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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: Substance and function: and, Einstein's theory of relativity

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  • Cover of: Substance and Function & Einstein's Theory of Relativity

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

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  • Cover of: Symbol, technik, sprache. Aufsätze aus den jahren 1927-1932

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  • Cover of: Heinrich von Kleist und die Kantische Philosophie

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  • Cover of: Die Grundprobleme der Ästhetik

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  • Cover of: Antropologia Filosofica
    First published in 1999 1 edition

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  • Cover of: The myth of the state
    First published in 1983 1 edition

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  • Cover of: Izbrannoe: opyt o cheloveke
    First published in 1998 1 edition

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  • Cover of: Filosofija prosves c enija
    First published in 2004 1 edition

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  • Cover of: O my thos tou kra tous
    First published in 1991 1 edition

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  • Cover of: Zur Einstein'schen relativitätstheorie.: Erkenntnistheoretische betrachtungen

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  • Cover of: Gesammelte Werke: Hamburger Ausgabe

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  • Cover of: Naturalistische und humanistische Begründung der Kulturphilosophie

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  • Cover of: Philosophie der symbolischen Formen

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

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

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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