Ernst Cassirer
Encyclopedia
Ernst Cassirer was a German
philosopher. He was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism
in the first half of the 20th century. Influenced by Hermann Cohen
and rooted in the Marburg tradition of Neo-Kantianism
, Cassirer developed a philosophy of culture as a theory of symbols founded on a phenomenology of knowledge.
, into a Jewish family. He studied literature and philosophy at the University of Berlin. After long years as Privatdozent
at the Friedrich Wilhelm University
in Berlin
(Cassirer turned down the offer of a visiting professorship at Harvard which he and his wife considered obscure and remote), he was elected to a chair of Philosophy
at the newly-founded University of Hamburg
in 1919, where he lectured until 1933, and supervised the doctoral thesis of Leo Strauss
, among others. Because he was Jewish, Cassirer was forced to leave Germany when the Nazi
s came to power.
After leaving Germany he found first refuge as a lecturer in Oxford
1933–1935; he was then professor at Gothenburg University
1935–1941. When Cassirer—who considered Sweden too unsafe by then—tried to go to the United States and specifically to Harvard; the university turned him down because he had turned Harvard down thirty years earlier. Thus, he first had to work as a visiting professor at Yale University
, New Haven 1941–1943, and then moved to Columbia University
in New York City
, where he lectured from 1943 until his death in 1945. As he had been naturalized in Sweden
, he died a Swedish citizen.
His son, Heinz Cassirer
, was also a Kantian scholar.
(1880–1936). Instead of being apolitical, Cassirer applauded the rise of the Weimar Republic
, while Spengler criticized parliamentary and constitutional rule, as well as individual rights, as un-German. Spengler never became a university academic, but his Decline of the West (1918) was a best-seller. Spengler saw technology as a means to transform Western society into a unified collective, while Cassirer was suspicious of technology's ability to exalt the group over the individual. Spengler saw civilization as the decline of culture, according to the physical law of entropy, while Cassirer disagreed with the application of physics to philosophy. Though both thinkers were inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
's concept of the symbol, Spengler wrote about cultural souls that can only be observed, not created, while Cassirer saw symbols as being created by individuals. After the rise of Nazism, Cassirer became more committed to changing society and more political. Although Spengler himself opposed the Nazis, Cassirer saw Spengler's anti-liberal philosophy as contributing to Nazi goals.
and civil rights
. Mazlish (2000) argues that in Die Philosophie der Aufklärung (The Philosophy of the Enlightenment) (1932) Cassirer approached his subject as an idealist, interested only in the analysis of ideas and their influence, without regard to the intellectual, political, or social context in which they were produced. Nevertheless, his interest in the use of symbols and the possibility of new techniques for the transmission of ideas links him to contemporary cultural studies.
to dominate postwar Continental philosophy.
, addressed the subject of scientific epistemology. Cassirer found that Einstein's theory gave overwhelming support to his neo-Kantian conception of knowledge which rejected the fixed and embraced the evolutionary development of ideational structures. Moritz Schlick
responded (foreshadowing logical empiricism) with a review of Cassirer's book in which he argued that the general theory of relativity in fact refutes Kantian thought in all its permutations. But Cassirer soon extended his thoughts on Einstein's theory to a more general relativity of "symbolic form": aesthetic, ethical, religious, and scientific. He spent the rest of his career elaborating his ideas regarding symbolic forms.
of philosophy. His major work, Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (3 vols., 1923–1929) is considered a benchmark for a philosophy of culture. Man, says Cassirer later in his more popular Essay on Man (1944), is a "symbolic animal". Whereas animals perceive their world by instinct
s and direct sensory perception, man has created his own universe of symbol
ic meaning that structures and shapes his perception
of reality
- and only thus, for instance, can conceive of utopia
s and therefore progress in the form of shared human culture. In this, Cassirer owes much to Kant
's transcendental idealism
. For Cassirer, the human world is created through symbolic forms of thought which are linguistic, scholarly, scientific, and artistic, sharing and extending through communication, individual understanding, discovery and expression.
, Dante
, Machiavelli, Gobineau, Carlyle
and Hegel. He concludes that the Fascist regimes of the 20th century were symbolised by a myth of destiny and the promotion of irrationality
.
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
philosopher. He was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
in the first half of the 20th century. Influenced by Hermann Cohen
Hermann Cohen
Hermann Cohen was a German-Jewish philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".-Life:...
and rooted in the Marburg tradition of Neo-Kantianism
Neo-Kantianism
Neo-Kantianism refers broadly to a revived type of philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, or more specifically by Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy in his work The World as Will and Representation , as well as by other post-Kantian...
, Cassirer developed a philosophy of culture as a theory of symbols founded on a phenomenology of knowledge.
Biography
Cassirer was born in Breslau (Wrocław), SilesiaSilesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
, into a Jewish family. He studied literature and philosophy at the University of Berlin. After long years as Privatdozent
Privatdozent
Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...
at the Friedrich Wilhelm University
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
(Cassirer turned down the offer of a visiting professorship at Harvard which he and his wife considered obscure and remote), he was elected to a chair of Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at the newly-founded University of Hamburg
University of Hamburg
The University of Hamburg is a university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by Wilhelm Stern and others. It grew out of the previous Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen and the Kolonialinstitut as well as the Akademisches Gymnasium. There are around 38,000 students as of the start of...
in 1919, where he lectured until 1933, and supervised the doctoral thesis of Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss was a political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States...
, among others. Because he was Jewish, Cassirer was forced to leave Germany when the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
s came to power.
After leaving Germany he found first refuge as a lecturer in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
1933–1935; he was then professor at Gothenburg University
Gothenburg University
The University of Gothenburg is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg.- Character :The University of Gothenburg is the third-oldest Swedish university, and with 24,900 full-time students it is also among the largest universities in the Nordic countries...
1935–1941. When Cassirer—who considered Sweden too unsafe by then—tried to go to the United States and specifically to Harvard; the university turned him down because he had turned Harvard down thirty years earlier. Thus, he first had to work as a visiting professor at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, New Haven 1941–1943, and then moved to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he lectured from 1943 until his death in 1945. As he had been naturalized in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, he died a Swedish citizen.
His son, Heinz Cassirer
Heinz Cassirer
Dr. Heinz W. Cassirer was a Kantian philosopher, the son of a famous German philosopher, Ernst Cassirer. Being Jews, the Cassirer family fled the Nazis in the 1930s. Heinz went to University of Glasgow working with Professor H. J. Paton, who persuaded him to write a book on Kant's third...
, was also a Kantian scholar.
Spengler
Cassirer opposed the Prussian nationalism of Oswald SpenglerOswald Spengler
Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West , published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations...
(1880–1936). Instead of being apolitical, Cassirer applauded the rise of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, while Spengler criticized parliamentary and constitutional rule, as well as individual rights, as un-German. Spengler never became a university academic, but his Decline of the West (1918) was a best-seller. Spengler saw technology as a means to transform Western society into a unified collective, while Cassirer was suspicious of technology's ability to exalt the group over the individual. Spengler saw civilization as the decline of culture, according to the physical law of entropy, while Cassirer disagreed with the application of physics to philosophy. Though both thinkers were inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
's concept of the symbol, Spengler wrote about cultural souls that can only be observed, not created, while Cassirer saw symbols as being created by individuals. After the rise of Nazism, Cassirer became more committed to changing society and more political. Although Spengler himself opposed the Nazis, Cassirer saw Spengler's anti-liberal philosophy as contributing to Nazi goals.
Enlightenment
Cassirer was a defender of the notion that reason's self-realization leads to liberation and humanHuman rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
and civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
. Mazlish (2000) argues that in Die Philosophie der Aufklärung (The Philosophy of the Enlightenment) (1932) Cassirer approached his subject as an idealist, interested only in the analysis of ideas and their influence, without regard to the intellectual, political, or social context in which they were produced. Nevertheless, his interest in the use of symbols and the possibility of new techniques for the transmission of ideas links him to contemporary cultural studies.
Heidegger
When Cassirer left Germany in 1933, he left his antagonist Martin HeideggerMartin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
to dominate postwar Continental philosophy.
Works
In 1921 Cassirer, stimulated by Einstein's general theory of relativityGeneral relativity
General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...
, addressed the subject of scientific epistemology. Cassirer found that Einstein's theory gave overwhelming support to his neo-Kantian conception of knowledge which rejected the fixed and embraced the evolutionary development of ideational structures. Moritz Schlick
Moritz Schlick
Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.-Early life and works:...
responded (foreshadowing logical empiricism) with a review of Cassirer's book in which he argued that the general theory of relativity in fact refutes Kantian thought in all its permutations. But Cassirer soon extended his thoughts on Einstein's theory to a more general relativity of "symbolic form": aesthetic, ethical, religious, and scientific. He spent the rest of his career elaborating his ideas regarding symbolic forms.
Philosophy of Symbolic Forms
Cassirer was both a genuine philosopher and an historianHistorian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
of philosophy. His major work, Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (3 vols., 1923–1929) is considered a benchmark for a philosophy of culture. Man, says Cassirer later in his more popular Essay on Man (1944), is a "symbolic animal". Whereas animals perceive their world by instinct
Instinct
Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern, in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a...
s and direct sensory perception, man has created his own universe of symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ic meaning that structures and shapes his perception
Perception
Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...
of reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
- and only thus, for instance, can conceive of utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
s and therefore progress in the form of shared human culture. In this, Cassirer owes much to Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
's transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things is similar to the way they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that...
. For Cassirer, the human world is created through symbolic forms of thought which are linguistic, scholarly, scientific, and artistic, sharing and extending through communication, individual understanding, discovery and expression.
The Myth of the State
Cassirer's last major work was The Myth of the State. The book was published posthumously in 1946 after Cassirer's sudden death. Cassirer argues that the idea of a totalitarian state evolved from ideas advanced by PlatoPlato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
, Machiavelli, Gobineau, Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
and Hegel. He concludes that the Fascist regimes of the 20th century were symbolised by a myth of destiny and the promotion of irrationality
Irrationality
Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking or acting without inclusion of rationality. It is more specifically described as an action or opinion given through inadequate reasoning, emotional distress, or cognitive deficiency...
.
Partial bibliography
- Substance and Function (1910), English translation 1923 (at archive.org)
- Kant's Life and Thought (1918), English translation 1981
- Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923–29), English translation 1953–1957
- Language and Myth (1925), English translation (1946) by Susanne K. Langer
- Philosophy of the Enlightenment (1932), English translation 1951
- The Logic of the Cultural Sciences (1942), English translation 2000 by S.G. Lofts (previously translated in 1961 as The Logic of the Humanities)
- An Essay on Man (written and published in English) (1944)
- The Myth of the State (written and published in English) (posthumous) (1946)
- The Problem of Knowledge: Philosophy, Science, and History since Hegel (1950) online edition
- Symbol, Myth, and Culture: Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer, 1935-1945 ed. by Donald Phillip Verene (1981)
See also
- Aby WarburgAby WarburgAbraham Moritz Warburg, known as Aby Warburg, was a German art historian and cultural theorist who founded a private Library for Cultural Studies, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, later Warburg Institute...
Further reading
- Barash, Jeffrey Andrew. The Symbolic Construction of Reality: The Legacy of Ernst Cassirer (2008) excerpt and text search
- Friedman, Michael. A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger (2000) excerpt and text search
- Gordon, Peter Eli. Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos (2010)
- Krois, John Michael. Cassirer: Symbolic Forms and History (1987)
- Schultz, William. Cassirer & Langer on Myth (2nd ed. 2000) excerpt and text search
- Skidelsky, Edward. Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture (Princeton University Press, 2008) 288 pp. ISBN 978-0-691-13134-4. excerpt and text search