Philosophy Of Symbolic Forms Research Articles

Translatio and Remediation: Aby Warburg, Image Migration and Photographic Reproduction

Aby Warburg’s research on the heritage of Antiquity can be seen as an investigation into the hybrid forms through which it has been transmitted to us. This inquiry into Western cultural memory is constructed by a unique oeuvre, at the heart of which is the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg, the physical library Warburg created in Hamburg, which he saw as a medium for new modes of research. The organization of the library aimed to orient scholars to the modalities of the “afterlife” of the representations and gestures associated with pathos that derive from ancient paganism. We also know that Warburg sought to situate his work in the context of a Kulturwissenschaft—a science of culture seen as a “third” position, above the schism between the natural sciences and the humanities—a position whose horizon intersects Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms, Max Weber’s comparative sociology of religion, and the perspectives opened by American anthropology as practiced by Franz Boas. In what follows, my hypothesis is that in Warburg’s work, the concept of Nachleben—the afterlife of ancient modes of representation— arises from a translatio in multiple registers: simultaneously migrations in space, transpositions in media and technique, and textual and figurative translation from one culture to another. The mapping of these transfers presupposes a mechanism of remediation able to make visible the stability and variations of that which, like the “pathos formulae” (Pathosformeln), have been “translated” and thus transmitted. In order to understand the specific role that photographic reproduction plays in this complex, I propose here a case study of the iconography of Saturn as developed by Warburg in a 1913 slide-lecture on the migration of planetary images, and later, in 1926, after the opening of his new library, in his first exhibition of orientalized illustrations from astrology. 1. From Image to Image: transpositio We cannot fully grasp Warburg’s concept of a “posthumous life” of antique representations until we become familiar with the unique organization of his library, and the media mechanisms established therein.

Ist Kreativität ein subjektives oder ein kollektives Phänomen? Über eine ungeklärte Frage in der Non-representational Theory und eine denkbare Antwort der Philosophie der symbolischen Formen

Abstract. The micro-macro-problem of the social sciences is also present in human geographies' discussions of creativity. Creativity could be conceptualized either as a capability of subjects or as emerging from interaction processes. A direct consequence of this theoretical indecision is an inconsistent notion of creativity in Nigel Thrifts' nonrepresentational theory (NRT) that is originally developed to valuate creative praxis. The paper advances a proposal for conceptualizing creativity in NRT by using the philosophy of symbolic forms established by Ernst Cassirer. First, the paper develops a notion of individual creativity that is implied in Cassirers' work on symbolic pregnance and symbolic forms and via Bourdieus' interpretation of Cassirer also in the French sociologists' theory of incorporation. Second, the paper shows two possibilities to include the outlined notion of individual creativity in NRT. Creativity could be linked with NRT by modifying Bourdieus' concept of incorporation as used to establish a notion of nonrepresentational praxis. The second possibility of including creativity is a connection of affect and experience, which leads directly to the emergence of novelty.

Rhetoric's ghost at Davos

This essay takes up a discussion concerning the 1929 debate between the philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger by reading it as an instatiation of an ongoing dilemma within the field of rhetoric. I argue that the Davos meeting may be productively read through the lens of rhetorical theory and that such a reading can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of this event. The essay concludes by making a case for Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms as a normative ground for a rhetorical theory whose central purpose is to construct a decent, cultured, cosmopolitan, critical humanism.

Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms and its impact on the theory of psychopathology.

The philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945) wrote in 1929: 'For what it [the philosophy of symbolic forms] is seeking is not so much common factors in being as common factors in meaning. Hence we must strive to bring the teachings of pathology, which cannot be ignored, into the more universal context of the philosophy of culture' (Cassirer, 1955: 275). This statement summarizes his approach in shifting the focus on psychopathological theory from the brain and its localizations to the living interaction between the self and his/her social environment. The present article looks at the impact of symbol theory on psychopathology - pre- and post-Cassirer's main oeuvre Philosophie der symbolischen Formen - and whether his concept still has a role to play in an ontology of psychopathology.

Managing individuality: myths versus art

The purpose of this article is to establish the symbolic forms that are presently used in selected mainstream management models and to assess whether the connection between leadership and individual human reality would be improved if the management models were fundamentally inspired by those used by a successful manager and artist.The theoretical starting point of this article is Cassirer’s (Cassirer 1999) philosophy of symbolic forms. A symbolic form is “a way of having a life world” (own translation) (Cassirer 1999). In a symbolic form, a person discovers and unfolds an ability to build his own universe as an ideal universe which enables the person to “understand and interpret, to articulate and organize, synthesize and universalize his human experience” (Cassirer 1962: 221). Symbolic forms such as art, science, myth and religion thus have common features and structures in their basic function of creating common human existence. When the symbolic form is science, ideals of objectivity and precision in the description of phenomena and their relations dominate man’s formation of his universe. In art, man unfolds an ability to be subjective and create empathetic insight into matters and their diversity (Cassirer 1962). Where science as symbolic form conceptualizes objects, art teaches us empathetic insight. The symbolic forms of art and science perceive a phenomenon differently. For example, science will perhaps see a constellation as a trigonometric function, whereas it may be considered by art as a “Hogarthian shape of beauty” (own translation) (Cassirer 1999: 62). Like the symbolic form of art, the symbolic form of myth builds on emotional sympathy, but differs by believing in the existence of the constellation. It is used to create a natural or magical unity of life. Monotheistic religions also include ideas of striving for a sense of unity, but here the idea is to achieve a universal, ethical sense of unity in an individualized society. Thus the symbolic form of religion helps the individual to choose between right and wrong.With this in mind, we examine the use of symbolic forms embedded in selected mainstream management models. Subsequently, we study the symbolic forms embedded in the management discourse as the concept is unfolded by the successful Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Opera, Kasper Holten, when he talks about management, with a view to determining the extent to which this practice differs from the symbolic forms embedded in the mainstream management models. The analysis shows that mainstream management models are primarily rooted in the symbolic form of science, although they tend to gradually include the symbolic form of religion or the symbolic form of myth. Generally speaking, the mainstream management models tend to exercise power over the individual’s emphatic insight and autonomous reflection and thereby constrain the scope for human creativity and individuality. Distinctively, Kasper Holten’s management discourse integrates the symbolic forms of art and science. With art as the dominant symbolic form, Kasper rejects new public management’s perception about opera and the management of art while at the same time – through discourses that bind to the individuality of the network of players – forming personal and social identities which come together to realize a world of existential ideas about operas in general as well as opera in particular.The article is relevant because it provides insight into the ways in which management models, through the use of myth and science as symbolic forms, exercise influence on human existence and interaction and thereby influence the scope for human freedom and exercise of power and also because it provides insight into the features and structures concerning human existence and co-existence from which mainstream management models cut themselves off by not using art as a form of consciousness. The constructive aspect is a parallel outline of features and structures in a new management discourse which are better suited for postmodern society.

Ernst Cassirer, Hannah Arendt, and the twentieth century revival of philosophical anthropology

This essay suggests that Hannah Arendt was influenced by Ernst Cassirer’s revival of the Kantian discourse of philosophical anthropology, an approach which critiqued metaphysical and environmentally determinist theories of human nature and instead interpreted human being in cultural terms as ‘open to the world’. The article suggests that Arendt’s focus on human plurality as the condition of meaning and subject formation may have been influenced by Ernst Cassirer’s dialogical philosophy of symbolic forms. Lastly the essay explores the political implications of Cassirer and Arendt’s anthropology of human culture. Where Cassirer’s cosmopolitan anthropology often refuses a conventional or Eurocentric determination of cultural agency, Arendt tended to trope her conception of a durable ‘human world’ as the antithesis of the primitive and indigenous, the lifeworld of so-called Naturvölker.

Symbolic Form in the Pedagogical Implications of Sociolinguistics

The author with the help of analysis of symbolic forms and sociolinguistics explains the transformation of homo communicans in conscious homo symbolicum. He points out the importance of etymological analysis Cassierer's philosophy of symbolic forms and its effects in the modern understanding of sociolinguistics. It is necessary their correlation relationship for the development of critical-reflective attitude towards the accelerated development of new media...The article provides an overview of pedagogical implications in the analysis of symbols and sociolinguistics in the educational process. Sociolinguistics is analyzed in terms of its impact on the development of media pedagogy in Croatia.

ОТНОШЕНИЕ ТЕОРИИ МИФА Э. КАССИРЕРА К "ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИИ ДУХА" ГЕГЕЛЯ

The article analyses the relation of E. Cassirer’s theory of myth to the «Phenomenology of Spirit» by Hegel. The original basis for the theory of mythic thought by E. Cassirer and his philosophy of symbolic forms is Hegel’s philosophy. Carrying out the historicophilosophical investigation, it’s impossible not to notice a direct connection between Cassirer’s analysis of symbolic forms and Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit – the detailed structure and architectonics of the «Philosophy of Symbolic Forms» reproduces Hegel’s dialectic to the smallest detail. Nevertheless, considerable difference of E.Cassirer’s phenomenology is the application of transcendental method to analyse the individual phenomena of consciousness.

Thinking “difference” differently: Cassirer versus Derrida on symbolic mediation

Cassirer’s approach to symbolic mediation differs in some important ways from currently prevailing approaches to meaning and signification such as semiology and its more recent poststructuralist varieties. Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms offers a theory of symbols that does not amount to a sign theory or semiology. It sketches out, rather, a dynamic and nonrepresentational framework in which an alternative notion of difference takes centre stage. In order to make the original features of Cassirer’s approach stand out, I will compare it with the approach of the perhaps most influential differential thinker of our day, Jacques Derrida. The philosophy of symbolic forms explicitly prefigures a great many of the insights and concerns of poststructuralism. Yet, there are some critical differences. Rather than rejecting the concepts of objectivity, identity, and truth on the premises established by traditional metaphysics, Cassirer chooses to redefine these concepts through a radical conceptual reframing. The result is a doctrine that—in Derridean parlance—neither jumps beyond the oppositions of metaphysics, nor tries to resolve them in a Hegelian synthesis—a doctrine, that is, that even though it appeals to origins, cannot so easily be dismissed as yet another instantiation of the metaphysics of presence.

Mein Leib als »Integral der Erfahrung«?

That Maurice Merleau-Ponty derived important inspirations from Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms for his theory of perception is obviously, yet is has so far hardly been studied systematically. This paper attempts to fill this gap, and develops the thesis that Merleau-Ponty's readings mistook in part the potential in Cassirer's theory of the subject and by no means exhausted it.

Zum Begriff der Wissenschaft bei Cassirer

The concept of sciences holds a central place in the early philosophy of Ernst Cassirer and it provides a conceptual framework even for the philosophy of symbolic forms. This paper identifies Cassirer's concept of sciences as a double barrelled reconstructive approach, which allows to understand not only the constitution of actual scientific semantics but at the same time the transformation of the scientific mode of thought. It is shown, that these principles of transformation are indeed the very form of form, referring to which the transformation of a mode of thought is to be considered as a process of self-determination and self-development, a process that can only be understood re-constructively. It is this reconstructive approach of Marburgian Neokantianism which provides a specific culturalist point of view on the status of sciences and their formal, theoretical and experimental modes of world-making.

Hans Blumenberg's Philosophical Anthropology: After Heidegger and Cassirer

In this paper, I situate Hans Blumenberg historically and conceptually in relation to a subtheme in the famous debate between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer at Davos, Switzerland in 1929. The subtheme concerns Heidegger’s and Cassirer’s divergent attitudes toward philosophical anthropology as it relates to the starting points and goals of philosophy. I then reconstruct Blumenberg’s anthropology, which involves reconceptualizing Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms in relation to Heidegger’s objections to the philosophical anthropology of his day (e.g., Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner, and Arnold Gehlen) as unduly anthropocentric. Blumenberg builds on anthropologist Gehlen’s assumption that human beings are biologically underdetermined and therefore world-open. With this starting point, symbolic forms, such as myth and language, make up a compensatory life-world that supports human existence. Action, or self-assertion, which is necessary given the lack of a seamless fit between human beings and the environment, is thus circumscribed and shaped by the historied, cultural constructs that constitute a life-world. Human beings can thus be characterized as a species that continually renegotiates the shape of its existence through its relation to biological limits on the one hand and cultural constants on the other. Because Blumenberg and philosophical anthropology are relatively unexplored by Anglophone philosophers, and because philosophical anthropology is central to Blumenberg’s methodology generally, this study provides an introduction to both.

10.1023/A:1006017318635

ABSTRACT. Contemporary discussions about sovereignty and European law illustrate the general problem of accounting for the purposiveness of a legal order in a way that avoids the pitfall of foudationalism. This paper contends that the focal point of this problem is the concept of representation. First contrasting Neil MacCormick's critique of sovereignty with its defense in the Maastricht judgment rendered by the German Federal Constitutional Court, it will be argued that neither view adequately grasps the representational logic of power. Drawing on Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms, the paper subsequently develops a relational or functional concept of representation that recognizes the correlation between legitimate power and sovereignty, while avoiding the Court's substantialism. Finally, it discusses how the Euripean Union repeats and innovates on the representation of sovereignty.

Cassirer's “Prototype and Model” of Symbolism: Its Sources and Significance

The ArgumentErnst Cassirer's fundamental conception of symbolism (symbolic pregnance) derives from what may be called a bio-medical model of semiotics, not a linguistic one. He employs both models in his philosophy of symbolic forms, but his notion of the “prototype and model of symbolism” was not derived from linguistics. The sources for his conception of symbolism include the ethnographic and anthropological literature he discovered in Aby Warburg's (1866–1929) Hamburg research library, findings of medical research on aphasia and related conditions, particularly the work of Kurt Goldstein (1878–1965) and the theoretical biology of Jacob von Uexküll (1864–1944). The linguistic model of semiotics regards the bond between the signifier and the signified as purely arbitrary and conventional, but Cassirer traced meaning back to a “natural symbolism” of image-like configurations in bodily feeling and perception. In this way, his doctrine of symbolism assumed a form that undercut the distinction between philosophical Naturalism and Idealism. This helps to explain why in later years Cassirer developed his theory of Basic Phenomena. Cassirer's notion of the “prototype and model of symbolism” illustrates his method of thought, which eschews pure argument in favor of interaction with empirical research.

Archetypes as symbolic forms

In Jung's psychology, archetypes are biologically inherited supra‐individual predispositions of the collective unconscious, and in this paper this controversial theory of archetypes is evaluated in the context of Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms. The main thesis of the author is that with the help of the Cassirerian approach, archetypes can be understood as culturally determined functionary forms organizing and structuring certain aspects of man's cultural activity, namely those predominantly non‐cognitive (for example, emotional, numinous, pathological) mental aspects of human life, which remain more or less unarticulated due to their non‐discursive nature. The revision the author is proposing revolves around the notion that the archetypal theory can be removed from the rather unfruitful discourse on the genetic inheritance of archetypes. When archetypes are seen as symbolic forms, Jung's theory is in a position to make a potentially valuable contribution to hermeneutical and cultural studies, as archetypes function in this new context as active constituents of human experiences, which give these experiences a non‐discursive, symbolic form. Thereby, archetypes can become accessible to historical and cultural analyses, and hermeneutical inquiry into the manifold symbolism of mental (including unconscious) phenomena can be enriched.

Democracy and the Symbolic Constitution of Society

Building on Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms, this paper argues that the continuities and discontinuities characterizing the passage from medieval politics to modern democracy can best be understood by reference to political power's symbolic structure. For the one, political power, whether theocratic or democratic, always mediates an absolute power; as mediation, political power enacts the twofold movement which Cassirer has identified as characteristic of all human symbolization: a distancing of, and approximation to, reality. For the other, democracy institutionalizes a category distinction between meaning and being, making of political unity a functional, rather than substantial, unity.

Ernst Cassirer, Historian of the Will

Ernst Cassirer, Historian of the Will David A. Wisner ‘Tis not Wit merely, but a Temper, which must form a Well-Bred Man. In the same manner, ‘tis not a Head merely, but a Heart and a Resolution which must compleate the real Philosopher. 1 In order to possess the world of culture we must incessantly reconquer it by historical recollection. But recollection does not mean merely the act of reproduction. It is a new intellectual synthesis—a constructive act.... History is not knowledge of external facts or events; it is a form ... an organon of our self-knowledge, an indispensable instrument for building up our human universe. 2 Ernst Cassirer is probably best known to historians of ideas for his work on the problem of knowledge, which began with a neo-Kantian historical analysis of epistemological questions and culminated in the philosophy of symbolic forms. As he himself always admitted, even in his last public writings, this focus on epistemology was the foundation of his philosophical interests. Yet by the last two decades of his life he had in true Socratic fashion endowed his investigations with heightened emphasis. “That self-knowledge is the highest aim of philosophical inquiry,” he wrote in the opening lines of An Essay on Man, “appears to be generally acknowledged.” 3 Cassirer perceived, however, [End Page 145] that the need for such an effort to be made had reached monumentally critical proportions: the early twentieth century had engendered grave historical and philosophical crises which threatened to reverse the progress of modern thought. Paradoxically, modern philosophy had many tools for attaining “knowledge of human nature” and yet stood farther from its goal than ever before. What Cassirer called “anthropological philosophy,” concerned as it was “with the whole destiny of man,” still required special consideration, in both its theoretical and its historical dimensions. 4 It was essentially to these twin domains that Cassirer would devote himself in his later years. The transformation of Cassirer’s philosophical perspectives thus had two facets. In order to outline his program Cassirer had first to consider a broader range of human activities than thought alone, from which he concluded that human culture consisted of a hierarchy of symbolic forms beginning with myth and culminating in science. However, he also felt compelled to elucidate the historical process by which these symbolic forms could progressively manifest themselves, and more specifically the individual human effort which was required for true self-knowledge. This he did principally in his historical works of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and with particularly profound results: from a historian of knowledge Cassirer became a historian of the will; from an epistemologist he became an ethical thinker; from an academic he became an exemplar of self-conscious moral action, a paragon of human autonomy and freedom. Indeed, in this endeavor he proved to be more thoroughly and fundamentally a Kantian than ever his theory of knowledge would reveal. I would go so far as to suggest that Cassirer’s history of the will was an integral part of his mature constructive philosophy. On the surface this history can be restated in the following terms. First, Cassirer insists on a fundamental opposition between the rationalism and intellectualism of ancient Greek philosophy and the voluntarism of the Judeo-Christian tradition, both of which represent in Cassirer’s view manifestations of a struggle in Western thought continuing well into the twentieth century. Second, he suggests that the historical task of Western philosophy since the first mature articulation of Latin Christian theology by Saint Augustine has been to liberate the individual human will from any and all forms of subservience. Such views are most forcefully expressed in The Myth of the State, Cassirer’s last book, but they actually constitute an essential and coherent element in all of Cassirer’s later work on the history of ideas and culture. Indeed, Cassirer’s history of the will provides us with a particularly keen and nuanced account of this essential Western legacy, while at the same time reading into it in Kantian manner a moral for the life of the individual human being. [End Page 146] In making such claims I am situating myself among...

Ernst Cassirer, Historian of the Will

Ernst Cassirer, Historian of the Will David A. Wisner ‘Tis not Wit merely, but a Temper, which must form a Well-Bred Man. In the same manner, ‘tis not a Head merely, but a Heart and a Resolution which must compleate the real Philosopher. 1 In order to possess the world of culture we must incessantly reconquer it by historical recollection. But recollection does not mean merely the act of reproduction. It is a new intellectual synthesis—a constructive act.... History is not knowledge of external facts or events; it is a form ... an organon of our self-knowledge, an indispensable instrument for building up our human universe. 2 Ernst Cassirer is probably best known to historians of ideas for his work on the problem of knowledge, which began with a neo-Kantian historical analysis of epistemological questions and culminated in the philosophy of symbolic forms. As he himself always admitted, even in his last public writings, this focus on epistemology was the foundation of his philosophical interests. Yet by the last two decades of his life he had in true Socratic fashion endowed his investigations with heightened emphasis. “That self-knowledge is the highest aim of philosophical inquiry,” he wrote in the opening lines of An Essay on Man, “appears to be generally acknowledged.” 3 Cassirer perceived, however, [End Page 145] that the need for such an effort to be made had reached monumentally critical proportions: the early twentieth century had engendered grave historical and philosophical crises which threatened to reverse the progress of modern thought. Paradoxically, modern philosophy had many tools for attaining “knowledge of human nature” and yet stood farther from its goal than ever before. What Cassirer called “anthropological philosophy,” concerned as it was “with the whole destiny of man,” still required special consideration, in both its theoretical and its historical dimensions. 4 It was essentially to these twin domains that Cassirer would devote himself in his later years. The transformation of Cassirer’s philosophical perspectives thus had two facets. In order to outline his program Cassirer had first to consider a broader range of human activities than thought alone, from which he concluded that human culture consisted of a hierarchy of symbolic forms beginning with myth and culminating in science. However, he also felt compelled to elucidate the historical process by which these symbolic forms could progressively manifest themselves, and more specifically the individual human effort which was required for true self-knowledge. This he did principally in his historical works of the late 1920s and early 1930s, and with particularly profound results: from a historian of knowledge Cassirer became a historian of the will; from an epistemologist he became an ethical thinker; from an academic he became an exemplar of self-conscious moral action, a paragon of human autonomy and freedom. Indeed, in this endeavor he proved to be more thoroughly and fundamentally a Kantian than ever his theory of knowledge would reveal. I would go so far as to suggest that Cassirer’s history of the will was an integral part of his mature constructive philosophy. On the surface this history can be restated in the following terms. First, Cassirer insists on a fundamental opposition between the rationalism and intellectualism of ancient Greek philosophy and the voluntarism of the Judeo-Christian tradition, both of which represent in Cassirer’s view manifestations of a struggle in Western thought continuing well into the twentieth century. Second, he suggests that the historical task of Western philosophy since the first mature articulation of Latin Christian theology by Saint Augustine has been to liberate the individual human will from any and all forms of subservience. Such views are most forcefully expressed in The Myth of the State, Cassirer’s last book, but they actually constitute an essential and coherent element in all of Cassirer’s later work on the history of ideas and culture. Indeed, Cassirer’s history of the will provides us with a particularly keen and nuanced account of this essential Western legacy, while at the same time reading into it in Kantian manner a moral for the life of the individual human being. [End Page 146] In making such claims I am situating myself among...

Od substancji do funkcji. Ernst Cassirer i pojęcie idealizacji

The German philosopher Ernst Cassirer is well known for his masterful historical works on modern philosophy and also for his philosophy of symbolic forms, but there is an aspect that has been disregarded by those scholars who dedicated several books and essays to Cassirer’s thought, I mean the difference between abstraction and idealization. The philosopher who, for the first time, developed systematically this topic in the field of epistemology was the Polish philosopher Leszek Nowak, but nonetheless, there are philosophical and epistemological works where we can find a very clear analysis of the difference existing between abstraction and idealization and, in this respect, the works of the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer are quite emblematic. It is very difficult to find in the literature on Cassirer some explicit analysis on this topic, so in this essay I will try, through Nowak’s conceptual apparatus, to explain the formation of scientific concepts in Cassirer’s view (especially by taking into account Cassirer’s critique of abstraction).