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Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms: A Philosophical Commentary

Online ISBN:
9780300127171
Print ISBN:
9780300083316
Publisher:
Yale University Press
Book

Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms: A Philosophical Commentary

Published:
11 January 2001
Online ISBN:
9780300127171
Print ISBN:
9780300083316
Publisher:
Yale University Press

Abstract

This book—a commentary on Ernst Cassirer's Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms—provides an introduction to the metaphysical views that underlie the philosopher's conceptions of symbolic form and human culture. It 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. The book shows how these two principles of Cassirer's early philosophy are connected with the phenomenology of his later philosophy, which centers on his conception of “basis phenomena”—self, will, and work.

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