Open Sesame! The Magical Words of the World of Meaning of Human Beings: Dialectical Harmony of the Symbolical Forms

Abstract

Ernst Cassirer made an original contribution to twentieth century philosophy with his genuine series of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Cassirer evaluates the various moments of culture from an integral perspective in this multi-faceted study that covers the symbolic dimension of human communication and interaction with the world. Cassirer's contribution to the philosophical agenda was reinforced by the works An Essay on Man and The Myth of the State, published posthumously. These latter works, however, go beyond mere repetition and summary of Cassirer's thought. Particularly, The Myth of the State is important to confront a problem left open by Cassirer's integral philosophy of culture; the return of myth that consolidates contemporary political thought and action. Cassirer defines culture as the progressive process of human emancipation; analyzes the elements of culture in dialectical harmony, without reducing one to the other. It is doubtful that a metaphysics of culture will eliminate existing problems, but a philosophical framework that will offer an integral view of culture is still a current need. Although Cassirer presents such a framework, it triggers a series of questions waiting to be resolved within itself. In this study, first, the aspects of Cassirer's philosophy of culture that give the opportunity to comprehend the various dimensions of the human beings’ world of meaning will be discussed in detail. Then, it will be tried to describe the depth and limit of the original cultural analysis revealed by this systematic approach to update itself in the face of a historical problem. Within the first half of the twentieth century, totalitarianism, as an experience that completely shook the world of meaning of the West, documented the violence and destruction of the culture's transformation into cult. Thus, the challenge concerning Cassirer's assumption of dialectical harmony of symbolic forms that move culture raises the need for a political horizon. Although The Myth of State has tried to present this necessary complementary horizon of interpretation, it is far from the comprehensive dimension offered by the critical philosophical interventions bolstered mainly by Cassirer’s thought.