To browse Academia. Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Gregory S Moss. A short summary of this paper. Pollok eds. The con- al Assistant for the journal «Studi Kantiani». An article on this topic is forthcoming on «Kantian Review». She is and world-formation and, ultimately, self-liberation.
She contributed to Inter- preting Cassirer, ed. A Novel Assessment, ed. Moss 1. Just as science contains its own mode by which it determines objectivity, so do myth and language possess their own autonomous modes of objectifica- tion by which they synthesize the manifold of intuition.
First, early in each of the three volumes of the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms Cassirer explicitly commits himself to the au- tonomy of myth, language, and science. Second, such autonomy is a necessary condition for explicating philosophical problems central to the task of developing a transcendental philosophy of culture.
The autonomy of each form consists in the mode by which it gives form to intuition. A cultural form is autonomous only if that form of culture pos- sesses its own unique and non-reducible mode of objectifica- tion2. A philosophy of culture that treats such cultural forms in an autonomous way evaluates such forms by an internal, rather than an external principle.
For example, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Hegel, and Leibniz among others are all figures of interest in this connection. For Cassirer, culture is itself a self-determining autono- mous system, which is not reducible to or explained in terms of some other form of knowledge beyond it. Autonomizing Culture One such formal problem concerns the interconnectivity of the autonomous forms. If each cultural form develops in total independence, then the goal of providing a system of culture is endangered.
In the former case, one fails to give an account of culture as a whole. In the latter case, one gives an account of the whole while sacrificing the autonomy of each form of culture. Although each cultural form instantiates a kind of symbol- ism, the quality of the symbol differs in each case, e.
To put it concisely, the symbolic form runs through each form of culture in a different shape according to the schema of the symbolic function. For instance, given that each form is autonomous, how can Cassirer posit a progressive account of culture, in which science is the highest form of culture and develops out of language? This is the form of Ausdruck or expression and is characteristic of mythological synthesis.
This is the form of Darstellung or representation and is the characteristic form of language and religion. This is the form of reine Be- deutung, or pure meaning and is characteristic of scientific synthesis. Accor- dingly, noting the place of a form on the symbolic schemata may not be sufficient for determining the autonomous function of each form.
Autonomizing Culture dition of German Idealism acquires greater clarity. At its very best, on the Enlightenment model, for those who are sufficient- ly educated and are in full possession of their rational faculties, the mythological mode of representation is unnecessary. Still, with the full maturation of the human being both individually and as a species , mythology is con- ceived as something that one ought to progress out of by means of the civilizing forces of education.
Accordingly, in or- der for human beings to become fully autonomous and rational agents, mythology ought to be eliminated.
Because mythology is conceived as a means of dominating and controlling people, the free and rational agent who has come of age in enlightened soci- ety demands the complete elimination of mythology.
One might be surprised to hear that in his second volume Cassirer is a critic of the enlightenment view on mythology. Certainly, Cassirer is a champion of science, which he views as the highest form of culture, in the sense that it is that cultural form through which self-knowledge can be fully realized.
And what is more, his praise for science is inseparable from his pro- gressive view of the human being and history: consciousness progresses into a scientific world view out of a mythological one. Because the mode of self-relation in the latter is less free than the former, the realization of human freedom in human history would demand overcoming mythological consciousness. Given these commit- ments, we ought to expect Cassirer to adopt a similar position on mythology as his predecessors.
Despite his sympathy with the Enlightenment, though, Cas- sirer holds that mythology is not mere bondage, but is itself a form of freedom or self-determination that is qualitatively dis- tinct from others, however incomplete it may be.
What is more, although mythology does impose a kind of bondage, its origins do not reside in an act of invention although in The Myth of the State Cassirer will introduce the concept of the manufac- tured myth in connection to National Socialism 7. For this reason, I am almost solely focusing on the 2nd volume of the PSF from the s where he discusses autonomy and Schelling in great detail.
Most significantly, against the Enlightenment, and the tradition on the whole Cassirer sees mythology as an autono- mous mode of culture and human consciousness. According to Cassirer, with the exception of a few thinkers, such as Schelling and to some ex- tent Vico , the tradition tends to interpret mythology allegori- cally e. Although the romantics attempt to re-establish the inde- Socialism, Cassirer re-visited the issue of mythology, and developed new categories of myth, such as the artificial and manufactured myth that is constructed according to plan.
In The Myth of the State Cassirer also focuses more intently on myth as an act of expressing and objectifying emotional states, which is one of the factors, but not the over-arching focus of his earlier work on myth. In Myth of the State the return of myth is identified as a violent condition that degrades human faculties and in which human beings eschew responsibility by seeking refuge in their collective identity.
On- ly we, spectators who no longer live and are in myth but who face it merely reflectively, read such differences into myth PSF II, 47 [47]. Like Herder in the philosophy of language, Schelling overcomes in his philosophy of mythology the principle of allegory; like Herder, Schell- ing turns back from the apparent explanation through allegory to the basic problem of symbolic expression. The allegorical approach to mythology does not take the im- ages, stories, and figures at face value.
Rather, they read them as having depth. Myth is a surface-structure that conceals and reveals a deeper, hidden structure. Likewise, we can read Achilles in the Iliad as an illustration of abstract moral truths about courage. Such allegorical readings may take various forms. Myth may be read euhemeristically in which mythology is attempting to provide an account of political and economic history, or it may offer a physical interpretation in which myth is read as a primitive attempt to explain nature.
Mythology is not allegorical; it is tautegori- cal. Despite the appearance of complexity introduced by the ne- ologism, a tautegorical reading simply takes the mythology at its word. Put more simply, rather than seek a hidden meaning behind the sur- face structure, it interprets the myths literally: when mythology speaks of Gods they mean Gods. Accordingly, the tautegorical reading does not even see the myth as superficial, for there is no deep structure, no hidden meaning, lurking in the waits.
Cassirer, following Schelling, accepts the tautegorical reading. Indeed, where the allegorical reading sees a fundamental differentiation between the image and the ideal content, the tautegorical reading sees a funda- mental lack of differentiation: the absence of depth means the absence of superficiality. For the latter, the allegorical mode of interpretation approaches mythology from the outside, and im- poses a differentiation upon it that is foreign to it.
Having made the distinction, we ought first to see why the al- legorical reading fails to treat myth autonomously, and second, why mythology ought to be approached tautegorically. If we in- terpret mythology allegorically, then we measure it by a princi- ple that is external to the mythos. For instance, on the physical interpretation, we might judge the truth of mythology by the extent to which it accurately explains nature.
Indeed, given that the methodology of modern natural science is more suc- cessful at explaining nature, we may justly infer that myth is an unsuccessful and primitive mode of explanation in comparison with science. Or likewise, if we judge the success of mythology by comparing it with the modern study of history, mythology cannot help but appear to provide not only a highly fantastical, but also terribly misleading account of the history of the human race.
By thinking about mythology allegorically, we fail to mea- sure it by a principle internal to mythology. Rather, we mea- sure myth by an external principle. Given the dominance of such frameworks, it is no surprise that myth struggles for recognition as an independent form of cul- ture see PSF II, x.
As Cassirer indicates, perhaps the most common way of de- termining myth in a heteronomous way is to explain mythologi- cal forms by appeals to psychological contents and dispositions. We are all familiar with such psychologically reductive stories about mythology, such as those by Freud. In his case, we ac- count for the thematic of incest and patricide in mythology by appealing to psychological instinct. Why reject the allegorical and thereby heteronomous read- ing, and further, why cease to view mythology as a kind of in- vention designed to deceive9?
As Verene points out, he also sees mythology as a form of intuition and life. Anne Pollok. Luigi Filieri. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. My edited volume with Luigi Filieri University of Pisa is nearly done! This revival was certainly boosted by the advancement of the Hamburger Ausgabe, in particular the Nachgelassene Werke und Schriften. Such a renaissance in Cassirer scholarship warrants a careful investigation into the methodologies and systematic significances of his contribution.
Our project aims to cast light on how, and to what extent, his approach to identify and criticize the various symbolic functions represents a constitutive method of discovery and criticism of all symbolic forms: from language to myth and knowledge, from religion to art and science. Such cultural forms share a symbolic origin whose constitution Cassirer describes in normative terms. Cultural forms are thus understood as the necessary expressions of the human spirit that result from the function of symbolic formation.
All symbolic forms are cultural forms insofar as they have been structured and determined according to a unique activity that cannot be reduced to its results. Said differently, if symbolic forms constitute human culture, these forms are in turn grounded by the same law of symbolic formation, albeit their constitutive idea is different.
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