Ernst Cassirer
Born july 28, 1874 · Died April 131945
From Wrocław, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland · Nationality: Sweden, Nazi Germany, Kingdom of Prussia, Weimar Republic · Writes nonfiction
Ernst Cassirer was a German philosopher. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic philosophy of science; after Cohen's death, he developed a theory of symbolism, and used it to expand phenomenology of knowledge into a more general philosophy of culture. He is one of the leading 20th century advocates of philosophical idealism.
At Hamburg Cassirer discovered the Library of the Cultural Sciences founded by Aby Warburg. Warburg was an art historian who was particularly interested in ritual and myth as sources of surviving forms of emotional expression. In Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (1923–1929) Cassirer argues that man (as he put it in his more popular 1944 book Essay on Man) is a "symbolic animal". Whereas animals perceive their world by instincts and direct sensory perception, humans create a universe of symbolic meanings. Cassirer is particularly interested in natural language and myth. He argues that science and mathematics developed from natural language, and religion and art from myth.
Books by Ernst Cassirer in order
Books by Ernst Cassirer in the order they were published, from Substance and Function, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity (1910) to Essays on Language, Myth, and Art (2008).
- 1Substance and Function, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity
Substance and Function, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity1910 - 2Kant's Life and Thought
Kant's Life and Thought1918 - 3Philosophie Der Symbolischen Formen
Philosophie Der Symbolischen Formen1923 - 4The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy
The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy1927 - 5The Philosophy of the Enlightenment
The Philosophy of the Enlightenment1932 - 6An Essay on Man
An Essay on Man1944 - 7Rousseau, Kant, Goethe
Rousseau, Kant, Goethe1945 - 8Language and Myth
Language and Myth1946 - 9The Myth of the State
The Myth of the State1946 - 10The Renaissance Philosophy of Man
The Renaissance Philosophy of Man1948 - 11The Problem of Knowledge
The Problem of Knowledge1950 - 12The Platonic Renaissance in England
The Platonic Renaissance in England1953 - 13The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau1954 - 14Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics
Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics1956 - 15The Logic of the Humanities
The Logic of the Humanities1961 - 16The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 1: Language
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 1: Language1965 - 17Symbol, Myth, and Culture
Symbol, Myth, and Culture1979What's in it (12)
- The Concept of Philosophy as a Philosophical Problem
- Critical Idealism as a Philosophy of Culture
- Descartes, Leibniz, and Vico
- Hegel's Theory of the State
- The Philosophy of History
- Language and Art I
- Language and Art II
- The Educational Value of Art
- Philosophy and Politics
- Judaism and the Modern Political Myths
- The Technique of Our Modern Political Myths
- Reflections on the Concept of Group and the Theory of Perception
- 18The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 4
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 41996 - 19Essays on Language, Myth, and ArtEssays on Language, Myth, and Art2008
- 20Albert Schweitzer as Critic of Nineteenth-century EthicsAlbert Schweitzer as Critic of Nineteenth-century Ethics