Symbol, Myth, and Culture: Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer, 1935-1945

by Ernst Cassirer, Donald Phillip Verene (Editor)

The papers in this volume of Ernst Cassirer’s unpublished works give insight into the major issues that engaged Cassirer’s interest between 1935 and 1945. The book begins with his inaugural address at the University of Göteborg, Sweden, in the first years of his exile from Hitler’s Germany, and ends with a talk to the Columbia Philosophy Club. The note that introduces this piece was written on the day of his death.
In his long and productive career, Ernst Cassirer always tried to integrate his works of original philosophy and studies in intellectual history into a general understanding of the nature of myth, culture, and symbol. These essays show that his interest persisted to the end. His piece on Judaism and political myths is perhaps the most dramatic in this collection, as it blends philosophical coolness with his deeply felt outrage at fascism.
Best known in this country for The Myth of the State , The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms , and An Essay on Man , Ernst Cassirer has been read and studied by generations of students. In this book they will find illuminations, in a more informal voice, of the major themes in Cassirer’s work. New readers will be introduced to the great issues that occupied the interest of one of the twentieth century’s most widely read philosophers.
“A genuine contribution to the history of modern philosophy – and of special value to the informed general reader, since it includes a number of valid attempts by Cassirer to translate his radical, sometimes difficult, concepts of culture into non-technical terms.”-- The Booklist

Genres: Philosophy, Essays

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Ernst Cassirer was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism in the first half of the twentieth century, a German Jewish philosopher. Coming out of the Marburg tradition of neo-Kantianism, he developed a philosophy of culture as a theory of symbols founded in a phenomenology of knowledge.

Reviews

[Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

As this is a posthumous collection of unpublished papers, the editor acknowledges there is some repetition in the wording. I didn't find an obvious, coherent argument, but a couple themes drew my attention. Cassirer, a German philosopher writing during the rise of Nazism, mentions the strength of political myths that galvanize people beyond the ordinary motivations of their material challenges. He says it is important to acknowledge the power of these myths because it enables understanding one's enemy. Separately, he critiques the "aesthetic hedonism" that he sees in the theory of Benedetto Croce along with Croce's claim that all language is lyrical, as Cassirer insists that not all forms of expression are artistic and that art generally must do certain things to earn the name of art (it must have specific kinds of aesthetic value, it is usually driven by strong emotion, and it must aim to improve our character).

[David Radavich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ernst Cassirer has become one of my favorite philosophers. I love his basic sanity and his deep understanding of symbolic forms, which humans continue to create and embody. The arts, language, politics, and ethics are not closed systems but keep growing as we wrestle with new realities that grow out of concerns of the past. I have read this book through twice, and I'm sure I will read it again.