Ernst Cassirer

Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) 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.

Works

(in German unless noted)

• Kants Leben und Lehre, Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1918; 1921.
  • Kant's Life and Thought, trans. James Haden, Yale University Press, 1983. (English)

• Die Philosophie der Symbolische Formen, 3 vols., Berlin, 1923-29. 1. Die Sprache, 1923; 2. Das mythische Denken, 1925; 3. Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis, 1929.
  • The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. Ralph Manheim, intro. Charles W. Hendel, Yale University Press, 1953-57. 1. Language, 1953; 2. Mythical Thought, 1955, ARG; 3. The Phenomenology of Knowledge, 1957, PDF/ch 1, PDF/ch 5. (English)

• Sprache und Mythos – Ein Beitrag zum Problem der Götternamen, 1925; repr. in Wesen und Wirkung des Symbolbegriffs, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft WBG, 1994, pp 71-158.
  • Language and Myth, trans. Susanne K. Langer, Harper and Brother, 1946; New York: Dover Publications, 1953. (English)

• Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophie der Renaissance, Leipzig and Berlin: Teubner, 1927; Meiner, 2013, xiv+277 pp. [1] [2]
  • The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy, trans. & intro. Mario Domandi, New York: Harper & Row, 1963; repr., Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000. (English)

• "Form und Technik", in Kunst und Technik, ed. Leo Kestenberg, Berlin: Wegweiser, 1930, pp 15-61; repr. in Cassirer, Symbol, Technik, Sprache. Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1927–1933, eds. Ernst Wolfgang Orth and John Michael Krois, Hamburg: Meiner, 1985, pp 39-91; repr. in Cassirer, Gesammelte Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe. Band 17: Aufsätze und kleine Schriften (1927-1931), ed. Birgit Recki, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2004, pp 139-183.
  • "Form and Technology", trans. Wilson McClelland Dunlavey and John Michael Krois, in Ernst Cassirer on Form and Technology, eds. Aud Sissel Hoel and Ingvild Folkvord, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp 15-53. (English)
  • "Form and Technology", trans. Steve Lofts, Antonio Calcagno, John Krois, and Wilson Dunlavey, in Cassirer, The Warburg Years (1919-1933): Essays on Language, Art, Myth, and Technology, Yale University Press, 2013, pp 272-316. Trans. from 1985 edition. (English)

• Symbol, Technik, Sprache. Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1927–1933, eds. Ernst Wolfgang Orth and John Michael Krois, Hamburg: Meiner, 1985. TOC.

• An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture, New Haven, 1944. (English)
  • Was ist der Mensch? Versuch einer Philosophie der menschlichen Kultur, 1960.

• The Myth of the State, Yale University Press, 1946. (English)
  • Vom Mythus des Staates, 1949.

• Rousseau, Kant, Goethe: Two Essays, trans. James Gutmann, Paul Oskar Kristeller and John Herman Randall, jr., Princeton University Press, 1970. (English)

• The Warburg Years (1919-1933): Essays on Language, Art, Myth, and Technology, trans. & intro. S. G. Lofts with A. Calcagno, Yale University Press, 2013, 424 pp. [3] (English)

• More

Literature

• Carl H. Hamburg, Symbol and reality, studies in the philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956. (English)
• S.G. Lofts, Ernst Cassirer: A "Repetition" of Modernity, SUNY Press, 2000. [4] (English)
• Nils Röller, Medientheorie im epistemischen Übergang: Hermann Weyls Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft und Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen im Wechselverhältnis, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, 2000. Dissertation.
• Michael Friedman "Ernst Cassirer", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2004f. (English)
• Aud Sissel Hoel, Ingvild Folkvord (eds.), Form og teknikk – utvalgte tekster, Oslo: Cappelen, 2006. Related seminar. (Norwegian)
  • Ernst Cassirer on Form and Technology, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Introduction. Review. The book consists of the first translation of Cassirer's "Form und Technik" to English, followed by ten critical essays that explore its current relevance. Contributions from John Michael Krois, Aud Sissel Hoel, Frederik Stjernfelt, Hans Ruin, Jean Lassègue, Ingvild Folkvord, Marion Lauschke, Frederik Tygstrup & Isak Winkel Holm, Mats Rosengren, and Dennis M. Weiss. (English)
• E. Jolly, "Mythe et technique. Autour de Cassirer", Meta 2:1 (2010), pp 155-177. (French)
• Gregory B. Moynahan, Ernst Cassirer and the Critical Science of Germany, 1899–1919, Anthem Press, 2013, 278 pp. [5] (English)
• James Schmidt, "On Foucault’s Review of Cassirer’s Philosophy of the Enlightenment", Persistent Enlightenment blog, 2 July 2013. (English)
• More.

Bibliography

• Bibliography

Links

• Cassirer at Wikipedia