over “the real change” of the individual contents of consciousness. He paraphrases favorably Theodor Lipps’ observation that the orientation of the content of consciousness to something objective should not be confused with a relation of cause and effect (ECW : ). In a similar vein, Cassirer criticizes Helmholtz for failing to hold onto “the primacy of the concept of symbol” in a rigorously consistent way precisely because Helmholtz conceives of the function of the sign as a special form of a causal connection, thereby failing to subordinate the problem of causality to the problem of meaning (ECW : ). Since Cassirer puts a premium on the role of symbols, it is worth noting a measure of agreement between the two thinkers on the question of the relation of meaning and signifying. Thus, Husserl criticizes theories of consciousness in terms of representative signs for overlooking – among other things – that the representational capacity of a sign presupposes the intention or meaning of what is to be represented. In analogous fashion, Cassirer stipulates that “the basic function of meaning” is on hand prior to positing individual signs and that, far from fashioning meaning, this positing merely secures it (ECW : ). From the foregoing review, the affinities between Cassirer’s and Husserl’s approach to logical theory are patent, as both affirm the irreducibility of logic to psychology and to a purely extensional treatment of concepts, even as they share an enthusiasm for set theory. No less evident, under the general rubric of a “Kantian legacy,” are the affinities between Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms and Husserl’s phenomenological   

LU II: , f, –, , –, -; ECW : , ; ECW : ff. LU II: ff; see also Husserl, Ideen: , . To be sure, this stipulation does not put the issue of a difference between their philosophies in this respect to rest. It does, however, point to the complexity of the issue.

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



themes of synthesis, constitution, and meaning. Equally telling and not surprising is the fact that each philosopher describes his view as a form of epistemological idealism.

II

Divergence amidst Convergence

Despite the many, by no means exhaustive, lines of convergence indicated above, the philosophies of Husserl and Cassirer diverge from one another in significant ways. Perhaps the most patent difference is the thematic range of their investigations. In Husserl’s corpus there is nothing comparable to Cassirer’s investigations of advances in physical theory, historical and contemporary studies of language, ethnological and religious themes in the context of mythical thinking, or even his thematic explorations of aesthetics and art, history, and the state. Along with this difference in thematic range, there is an overriding divergence in their conceptions of the basic constitution of human consciousness and cognition. Thus, where Husserl insists upon intuition (not least as it pertains to higher-level, theoretical forms of knowing), Cassirer holds fast to the functioning of a sign or symbol. While it is certainly useful to examine the possible meanings of these more global differences, the following sections have the more modest aim of unpacking differences in their analyses of intuitions and perceptions, differences that, at least on the surface, are pronounced and, indeed, in some cases flagged by Cassirer himself. a

Sensations and Intuitions

Husserl distinguishes hyletic (purely sensory) data of experience from the intentional aspects of experiences that precisely make them experiences of something. The hyletic data (colors, sounds, etc.) enter into concrete intentional experiences when they are “animated” by the respective intentionality. Thus, while the experience of red enters into the experience of seeing the red door, we typically do not see red simply. As Husserl puts it, “I do not see sensations of color but colored things” (LU II: ). The sensation of seeing red is a real property of the viewing subject, not to 

For a nuanced overview of the “cautious, somewhat veiled controversy” between the two thinkers on this basic difference, see Möckel, “Die anschauliche Natur,” . Among the complicating factors here are () the diverse uses of “intuition” in their works, () the inherent polyvalence of visual metaphors and signs alike (ECW : ), and () their contrasting appropriations of both Berkeley’s and Lotze’s conceptions of universality (see Staiti : –).



 . 

be conflated with the red that is a real part of the door (LU II: ff, f, –). Yet affirming these differences (the material and the formal, the subjective and the objective character of sensations) is one thing, explaining them is quite another, as Husserl was well aware. Indeed, while he criticizes Locke for confusing differences of this sort, he recognizes that a single word is often used to depict both of them (LU II: ). More importantly, he provides scant clarification, let alone justification, for his claim that the color seen and the color of the object presented are “analogous” (LU II: f ). In Ideas I he explicitly abstains from asking whether these sensory fields always stand in “intentional functions,” and, while insisting on their “duality and unity” as “correlates” in the entire phenomenological domain, he nonetheless characterizes the sensory strata that enter into experience as “having nothing of intentionality in themselves.” Cassirer’s critique of this account of hyletic data is noteworthy. Not only is it one of the few Husserlian doctrines that he directly criticizes but he does so on phenomenological grounds precisely after commending Husserl, in contrast to Brentano, for having completely clarified the meaning of “intentionality” and the impossibility of describing it in terms of some real part of or occurrence in the world of things (ECW : f ). Precisely this insight, Cassirer submits, should have kept Husserl from characterizing sensations in a quasi-substantialist manner as matter (hyle) rather than as functional correlates. How, he asks, can the way that these 



In Ideas I Husserl distinguishes the thing seen and the sightings of it in terms of the constancy of the former and variability of the latter (Husserl, Ideen: ff ), although the reverse also holds. But even if one accepts Husserl’s way of making this distinction, the problem of the relation between the seen color and the thing’s color, i.e., what enables the subjective sensory experience to enter successfully into the objective experience, remains unanswered. Husserl, Ideen: f. Husserl wrestles mightily with the non-intentional status assigned to hyletic data in the Logical Investigations. In  he characterizes the contents of sensation in outer perception as “exhibiting contents” (darstellende Inhalte), a gloss that roughly anticipates Cassirer’s view; see Husserl (: –). Two years later (), he considers rejecting the notion outright (Husserl : ). Nonetheless, in Ideas I Husserl deems hyletic, material components, along with the noetic components, real (reell) parts of experience, in contrast to the noematic components (Husserl, Ideen: –). Husserl’s views of hyletic data in the Logical Investigations and Ideas I are by no means his last word on the subject, as even several commentators on Cassirer’s thought have seen fit to stress, e.g., Krois (: ); Bösch (: ff ). His investigations of internal time-consciousness and passive syntheses, together with the roles of interest and affectivity, desire and will, demonstrate how levels of sensory consciousness and perception emerge as foundations for theoretical acts and explicitly ego-generating reflective acts without being in any way reducible to them. Regrettably, Cassirer was not privy to Husserl’s analyses of passive synthesis and gives only passing mention to his investigations of timeconsciousness (ECW : n).

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



data are supposed to “enter into experience” be demonstrated phenomenologically? How can phenomenology as such, residing as it does in the sphere of meaning and intentionality, purport even merely to designate what is devoid of any meaning? Cassirer balks at Husserl’s talk of “formless materials” since, from the standpoint of a “phenomenological consideration,” there is no such thing. There is only the “entire experience” (Gesamterlebnis), the experience – in Aristotelian terms – of the “concrete togetherness” (σύνολον) of form and matter. The experience can be divided up, to be sure, in terms of a distinctio rationis of form and matter but, while “independently variable,” they are by no means “absolutely separable” from one another (ECW : ff ). In keeping with this rejection of hyletic data, Cassirer agrees (on sheer “phenomenological” grounds) with Ewald Hering’s contention that a color is to be characterized not as a sensation (Empfindung) or “subjective determination” but instead as a “property” (Eigenschaft), typically disclosing an objective determination. This would explain the “so-called color-constancy of things seen” despite differences in impressions. This disclosure, moreover, amounts to a function of exhibiting (Darstellungsfunktion) that can be explained neither by association nor by logical operations, as empiricists and rationalists respectively purport (ECW : f ). To be sure, particularly in certain scientific contexts, colors can also be taken as mere quale or as filling out a space – but notably despite the fact that the impressions or stimuli are the same, meaning that variability can occur in both directions. Furthermore, in each case the entire experience – and, with it, the character of the exhibiting function – alters with the change in the context or viewpoint and, indeed, does so in a way that is not a matter of unconscious inferences or remembered associations but rather is inherent to the experience itself. Cassirer designates the reciprocity in this co-variation “symbolic pregnance,” i.e., the way that a “sensory” experience encompasses within itself a “non-intuitive sense,” exhibiting it in a concrete, immediate way (ECW : f ). Leaning heavily on Wilhelm Schapp’s phenomenology of perception in this connection, Cassirer speaks of an “originary mode of positing” whereby “an appearance points to an objective being, affording itself as an inherent feature [Moment] of an objective intuition” (ECW : ).

 

ECW : f, –; Hering (: ). On the question of the relatedness of symbolic pregnance to themes in Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, see the essays by Möckel and Bösch cited earlier.



 . 

Instead of vainly attempting to derive these phenomena from grounds that transcend and presuppose them (i.e., psychological associations, logical operations), Cassirer contends that only the phenomenological alternative remains, i.e., that of “grasping them solely in their reciprocal relation and letting them reciprocally illuminate themselves by virtue of this relation.” When we do so, he submits, we see that every sensory content in fact points beyond itself, forming “a concrete unity of ‘presence’ and ‘representation’” (ECW : , –). Cassirer invokes Kant’s and Goethe’s notions of productive imagination to elucidate this point, but he drives it home with terminology right out of Husserl’s playbook, stressing that “it is a matter here of an original forming that concerns the intuition as a whole and first ‘enables’ it as a whole” (ECW : ). Equating this forming with a kind of “ideation . . . that first constitutes the seeing,” he adds that there is neither any seeing nor anything seen that does not, in some sense, fall under this ideation. Talk of seeing or something seen outside this spiritual vision (geistiger Sicht), a mere sensation prior to any configuration, is an “empty abstraction.” This is not to say that there is no “given” in Cassirer’s view but that it is always the original sense (Sinn) of the intuition itself: The “given” must always be taken already in a definite “respect” and be grasped sub specie [under the guise of] this respect. For it is this respect that first lends it its “sense” [Sinn]. This sense is to be understood in this connection neither as a secondary-conceptual nor as an associative addition. It is instead the straightforward sense of the intuition itself. (ECW : )

The phenomenological features of this account of intuition – not least how it differs from and supersedes sensation – are patent. Not surprisingly, Cassirer himself follows up by speaking of the “purely phenomenological consideration” that affirms the primacy of ideation in this connection, “since the meaning [Bedeutung] of what is seen only emerges in it and through it and since that meaning determines itself only it in accordance with it” (ECW : ). Cassirer appeals to Gestalt psychology for corroboration that sensory components of intuition are invariably co-posited (mitgesetzt) in determinate configurations of their place, time, similarity, or dissimilarity with each other, and so on (ECW : ; ECW : , f ). He draws on Gestalt psychologists’ observations, e.g., that a melody’s properties are not the same as those of the individual sounds it contains, that different hues seen under changing light conditions cannot account for an object’s

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



constant color, that an isolated, motionless tactile feel does not yield an object’s smoothness. From all this, he concludes that when it comes to experience, a whole does not arise from such parts, but “first constitutes them and gives them their essential meaning” (ECW : ; see, too, ECW : f ). Cassirer’s account of this elementary co-positing in a Gestalt has obvious affinities with Husserl’s analysis of the temporal consciousness and passive syntheses that first constitute sensory fields. Hence, while Cassirer’s conception of sensory intuition diverges from Husserl’s in a crucial respect, it does so once again, often by Cassirer’s own lights, against a broader, more fundamental convergence. b

Perception’s Meanings

As noted above, Cassirer agrees with Husserl on the integrity of phenomenological analyses of perception’s “objective meaning and validity [Geltung]” in contrast to psychophysical analyses of its causal connections. However, in what can only be viewed as a jab in Husserl’s direction, Cassirer also cautions that this approach has already “inserted” (hineingelegt) an epistemological determination, a specific interest in the theoretical determination of nature, into “the pure description, the phenomenology of perception” (ECW : ). Not content to understand perception solely in this proto-theoretical fashion, Cassirer countenances a distinctive form of “perceptual experience” (Wahrnehumungserlebnis) in which myth no less than theoretical science is rooted. What characterizes perception in this fundamental sense are “original and immediate characters of expression,” whose sense is “grasped and immediately ‘experienced’ in [said perception]” (ECW : ff ). This emphasis on the original and immediate character of expression is meant, among other things, to ward off attempts (a) to “intellectualize” perception unfairly, robbing it of its immediacy (ECW : ), (b) to identify it independently of what it expresses (as is done when that meaning is located in a secondary act of interpretation), and (c) to impose – retroactively as it were – a subject–object, ego–world structure onto the perception. These attempts overlook the fact that the expressive character is “co-given” in the perception’s content, belonging to the perception’s “essential composition [Bestand]” (ECW : ). Far from being privileged like the Cartesian ego, a person’s self-perception in mythical consciousness merges with that of others. Perception is a joint, expressive experience where “I” and “it” are far less defined than “you” and others.



 . 

In true Hegelian fashion, objective spirit is more concrete and more basic than subjective spirit. It is tempting to locate another essential difference between Husserl and Cassirer at precisely this juncture. Yet Cassirer himself suggests, to the contrary, that his philosophy is directly compatible with Husserl’s phenomenology precisely insofar as the latter recognizes the primacy of meaning. After touting the decisiveness of Husserl’s differentiation of acts of the mind and the objects intended by them, Cassirer observes that the path taken by Husserl from Logical Investigations to Ideas I makes clear that “the task of phenomenology is not exhausted by the analysis of knowledge but that in it the structures of completely diverse realms of objects are to be investigated purely in terms of what they ‘mean’” (ECW : n). Nevertheless, to the extent that Cassirer looks to mythical consciousness for the originary expressiveness of perceptions, he clearly taps into an intersubjective dimension that is largely left untouched by Husserlian phenomenology, at the very least in publications prior to the Cartesian Meditations and the Crisis of the European Sciences. What, by way of conclusion, are we to make of these divergences? Perhaps the most salient point to make is that, far from being at odds with Cassirer’s phenomenological affinities, they must be seen as adaptively reinforcing them. Cassirer’s expansive philosophical reach, extended to such symbolic forms as language and myth, art and history, patently reaffirms and builds upon phenomenological insights into the primacy of meaning and the need to determine constitutive conditions of consciousness. Moreover, Cassirer’s complaints about Husserl’s doctrine of hyletic data and his privileging of a proto-theoretical act of perception are widely echoed by other thinkers within the phenomenological tradition, including Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. In other words, these complaints or divergences are themselves phenomenologically grounded. Yet, Cassirer’s final, perhaps overriding phenomenological affinity with Husserl’s philosophy deserves special mention. Husserl observes that, since we live in the cogito, a phenomenological reflection is necessary for the cogitatio to become an “intentional object”. The same holds for the

 

While invoking Hegel’s objective spirit here, Cassirer approvingly notes Scheler’s similar conclusions about the intersubjective, pre-egological expressiveness of perception (ECW : –). Here I have in mind Husserl’s turn to “transcendental intersubjectivity” in the Cartesian Meditations and to the “life-world” in the Crisis of European Sciences, described as a world “for the human community” that is pre-given in “living with one another” (Miteinanderleben) in such a way that “selfconsciousness and consciousness of others” are inseparable (Husserl : ff, f, ).

Cassirer’s Phenomenological Affinities



accessibility of “‘pure’ consciousness and the entire phenomenological regions.” The affinity of Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms with this phenomenological principle is evident throughout his corpus, but perhaps most of all in Cassirer’s insistence on the intersubjectivity of perception in mythical consciousness. 

Husserl, Ideen: , , –.

 

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape “Synthetic Philosophy,” Transcendental Idealism, Cultural Pluralism Sebastian Luft

I

Cassirer As a “Post-split” Philosopher

Twenty years ago now, Michael Friedman made quite a splash with his book A Parting of the Ways, which traced the historical origin of the analytic-continental divide to the  “Davos Dispute” between Heidegger and Cassirer in Davos, Switzerland. Friedman famously argued that these two ways of doing philosophy began, or at least became historically manifest, during this dispute. It is not Cassirer, however, who falls on one side of the divide; rather, the antitheses are Heidegger and another person present in the wings, namely Carnap. In Friedman’s reconstruction, Heidegger and Carnap are paradigmatic for two divergent ways of doing philosophy: the existential path and that directed at the analysis of ordinary language, the latter ushering in the “linguistic turn” that dominated the analytic trend, at least in the initial years. However, the hero of Friedman’s story is Cassirer. Indeed, Friedman maintains, it is Cassirer’s philosophical vision that can salvage philosophy from becoming “balkanized,” and retain a unified vision that has the potential to overcome the split between what has later been called (going beyond philosophy proper) “the two cultures.” Regarding a move beyond the analytic-synthetic divide, Friedman’s book concludes with the following: Those interested in finally beginning a reconciliation of the analytic and continental traditions . . . can find no better starting point than the rich  

Friedman (: chapter ). The latter term, coined by C. P. Snow, concerns the split between scholarship oriented toward the natural sciences on the one hand and the humanities on the other, two movements that no longer talk to each other. Arguably, the analytic-continental divide is a variant or subspecies of that between the two cultures. But exploring the “two culture” thesis is a whole different discussion that I cannot broach here.



Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape



treasure of ideas, ambitions, and analyses stored in [Cassirer’s] astonishingly comprehensive body of philosophical work.

While applauding Cassirer’s ideal and the retention of the role of philosophy as a unifier of culture, however, Friedman’s verdict is ultimately negative: In short, Cassirer’s vision of uniting both cultures fails, because he ultimately falls back into the Neo-Kantian trap of privileging scientific conduct as the highest form of culture, hence disregarding the “existential” aspects that Heidegger sought to highlight. I have argued elsewhere that I believe Friedman’s negative verdict is unfair to Cassirer, but I do not want to engage in what is ultimately an exegetical issue. My interest in Cassirer lies in the gestalt of his philosophy as a valid candidate for a “postsplit” philosophy. Indeed, I do not wish to discuss the analytic-continental distinction, but spell out a philosophical vision “post-divide.” I hope to succeed, in the following, in making a case that Cassirer is indeed a philosopher who can be a model for contemporary work and moving into the future. Hence, I will talk about the type of philosophy he projects and then give some examples from his work where this gestalt becomes manifest. Regardless of Friedman’s ultimately negative assessment, his book succeeded in bringing Cassirer to the attention of the English-speaking world, after he had already been rediscovered a decade earlier in Germany. The renaissance that Cassirer has staged since then is largely due to Friedman’s pointing to this hopeful source. Here, I want to pursue the path that Friedman has suggested but not pursued, as I believe that the question of Cassirer’s place in today’s philosophical landscape is more prescient than ever before. I will argue that Cassirer can be an example of “synthetic philosophy,” and demonstrate what such a philosophy can or needs to accomplish. This will require me to show how the spirit of Cassirer’s work can be positively put to use in contemporary philosophizing. Accordingly, this contribution is divided into two sections. In the first section, I will formulate some criteria for “good” post-split philosophy. In so doing, I try to do some systematic work in utilizing the best from both traditions. In the second section, I will show why and how Cassirer indeed fits the bill, referencing both his work and characteristic discussions with   



  Friedman (: ). Friedman (: f ). Luft (a): –. The early pioneers on the German side were Ernst Wolfgang Orth and John M. Krois. Friedman’s latest publications have turned back to Kant. Arguably his most ambitious philosophical piece, in which he attempts to lay out his view of the “historic a priori” inspired by Cassirer is Friedman (). This is not to deny that some parts of Cassirer’s philosophy, both in content as well as presentation, are antiquated. But here, too, I take the good and discard the rest.



 

some of his contemporaries, in particular Husserl and Heidegger. In the concluding section, I will briefly turn to the spirit of Cassirer’s thought and highlight what I consider to be the two most important aspects of his work, namely his transcendental idealism and the demand for cultural pluralism, both in terms of cultural practice and as scholarly (scientific and philosophical) accounting for the former.

II Criteria for Post-split “Synthetic Philosophy” If it is neither possible nor fruitful to give substantial philosophical accounts of what characterizes “analytic” and “continental” traditions (other than the uniting fact that they used to not talk to each other), then one might well be permitted to spell out what good philosophy versus bad philosophy would be. This is the decisive move beyond the tired divide, where “bad” and “good” parts reside on either side. “Bad” here would refer to a host of phrases, such as “dogmatic,” “sclerotic,” “ideological,” or simply “narrow,” and “unwilling to look beyond one’s own (historical, sociological, political) views” – judgments, in other words, which both continental and analytic philosophers have leveled at one another in the past. “Good” are those parts that I will highlight below, which, however, can also fall into extremes. In the spirit of drawing from both traditions what “good philosophy” must do, in the following I develop a list of criteria that is not meant to be exhaustive, especially provocative, or particularly original, but simply discuss some points that good philosophers, no matter what particular subfield they may be working in, should heed. These criteria were formulated, to be sure, with Cassirer in mind (emphasizing that I consider him a “good philosopher”), such that the following discussion will allow me to map certain aspects of his work on to them in the next section of this chapter. a Historical Sensitivity Meets Systematic Focus It is a truism that all philosophical work (like that of all sciences and other academic disciplines) has a certain history, develops in it, and builds on it. Unlike in the sciences, however, where this history is usually that of an embarrassment and silencing (passing over what one got wrong in the past in the light of the current progress and improvement over past “wisdom”), in philosophy, this “factum of historicity” is not a trivial sideshow but an integral part of its practice and institution. Yet what does it mean that its historicity is essential to philosophy?

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape



If we distinguish between philosophy as a personal-existential reflection and philosophy as an academic discipline, and consider only the latter real philosophy, then we must say that every current problem has its history, that is, of people who have thought about the problem in the past. But whereas in the sciences such problems tend to change rapidly, this is seemingly not the case in philosophy, because – some might say – real philosophical problems are distinguished by the fact that they do not grow old. Thus, some philosophers define philosophy as an exercise in finding “timeless Truths.” In this light, the distinction between real philosophical problems and philosophical problems simpliciter is that the latter are problems posed and discussed by philosophers relative to a specific setting that renders these problems obsolete by later thinkers (or other scientists). So when some philosophers claim that their discipline, too, makes progress, they mean progress along these lines, where philosophy is continuous with other sciences. Real philosophical problems, on the other hand, are discontinuous with worldly affairs, even though they surely arise from them. In the spirit of Cassirer, I disagree with this distinction. Philosophy is by its very definition concerned with generality, otherwise it would be merely personal narrative. There are of course different levels of generality, but to acknowledge this does not entail the claim to universality. I do not know if there are universal truths in philosophical claims as in mathematics; but being agnostic about this is enough to acknowledge that the generality of philosophical truths is just that, of a general nature, hence not universal, and hence bound to a historical development. Philosophical work is a historically embedded search for truths that might change, as the questions philosophers ask also change. In this sense, philosophy is necessarily continuous with other scientific endeavors, and a particular philosophical insight might actually be to acknowledge that contemporary sciences are better at answering these questions than traditional philosophy. This means that it is a deliberate myopia to ignore what people have said, written, and debated about real philosophical problems in the past. Any thinker reflecting on a particular problem should realize that certain questions are “classical” (which itself is a historical classification). The category of the classical means, according to Gadamer, that it “seems not to grow old,” which is not an a priori claim but just a description of “how it’s been,” without a claim that it will continue in like manner.



I think that Cassirer would not consider this existential notion of philosophy true philosophy. I will return to this issue in Section IIIb.



 

That is, to endorse the notion of the classical does not entail endorsing any claim to universality. The classical can refer to problems, but also texts, which will always be read, albeit for perhaps very different reasons. There might be “big” classical problems that dominate every philosophical endeavor, both in the West as well as in other cultural regions. These are problems such as the nature of the soul, the afterlife, God, the origin of the universe, and the meaning of life. Yet, to claim that these problems are of “universal nature” is a very imprecise façon de parler. When Kant grouped “transcendent” problems around “God, freedom, immortality,” he was presumably merely trying to cluster together some basic tendencies of human inquiry that go too far, in his mind. The “meaning of life”–question might be a question all humans ask themselves, but in very different manners and with very different terminology, not to mention the different answers that people give to it. But even the distinction between “universal questions” and “time-bound responses” is a very misleading way of defining what philosophy does. Instead, the very pragmatic notion of “classical” as “that which is likely to endure (but we cannot be sure of this)” does a much better job at defining philosophical from scientific questions, without having to make a claim to a discontinuity between both. Contrary to this ideal of “highest generalities,” there are also “local” classical problems, such as issues that were a dominant theme for only a limited time and place, for instance certain debates in European Modernity (which are better traceable since documentation is better and the issues are historically closer to us), but have become obsolete. “The obsolete” is the opposite category from the classical. However, the fact that some question or consideration has become obsolete does not mean one should not study it. Doing so would be an exercise in the history of philosophy rather than philosophy proper, but for that reason still meritorious in helping us understand the past, and how this past informs our present. It is in this sense a form of intellectual history. For instance, studying the history of the prohibition of homosexuality in a given country, the reasons for this prohibition, and the sort of jurisdiction that accompanied it is important, even if today homosexual relations are tolerated (and even same-sex marriages permitted). These are important aspects to understand the past and also to understand the changes of mores from then to the present (including the lingering sentiments of the past and their patterns). To give another example, it is not accidental that the problem of Marxism would reemerge as a dominant theme (at least in Western countries) at the time of the collapse of the Soviet empire in the s. That these concerns were sparked, among others, by philosophers, is not circular; it just shows that philosophers, too,

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape

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are people living in a society shaped by special problems that might strike us today as passé or trivial. Hence, the idea to start “from scratch” in any philosophical endeavor, or to “elevate” oneself into a Platonic heaven, should be seen with great skepticism. All philosophical problems have their history, and this history may therefore not be overlooked. Thus, to straddle both sides of a philosophical problem, its historical and its systematic dimensions, means avoiding extremes. The blindness to history has been mentioned here as something to be avoided. The opposite extreme is that of a complete immersion into the historical without any concern for why the issue one studies is important and worth studying. In terms of the distinction above, it would be a deliberate study of the obsolete. Anybody going this route may be called a historian of the discipline. This work constitutes a legitimate genre of intellectual history, and is thus surely not worthless. Such in-depth archeological “digging” might result in unexpected and surprising connections and new findings (a new manuscript by a classical author that sheds a very new light on her, or a new appreciation of a hitherto second-rate author that elevates her to first class). Thus, such research for the sake of “discovery” might yield valuable insights, but they are accidental and contingent. If, however, scholars are expecting to find something valuable for us today, the motivation is genuinely philosophical. But this motivation stems from current interests, which motivate the look back, vis-à-vis a purely “museal” look. This distinction is likely the most characteristic and most clichéd one in characterizing the old analytic-continental divide. Whereas “classical” analytic authors might have considered it ridiculous to read anything before Frege, “classical” continental authors might have claimed that anything after Heidegger is not worth reading. Or if Heidegger is the “hero” of their story, they might also not see the need to read anything before him. In recent years, entirely new genres have arisen, demonstrating the move beyond this divide: the very history of analytic philosophy, or the integration of phenomenological studies with that of the philosophy of mind. b

A Necessary Mix of A Priori and Empirical Truths

The distinction between a priori truths and empirical facts is usually taken to be a matter of either–or. To be sure, the difference between truths that cannot in principle be falsified and truths that may or may not stand the test of time, since they are only true until not refuted, is problematic to say the least; this has been so since the days of Hume’s skepticism and has

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continued to be through the work of Kant and Quine’s and Kripke’s critiques of the notion of the a priori. But one can be agnostic about the salience of this distinction. I thus follow Tahko, who writes that “this distinction is known to be problematic, but since philosophers will no doubt continue to use it . . ., we ought to do our best to clarify it.” Thus even if a priori and a posteriori are worlds apart, a philosophy that is interested in describing the “rich bathos of experience” need not be concerned with maintaining or adhering to this distinction. This is because not all propositions can rise up to the level of a priori truths (leaving aside the thorny issue if philosophy can rise up to synthetic a priori). Some propositions are clearly a priori in the traditional sense, including the one that asserts that some statements are true a priori while others are not. No conceptual work in philosophy can do without them. Yet, it would be an overreach on the part of the philosopher to claim that all “properly philosophical” statements should be at the level of the a priori. This goes hand in hand with a rejection of the distinction between “real” philosophy and philosophy simpliciter. The world is messy, and philosophy needs to reflect that, lest it be concerned with purely conceptual and logical themes. “A priori” is thus not at all times the gold standard to which philosophy needs to be beholden, as the classical rationalists and perhaps also Kant (and a certain part of Hegel) would have claimed. The opposite extreme is to deny the existence of a priori statements, like classical empiricism and Hume did. Philosophical endeavors in this tradition that deny any (substantialist) claims about the human being and instead want to focus on a diverse host of different (gender, sexual, racial) identities are overextending their argumentative reach, since they succumb to relativism. To avoid this, the existence of the a priori must be assumed in view of some subject matters. The point is that philosophy, in its daily business, does not have to let itself be forced into a rigid either–or. If philosophy cannot always be at the level of a priori, it must recognize that its propositions are made up of both a priori and a posteriori claims. Philosophical assertions are more than statements about individuals, though they may start with individuals (situated, embodied persons, experiences). The same goes, by the way, for empirical statements made in empirical sciences: They, too, must be general. But philosophical statements vis-à-vis those in other sciences are distinguished by the fact that they are always concerned with a higher level of generality, which in the rarest cases can make the “leap” into universal 

Tahko (: ).

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape

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statements. This is no fault or defect but lies in the subject matter under discussion. This means that if one does not insist on the a priori status of philosophy, its difference to science cannot be clearly and sharply delineated. One should not lament, but exploit this a priori fact. c Combination of Conceptual Analysis and Descriptive Synthesis There can be no doubt that philosophy is about arguments, careful use of terms, correct inferences, and clearly spelt-out conclusions. Let’s call the totality of this procedure conceptual analysis. No important philosopher has been weak on this score. It is a necessary toolbox. But it is also not more than that; for philosophy is also about describing what one sees, a descriptive grasp of the world we live in, and the real philosophical genius lies in the sight or the vision. What the sight sees may be very different: details others overlook, hidden prejudices and biases, tendencies in the present most do not recognize, or predictions of the future for which one may be mocked in one’s lifetime but will be identified as genius in hindsight. In contradistinction from conceptual analysis, this capacity is rather synthetic, drawing connections, bringing seemingly remote things together, opening new horizons and vistas. Let’s call this part of the philosopher’s work descriptive synthesis. Synthesis is achieved not only by the Rortyian “redescriptions,” which redescribe a commonly known concept or viewpoint, but by descriptions simpliciter, those of what is the case in the first place (and never properly recognized before). Most things in the world are not well described yet, and in the phenomenological credo one can say that “who sees more, sees better.” Thus, while conceptual analysis is the necessary condition for great philosophy, sufficiency is reached only by descriptive synthesis. Good philosophy is about the combination of both. Too much conceptual analysis (or this alone) results in what even Kant, himself not always a captivating author, calls “dry and boring.” A text of this sort will necessarily be an example of what one may also call scholasticism: where the topic itself is not under discussion or where the author sees no need to justify why she is utilizing so much mental energy to prove a point. Too much “vision,” respectively, results in sloppy and disorganized, unruly writing. It might show a stroke of “genius” but has no discipline in execution and presentation. On the one hand, no lack in originality may be compensated by sharp arguing; on the other, no exciting vision will be 

This was the credo voiced (besides the more famous “to the things themselves!”) by the early phenomenologists of the Göttingen and Munich period. I take its point to be very straightforward: More and richer descriptions give us a better understanding of the subject matter described.

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communicable as a philosophical text through description alone. Every decent poet is better on that score. Philosophical vision still requires good conceptual tools and arguments for its articulation. Earlier, the contrast was drawn between philosophy and the sciences, where the difference was said to be that of levels of generality. The contrast here is between philosophy and literature or poetry. Here, too, the difference can be said to be only in quantity, not quality, if one thinks of poetic philosophers, such as Plato or Nietzsche, and philosophical poets, such as Proust, Shakespeare, or Goethe. All of them named here are “strong poets” in Rorty’s sense: writers who provide us with new visions and their unique articulations. d The Dialectics of Exegesis and Jargon Philosophers are oftentimes fond of jargon to indicate or proudly express the originality of their undertakings. The motivation to do so, some argue, stems from the unique and novel experiences or phenomena they are describing, or the way in which they verbalize their descriptions. Since “normal” language does not suffice to capture the complexity of the new or original finding, this language must either be used with an index (a “formal indication” that the word used stems from ordinary language but means something radically different) or must be treated with violence through the use of neologisms or deliberately faulty grammar or peculiar use of terms. “Jargon” is a clearly negative term; the authors using jargon would give it a positive spin. Using it becomes especially problematic when one thereby attempts to leave the sphere of communicability, the basic criterion for any scientific account, which addresses itself to a larger group of scholars. To many readers, especially from the analytic side, where there is a larger tendency toward a homogenous use of language in continuity with other sciences (where any personal “voice” would be misplaced), this tendency might be registered with annoyance. Here, too, there are extremes. One extreme is that of retranscribing an author, in such a way that she is rendered totally unrecognizable. Any original author should be forgiven, to an extent, for the use of idiosyncratic vocabulary. Such idiosyncrasy is often precisely the reason for why they are considered original (though if it is this idiosyncrasy alone, the emperor is revealed to wear no clothes). Thus, sometimes the 

Brandom, e.g., claims that with the word Geist, Hegel was in fact inventing a word for what he was describing: “In order to write the Phänomenologie des Geistes, Hegel had first to come up with its topic: Geist. There is clearly a sense in which no-one had ever thought about this topic before he did. Yet it is part of his argument that everyone had been thinking about it all along.” (Brandom : ).

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape

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attempt to “normalize” the terminology and its replacement with more common terms can lead to a papering over of the very originality of the original usage. For instance, the replacement of Heidegger’s “Dasein” with “subjectivity” loses precisely the punch its author had intended. On the other hand, trying to capture the author’s terminology in a similar one in translation might shed new light on the author’s writing, instead of wrangling with a literal translation (especially in Heidegger studies, translations have done amazing things to the original crude German). Thus, every exegesis of an original author must take place in the spirit of critical fidelity to him or her, in the right amount of proximity and distance. Oftentimes the effort is needed to understand what the author is really trying to say. The other extreme is the kind of uncritical following of terminology that completely succumbs to jargon. While fidelity is crucial, so is the attempt to translate what otherwise sounds crude or incomprehensible into an ideally common vernacular. So the extremes here are disregard of a philosopher’s terminology on the one hand, and the uncritical continuation of this terminology on the other. This list of criteria for what good philosophy ought do to is certainly all but exhaustive, and these points could be elucidated in greater detail and with the use of more examples. Its sole purpose here was to set up some criteria from which to evaluate what “good philosophy today” may mean.

III Examples of a Synthetic Philosopher: Cassirerian Case Studies In this section, I want show how Cassirer exemplifies the criteria just formulated. If I am successful, this will also demonstrate how and why Cassirer is a philosopher worth studying in today’s philosophical climate. He was often admired (or mocked) as “the Olympian” – someone aloof and removed from everyday business. I want to make the case that this is an ill-fitting label for a philosopher very much involved in the life and affairs of his day (and not too noble to take on university administrative duties). To project this “Olympian” image of him is the result of a smear campaign from which he   

An especially fortuitous example is Stambaugh’s translation of Heidegger’s term zuhanden with “handy.” What I say about individual philosophers also goes for entire movements, some of which are riddled in jargon as well. Mastery of this jargon seems to be the “entry ticket” for admission. That Cassirer was immersed in his time, in science, politics, and society, cannot be shown here; for a quick impression of his networking (to use a contemporary buzzword), I point the reader to his vast correspondence (ECN ) and the biographical descriptions his wife Toni gives in her book on her life with Ernst Cassirer. Regarding the latter, I especially point to the encounters with Albert

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as well as his fellow Neo-Kantians suffered, and that we should relegate to the past. My intention is however not just to promote Cassirer to a contemporary audience. In the spirit of synthetic philosophizing after the overcoming of the “big divide,” I aim to articulate with Cassirer a type of philosophy that I recommend adopting in order to move forward. In the following, thus, I will do some “case study” work with respect to Cassirer’s work itself. I have chosen a number of specific samples of his oeuvre that will serve to exemplify the points made in the previous section, though any of these traits can be found in his work throughout. This endeavor will require some exegetical charity on the part of the reader; after all, Cassirer could not have been aware of this type of schism in philosophy to respond to it. a Das Erkenntnisproblem It is a trademark of Cassirer’s writings that he is at all times engaged with other authors writing on a certain topic, be it empirical scientists (anthropologists, psychologists, philologists etc.) or figures in the history of philosophy (he has written on nearly all epochs of European philosophy). All of his work is always a mix of systematic discussion of a topic in conversation with scientists and philosophers, contemporary and historical. Conversely, there is never an exclusively systematic discussion of a topic, and all historical discussions are never historical alone in the sense of intellectual history discussed above. If Cassirer is in a way old-fashioned, it is by being long-winded, perhaps unnecessarily so. Still, he is unscrupulously judicious, even-handed, and honest in every respect. This synthesis of historical and systematic work is itself the result of his systematic stance, which the Neo-Kantians called history of problems (Problemgeschichte). I will give a few examples from his work in order to then explain what such a history of problems amounts to. The most famous example of Cassirer’s synthesis of systematic and historic work is his four-volume The Problem of Cognition in Philosophy and Science of Modernity, which is a three-volume study of far over a thousand pages with a fourth tome published posthumously. The project – incomplete as it was due to Cassirer’s untimely death – was intended

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Schweizer, Albert Einstein, and Aby Warburg. As for his (university) political engagement, consult the chapter on Cassirer’s time as Rektor of the University of Hamburg in his wife’s biography. The exact title is Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, of which only the fourth (posthumously published) volume is translated into English, misleadingly, as The Problem of Knowledge: Philosophy, Science, and History. The original title “the problem of knowledge in philosophy and science” emphasizes that both are seen in conjunction.

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as an account of the development of the problem of cognition in Modernity, starting from the late medieval phase (Cusanus, Humanism) and ending, in the last unpublished volume, with contemporary philosophy of Cassirer’s time (the first volume appeared in ). The choice for the topic of “cognition” as the center of this project is, however, not arbitrary. The vast and engrossing account of the major (and in some places also minor) figures in this history has the systematic point that the problem of cognition is not only the dominant problem in modernity, but also that it cannot be tackled by considering philosophers alone. Indeed, Cassirer states in the preface that All intellectual tendencies of the newer time culminate ultimately in a common and highest task: it is a new concept of cognition which is being worked out in a steady progress. . . . The various spiritual powers of culture . . . work together towards the final result and can only exert their full effect by virtue of the theoretical self-consciousness that they achieve and only in this way modify progressively the general task and the ideal of knowing.

This passage makes it clear that this “common and highest task” can never be studied and comprehended by reading philosophers alone; or rather that there is no such thing as pure philosophers on the one side and scientists on the other. Cognition is a common problem that develops and is discussed by thinkers in science and philosophy alike. For instance, in Cassirer’s account both main tendencies in early Modernity, skepticism and philosophy of nature, reject the method of medieval logic due to a newly found appreciation of “external and internal experience” (ECW : ), which leads to the development of new methods to cognize nature. In this spirit, he writes that “Descartes becomes the founder of newer philosophy not by putting the idea of method first, but by giving it a new task [Aufgabe]” (ECW : ). From this posing of the task that Cassirer set himself, it becomes clear that his method of writing the history of philosophy and science is an exercise in Neo-Kantian Problemgeschichte, or the history of problems. This is anything but a naïve report of what past thinkers have said, as in an (ideally) unbiased historiography of philosophy. It is rather a judicial account based on systematic problems that the philosopher performing this task deems relevant after having surveyed the relevant body of texts. 

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ECW : IX – all English quotes from Cassirer are my own translations from the original German (ECW/ECN). “Task” and “Progress” are buzzwords from the Marburg School: All tasks (Aufaben) are the response to previous stances (Gaben), resulting in an endless progress in science and philosophy. Note that Cassirer couches this progress also in the “various spiritual powers of culture,” of which science is but one. Cf. what Cassirer says about the development of a specific philosophy of nature, which then evolves into a science of nature as a separate project stemming from the former (ECW : IX. f.).

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Thus, what Cassirer says with respect to the very problem of knowledge must be applied to his own writings on the main problem of modernity: “In the naïve state of mind, cognition presents itself as a process, in which we bring to consciousness imitatively [nachbildend] an ordered reality that exists in itself.” Instead of imitation, what goes on in every theoretical description of the world is a “modification [Umformung] of the material that offers itself from the outside” (ECW : ). Every description is a “selection and critical ordering, which is to be carried out with respect to the objects of perception.” It is thus no accident that shortly after the publication of the first volume of this project, Cassirer publishes what is usually considered his first systematic piece of philosophical writing, Substance and Function (), which he himself describes as a “systematic investigation concerning the foundational questions of a critique of cognition” (ECW : XII). Of course this book, too, proceeds historically starting from Aristotle. The systematic point of this book, that the process of cognition from Antiquity to Modernity consists in a shift from a substantive to a functional ontology, is however nothing but the systematic philosophical takeaway from surveying the history of philosophy and science. And this takeaway is itself a historic claim. The philosophical stance at which Cassirer arrives in Substance and Function is that which he will put to use in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, which is a functional account of the inner logics of the various symbolic forms, which are irreducible to one another. Cassirer, thus, places himself on the proverbial shoulders of giants as he begins his own systematic philosophy of culture, which itself is an intricate web of systematic claims with the use of historical sources. (In the case of language, e.g., Cassirer starts out with the account given by Wilhelm von Humboldt.) Thus, Cassirer’s work is the performative task of weaving a dense web of historical and systematic analyses, demonstrating (explicitly) that one cannot be carried out without the other. b Cassirer’s Conception of the a Priori One of Cassirer’s most interesting philosophical claims, which was prefigured in the philosophy of his teacher Cohen, is the historization of the 

ECW : . Note that Cassirer is rejecting a representationalist account of reality, of which Rorty accuses Western philosophy. Cassirer is not operating within what he would call a “substantialist” paradigm but instead a “functionalist” one. Also note that the way Cassirer reconstructs modern science in this manner can be read as an anticipation of Kant’s transcendental turn. This, too, is classic Marburg: As Cohen asserted earlier, Kant happened upon his transcendental method when studying Newton.

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a priori. In Cassirer’s view, the a priori is not to be understood as a fixed set of universally true and unchangeable categories. Instead, it is more akin to a paradigmatic conceptual scheme of concepts and categories that are valid at a given time in the historical development of science. The status quo of a given science is the famous “factum of the sciences,” which presents an accepted stance of the given state of knowledge as Gabe (as a stock of “accepted wisdom”), and which sets a task (Aufgabe) for further work. Each stance of knowledge that is arrived at raises new questions, opens new doors, or allows for new vistas to be explored. The a priori is thus the domain not of the philosopher alone but also of any exact science that makes progress. This means that philosophy is no symbolic form of its own, as it does not use its own methods for its own subject domain, but is a reflection on the work and progress of the sciences. One could say that the very articulation of the progress of science from Gabe to Aufgabe to new Gabe, etc., is a philosophical claim, which is achieved through a reflection on the sciences (and importantly also other cultural domains). In this way, the a priori becomes historicized as a momentary point of crystallization that becomes fluid again as science progresses. This insight holds true also of the “progress” in philosophy. One can rightfully ask why then still use the term “a priori” for this, since the difference between universally valid and temporally valid truths, theories, and concepts becomes leveled or relativized. Confronted with this critique, Cassirer writes: The “fact” of science is and will of course remain in its nature a historically developing fact. If in Kant this insight does not yet appear explicitly, if his categories can still appear as finished “core concepts of reason” in number and content, then the modern development of critical and idealistic logic [i.e., Cohen] has made this point perfectly clear. The forms of judgment mean for it the unified and active motivations of thought, which course through the manifold of its particular formations and are continually put to use in the generation and formulation of new categories.  

Cf. my account of Cohen’s philosophy in Luft (a: chapter ). ECW : . See also the  letter to Reichenbach: As I can see, the point of disagreement between us lies in the notion of a priori, which I understand in a different way to you: namely, not as a steady and definitively established complex of material intuitions or concepts, but only as a function, which is determined according to a law and therefore it remains the same regarding its direction and its form; nevertheless it can assume the most various developments in the progress of knowledge. I would like to consider as a priori valid in a rigorous sense only the idea of ‘unity of nature’, that is the lawfulness of experience in general, or put in a brief formulation: the ‘uniqueness [Eindeutigkeit] of coordination’. (ECN : )

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Thus, it appears that Cassirer had a “relaxed” view about timeless truths and the idea that science or philosophy, which occupies no privileged domain, should strive for them. All search for truth is time-bound and historically embedded. All scientific work is furthering the search for answers either to traditional questions, which become reevaluated and critiqued in light of current knowledge about the subject matter (which could lead to the conclusion that the whole question has become obsolete), or as a response to the work that human beings do in the trenches of culture. This gives me the opportunity to sketch out Cassirer’s broader view of culture. Cassirer (here a true heir of the Marburg School) sees the history of humanity as a continuous work in different fields of culture (as that which we make out of nature, including our own). This work leads to a critical inquiry into what we create in this production of culture. Thus all work in a cultural domain results in a science of this domain: art leads to art history, poetry leads to literary criticism. Hence, there is a fundamental continuity between the work of culture and the sciences thereof as well. Philosophy, then, is not a separate discipline, but a higher-order selfreflection of the cultural creature that we are. In his unpublished notes for a “metaphysics of the philosophy of symbolic forms,” Cassirer writes, in a Hegelian fashion: It is the peculiarity of philosophical cognition as “self-cognition of reason“ that it does not create a new symbolic form in principle, it does not create a new creative modality; rather, it comprehends the earlier modalities [of symbolic formation] as that which they are: as peculiar symbolic forms. . . . Philosophy is at the same time critique and fulfillment of symbolic forms. . . . Philosophy does not intend to posit instead of the old forms a different, higher form, it does not want to replace one symbol through another, but its task consists in comprehending the basic symbolic character of cognition itself. . . . We can never overcome [the compulsion of the symbolic] and then view the absolute eye to eye, but only by comprehending every symbol in its place and as limited and conditioned by others. The “absolute” is always only the complete, fully executed and systematically ordered relative, and the absoluteness of spirit can be nothing other. (ECN : f.)

It is presumably also because of the merely reflective status of philosophy that Cassirer is unconcerned with philosophy as being in touch with universal truths. Indeed, all truth that can ever be arrived at is always underway. Philosophers, who are no experts, can help scientists to overcome crises of puzzlement and problems with finding the right

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape

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terminology for their new findings, and to devise creative solutions to their current problems. They can do so because they can take a long view, perhaps precisely because they are no experts. Conversely, a philosopher who is unconcerned with findings in the sciences of a particular cultural domain is sitting in the proverbial armchair and is indeed then under the verdict of being aloof and distanced. Philosophy is a reflection of culture in the double sense of the genitive. Hence, any work that can ever be carried out in order to shed light on the creative work that the animal symbolicum does, including work to comprehend this “strange animal,” must be done in a combination of empirical and conceptual work, where the boundaries between culturecreating life, scientific investigation thereof, and philosophical reflection upon it, are fluid and relative. Whatever kind of scientific discourse can shed light on the things we want to understand is welcome as well. Finally, any result we reach will only be a transitional phase of catching one’s breath, so to speak, before the status quo raises new questions and suggests new lines of inquiry, which may not be blocked. I am, in other words, suggesting that Cassirer’s position is pragmatic. His work is a performative battle against any philosophy that remains comfortably in the armchair. c Cassirer’s View of Contemporary Phenomenology Cassirer had a very good rapport with the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He had closely read his main publications (Logical Investigations, Ideas I, the Logos essay on “Philosophy as Rigorous Science,” Cartesian Meditations, and possibly also the Crisis fragment that appeared in ). They carried on a brief but cordial correspondence (at least before Cassirer’s departure from Germany in ) and met a few times. Husserl was an admirer of Cassirer’s work, as he says in many letters from their correspondence, praising whom he perceived to be the legitimate heir of the Marburg School; Cassirer in turn frequently cites Husserl’s work and shows a high appreciation of the new project called phenomenology. Once again, the purpose of this subsection is not to give a detailed account of Cassirer’s view of Husserl’s oeuvre; instead, I want to highlight what Cassirer liked about the very project of a descriptive science of consciousness. This is not to say that Cassirer  

In a letter fragment of , Husserl regrets that Cassirer never became his colleague in Göttingen, cf. Hua-Dok. III/V, . Cf. the biographical details assembled in Luft ().

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adopted Husserl’s project but rather that he saw it as complementing his own in certain respects, in the way that a philosophy of objective spirit (as Kreis calls Cassirer’s philosophy of culture) requires one of subjective spirit. The point is, for the present context, that Cassirer had great sympathy for a philosophical project that blends conceptual analysis and descriptive synthesis, something Cassirer did as well in his domains of work. Indeed, if a philosophy of culture discerns the different forms of cultural expression, starting from the primitive stage of myth, then it is systematically called for to demand an account of the forms of being-conscious of them. To use the Natorpian term Bewusstheit, any “mentalism” is to be avoided, since not all forms of creating culture are higher-order acts of thinking. Further, if a philosophy of culture is to be transcendental and not merely empirical (in the sense of the relative distinction alone), then such an account of the forms of being in culture must be transcendental as well, meaning that such an account cannot merely describe accidental traits of certain human beings at a certain period of time. Hence, phenomenology, as Cassirer sees it, comes into its own as it overcomes psychologism. As in Natorp’s transcendental psychology, phenomenology too succeeds, “in principle, in taking psychology out of the circle of objectivating cognition, esp. out of that of natural science [Naturwissenschaft]” (ECN : ). Phenomenology is then not merely a discipline within the human sciences [Geisteswissenschaften] but instead a branch of transcendental philosophy. As such, it is a discipline correlated to an account of the different forms of culture: It belongs to the fundamental merits of Husserlian phenomenology to have brought into focus the variety of the different spiritual “structural forms” and to have paved the way for their investigation, a path that deviates from psychological questions and methods. Especially the sharp distinction between psychic “acts” from the “objects” intended in them is decisive in this context. In the path Husserl has traversed from the “Logical Investigations” to the “Ideas to a Pure Phenomenology”, it becomes increasingly clear that the task of phenomenology, as he construes it, is not exhausted in an analysis of cognition, but that phenomenology is need of investigating the structures of very different regions of objects purely according to that what they “mean” and without respect to the “reality” of these objects. (ECW : ). 



Cassirer is not without critique of Husserl; for instance, he is critical of what he calls Husserl’s “‘monadic’ epistemology” centered around his Cartesianism (ECN : u.w.). Cf. ECN : – for a critique of Husserl’s Cartesianism, a view which he receives, as he says there, from the Cartesian Meditations. This text, ironically, is the least Cartesian or “monadic” given the fifth Meditation on intersubjectivity. Positively, Cassirer applauds phenomenology for overcoming psychologism (ECN : ). Cf. Kreis (), and Luft (: –) for a comparison between Cassirer and Husserl.

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape



Cassirer’s account of Husserl is keen and correct in emphasizing its antinaturalism and anti-mentalism. In this pioneering role, Husserl’s task is not only to discern these different forms of consciousness and their respective objects of meaning but also to give voice to these types of being conscious, that is, in Husserl’s words, to “bring dumb experience to language.” Conversely, Husserl, upon reading the second volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in , writes an enthusiastic letter to Cassirer, directly commenting on the previous passage: “The few lines which you write on p.  pleased me by the depth of comprehension that I have rarely seen even in my ‘students.’” (Hua-Dok. III/V, ) Cassirer’s response to this letter is instructive as well: Since the publication of the first volume of the “Logical Investigations” I have always maintained that there is a deep similarity between the tasks of phenomenology and the basic convictions of critical philosophy: both philosophies deal with what you called in your letter “the science of the transcendental, radically carried out so far and to be carried out to infinity.” Herewith the guiding principle is determined that also guides my entire philosophical work and the problems that now occupy me supremely. (Hua.-Dok. III/V, )

Comparisons and correlations aside, this section aims to show how phenomenology is a discipline that is to be lauded from a Cassirerian standpoint: it is a descriptive discipline of meaning in the plural (collective intentionality). Cassirer still has, unfortunately, a Cartesian image of Husserl. Husserl himself pushes back exactly at this point: Although he criticizes Cassirer for not rising to the level of the eidetic in his analysis of forms (Hua.-Dok. III/V, ), he nonetheless describes these forms as “a universal intentionality of a communally living humanity, which weaves itself together to a common world view,” which, however, stands under “essential laws” (Hua.-Dok. III/V, ). Thus, Husserl makes demands on philosophical standards that Cassirer is not willing to share. In terms of the rejection of the universal a priori, this indirectly confirms my reading of Cassirer’s stance. Nonetheless, Husserl criticizes Cassirer exactly for failing to see that all intentionality and intended meaning are shared, something that Cassirer himself does see in his own work. This misunderstanding, thus, is unfortunate, since they were essentially of the same opinion regarding the sharedness of meaning. Phenomenology is thereby essentially a method that combines conceptual analysis of the descriptive findings. In that sense it can be a complement to a philosophy of culture. Both together are then full-fledged transcendental philosophy in the sense described above, where such



 

a philosophical stance would not be “worlds apart” from empirical research. As Cassirer characterizes his method, for a philosophy of culture it does not suffice to demonstrate [culture’s original directions] factically in the appearances, but we must make the latter comprehensible from the unity of a certain “structural form” of spirit. Thus here [in mythical consciousness] too, as in the theory of cognition, the method of critical analysis stands between a metaphysical- deductive and a psychological-inductive method. Everywhere it has to start out from the “given”, from the empirically ascertained and secured facts of cultural consciousness; but it cannot content itself with them as something merely given. It questions back from the reality of the factum to the “conditions of its possibility.” (ECW : )

Insofar as these conditions lie in meaning-giving acts, Cassirer’s account of the structures of spirit as manifested in culture ultimately arrives at phenomenology, understood as a blend of conceptual analysis and descriptive synthesis. d

Cassirer’s Critique of Heidegger’s Language

The dispute between Heidegger and Cassirer has been discussed in great detail. Since essentially everything has been said with respect to their substantial disagreements, I want to focus, instead, on Cassirer’s critique of the style of Heidegger’s language. The critique is, once again, a performative act of rejecting the excesses of jargon. This discussion is less contentoriented, but if convincing, it would indirectly but additionally argue for the fact that an existential philosophy of such style is really no philosophy at all. Part of Cassirer’s critique of Heidegger is the idiosyncrasy of Heidegger’s language. It highlights the idea that good philosophy has to make the effort to make itself understood. This should be more than a trivial point, when one applies this critique to Heidegger. Language in essence has to express something that is general in the sense that what is expressed is a common meaning. There is no private meaning, just as there is no private language. It is thus in strict antithesis to Heidegger’s statement of circa , according to which “the attempt at making itself comprehensible is the suicide of philosophy.” This perhaps somewhat unhinged remark from Heidegger’s Nachlass is indicative, as Cassirer sensed a decade earlier, for his philosophical stance. The obscurity of Heidegger’s language is a deliberate attempt to depart from the idea that human discourse is about the transmission of common meaning.  

For a full-fledged (though mainly historical) account, cf. Gordon . Heidegger (: ).

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape



Since all utterances (not just those in science and philosophy) take place in language, thereby sharing meaning, it is fitting that Cassirer would focus on Heidegger’s use of language. Heidegger’s attempt is, arguably, to find a language that is able to express the individuality of one’s existence, without losing this individuality through language expressing generality. Heidegger’s critique of traditional philosophical language is of a piece with his critique of a theoretical, abstracted stance that would enable such judgments. Beginning with Heidegger’s analysis of artifacts, which, as ready to hand, are primary in our usage of them, whereas their theoretical investigation is a mere “staring” (Begaffen) at them, Cassirer asks, “Is this ‘theoretical’ stance really a mere ‘staring at things’ or is it not rather an observing, i.e., not a mere grasping of thingly present to hand things, but a determining towards ‘objectivity’, a determining to present-to-handness?” (ECN : ). Thus, even this mere theoretical gaze is a move toward objectivity, which cannot be avoided. And precisely this determining toward objectivity, toward something shared (and meaningful only because it is shared) occurs through language. As Cassirer approvingly cites Goethe (a great phenomenologist avant la lettre): “Mere intuition [Anblicken] of a thing cannot further us. It must be transformed into observing, reflecting [Sinnen], connecting”. . . . And so one can say that we already theorize with every attentive view into the world. But this should be done with explicit awareness, with self-consciousness, with freedom, and to use a daring word, with irony, a stepping back against the immediacy of the appearing world. (ECN : f.)

He later continues: Here the decisive achievement of the second symbolic form sets in: this step is accomplished by language. It sets the human being apart from the merely pragmatic relation to his environment and enables a new, theoretical relation to this environment. (ECN : ).

However, this generality of shared meaning is for Heidegger a “fallenness”, a deliberate disregard of the “authentic” being, being given over to inauthenticity, to the “they”. Here in essence our path departs from his. . . . We grasp the general not as a mere “they”, but as objective spirit and objective culture. Such an “objectivity” is unattainable to 



The main topics that Cassirer discusses in the Davos talk (not the dispute with Heidegger) are space, language, and death. I am focusing exclusively on Cassirer’s discussion of the problem in language in Heidegger, which is indicative of his “existential” stance. One could call this the “Natorp problem,” as already discussed in the previous section. Heidegger, too, dealt critically with Natorp’s psychology in his early lectures.



  spirit in Heidegger; even the Logos, language is to him a merely social phenomenon, which, as such . . . no longer has any objective content; “talk” is not grasped as logos, as rational content, but it succumbs to mere “talking-about”, superficial “idle talk”. Giving oneself over to the world of the “general” here, too, counts as a mere looking away from oneself, as a sort of “original sin”. (ECN : , from )

Indeed, as Cassirer maintains contra Heidegger, language is the primal medium in which the commonality of the world becomes manifest. In the words of the Davos dispute: Each of us speaks his own language . . . and yet we understand ourselves through the medium of language. Hence, there is something like the language. And hence there is something like a unity which is higher than the infinitude of the various ways of speaking. . . . This is what I would like to call the world of the objective spirit. . . . There is no other way from Dasein to Dasein than through this world of [symbolic] form.

These passages show that this specific critique of Heidegger is consistent with Cassirer’s overall critique of Heidegger, namely that he (also in the problems of space, time, and death) is an existentialist, if this is to be defined as a philosophical stance that focuses on the individual, making any attempt at the attainment of generality “sinful” and “fallen” (as Heidegger deliberately uses Lutheran terminology). The quest to express the individual’s authenticity gives Heidegger license to use willfully obscure language that is “esoteric” instead of exoteric the moment it is uttered. The very manner in which Heidegger uses jargon is thus an expression of his “philosophical” stance. But with Cassirer, one must say, the attempt at an esoteric speaking is a performative contradiction. It is perhaps consistent then that Heidegger a decade later advocates a discipline of “silencing” (Sigetik, from Greek sigân, to remain silent, schweigen). To bring this discussion to the present, it is perhaps not too far-fetched to call Heidegger an early proponent of identity politics as the deliberate refusal to make one’s individual, personal experience amenable to the core of common humanity we have simply by virtue of speaking and making ourselves understood. One can object to this that an appeal to a common humanity does not require the positing of a timeless essence of humanity. Contrariwise, Cassirer’s philosophy of objective spirit insists that any description of experience and culture must start from the individual but connect it to common experience and common language, thus expressing 

Heidegger (: ).

Cassirer’s Place in Today’s Philosophical Landscape



a common humanity. This does not render humanity a Platonic form: It, too, is to be construed as a historically changing a priori notion that does not fall from the heavens, but is something we achieve and are called upon to mutually defend as a “self-reflection of reason.” This may be a lofty ideal, but it is an ideal that everybody tacitly assents to when appealing to reason when justifying what they do. Any willful departure from this common humanity is thereby the departure from any meaningful sense of philosophy and science as forms (apart from all other forms of culture) in which we are social creatures. The Heideggerian usage of jargon leads to an existential interpretation of philosophy, in which the very idea of philosophy is jettisoned. This is not to say that Cassirer was an adherent of “traditional” philosophy in the sense in which Heidegger talks about “Western metaphysics.” There is no such thing, to Cassirer, because that would be a throwback to a substance ontology, which Cassirer has devoted his life’s work to overcome. He thereby does not want to “overcome metaphysics” but wants to continue with the discourse of modernity that is far from finished. It was interrupted during World War II, has dragged on during the Cold War, and continues to be under attack in various guises. If there is an ethos to Cassirer’s philosophy, it is that the discourse of Modernity ought to be continued, including a discourse over what the very idea of Modernity consists in. There could be nothing more timely in today’s “post-truth” world.

IV The Interdependence of Transcendental Idealism and Cultural Pluralism By way of conclusion, I want to finally highlight what I consider the most important trait of Cassirer’s philosophy, trying to boil down his philosophical stance to one essential point that I call the interdependence of transcendental idealism and cultural pluralism. This is nothing but an essential summary of the way I reconstructed Cassirer’s philosophy above. I take transcendental idealism to mean the rejection of any claims to an absolute being and instead an insistence that the world is what it is insofar as we experience and, more importantly, shape it in a historical development. For Cassirer, an essential element of this shaping is that it is differentiated, expressing itself in different transcendental forms with 

Not every use of jargon leads to this conclusion, for sure. I have chosen Cassirer’s critique of Heidegger because it leads to a particularly nefarious result, since the use of jargon is part and parcel of Heidegger’s philosophical-ideological intentions.



 

essential internal traits. As such, transcendental idealism and cultural pluralism are aspects of the same structure. Cassirer expresses this nicely when he says that the “absolute” and “being”, insofar as it is at all graspable for us, dissolves for us into the primal phenomenon of life. The highest we can grasp, is life – the rotating movement of the monas around itself. This movement concentrates itself in the creation of ever new shaping and in the destruction of these shapes. . . . And to this primal phenomenon of creation and metamorphosis of shaping corresponds the basic phenomenon of the symbolic function. . . . Every function grasps this process within the movement peculiar to it, within its peculiar forming and its modification. And the totality of this specific function is the only way in which we can arrive at grasping the totality of this “primal process”. (ECN: ).

Since there is a fundamental continuity between life, culture, and the understanding of both as articulated in science and philosophy (which themselves are continuous), any account of cultural forms is in need of empirical fodder provided by sciences, which in turn supervene on prescientific experience in the lifeworld as a world that is “always already” acculturated. Any progress in scientific and philosophical discourse is never-ending, but brings forth new theories, new concepts, and new questions. To spell out the larger picture here, keeping this discourse alive is the ethos of a thinking dedicated to the ideals of tolerance, freedom, and peaceful negotiation. That these ideals were first discovered and formulated in the West (first in Antiquity, then restated in Modernity) is a historically as well as geographically contingent fact, including all the regrettable things that occurred alongside it in the (perhaps unavoidable) “dialectics of the Enlightenment.” That means that they are also not limited to the West. In Cassirer’s spirit, I am not propagating a Platonic, universal, and timeless ideal of Culture when I emphasize this commonality of spirit but rather a historic and dynamic a priori that constantly evolves, pro- or regresses, and is forever subject to critique, correction, modification, and even radical change. Yet overturning it, puncturing it with holes, and sinking it leads to disaster. Cassirer witnessed one disaster before his eyes during World War II. It will be up to future generations to avoid other, no doubt, bigger ones.



“Spirit, ‘being-for-itself’ does not come about in mere life, but in the form that life gives itself, and this ‘form’ does not disclose itself in merely vegetative-biological existence, but in the free deed, that is, in the creation of the symbolic forms.” (ECN : ).

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

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Eyths und Max Maria von Webers. (PhD Dissertation Universität zu Mu¨nster). Truwant, Simon. –. “Cassirer’s Enlightened View on the Hierarchy of the Symbolic Forms and the Task of Philosophy.” In Cassirer Studies VII-VII: An der Schwelle einer neuen geistigen Welt, –. a. “The Concept of ‘Function’ in Cassirer’s Historical, Systematic, and Ethical Writings.” In The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer: A Novel Assessment, ed. by Tyler Friedman and Sebastian Luft. Berlin: de Gruyter, –. b. “Cassirer's Functional Conception of the Human Being.” Idealistic Studies : –. Ullrich, Sebastian. . “Der Status der ‘philosophischen Erkenntnis’ in Ernst Cassirers ‘Metaphysik des Symbolischen’.” In Philosophie der Kultur – Kultur des Philosophierens: Ernst Cassirer im . und . Jahrhundert, ed. by Birgit Recki. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, –. Usener, Hermann. . Götternamen: Versucheiner Lehre von der Religiösen Begriffsbildung. Bonn: Verlag von Friedrich Cohen. Verene, Donald Phillip. . The Origins of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Kant, Hegel, and Cassirer. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. von Ehrenfels, Christian. . “On ‘Gestalt Qualities’.” In Foundations of Gestalt Theory, ed. by Barry Smith. Munich: Philosophia, –. von Neumann, John. . “Mathematische Begru¨ndung der Quantenmechanik.” In: Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, –. Weyl, Hermann. . Gruppentheorie und Quantenmechanik. Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel. Wolff, Walter. . Technik und Dichtung: ein Überblick u¨ber hundert jahre deutschen Schrifttums, Leipzig: Olderburg Verlag. Willard, Dallas. . “Husserl’s Critique of Extensional Logic: A Logic That Does Not Understand Itself.” Idealistic Studies : –. Zimmermann, Felix. . Die Widerspiegelung der Technik in der deutschen Dichtung von Goethe bis zur Gegenwart. Leipzig: Ulrich.

Index

abstraction, , , , , , , , –, , ,  aesthetics, , , , , , ,  Agamben, – Anders, , ,  animal symbolicum, , ,  anthropology, , , , –, , , ,  Aristotle, , , ,  art, , –, –, , –, –, , , –, –, –, –, , , –, –, , , , –, , , , , –, –, , , , , , ,  Bergson, , ,  Berkeley, , , ,  Bohr, –, –,  Brentano, , ,  Carnap, , ,  cognition, , , , –, , , , , –, , –, , , , –, , ,  Cohen, –, , , , – consciousness, –, –, , –, –, –, , –, , –, –, –, , , , , –, , –, , –, , , , , , , , –, , , –, –, –, –, –, , – functions of consciousness,  crisis, , , , , , – intellectual crisis, , –, , –, ,  political crisis, , , , – culture, –, , , –, , –, –, –, –, , , , , , , , –, , , –, , , –, –, –, , –, , , , , –, –, , , –, –, 

Davos, , , , , , – Descartes, –,  Dirac, , –, –,  Duhem,  Einstein, –, –, , , , ,  Enlightenment, , , , , , –,  epistemology, , , –, , , , ,  ethics, ,  expression, , , , , –, , –, , –, , –, , –, , , , –, –, , –, , , , , –, , , –, , , , , , , , –, , , ,  Feuerbach,  form, , –, , , –, –, , , , –, , , , , , –, , , , , , , , –, , , , ,  freedom, , , –, , –, , , , –, , , , , , , ,  Frege, –, , ,  Friedman, , , , , – function, , , –, –, –, –, –, –, , , , , –, , , , –, , –, , , –, , –, –, , –, , , , –, , , , , –,  Galileo, , , –, ,  Gehlen,  geometry, ,  Gestalt, , , , –, , , , ,  Goethe, , , , , , , –, , , , , –, , ,  Goodman, 





Index

Habermas, ,  Hegel, , , –, , , , , , , , , , , ,  Heidegger, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , –, , , – history, , –, , –, –, –, , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , –, ,  Husserl, , –, , , , , , , , –, , – idealism, , , , , , , , – transcendental idealism, , ,  intensionality, , ,  Kant, , –, , , , , , , , , –, , –, –, , , –, , –, , , , , , , , , , , –, –, –, , , , –, ,  Klages, ,  knowledge, –, , , , , , , , –, , –, –, –, –, , –, –, , –, –, , –, , , , –, –, –, –, , –, –, –, , , – self-knowledge, , , –,  Krois, , –, , , –, , , , ,  language, –, –, –, , , , –, –, –, –, , , , –, , , –, , –, –, –, –, , , , –, , , , –, , , –, , , , , , – Leibniz, , , , –, , , ,  magic, , , , , , –, , –, –, –, –, – Marburg, , , –, , , , –, –, – mathematics, –, , –, , , –, , –, –, –, –, –, –, –, , , , , –, , –, ,  meaning, –, , , –, –, , –, , , , , –, –, –, , , –, –, , , –, , –, , –, –, , , , –, –, –, , –,  metaphysics, , , , , , –, , , , , , , , 

method, , , , , , , –, , –, , –, , , , ,  Mill, ,  mind, , , , , , , , , –, , –, , , , –, , –, –, , , ,  modernity, , –, , , –, – myth, –, –, –, –, , , , , , –, , , –, , , –, , –, , , –, –, , –, , , , , , –, ,  political myth, –, –,  Natorp, , –, –, , , , , ,  nature, , , , , , , –, –, , –, –, , , , –, , , , , , –, , , , –, –, –, , , , – Neo-Kantianism, , , , –, , –, ,  normativity, , ,  object, , –, –, , , –, , , , , , , , , –, , , –, , , , , –, –, –, , , –, , , , , –, –, , , –,  objective, –, , , , , , –, –, –, , , –, , , , , , , –, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , –, , , –, , –, –, , – objectivity, –, , , , , , , –, –, , , , , ,  orientation, , , , , , , , , , –,  perception, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , –, , –, , –, –, –, –, –, –,  perspective, , , , , , , –, , –, –, , , , , , , –, , , , , ,  phenomenology, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , –, – philosophy, , , , , –, –, –, –, – critical philosophy, , , , , , 

Index history of philosophy, , –, , , , – philosophy of culture, , , , , , , , , –, , –, –, , , , ,  philosophy of history, –, ,  philosophy of mind, , , –,  philosophy of science, , ,  Renaissance philosophy, , , – transcendental philosophy, , – Plato, , , , , , , , , –, , , , , – pluralism, , – post-truth, , , , –,  progress, –, , –, , , , , , –, , –, , , , , –, –, –, , ,  psychology, , , , , –, –, , , , –, , –, , ,  quantum mechanics, , , , –, –,  rationality, , –,  reason, –, , , , , –, –, , –, , , , , –, –, , , , –, –,  religion, , , , –, , –, –, , , , –, , , , , , , , –, , , , –, , ,  representation, , , –, –, , , , , , –, –, , , –, , , –, , –, –, , –, –, –, , ,  Rorty, –,  Russell, , , –, –, ,  Schelling, –,  Schrödinger, , , ,  science, –, –, , , –, , , –, –, , –, , , , –, –, –, –, , –, , –, –, , , , , , –, , , , , –, , –, –, , –



sensation, , , , –, , , , –, – sign, , , –, , –, , –, –, , , , , –, , , –, , –, –, –, , –, , – Spengler, –, , , ,  spontaneity, , , – Steiner,  subject, , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, , –, –,  subjective, , , , , , –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, ,  subjectivity, , , ,  substance, , , , –, , , , , , ,  symbol, , , , –, , , , , , , – symbolic pregnance, , , , , , , ,  synthesis, , , , , , , , , , –, –, , , ,  synthetic philosophy,  technology, , , , , –, –, –, , ,  teleology, –, , , – transcendental philosophy,  unity, –, , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, , , –, , , , , –, , –, –, , , , , ,  viewpoint, , , , , , , , , , , , ,  von Humboldt, , , , , , ,  Warburg, , –, , , 