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$16.85
1. An Essay on Man: An Introduction
$4.67
2. Language and Myth
$18.00
3. The Myth of the State
$38.00
4. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms:
$29.95
5. Continental Divide: Heidegger,
$18.92
6. The Problem of Knowledge: Philosophy,
$10.49
7. The Logic of the Cultural Sciences:
$49.98
8. On the Emotions (The Ernst Cassirer
 
9. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment
$36.91
10. The Symbolic Construction of Reality:
$19.43
11. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment
$27.95
12. Symbol, Myth, and Culture: Essays
13. Philosophy and History : The Ernst
$25.00
14. Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher
$26.10
15. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms:
 
16. Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer (Library
$28.75
17. Cassirer`s Metaphysics of Symbolic
 
$22.00
18. Ernst Cassirer: La vie de l'esprit
 
19. An Essay on Man: An Introduction
$58.99
20. Ernst Cassirer, von Marburg nach

1. An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 250 Pages (1962-09-10)
list price: US$21.00 -- used & new: US$16.85
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Asin: 0300000340
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Customer Reviews (4)

5-0 out of 5 stars A philosophy of Man as symbol-maker
Cassier born in Breslau on July 28,1874 graduated from the University of Berlin and studied at Marburg. He taught at Berlin and Hamburg until the Nazis prompted his departure from Germany in 1932. He taught at Oxford and then at Yale , and finished his career at Columbia.
He began his work in the field of Epistemology , writing 'The Problem of Knowledge' and then 'Substance and Function' These preceded the work he is most known form the three-volume 'Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.'
The 'Essay on Man' was the major work of the last period of his life.It is in a sense a summary and precis of his earlier monumental work.
In it he asks the question which is first and fundamental to Philosophy as he sees it, the question of 'What is Man?'
His concluding words give the flavor of the whole.They show how hetries to comprehend all major areas of human endeavor in one unified philosophical structure.

"Human culture taken as a whole may be described as the process of man's progressive self- liberation. Language, art, religion, science , are various phases in the process.In all of them man discovers and proves a new power-the power to build upa world of his own, an "ideal"world. Philosophy cannot give up its search for a fundamental unity in this ideal world. But it does not confound this unity with simplicity. It does not overlook the tensions and frictions, the strong contrasts, and deep conflicts between the various powers of man.These cannot be reduced to a common denominator. They tend in different directions and obey different principles. But this multiplicity and disparateness do not denote discord or disharmony. All these functions complete and complement one another. Each one opens a new horizon and shows us a new aspect of humanity. The dissonant is in harmony with itself; the contraries are not mutually exclusive but interdependent: "harmony in contrariety, as in the case of the bow and the lyre".

Here is a philosophy pervaded by faith in Man and the human future, a future still to be shaped by our own creative symbol-making power.

4-0 out of 5 stars The Next Step after Language & Myth
If you have read & enjoyed Ernst Cassirer's smaller to the point book "Language & Myth", this is the Next Step! "Essay on Man" is the fuller more advance version, with greater philosophical & historical detail than the pervious gem of a book. Don't worry, it's still easy to read. Maybe a little harder to read than Karl Jasper, but this is not Hegel's Outer Limits of personal idealist words. The most important historical highlights of human expression in language is written with clear insight that only Ernst Cassirer can do. I would consider this Ernst Cassirer's intermediate book with the classic "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" being his Opus. If I may suggest: start with "Language & Myth", than "Essay on Man", & finish with "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms".

5-0 out of 5 stars Unifies all the different embodiment of human culture.
This is by far the best philosophy of human culture. It unifies art, myth, religion, language, history and sciences in a coherent organism. Under the concept of the symbol Cassier brings toghether embodiments of culture thathave been thought to be opposite (such as myth and religion). His theory ofart is especially sharp and enlighting. A must read for any student ofsocial sciences or philosphy. One of the best systems of human culture.Down the earth, not like many other systems.

5-0 out of 5 stars man obedient to the society
man have the obligated to respect all the right by the state and commmunity he live in. there are some man who think that they have the right to their follow human body. ... Read more


2. Language and Myth
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 103 Pages (1953-06-01)
list price: US$8.95 -- used & new: US$4.67
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Asin: 0486200515
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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Analyzes nonrational thought processes, demonstrating underlying grammar; Indian philosophy, Schelling modern poetry, much more.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

5-0 out of 5 stars Great Read
I was unsure about this book as I had read Cassirer's book on Kant, which was excellent, but I disagreed with much of his interpretation. I prefer Heidegger's reading of Kantian philosophy - so I was little skeptical about how Cassirer would treat the topic of language and its origins in myth (or myth's origins in language). Couldn't have been more wrong. This is an excellent book that every philosophy or anthropology student should read. It's short - I read it in two or three sittings - but is dense with insight. There is a small nod to Kant, which is appropriate, in the beginning - and the density of his prose at times reminds me of reading the master himself, but well worth the mental effort. Basically, as the introduction states, Cassirer is interested in the relationship between the evolution of language and the evolution of myth. What he concludes is that myth is a pre-logical system that results much in the same way Kant concluded logic results in metaphysics. That is, language by its very nature presupposes a totality, a specific logical order that is constantly drawing relations and connections - and that myth reflects the tendencies of language to organize experience according to these structure - but - and this is the catch - within the framework of a "non abstracted" language. That is, a language that has yet to undergo the sort of mental abstraction that develops with the modern use of language. I have read other scholars who have drawn similar conclusions in regards to how words functioned in pre-literate societies, the power of naming (as seen in creation myths) and origins of language and man. Great stuff!

5-0 out of 5 stars Prometheus' legacy
Language is such a basic part of our lives that we little stop to consider its origins or the signifigance of those origins.

All the more reason for the importance of this book which anticipated modern anthropological findings about the nexus between language and religion over fifty years later.Though the book is by no means an easy read it was first on the scene in at least two important ways.

One, as mentioned, was its connection between language and myth in the first place.One only has to review the Wade book, "Before the Dawn" to see the truth of the thesis about the connection between religion and the birth of language (now dated to about fifty thousand years ago).

Two, like the later Lakoff and Johnson book "Metaphors We Live By" Cassirer was keen to observe the metaphorical structure of language by pressing pre existing cognitive systems into service for understanding more -- otherwise theoretical -- constructs.Unlike Lakoff and Johnson, however, Cassirer was working well before the advent of modern anthropology.

And additionally, the book gives some sense of the original revolutionary nature of language.Just as printing and more recently the internet would have powerful social impact, so language itself originally established a dramatic new matrix.

5-0 out of 5 stars Have Yourself a Paradigm Shift
How can such a small, easy to read, & to the point book reveal so much? Ernst Cassirer is a philosophical genius who writes to the common man without all the typical wasted German idealist wording. Help yourself to question the beginning, the history, & the continuing changes of how language & myth intertwine, & limit our human experience. Great starting book for the Philosophical beginner, & if you like this book, try Ernst Cassirer's other well written, but larger book: "Essay on Man".

5-0 out of 5 stars Not just good, but great reading!
My first book as a fledgling philosophy student was Cassirer's
work on the Enlightenment and I was in up over my head, but I stuck it out and learned a lot.So, when his book on myth and language came to my attention, I was familiar with the author and his reputation.I have not read the professional critiques on this work, but my personal opinion is that it is unique in every respect.I have not seen anything else that parallels the growth of myth (religion) and language as this does, nor have I seen anything that deals as effectively with the idea of epistemology that is quite apart from that of science and inductive probabilities.If you want to read what a brilliant man believes and substantiates about knowledge from a really different viewpoint, this may be the book for you.It is deep, but each page will grab you -- perhaps more than once.

5-0 out of 5 stars brilliant
This little book is a revelation in 99 pages. It is highly theoretical and while it is not an easy read it is not beyond the comprehension of a layperson either. Cassirer's arguments lead me to think about language and consciousness itself in ways which I never have before, but which seem so amazingly right that I experienced many moments of epiphany. This book is an excellent rebuttal to the argument that reason is the origin and culmination of human thought and that all myth is rooted in ignorance (take that, Carl Sagan). If you are interested in theories of mythology and/or theories of language/linguistics, this book is a must. ... Read more


3. The Myth of the State
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 303 Pages (1961-09-10)
list price: US$30.00 -- used & new: US$18.00
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Asin: 0300000367
Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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A great contemporary German philosopher attacks the explosive problem of political myth in our day. In this final work Ernst Cassirer shows how the irrational forces symbolized by myth and manipulation by the state constantly threaten to destroy the independent mind of civilized man. "A brilliant survey of some of the major texts in the history of political theory."- Kenneth Burke, Nation ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

3-0 out of 5 stars More Theory than Myth of the State
While Ernst Cassirer provides an illuminating analysis of the nature of myth in The Myth of the State, he never tells his reader what the western myth of the state is.Extrapolating from his analysis of Plato, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Carlyle, the racist Gobineau, Hegel, et al, what emerges is the unfolding of a theory of the state, not a mythos of it.The passionate and emotive elements of myth, which Cassirer brilliantly explicates about myth in general, are never made explicit in his analysis of the theory ("myth") of the state (except at the end when he discusses Nazism).If anything, these elements are subsumed in the content of his analysis.

Nevertheless, Cassirer masterfully explains much of the development of the western theory of the state through time. He hits on many of the salient thinkers and philosophical movements.Yet, inexplicably, some important thinkers seem to get short shrift comparatively speaking (e.g. Aristotle) and others scarcely manage more than a brief mention (e.g. Marx).Readers might find (what turned out to be) Cassirer's parting shot at Heidegger and the proto-fascist elements of his philosophy fascinating (Cassirer died in 1945 and The Myth of the State was published posthumously).Perhaps most intriguing is how Cassirer reserves most of his ire for Hegel, arguably making his philosophy most responsible for the intellectual underpinnings of the rise of National Socialism in Germany--an analysis not entirely unpredictable for a neo-Kantian like Cassirer to make given how, in the historical estimation of many, Hegel eclipsed Kant as Germany's preeminent philosopher.

Notwithstanding these limitations, The Myth of the State is worth reading. Cassirer's analysis of the development of the western theory of the state is evidently too sagacious to be missed.

2-0 out of 5 stars The myth of Ernst Cassirer
Can a book be both lucidly written, highly erudite and yet completely meaningless?

It seems that it can.

"The Myth of the State" by Neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer is such a book. The positive reviewers were obviously taken in by Cassirer's unusually lucid style of writing, and by his erudition, which is considerable.

And yet, the book never really delivers. It's supposed to be an analysis of the historic and philosophical roots of modern totalitarianism. Instead, it feels like a series of disjointed essays about pretty much everything. Subjects covered include the meaning and function of myth, the exact relationship between Carlyle and Goethe, whether or not Machiavelli really was Old Nicky, the Romantic criticism of the Enlightenment, the racism of Gobineau, and countless other subjects besides. However, Cassirer never manages to weave the strands together. Interestingly, he never mentions Marx, Lenin or Nietzsche, the usual whipping boys in books of this type.

Apparently, the book is unfinished and was published posthumously. I don't deny that it may contain this or that interesting reflection, but overall it feels like a non-starter. I suspect it's mostly of interest to scholars of Neo-Kantianism. Curiously, Cassirer (or perhaps his publisher) also expected the American audience to understand Latin and German (!), since all Latin quotations and some German ones are untranslated.

Unfortunately, I cannot give "The Myth of the State" more than two stars.

5-0 out of 5 stars Do States Have a Mythos?
This insightful book marks the end of Ernst Cassirer's career and suggests that his impact upon the social sciences will continue to grow.Perhaps this book's central feature is it's application of Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms to 20th century political thought.Beginning with a lean and incisive analysis of myth and culminating with an inspection of modern authoritarianism, Cassirer succeeds in marrying an understanding of culture with an analysis of political phenomena.Readers familiar with the Western tradition of political philosophy will find their background knowledge put to good use here, as the majority of the text centers around considering various mythic conceptions prevalent in Western political theory up to Hitler's Third Reich.Cassirer's approach, consistent with his other works, is to stress synthetic conclusions with comprehensive analysis.

The text can be divided into roughly three major section, each of which draws from Cassirer's previous work.The first major section is Cassirer's short exposition of his philosophy of symbolic forms.The reader is provided with several chapters identifying key elements of myth, including language, emotions, and social life.From this domain, Cassirer draws a general theory of culture, and a theory of myth in particular.His orientation to studying culture is largely operative, as he considers how myth functions emotively, cognitively, and socially.

In the next section, Cassirer approaches the question of the Western state's origins, particularly in relation to the Greek, medieval, and Renaissance traditions.All through reviewing major political theories (e.g. Machiavelli, Hegel, etc.), Cassirer applies his functional analysis of myth, noting how Western thought developed out of myth, but does not entirely escape its influence.The final section finds Cassirer considering the genesis of modern totalitarianism, once again by working through influential thinkers.Among these include Hegel's formulation of the State, Thomas Carlyle's hero worship, and Joseph A. C. de Gobineau's theory of racism.

The last chapter, entitled "The Technique of Modern Political Myths" will be the most fascinating for reader's familiar with Cassirer's other major works.Here we find Cassirer in high form: An advocate of Kant's Aufklarung in an uncertain world shaped by powerful, misunderstood forces of culture.Sadly, Cassirer passed away suddenly before this section could be completed.Still, the final note is resounding.Writing in an unusually strong tone about how to address the advocates and agents of political myths, Cassirer concludes: "We should see the adversary face to face in order to know how to combat him."In this task, Cassirer advocates that philosophy is our chief tool in understanding myth and that this task is necessary to advance self-understanding beyond even contemporary bounds. ... Read more


4. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 2: Mythical Thought (Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Mythical Thought)
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 388 Pages (1965-09-10)
list price: US$38.00 -- used & new: US$38.00
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Asin: 0300000383
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The Symbolic Forms has long been considered the greatest of Cassirer's works. Into it he poured all the resources of his vast learning about language and myth, religion, art, and science-the various creative symbolizing activities and constructions through which man has expressed himself and given intelligible objective form to his experience. ... Read more


5. Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos
by Peter E. Gordon
Hardcover: 448 Pages (2010-06-15)
list price: US$39.95 -- used & new: US$29.95
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Asin: 0674047133
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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In the spring of 1929, Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer met for a public conversation in Davos, Switzerland. They were arguably the most important thinkers in Europe, and their exchange touched upon the most urgent questions in the history of philosophy: What is human finitude? What is objectivity? What is culture? What is truth?

Over the last eighty years the Davos encounter has acquired an allegorical significance, as if it marked an ultimate and irreparable rupture in twentieth-century Continental thought. Here, in a reconstruction at once historical and philosophical, Peter Gordon reexamines the conversation, its origins and its aftermath, resuscitating an event that has become entombed in its own mythology. Through a close and painstaking analysis, Gordon dissects the exchange itself to reveal that it was at core a philosophical disagreement over what it means to be human.

But Gordon also shows how the life and work of these two philosophers remained closely intertwined. Their disagreement can be understood only if we appreciate their common point of departure as thinkers of the German interwar crisis, an era of rebellion that touched all of the major philosophical movements of the day—life-philosophy, philosophical anthropology, neo-Kantianism, phenomenology, and existentialism. As Gordon explains, the Davos debate would continue to both inspire and provoke well after the two men had gone their separate ways. It remains, even today, a touchstone of philosophical memory.

This clear, riveting book will be of great interest not only to philosophers and to historians of philosophy but also to anyone interested in the great intellectual ferment of Europe’s interwar years.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

5-0 out of 5 stars Exemplary and Fascinating History and Philosophy
Continental Divide is a fine book both as intellectual history and as philosophy. It centers around the famous debate between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer at Davos in 1928. (Davos has come down a bit in intellectually since then. Cassirer, Heidegger, et al have been replaced by bond brokers and Bono.) The topic of the debate was about the interpretation of Kant's First Critique, but it had implications concerning philosophical method in general, enlightenment rationalism versus irrationalism, and parliamentary liberalism versus anti-democratic nationalism in Germany. The time of the debate was that of the late Weimar Republic in Germany, when the democratic experiment of the twenties was beginning to unravel, soon to completely collapse and be replaced by Hitler's Nazism in the depression. Heidegger would not actually join the Nazis until five years later, but in retrospect the debate was seen as a prelude to the collapse of liberal rationalism into the maelstrom of Nazism. It also is seen, on the level of pure philosophy as the triumph of philosophy of life and existentialism in Europe over more conceptual logical approaches to method. (In fact the emigration of the Vienna Circle logical positivists after the murder of their leader Schlick, the death of many Polish logicians in the holocaust, and the death of the minority of French logicians in the resistance while Sartre avoided risk but later portrayed himself as a warrior of the resistance, also contributed to the decline of logical and linguistic approaches on the contintent.)

Many on the next generation of European philosophers were interested spectators at the debate. (Others falsely claimed or misremembered that they were present. Gordon unfortunately does not attempt a complete list. A few who claimed to be or were present, such as Sohn-Rethel are not noted by Gordon.) Even those who were not personally present, such as Leo Strauss, referred to the debate as exemplifying the collapse of liberalism.

Gordon mentions some extraordinary events at Davos surrounding the debate. One is a mock debate by the students. Levinas, then an uncritical partisan of Heidegger (doubts rose after the latter's allegiance to Nazism), played the part of Cassirer, because of his bushy hairdo (whitened with flour for the occasion). The most amazing thing about this incident was that Cassirer and Heidegger themselves were in the audience of the student satire of the debate. One wonders what they thought of it.

Gordon not only traces the historical and political reverberations of the debate . He also makes astute philosophical remarks about the actual positions of the debaters. One point he develops in detail is the issue of transition between mythic conceptions of space and the mathematical, physical conception of space. Cassirer developed this issue in detail in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 2: Mythical Thought (Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Mythical Thought), but Gordon, rightly, claims accounting for this transition was problematical for Heidegger.

Overall, this is an exemplary work both in history and in philosophy. ... Read more


6. The Problem of Knowledge: Philosophy, Science, and History Since Hegel
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 352 Pages (1969-09-10)
list price: US$24.00 -- used & new: US$18.92
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Asin: 0300010982
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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5-0 out of 5 stars a great book
i loved this book, and if you r interested, i recomend it ... Read more


7. The Logic of the Cultural Sciences: Five Studies (Cassirer Lectures Series)
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 190 Pages (2000-10-11)
list price: US$22.00 -- used & new: US$10.49
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Asin: 0300081154
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This translation of Ernst Cassirer's "The Logic of the Cultural Sciences" (formerly entitled "The Logic of the Humanities") makes the study available to English readers. ... Read more


8. On the Emotions (The Ernst Cassirer Lectures, 1991)
by Professor Richard Wollheim
Hardcover: 288 Pages (1999-11-10)
list price: US$61.00 -- used & new: US$49.98
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Asin: 0300079745
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Distinguished philosopher Richard Wollheim`s rich and thought-provoking account of the emotions considers what emotions are, how they arise in our lives, and how standard and "moral" emotions differ. Drawing on insights from literature, psychoanalysis, and philosophy, Wollheim argues that emotions form a distinct psychological category, not to be assimilated with either beliefs or desires. ... Read more


9. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment
by Ernst Cassirer
 Paperback: 366 Pages (1951)

Asin: B0018GOZYC
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10. The Symbolic Construction of Reality: The Legacy of Ernst Cassirer
Hardcover: 248 Pages (2008-12-15)
list price: US$45.00 -- used & new: US$36.91
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Asin: 0226036863
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In 1933 eminent philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945) fled Nazi Germany for the United States. His fame in Europe having already been established through a public debate with Martin Heidegger in 1929, Cassirer would go on to become a noteworthy influence on American culture. His most important early writings focused on the symbol and symbolic interaction, exploring how human cultures—from early myth-based ones to our own modern, scientifically oriented time—have used symbols to mediate the basic forms of experience. Following this work, Cassirer extended his insights to encompass a broad spectrum of philosophical themes: from investigations into Western epistemological and scientific traditions to aesthetics and the philosophy of history to anthropology and political philosophy. Reflecting this diversity in Cassirer’s own work, The Symbolic Construction of Reality collects eleven essays by a wide range of contributors from different fields. Each essay analyzes a different aspect of his legacy, reassessing its significance for our contemporary world and bringing much-needed attention to this seminal thinker.
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11. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton Classic Editions)
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 392 Pages (2009-08-10)
list price: US$24.95 -- used & new: US$19.43
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Asin: 069114334X
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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In this classic work of intellectual history, Ernst Cassirer provides both a cogent synthesis and a penetrating analysis of one of history's greatest intellectual epochs: the Enlightenment. Arguing that there was a common foundation beneath the diverse strands of thought of this period, he shows how Enlightenment philosophers drew upon the ideas of the preceding centuries even while radically transforming them to fit the modern world. In Cassirer's view, the Enlightenment liberated philosophy from the realm of pure thought and restored it to its true place as an active and creative force through which knowledge of the world is achieved.

In a new foreword, Peter Gay considers The Philosophy of the Enlightenment in the context in which it was written--Germany in 1932, on the precipice of the Nazi seizure of power and one of the greatest assaults on the ideals of the Enlightenment. He also argues that Cassirer's work remains a trenchant defense against enemies of the Enlightenment in the twenty-first century.

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Customer Reviews (4)

5-0 out of 5 stars Difficult But Profound
The historian Tim Blanning used the phrase "difficult but profound" to describe this book.Profound because of its insightful treatment of enlightment intellectual history, difficult because Cassirer employs a fairly technical and unfamiliar vocabulary and the often intricate analysis.This book, however, definitely repays careful reading.Cassirer believed in the Hegelian idea that the study of a period's philosophy allows definition of the distinguishing spirit of that period.Consequently, this is not a conventional chronological history but a thematic treatment of key areas.Cassirer treats the natural sciences, psychology and epistemology, treatment of religion, attitudes to history, what we would now call political theory and political science, and aesthetics.Each section is distinguished by Cassirer's remarkable erudition.In addition to analysis of major thinkers like Voltaire and Leibnitz, Cassirer discussion of now obscure thinkers to illuminate important issues.Another important feature is Cassirer's careful attention to the German enlightenment, particularly the intellectual tradition initiated by Leibnitz.

Several key themes run throughout all sections.One is the importance of reason which Cassirer treats usefully as the use of analysis. Very much inspired by the success of Newtonian physics, analysis is an empirically oriented investigation of natural, psychological,and social worlds, the description of the dynamic processes, and the search for mechanisms.As Cassirer remarks, "the power of reason does not consist in in enabling us to transcend the empirical world but rather in teaching us to feel at home in it".The emphasis on reason/analysis is accompanied by a heightened sense of human capacities and the possibility of real human progress.Cassirer distinguishes these features from both traditional religious dogma and the deductive rationalistic systems characteristic of 17th century philosophy.The ironic limitations of this approach are discussed well.Enlightenment psychology, for example, leads to Humean epistemology with its limitation of certainty.Cassirer is also very good on how the Enlightenment tradition will lead to new developments that would generate the Romantic movement, particulary the Liebnitzian tradition in Germany.Cassirer's ability to situate the Enlightment in historic context is just outstanding.He shows, for example, the links between Renaissance humanism and the Enlightenment are discussed concisely but insightfully.

This wonderful book also has a somewhat sad tinge.Published originally in Germany in 1932, it was written in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when these kind of ideals were under vigorous attack in Germany.Cassirer's sympathetic but objective treatment constitutes a powerful defense of enlightenment values.Within a few years of the publication of this book, Cassirer, the first Jew to be rector of a German university and one of the towering figures of German intellectual life, had to go into exile.

5-0 out of 5 stars Excellent Historical Overview
Ernst Cassirer's "The Philosophy of the Enlightenment" is an excellent historical overview of this period of intellectual history.He highlights the major themes that unite this diverse group of thinkers.I previously read and enjoyed Peter Gay's two-volume history of the Enlightenment, but I wish I had read Cassirer's book before Gay's.I would definitely have appreciated Gay's work more.I highly recommend Cassirer's work.

5-0 out of 5 stars First Rate Work by a Prominent Philosopher
Ernst Cassirer was one of the more important philosophers of the 20th Century, although his work is less well-known in this country than on the Continent.Cassirer was also a Kant scholar who wrote an influential biography of Kant "Kant's Leben und Lehre" (Kant's Life and Teachings).This book, written in the mid-1930s, but not available in English until much later, is perhaps still the best serious survey of the Enlightenment, with more emphasis on the German Enlightenment than we are used to seeing.(The term 'enlightenment' itself comes from the German word "Aufklaerung"). Unlike many of the more recent writers on the Enlightenment, Cassirer is sympathetic to the Enlightenment enterprise and does not have an axe to grind (Peter Gay and Lester Crocker come to mind).Although well-written, and the subject is interesting to anyone concerned about the growth of the modern world, this is not an easy book: Cassirer presents a more nuanced view of the Enlightment and the philosophes than even most educated readers are used to and the reader must actively think about the arguments presented.The effort is absolutely worthwhile.

4-0 out of 5 stars Classic Synopsis of Voltaire vs. Pascal
Yes! Amazing how the eighteenth century is still here today, in our many institutions and political ideals. Cassirer's heady analysis of the culture, debates and ideals of the time informs our current cultural mosaic, where rap lives side by side with the Lincoln Center. I especially return to his synopsis of the debate about faith in the XVIIIth c., that centers on Voltaire's attack against Pascal. When the thoughts of moral titans collide, the sparks endure. ... Read more


12. Symbol, Myth, and Culture: Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer, 1935-1945
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 304 Pages (1981-03-11)
list price: US$32.00 -- used & new: US$27.95
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Asin: 0300026668
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The papers in this volume of Ernst Cassirer's unpublished works give insight into the major issues that engaged Cassirer's interest between 1935 and 1945. Ernst Cassirer has been read and studied by generations of students, and in this book they will find illuminations, in a more informal voice, of the major themes in Cassirer's work.New readers will be introduced to the great issues that occupied the interest of one of the twentieth century's most widely read philosophers. ... Read more


13. Philosophy and History : The Ernst Cassirer Festschrift
by Ernst Cassirer Festschrift
Paperback: 363 Pages (1963)

Asin: B000H96Q48
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14. Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture
by Edward Skidelsky
Hardcover: 304 Pages (2008-10-27)
list price: US$35.00 -- used & new: US$25.00
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Asin: 0691131341
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars
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This is the first English-language intellectual biography of the German-Jewish philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), a leading figure on the Weimar intellectual scene and one of the last and finest representatives of the liberal-idealist tradition. Edward Skidelsky traces the development of Cassirer's thought in its historical and intellectual setting. He presents Cassirer, the author of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, as a defender of the liberal ideal of culture in an increasingly fragmented world, and as someone who grappled with the opposing forces of scientific positivism and romantic vitalism. Cassirer's work can be seen, Skidelsky argues, as offering a potential resolution to the ongoing conflict between the "two cultures" of science and the humanities--and between the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy. The first comprehensive study of Cassirer in English in two decades, this book will be of great interest to analytic and continental philosophers, intellectual historians, political and cultural theorists, and historians of twentieth-century Germany.

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5-0 out of 5 stars A Forgotten Scholar Worth Remembering
Ernst Cassier is a forgotten German Scholar worth remembering.His contribution is to "homo symbolicus" -- "man the animal who makes symbols/art." This book about him is an excellent introduction that puts him in the perspective of his times. -- Larry C. Randen ... Read more


15. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 4: The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms (The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms , Vol 4)
by Ernst Cassirer
Paperback: 264 Pages (1998-01-21)
list price: US$29.00 -- used & new: US$26.10
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Asin: 0300074336
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars
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This fourth volume of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, available now for the first time in English, fittingly concludes Ernst Cassirer`s magnum opus. At his death in 1945, the great twentieth-century philosopher left manuscripts for this final volume. In these writings Cassirer grounds his conception of symbolic forms on a particular notion of human nature and discusses Basis Phenomena. ... Read more

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4-0 out of 5 stars The 1st Volume of Ernst Cassirer's Opus
Ernst Cassirer is one of the foremost Neo-Kantian philosophers of the 20th century. This semi-easy to read book is the 1st of 4 volumes of his Opus about the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. The 1st volume deals with language, the 2nd with Mythical Thought, the 3rd with the Phenomenology of Knowledge, & the 4th with the Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms.

As most people understand western philosophical history, Plato was the 1st to make a systematic philosophical system which made the Ideal or "Form" of thought an Axiom of reality. This way of understanding reality created more problems than answers until Descartes came up with his Rational Axiom: "I think therefore I am", which many felt was an overstatement lacking Empirical experience. Immanuel Kant solved this problem with a Synthesis (Union) of the Rational & the Empirical. In other words, the human mind functions & understands reality in a certain rational way by uniting with common experience. Immanuel Kant came up with 12 different "Categories of Thought" which was based on Aristotle's Categories from an abstraction of language. Ernst Cassirier goes a step further in stating that the mind abstracts reality by use of symbols which are taught from certain historical cultural groups & as with the philosopher Michel Foucault, both reveal the disunity of modern science's methods & terminology. Unlike Michel Focault difficult book "The Order of Things, An Archaeology of the Human Sciences", Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is easier to read & focuses on the main issue of the human mind's use of symbols. This book requires a certain knowledge of philosophical history & terms, & is not for a philosophy beginner. For a start on Ernst Cassirier, try his smaller, easy to read, & to the point book "Language & Myth" for a taste of this mind opening philosophy. ... Read more


16. Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer (Library of Living Philosophers)
 Hardcover: 954 Pages (1979-06)
list price: US$59.95
Isbn: 0875481310
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17. Cassirer`s Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms: A Philosophical Commentary
by Professor Thora Ilin Bayer
Hardcover: 224 Pages (2001-02-01)
list price: US$42.00 -- used & new: US$28.75
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Asin: 0300083319
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This book—the first commentary on Ernst Cassirer's The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms—provides an introduction to the metaphysical views that underlie the philosopher's conceptions of symbolic form and human culture.

Thora Ilin Bayer focuses on the meaning of Cassirer's claim that philosophy is not itself a symbolic form but the thought around which all aspects of human activity are seen as a whole. Underlying the symbolic forms are Cassirer's two metaphysical principles, Spirit (Geist) and Life, which interact to produce the reality of the human world. Bayer shows how these two principles of Cassirer's early philosophy are connected to the phenomenology of his later philosophy, which is focused on his conception of "basis phenomena"—self, will, and work. Ultimately Cassirer conceives his philosophy as a form of the ancient Socratic quest for human self-knowledge, wherein the self makes its own nature through the power of symbolism to create the distinctively human works that constitute culture. ... Read more


18. Ernst Cassirer: La vie de l'esprit Essai sur l'unite systematique de la philosophie des formes symboliques et de la culture (Accent)
by S.G. Lofts
 Paperback: 180 Pages (1997-01-01)
list price: US$22.00 -- used & new: US$22.00
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Asin: 9068319620
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Editorial Review

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Le projet de la philosophie des formes symboliques d'Ernst Cassirer n'etait pas seulement de demontrer la structure et la fonction specifique des diverses formes culturelles (la langue, le mythe, la religion, la science et l'art), mais aussi d'etablir leur unite systematique et organique. Mais quelle est la nature de cette unite de l'esprit? Comment penser l'unite de l'heterogeneite, sans reduire la multiplicite des formes de rationalite de l'homme a une simple unite homogene et identique a elle-meme? Cette question est apparue aussi problematique pour Cassirer qu'elle l'est pour nous : meme la tentative d'une telle unification, ecrit Cassirer, rencontre une difficulte qui est due a la problematique et a la methode de notre investigation elle-meme. Dans La vie de l'esprit, S.G. Lofts nous engage dans une interpretation de la philosophie de Cassirer qui tente de lire celle-ci comme une forme de structuralisme avant la lettre, et ceci dans le but d'etablir l'unite systematique de la philosophie des formes symboliques et partant de l'unite dynamique et organique de la vie de l'esprit (Peeters 1997) ... Read more


19. An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy to Human Culture
by Ernst Cassirer
 Paperback: 294 Pages (1953)

Asin: B0007EK5MM
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20. Ernst Cassirer, von Marburg nach New York: Eine philosophische Biographie (German Edition)
by Heinz Paetzold
Turtleback: 240 Pages (1995)
-- used & new: US$58.99
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Asin: 3534118162
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