An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture

by Ernst Cassirer

One of the twentieth century’s greatest philosophers presents the results of his lifetime study of man’s cultural achievements. An Essay on Man is an original synthesis of contemporary knowledge, a unique interpretation of the intellectual crisis of our time, and a brilliant vindication of man’s ability to resolve human problems by the courageous use of his mind.

What the thinkers of the past have thought of the human race, what can be said of its art, language, and capacities for good and evil in the light of modern knowledge are discussed by a great philosopher who had a profound experience of the past and of his own time.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Cultural, Anthropology, Essays, Theory, Cultural Studies

250 pages, Paperback

Published September 10, 1962

About the author

Ernst Cassirer was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism in the first half of the twentieth century, a German Jewish philosopher. Coming out of the Marburg tradition of neo-Kantianism, he developed a philosophy of culture as a theory of symbols founded in a phenomenology of knowledge.

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cassirer sets out with an ambitious project: to show how mythology, religion, art, natural science, and history are all equally expressions of the symbol-making capacity unique to humans. Unfortunately his execution of this is sloppy and consists of stringing together many non-original ideas and observations. I picked up this book because I've been recommended Cassirer by various peers. Perhaps his major work Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is better; but that comes in three volumes, clocking out to about 1,500 pages. I honestly can't imagine how a philosophical work that long could be good, or at least I can't see myself spending so much time with a philosopher whose writing is of the quality found in this little book.

Cassirer's starting insight is that humans uniquely can use symbols to designate and describe objects; in contrast, non-human animals can only express emotions in direct reaction to objects in their environment. It is not just that we have a many symbols for many objects out there; rather, this symbol-making capacity is inescapable, and everything we can perceive and think of is mediated by symbols. Language is the key manifestation of this capacity. Language, moreover, makes reflection possible, which allows us to break free from automatic behaviors solicited by our environment.

This breaking free comes out nicely in the example of our relationship to space. For non-human animals, space is structured in terms of behaviors and needs that correspond to one another. Only objects that could satisfy an animal's needs will show up in space, and these will set the boundaries and depth of space. Even if a certain object lies, objectively, very far away, if could satisfy a pressing need, it will show up as close by. In contrast, we humans are able to use mathematical symbols to represent space. This allows us to conceive of space as consisting in uniform magnitudes, which hold independent of whatever objects fill it in.

The symbols that we live within have been developed over history, over the progression of our culture. Symbols will always stand for ideals and possibility, and in contrast, the individuals that they designate are actual. The more culture progresses, the greater the extent of difference between the possible and the actual becomes. To trace the course of this development, and thus the main structures of all of our current symbols, Cassirer proposes that we look to mythology, religion, art, natural science, and history -- precisely in that order. Cassirer asserts that these domains of culture mark the progression of our breaking from actuality and our exacerbating the difference between actuality and ideality.

In mythology, the world is viewed as in itself imbued with meanings that are imposed by our needs and behaviors. For example, the world itself is understood to systematically change into states of dark foreboding or light celebration, in correlation with the moods of the humans beholding it. In other words, there is no distinction between subjective and objective reality. This distinction isn't yet made because symbols that designate reality aren't yet developed in ways as to be distanced from our original, subjective reality.

Religion is a bit more distanced from original, subjective reality than mythology. Religion involves moral principles and social obligations that can go against our immediate impulses. Art involves not only an automatic response to or imitation/mimesis of reality (as myth and religion are). Rather, it involves discovering new features of reality, as natural science does. It involves creating new categories for conceptualizing reality, which changes our experience of it. This is a part of our developing the realm of the ideal, distancing ourselves from the actual.

Cassirer briefly sketches a theory of language that parallels this progression of culture. According to Cassirer, the very first linguistic utterances were purely onomatopoetic. When we have automatic emotional and gestural responses to objects, we take these to have a necessary relation to those objects. But there's a radical shift when we transition from emotional 'language' to our propositional language. The very functions between the two are categorically different; the former serves as an automatic response, and the latter serves as a reference to something in the world, which can be evoked voluntarily. We can only speak propositionally once we can overcome, or at least are not presently in, a purely emotional state. Cassirer does not develop this any further; he provides no answer to this question of how emotional language might develop into propositional language.

Cassirer gives similar superficial and unsatisfying accounts of natural science and history as further progressions in symbol-making. Nowhere does he address the most pressing questions: What is a symbol at all? Are we really further distanced from actuality, or do our "symbols" rather come to be sedimented in our very automatic perceptual world, so that they serve as the baseline of reality that is knowable to us? Moreover, his treatments of each domain of culture are cringe-worthy. I don't think, for example, that art should be understood in terms of discovery alone and as analogous to natural science. Sure, art involves "discovery"; but the forms of discovery in art are markably different than those in natural science (e.g., one is about drawing new narratives to understand our own lives, the other is about discovering patterns in mind-independent phenomena; there is no objective criteria for the former, but there is for the latter). Art involves much more than just discovery, too; it is basically expressionist, in the sense that we feel something nebulous within, and have the impulse to articulate it.

Cassirer throughout his book makes errors like this. He relies on very general concepts like "discovery," "symbols," "actuality," and "language," and nowhere defines them, so that they can be used to capture aspects of very diverse phenomena. This results in treating distantly related phenomena as if they are of the same category, and prevents him from getting into any substantive analysis of the phenomena he treats.

I would really recommend these other books to readers interested in these topics. These books does amazing justice to them, and anything insightful found in Cassirer is mere shallow echo of theories in these books. For understanding the symbolic nature of our human reality, look to Merleau-Ponty's The Phenomenology of Perception . For understanding what symbols are themselves, look to Goodman's Languages of Art. For understanding the relationship between diverse domains of culture, such as art and natural science, look to Goodman's Ways of World-Making. For understanding the nature of art, and its relationship to mythology and religion, look to Collingwood's Principles of Art.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've heard someone say his thought is unoriginal. I know nothing about that. This book is a mind-expander on too many levels. A must read for anyone concerned with language and art.

[Giovaennchen Lozano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este fue en su tiempo uno de mis libritos favoritos. Me gustaron mucho los temas tratados en él. Son una serie de ensayos recopilados de muchas conferencias impartidas por Ernst Cassirer. Son , para mi gusto muy claros. De los que más me gustaron fueron los que tratan sobre la naturaleza simbólica del ser humano. Sobre el papel del lenguaje en todo lo que el hombre hace y deshace de este mundo. También tiene unos conceptos sobre el entorno social, desde sus inicios. Y claro, su ensayo sobre epistemología y cómo los hombres adquirimos los conocimientos son muy interesantes. Hoy en día este libro debería ser de texto para estudiantes de preparatoria, como de 16 años en adelante, para que se les queme el cerebro y aprendar a leer cosas en serio. Ahora que ya quitaron la materia de Filosofía en las prepas, pero que hay otra sobre lectura y desarrollo de habilidades, ¡éste es un buen método para desarrollarlas!

[Lydia Van Calster · Rating 4 out of 5]

5/5 if I didn't have to write a book review about it lol

[Camilo Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Essay of Man" su título original en inglés. En este libro el filósofo alemán Ernst Cassirer despliega con una gran maestría un análisis integral de las múltiples dimensiones de la cultura humana. Retomando teorías clásicas de la filosofía y haciendo acopio de un gran acervo de literatura científica nos entrega los resultados de las más diversas investigaciones científicas y teorías clásicas sobre la la naturaleza biológica del ser humano así como las diferentes dimensiones de la cultura, la religión, el arte, la ciencia, etc. Es un gran libro que expone los problemas de una antropología desde el enfoque general e integral de la filosofía.

[Carla Gahyva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book ever.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a fairly rough read. Cassirer's book, though touted as philosophy, is more of a summary of recent (as of 1944) developments in the theory of religion, language, art, history, and science. Throughout, Cassirer advances his annoying optimism in human progress which can be summarized with this statement: "Human culture taken as a whole may be described as the process of man's progressive self-liberation" (228).

This enthusiasm is boring. The works of Marx, Cassirer, Darwin, and all liberals with a faith in human progress must be re-evaluated. Anyone who maintains a belief in humanity's ongoing self-improvement must blatantly ignore a great deal.

[Julio Mora · Rating 5 out of 5]

El libro busca explicar la naturaleza del Hombre a partir del significado del símbolo en la cultura. De esta manera, se describe cómo cada manifestación de la cultura define al Hombre. Estas son: mito y religión, lenguaje, arte, historia y ciencia.

[Izzy]

Am I stupid ? The jury’s still out unfortunately

[Ghala Anas · Rating 5 out of 5]

مقالٌ في الإنسان: مدخلٌ إلى فلسفة الحضارة الإنسانية – إرنست كاسيرر

كتابٌ غاية في المُتعة لمُحبي القراءة في الشؤون الأنثربولوجية والاجتماعية، جميلٌ وسلسٌ وثريٌ بالتساؤلات والأفكار، ولعله سيكون من كتبي المفضلة للغاية.
يُقسم الكتاب إلى جزأين: ماهية الإنسان، والإنسان والحضارة، ولكل قسم فصوله ومحوره الذي يدور حوله.
أما قسم ماهية الإنسان، فتحدث عن تعدد النظريات والفلسفات التي حاولت شرح الإنسان في ثباته وصيرورته عبر الزمن، فظهرت الأنثربولوجيات الفلسفية واللاهوتية والعلمية التي زادت من تشوش صورة الإنسان في عين نفسه، إلا أن الاتجاهات اليوم تشير غالباً إلى الإنسان ذي الرمزية التي يعش فيها وعبرها، ويتفلسف ويتعلم ويفكر ضمن إطارها وبعناصرها.
وتحدثت الفصول عن تميز الإنسان عن الحيوان بالرمزية المستندة إلى المعاني، مقابل الحيوان الذي يعيش في عالم الإشارات الحسي، الأمر الذي نجده واضحاً في بني الإنسان جميعاً، حتى ممَّن فقدوا حاسة أو اثنتين أو ثلاث، والذي نلحظ غيابه عند تعرض الدماغ البشري لأبسط خلل يؤثر على القدرات اللغوية (أحد الأنظمة الرمزية).
وفي هذا الصدد، يتقدم هيردر بنظريته في نشوء اللغة من تأمل الإنسان في عناصر محيطه والكليات المجردة التي تعوم فوقها، ويستشهد بالانتقال الذي يخوضه الإنسان في طفولته، من عالم الحس والإشارات إلى عالم المعنى والرموز، وبالعديد من القبائل البدائية التي تحتفظ لغاتها بالعالم الحسي الإشاري وتفتقر للماهيات والأفكار التجريدية.
وكمثال على هذا الانتقال، يطرح الكاتب مفاهيم الزمان والمسافة في انتقالها من العالم المادي إلى التجريد المحض، ويسوق فلسفة كانط في التركيز على قدرة الرمز على استكناه ما يميز الإنسان، واستنطاق قدراته الخلاقة والمبدعة، مشيراً إلى أن التمثلات الوظيفية للإنسان عبر التاريخ (كالدين والفن واللغة والأسطورة والتاريخ والعلم) على تناقضها وتفرعها واختلافها، إلا أنها تشير للرمزية ذاتها التي يحملها هذا الكائن، والقدرة الإبداعية المستمرة عبر التاريخ.

وأما قسم الإنسان والحضارة، فقد تحدث فيه كاسيرر عن مختلف هذه التمثلات الإنسانية، فتناول الأسطورة "كمرضٍ في اللغة" (وهذا أطرف تعبير صادقٍ قرأته في حياتي!) حملها إلى عالم مجازي ثري، يعبر بالدرجة الأولى عن العاطفة الإنسانية التي تولد منها الدين لاحقاً، فغدا معبراً عن الوحدة الكونية التي يرى بها الإنسان عالمه، وعن "تسيده" على الطبيعة حوله.
إلا أن منحى الدين كان مختلفاً، فقد ظهر الدين الثابت أولاً، والذي أخضع الإنسان لحكم الطبيعة، ثم الدين الدينامي الذي اعترف بحرية الإنسان في مصيره واختيار مسار الخير أو الشر، وعندها فقط تبدى رفض الإنسان لذاته ولغرائزه وبات يحول دينه إلى المنحى المثالي الأخلاقي، فارتفع الدين في المجاز حتى بات مجموعة من المفاهيم الرمزية التي قد تعني الكثير وفي الوقت نفسه لا تعني شيئاً.
ثم تناول اللغة التي أثراها الإنسان بالمجاز قبل أن يدرك أن الطبيعة لا تفهم مجازه ولا تقيم له اعتباراً، فنحى بلغته المنحى الطبيعي المنطقي، وراح يبحث عن أصلها ونشأتها ويفاضل بين اللغات المختلفة، وفي هذا الصدد يعبر الكاتب عن رفضه للأفضلية في اللغة، حتى لو اقتربت بعض اللغات من عالم الإشارات أو الرموز، فإن هذا لا يُقيم أي تفاضل بينها، ذاك أن الأهم هو تعبيرها عن أهلها وثقافتهم بصرف النظر عن المستوى "الحضاري" الذي قد يراهم فيه بعضهم، وركز على أن البحث في أصل اللغة يجب أن يأخذ في الاعتبار المشترك العام بين اللغات وأن يدع الاختلاف والتفاضل جانباً.
وفي الفن، تحدث كاسيرر عن تأرجحه بين الموضوعية والذاتية في التصوير، وعن هامشية الجمال في البداية، حيث كانت الأهمية الكبرى للقدرة التعبيرية، وعن النظرة الحدسية التي نرى بها عالمنا فيستحيل بسببها الفن الموضوعي، والتطهير للمشاعر الذي يحررنا مما نرغب فنملكه بالتأمل فيه، وتناقض المشاعر في العمل الفني الواحد، والذي يبيِّن قدرته على عكس العواطف الإنسانية المتداخلة حتماً.
وتحدث عن الفن الذي يتناول اللامحدود المجرد والبعيد عن العالم الحسي، وتميزه عن اللهو واللعب بتحريره الإنسان من رغباته وتنمية قدراته التعبيرية والخلاقة، وتقديم حقيقة مختلفة له لا يمكن لأي مجال آخر تقديمها، ذاك أن معيار الجمال الفني كامن في الجهد المبذول لفهم العمل الفني.
وفي فصل التاريخ، تحدث كاسيرر عن المناهج التأريخية التي تنظر وراء حوادث التاريخ فتكشف عن الدوافع الإنسانية المشتركة، وعن الإنسان خلف الفعل والعاطفة وراء الحدث، ما يجعل من المؤرخ صاحب حكم في عمله، حتى لو تحاشى ذلك، ففي النهاية نجده يقدم الوثائق المتتابعة للتدليل على الطبيعة الإنسانية، متسماً "بالصدق الشخصي" الذي لا يناسب غيره من الباحثين، ورغم ضبابية مفهوم الحقيقة التاريخية إلا أن كاسيرر أثبتها بذات الأثر والنتيجة، وذلك بصرف النظر عن حقيقة حدوثها أم لا، وبمعنى آخر، فإن كان لحدث ما أثر كبير على الإنسان، فلا داعي للتحقق من حقيقة حدوثه للتدليل على طبيعة الإنسان، بل يكون التركيز على أثره: "إن ما نبحث عنه في التاريخ معرفة ذواتنا لا معرفة الأشياء الخارجية".
أما في فصل العلم، فتناول الكاتب الانتقال الذي أصابه من التصنيف والتنظيم والتسمية والترتيب، ومن اللغة الحقيقية والجامدة والمستندة إلى التجربة العينية، إلى الفضاء الواسع للإمكان والافتراض والاحتمال والاستنتاج، أي إلى عالم الرموز الحتمي، والذي سيصل إليه الإنسان عاجلاً أم آجلاً في أي مسار يسلكه، فمن طبيعته الأصيلة أن يبني عالم الرموز في كل المجالات التي يبرع فيها.

في الحقيقة، الكتاب ثري للغاية ويحتاج قراءة متمهلة ومتأنية، ليس فقط لاستيعاب مادته القصيرة والمكثفة، بل للاستمتاع بطرحه الجميل والبسيط.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A work of philosophical anthropology in which Cassirer analyzes human culture in order to understand the human as a user of symbols. The book is organized into chapters in which the author analyzes various symbolic formations including myth, religion, art, language, history and science. In each chapter, he supplies a survey of the history of commentary on the subject, identifies some of the dominant ideas about it, as well as discussing some of the more problematic or controversial points.

In general, this book was not too demanding a read, although in the chapter on language I think Cassirer could have defined some of the more technical terms he employs. Of the different sections, I enjoyed the chapter on history the most.

It would not be a bad idea to have a little background in classical philosophy to read this one, as Cassirer quotes from and makes references to various thinkers including Plato, Kant and Hume, to name only a few.

Acquired 1986
Cheap Thrills, Montreal, Quebec

[William Vasquez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Como el título lo dice, es una introducción a la filosofía de la cultura. Sin embargo, esta introducción se hace a manera de resumen histórico de cómo ha evolucionado el estudio de diversos aspectos que conforman al ser humano y la cultura de éste.

El hombre es un ser simbólico. Todo en su mundo es simbolismo y es, aún más que la razón o el lenguaje, lo que le da la esencia al ser humano. Al contrario, estos (razón y lenguaje), son lo que nos demuestran la verdadera naturaleza del hombre como creador de símbolos. En resumen, puede decirse que es un nuevo nominalista; pero no un nominalista que trata de la naturaleza y ser de las cosas, sino de un nominalista de la interpretación del hombre hacia su entorno.

[Norah_alqurashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

كاسيرر جدير بالقراءة والتوقف عنده ومعه مرارا ومرارا كما أن ترجمة الدكتور إحسان رصينة تحترم القارئ واللغة.

[Harry Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.5/10 a bit of a slog. I find his philosophy pretty convincing it just took him 200 pages of musing to express a pretty vague idea of what it is.

[Michael Coutu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man, I love this kind of old-school "here's a theory of everything" scholarship. The problem Cassirer wants to solve is that we've lost some unifying notion of what makes humans human, and his answer is less a description of what we are and more what we can do. While animals merely have a stimulus response system, humans have a symbolic system, which allows us to think beyond the moment and organize information in a different way. This is how the various symbolic forms are united: it is a matter of function, not substance.

Myth is a feeling of oneness with nature, a kind of emotional closeness with it. Religion is the more theoretical version of myth which breaks this oneness and allows for moral responsibility to emerge.

Language begins as an animalistic emotional expression, but becomes the names for things, allowing for a more abstract ordering of the world.

Art is more than an expression of feeling; it organizes sense impressions in a way that intensifies them and shows us the "form" of things. It contemplates its objects, while science understands its objects.

History is a reconstruction of the past in the present, allowing for an expansion of self-knowledge.

Science replaces sense impressions with the language of mathematics, which is a language not of names but relations.

The final paragraph of the book is an excellent summary:

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 this process. In all of them man discovers and proves a new power—the power to build up a 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 does 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.”

Now, this was written in the mid-twentieth century, and has many of the downsides of that. It presents a survey of the scholarship in each field, and some of this scholarship feels quant, particularly with language and claims about animals and primitive humans. The dependence on empirical data is both a blessing and a curse; the curse is that the data goes out of date, and the blessing is that it manages to argue in a more than purely logical way.

It's not terribly long and is fairly well written. Everyone should read a book like this (a mix of old scholarship and keen philosophy) at least once.

[Cory Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of fun. His theory is the thing that makes us unique as a species and perhaps in this universe is that we are a symbolic creature. We can create conceptual representations of both the "real" and ideal. We through language, art, religion, and science take in our environment and can then not only recreate it but create it into something else. Into a symbol. Just so many pieces of fascinating insight here. I put sticky tabs on all my favorite parts and in a 240 page book I probably put 400 or something tabs. This book continues my dive into social theorists many of the mid 20th century. The book to this door was opened by other books and it certainly opened up a few more in its wake.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good snapshot in time of the humanities, but outdated due to the anthropology at his disposal, and personally I find this kind of philosophical anthropology very unsuited to our time. Many of the ideas will intrigue you if you're hearing about them for the first time (e.g. the Art chapter), but less so if you're familiar with who he's citing.

[Igor Capelari · Rating 1 out of 5]

Um desperdício de tempo. Esse livro é a prova de que uma boa pesquisa e uma boa escrita não salvam um autor que não tem nada a dizer. Só terminei essas insuportáveis quatrocentas páginas por custo afundado.

[ema · Rating 3 out of 5]

me esperaba algo mas sobre la relacion de los distintos campos de la cultura y como estos ayudan a hacer el hombre. pero es mas una historia de como la percepcion de estos campos fue cambiando y los temas centrales de cada uno, pero explicados de forma muy manual, no me gusto tanto.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vague and unfocused at times, and burdened a bit by some out-dated 'state of the field' discourse, nonetheless this is a servicable summary of Cassirer's anthropological perspective. The first half is better than the second.

[José Rcl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top filosofía, una maravilla. Evidentemente está obsoleto científicamente, lo que se nota sobre todo cuando habla de cognición animal. De lo mejor que he leído últimamente de filosofía, la parte sobre el arte y la ciencia y las comparaciones entre ambos son espectaculares. Te amo Cassirer

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

My copy had a lot of tears in it.

[Michal Wyrebkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doświadczenie z kategorii historii idei i tego jak mało dzisiaj (a co dopiero 80 lat temu!) wiedzieliśmy o mózgu, świadomości, języku i tak dalej… warto

[Toby Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cassirer leads us towards an appreciation of the modernist/scientific paradigm. Science and language are abbreviations of reality – language is small k and lends itself to sharing, testing, storing, and so on. Science depends on and builds with the abbreviation of language so as to get behind the surface of things, to break them down to their 'component parts', finally; it arrives at the language of mathematics: all denotation, no connotation – or so we imagine. And this works well in the areas of the complicated (or the apparently so), where the move gives us so much more that we can do to intercede and have an effect. But it misleads us if we imagine we can apply it to the world of complexity: to life, to emotions, consciousness etc.. The impetus and desire are there due to the success (the material success) brought about by physics/chemistry, but such knowledge comes at the price of killing what it analyses.

Big K knowledge is complex not complicated; small K is complicated except where it begins to mean, when it becomes nothing more than a gesture towards big K. So, prime STEM (sympathy; trust; ethics; mercy) is complex, sub STEM (science; technology; engineering; mathematics) is (apparently) (at Newtonian scale) complicated. In pursuing small k's efficacy beyond its rightful bounds, we evacuate beauty and complexity – i.e. human feeling.

[Viktoria Chipova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review: 5/5
An Essay on Man – Ernst Cassirer

A profound and intellectually stimulating work that bridges philosophy, anthropology, and the study of culture. Cassirer offers a humanistic and symbolic view of humanity, arguing that man is not merely a rational animal, but a symbolic one—shaped by language, myth, religion, art, and science.

The book is dense at times, but immensely rewarding for readers interested in philosophy of culture or semiotics. Cassirer’s clarity of thought and broad interdisciplinary scope make this a cornerstone of 20th-century humanistic philosophy.

In summary:
Insightful, elegant, and foundational. A must-read for anyone exploring the human condition through culture. 5/5.

[Mateusz Dembina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Po pierwszej lekturze eseju ma się wrażenie, że Cassirer jest w jakichś sposób odtwórczy. Zawiłości historii estetyki, epistemiologii czy ontologii czytelnika niewprawionego nudzą. Nie nudzi natomiast erudycja autora, lekki styl pisania jak na temat skoplikowany, wydawałoby się, odporny na formę przyjemnego czytelnictwa.

Dopiero przy drugiej lekturze doceniłem w jak przystępny sposób Cassirer przedstawił swoją wizję fenomenologii kultury. Wydaje mi się, że świadomość połączenia form symbolicznych - mitu, religii, języka, sztuki i nauki oraz innych, nie wspomnianych explicite przez autora jak na przykład filozofia sama w sobie jest naszym udziałem od jego czasów (zmarł w 1945r. na emigracji w Nowym Jorku), choć nie zdajemy sobie z tego sprawę tylko przyjmujemy to z "dobrodziejstwem inwentarza cywilizacji".

Polecam każdemu zarówno w wersji polskiej (z 1971 wg. Anny Staniewskiej) jak i angielskiej (tą musiałem zaznaczyć, innej serwis nie widział).

Lektura jest syntezą filozofii kultury z początku XX w. - opornie czytana najpierw, daje okazję do momentów zrozumienia, przy kolejnym czytaniu jeszcze lepsza.

[Gregory Nixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is THE greatest book on symbolic forms, written in compact, clear, original English. Our crossing of the symbolic threshold has forever put us into exile from the natural world.

"Yet there is no remedy against this reversal of the natural order. Man cannot escape from his own achievement. He cannot but adopt the conditions of his own life. No longer in a merely physical universe, man lives in a symbolic universe. Language, myth, art, and religion are parts of this universe. They are the varied threads which weave the symbolic net, the tangled web of human experience.

"Instead of dealing with the things themselves man is in a sense constantly conversing with himself. He has so enveloped himself in linguistic forms, in artistic images, in mythical symbols or religious rites that he cannot see or know anything except by the interposition of this artificial medium." (p. 25)

[Public_enemy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will not deny that there are some dull parts, especially in the second half of the book, and yet the overall impression is more than positive. The main theme is - man as 'Animal Symbolicum'. One of the most important aspects of human being is his ability to speak, to - communicate - and therefore to create human culture. To question the man, we must question his institutions. Cassirer lists following regions of human culture: myth, religion, language, art, history and science. It seems he doesn't see that language is the essence of all other forms of communication. And where is philosophy, economy...? Never mind. Although, this second half of the book was less interesting and structuralist method is not that original and new, I' m very interested in this field, so I will be looking for Cassirer's main work "The philosophy of symbolic forms".

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

"All that which befalls man from without is null and void. His essence does not depend on external circumstances; it depends exclusively on the value he gives to himself. Riches, rank, social distinction, even health or intellectual gifts--all this becomes indifferent. What matters alone is the tendency, the inner attitude of the soul; and this inner principle cannot be disturbed."
Such a great book that lead to much introspection. There is a chapter that delves into every imaginable facet of human life, from space and time, to language, to art, to history, to science, and then back just to silent contemplation.

[An-Nisa Nur'aini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last February my Philosophy lecturer shared two books for us to read. One by Alexis Carrel, and this one by Cassirer.
Such a book to deal with 'Filsafat Manusia' course and finish your 2nd semester gracefully


I'm also kind of fascinated by the story Cassirer wrote about Phadeus and Socrates when they're walking together, and Socrates then burst into admiration for the beauty of the spot, very delighted with the landscape. But then Phadeus interrupts with some words and add this one, "and I hope that you will excuse me when you hear the reason, which is, that I am a lover of knowledge, and the men who dwell in the city are my teachers, and not trees, or the countries."