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Last edited by raybb
January 13, 2025 | History

Ernst Cassirer

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.

German philosopher (1874–1945)

Born july 28, 1874
Died April 131945

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  • Cover of: Kleinere Schriften zu Goethe und zur Geistesgeschichte 1925-1944 mit Beilagen

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  • Cover of: Kulturphilosophie: Vorlesungen und Vorträge 1929-1941

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  • Cover of: La Filosofia de La Ilustracion

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  • Cover of: filosofia dell'illuminismo.
    First published in 1952 1 edition

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  • Cover of: Langage et mythe: à propos des noms de dieux

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  • Cover of: philosophie des formes symboliques

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  • Cover of: Le mythe de l'Etat
    First published in 1993 1 edition

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  • Cover of: Le problème de la connaissance dans la philosophie et la science des temps modernes

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  • Cover of: problème Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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  • Cover of: Logos, Dike, Kosmos in der Entwicklung der griechischen Philosophie

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  • Cover of: Lo strutturalismo nella linguistica moderna

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  • Cover of: Nachgelassene Manuskripte und Texte

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  • Cover of: Philosophie der symbolischen Formen 3. Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis. Gesetze, Begründungen, Materialien.

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  • Cover of: Philosophie und exakte Wissenschaft: kleine Schriften.

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  • Cover of: The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 1:  Language

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  • Cover of: The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 2: Mythical Thought (Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Mythical Thought)

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  • Cover of: The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 3: The Phenomenology of Knowledge (Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, the Phenomenology of Knowledge)

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  • Cover of: Poznanie i deistvitel'nost': ponyatie o substantsii i ponyatie o funkstii

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  • Cover of: Rousseau, Kant, Goethe: two essays

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  • Cover of: Substance et fonction : Eléments pour une théorie du concept

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German philosopher (1874–1945)

Born july 28, 1874
Died April 131945

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January 13, 2025 Edited by raybb Edited without comment.
September 27, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot add ISNI
March 31, 2017 Edited by MARC Bot add VIAF and wikidata ID
July 17, 2015 Edited by vijay varadharaj About the author
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user initial import