It looks like you're offline.
Donate
English (en) Change Website Language
Open Library logo
additional options menu
Last edited by raybb
January 13, 2025 | History
Edit

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.

Photo of Ernst Cassirer

German philosopher (1874–1945)

Born july 28, 1874
Died April 131945

157 works Add another?

  • Cover of: Philosophie der symbolischen Formen
    Preview

    Cover of edition philosophiedersy0000cass Cover of edition philosophyofsymb0003cass Cover of edition philosophyofsymb00cass First published in 1923 — 32 editions
    Read

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: An essay on man: an introduction to the philosophy of human culture
    Preview

    Cover of edition essayonmanintrod00cass First published in 1944 — 19 editions
    Preview Only

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: The philosophy of the enlightenment
    Preview

    Cover of edition philosophyofenli00cass Cover of edition philosophyofenl00cass First published in 1932 — 14 editions
    Preview Only

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: The individual and the cosmos in Renaissance philosophy.
    Preview

    Cover of edition individualcosmos0000cass First published in 1927 — 13 editions
    Borrow

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: The myth of the state
    Preview

    First published in 1946 — 11 editions
    Borrow

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Kant's life and thought
    Preview

    Cover of edition kantslifethought0000cass Cover of edition kantslebenundleh0000cass First published in 1918 — 10 editions
    Borrow

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

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

    First published in 1945 — 10 editions
    Borrow

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Substance and function, and Einstein's theory of relativity
    Preview

    Cover of edition substanceandfunc00cassuoft Cover of edition substancefunctio00cass First published in 1910 — 10 editions
    Read

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: The question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
    Preview

    Cover of edition questionofjeanja0000cass_q7k7 Cover of edition questionofjeanja0000cass First published in 1954 — 8 editions
    Preview Only

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Freiheit und Form: Studien zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte.
    Preview

    Cover of edition freiheitundforms0000cass_i4u1 First published in 1916 — 8 editions
    Read

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: The Renaissance philosophy of man
    Preview

    First published in 1948 — 8 editions
    Preview Only

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Descartes: Lehre, Personlichkeit, Wirkung

    First published in 1939 — 7 editions
    Locate

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Language and myth.
    Preview

    First published in 1946 — 7 editions
    Borrow

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit.
    Preview

    Cover of edition daserkenntnispr01cassgoog First published in 1906 — 6 editions
    Read

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Leibniz' System in seinen wissenschaftlichen Grundlagen
    Preview

    First published in 1902 — 6 editions
    Read

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Idee und gestalt.: Goethe/Schiller/Hölderlin/Kleist. Fünf aufsätze.
    Preview

    First published in 1921 — 6 editions
    Read

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: The problem of knowledge: philosophy, science, and history since Hegel
    Preview

    First published in 1950 — 6 editions
    Preview Only

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: Language and myth / by Ernst Cassirer ; translated by Susanne K. Langer.

    First published in 1925 — 5 editions
    Locate

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: The Platonic renaissance in England.: Translated by James P. Pettegrove.
    Preview

    First published in 1953 — 5 editions
    Borrow

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

  • Cover of: La philosophie des Lumières

    First published in 1966 — 4 editions
    Locate

    My Reading Lists:

    Create a new list

Photo of Ernst Cassirer

German philosopher (1874–1945)

Born july 28, 1874
Died April 131945

Subjects

Philosophy, Theory of Knowledge, Symbolism, Language and languages, Mythology, Civilization, History, Philosophie, Modern Philosophy, Connaissance, Théorie de la, Relativity (Physics), Renaissance Philosophy, Philosophical anthropology, Physics, The State, German Philosophy, Human beings, Humanities, Knowledge, theory of, Political science, Substance (Philosophy), Causality (Physics), Cosmology, Enlightenment, Free will and determinism

Places

England, Germany, Itália, Middle East

People

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811), René Descartes (1596-1650), Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), Christina Queen of Sweden (1626-1689), Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Freiherr von (1646-1716), Nicholas of Cusa, Cardinal (1401-1464), Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), Thomas Thorild (1759-1808), Aby Warburg (1866-1929), Axel Hägerström (1868-1939), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), Günter Braun, Jahann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832), Johanna Braun, John Chrysostom Saint (-407), Plato, Thomas Mann (1875-1955), ernst cassirer

Time

18th century, 19th century, 20th century, 17th century

Lists

Add to List

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list

ID Numbers

Links outside Open Library

History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON
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