Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms by Bayer Thora Ilin Cassirer Ernst & Donald Phillip Verene

Author:Bayer, Thora Ilin,Cassirer, Ernst & Donald Phillip Verene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2001-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

HOLISTIC KNOWLEDGE

Philosophy, according to Cassirer, seeks an understanding of the whole human universe, that is, holistic knowledge. Such knowledge involves an account of how this is obtainedandhow it compares to other ways of thinking. In Cassirer s view, the general is studied through the particular; the preference for a particular way of thinking yields a narrow, nonholistic account of reality. In this process philosophical relativism is rejectedandantinomies of thought are overcome.

Cassirer says, following Hegel, “The whole is the true” (193; 199). Philosophy aims at understanding the whole of culture, the “human universe or “this universe as a whole (60; 58). Philosophical anthropology depends on study of the symbolic forms because they are specifically human: “The analysis of the particular symbolic forms can help us in the attempt to create a philosophical anthropology. In fact, there is no other means by which to distinguish the specifically human world from the world of natural forms or to uncover what it is” (42; 40). Cassirer’s philosophical anthropology, the study of the whole human universe, necessarily includes the metaphysical investigation of spirit and life as the first principles of culture.

Philosophy attempts to grasp the general. While spirit is en-gagedin symbolic activity, it can also attain the level of philosophical thought and reflectively examine its activity. This examination ignores the singular to attendto the general. Cassirer says, “This dismantling can of course never be understood in an ontological sense, but only in a purely methodological one. It does not involve getting rid of objective, spiritual creations, but only ignoring them in a specific, limitedsense,” and“it expands its own horizon through this review” (54; 52). Knowing the individual symbolic phases and reviewing the links between them allows thought to grasp the horizon of symbolic formation.

This kind of review is a characteristic project of the first three volumes of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. It is not specific languages but the universal features of language that are of interest. Cassirer says, Although philosophical analysis can never claim to grasp completely the special subjectivity that expresses itself in the different languages, still the universal subjectivity of language remains within the scope of its problems.”9 The characteristic features of each of the symbolic forms are taken up in a systematic review.

9. PSF, 1: 285.

With such a review, general knowledge of the human world becomes possible. The fourth volume seeks to go beyondthe findings of the previous volumes, which reviewed only the individual symbolic forms. As mentioned earlier, Cassirer says he is trying to summarize in a systematic review what we found there and to generalize from this summary” (56; 54). Generalizing from the findings of the previous texts of the philosophy of symbolic forms shows what the “’philosophy of symbolic forms’ can provide to the foundation of a philosophical anthropology (55; 53). This anthropology includes the grounding of human experience in the principles of life and spirit.

Cassirer also discusses how the general is grasped by philosophy. Thought develops by attending to the particular, and it sees the whole of culture through the media of particular symbolic forms.

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