Books by Jrgen Habermas included inthe series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought ‘Thomas McCarthy, general editor Jurgen Habermas, wen Fac and Norms Cnt a Disease Thy of Lew aad Day Hage ater, ston and Apion: Remark on Disc Sign Habermas, On he Lape af he Sl Sie Tagen Hater, Te lane ofheOnerSus Pala Tory agen Hater he Erte Perf Sms: Pb Eo lige Haberma, The Now Canara Call Cr ade uae Sanger Heras, Th Philp Diz of Madi: Tak Lcs Jorgen Haber, Plonpi Plt! Pl: Toygen Haber, Pema Thnk Phophea sy ‘ge Habermas The Pratl Coma al syn ingen Habermas On he raga of Communion Siege Habermas One Pgs of ial to: Pinay ‘Sauk Toy of Coane At Sage Habeonae The Smal Psat he Pub phe An Inaguy ia Cage Bors See ge Haber er, etn Th Spel Sian The Liberating Power of Symbols Philosophical Essays Jiirgen Habermas translated by Peter Dews "The MIT Prese (Cambridge, MassachusettsFt MIT Pres elon, 2001 {Copy th arition ty Pres 200, Ft pb in {Germany Yom tices Fndrick sm ac a Aig ere Nou of his ok mye ode nay frm Sapna mn ig yn he te paine Liber of Coase: Caogag in Pubic Dats [Vor snten Each 2m sybobschen Ask Engh] The Hang power fol phlosop hal eye! serge Haber tare by Peter Dest MIT res cm (tues ncntemporry German scl hough) Incas hbegrapcal ferences (pais Content The ibe poner abe The coal of be — econ trainers the ther of hin in yA miter ‘der with bem ttl oe Aten, hee dos Snasterenon long” ~Convunctie Reem a epste TRenloge The fel ale who rn the beatdown TSH 0-22.0806.9 heal pape) S880 262 5205.8 (ps alk pape 1 Ply Tide. Sv Typeset in 1 3p Being Frater Great Bean by Terao, Padstow, Conuall Contents Preface 1 The Liberating Power of Symbols Erast Cusirer's Humanistic Legacy and the Warburg Library 2 The Confit of Beliefs Karl Jaspers onthe Clash of Cultures 3 Between Traditions A Laudatio for Georg Henrik von Wright 4 Tracing the Other of History in History (On Gershom Scholom’s Sabbatai Sevi SA Master Builder with Hermeneutic Tact The Path ofthe Phasopher Karl Ono Apel 6 Israel oe Athens: Where does Anamnestic Reason Belong? Johan Baptist Metz on Unity amidst Multicultural Plaality 7 Communicative Freedom and Negative Theology (Questions for Michael Theunissen 8 The Useful Mole who Ruins the Beautiful Laven The Lessing Price for Alexander Kluge Sources Index 0 46 78 uz 123 125Preface This volume brings together esays and speeches which were seriten for varius aceasions, But the themes L addressed as these diferent opportunities arose may be of more general Tn comparison with other philosophers oftheir generation, the works of Emnst Cassirer and Karl Jaspers have not yet found the echo amongst younger thinkers which they deserve. Inthe fist tw chapters Linvestgate the underlying Concerns which gave rise 10 their philosophies as a whole, tvith the aim of bringing out the contemporary relevance of thei thonght. By contrast, memories of the spontaneity of the grest storyteller Gershom Scholes ate stl so vivid that ‘only now are his weitings beginning to emeege from the Shadow of his unigue personality. The central motif of his thinkin s closely intertvined with the shimmering figure of the fale prophet Salata Sev Inthe remaining essays. T engage with friends and co Jeagoes, Here, too, my conversations are more with the ‘work than with the individual. They can be read as fragments ‘of a history of contemporary philosophy. Alexander Kluge, the peat theorizer among weters and film-makers, wil for- tive me for including him with philosophers, and even theologians. ha. Starnberg, March 1996 1 The Liberating Power of Symbols Emnst Cassirer’s Humanistic Legacy and the Warburg Library Fur oe Michael Kris, those adiowition Ish ck spd When the University of Hamburg was founded ater the First World War, Aby Warburg was able to carryout the plan he had long cherished of making his private library accessible to the public. The library became the focal point of en institute for interdsciplinary research in the human and cultural sciences, where students and visitors were able to work, tnd where university seminars and public lectures were held. Fora small circle of scholars concerned withthe study of religion it became an ‘organon of humanistic research’ as CCassirer was Iter to pti In fact, Emst Casirer was on of the fint to ive a leeure thee, The following entry can he funn the anal prof the Waar Liber fo 1921 written by Fitz Sal —2 The Liberating Power of Symbols ‘Professors Casey, Reiahardt, Rites, Wolf, kr, a Dr Panofhy are now constant were and patrons ofthe Libary. Iehas even teanpised that Prof Caserta lear tthe Hamburg Soviets for the Study of Religion (af which Prot Warburg was founder), has taken up ideas which were ker ute foreign to him, But stich be found hime “veloping sa esl of use ofthe Library Pra. Casier intend oexpand on thew ese in a major wk The is volume of Cassrer's Philaophy of Symbolic Forms Aid indeed appear two years later. However, the word of thanks to the Libeiry that appears in the preface to the Second volume, which is devoted t0 mythical thought, has {rather different emphasis: “The fist drafts and other preliminary work For this vom veer already fr advanced when through my cal Hamburg Tome into close contact with the Warburg Library eve t found abundant and almost iacomparale material in the fof mythology and general story of rel, and nis rangement and slocton, i the special nella stamp Ivhich Warburg gave revolved around » unitary central problem elated othe base problem af my ow werk At the beginning ofthat fist lecture in the Library, Casier Ina already spoken in sila terms “The auestion with which I woul ket ea. had already oncered ene over a log period, but now i seemed as though they tod embed before ead an over bel in Feling tat ths wat not merely a collection of books, bot wllecton of problems, Wess not the material ofthe {ibvary which irene eth way steonge thn the Iinpctof the materiale was that made By principles of ts ‘ngimiaton ‘The works which Warburg had collected belonged to many lifereat disciplines, but n Cassie’ view, they were 'con= nected to an ideal mile point. Cassirr eighth emphasizes the independence’ af bis own philosophical development But the interest hich Warburg and Cassver shared in the ‘The Liberating Power of Symbols symbolic medium of the humaa mind's forms of expression was the basis of their intellectual affinity “The books were divided into four sections and users ofthe Library were evidently expected to regard the hidden prin- ciple of this organization as an invitation to decipher the ‘theory which st implicitly embodied. Viewed in this way, the ordering of the Libary encouraged readers to reflect on the theory of symbolization. Indeed, the description of the present sate of the Library, which, since 1958, has been housed in Wabuen Square in London in an arrangement ‘modelled on the Hamburg orginal, reads a though inspired by Cassier’s philosophy of the development of symbolic forms. The wdeld of symbolic forms extends fom pictorial representation, vis verbal expression, to forms of orienting Iinowledge, which in turn pave the way for practice: The library was to lead from the visual image, asthe frst stage in man's awareness, co language and hence to religion, science 4nd philosophy, all of them products of man's search for “orientation, which ffluence his patterns of behaviour and his actions, the subject matter of history." Cassier also had other eeasons to feel at home in the Library, For it was quite astonishingly congenial to his inter- ‘ests and basic approach. (1) Cassirer could not help but be placed by the role alloted to philosophy; (2) the collection brticulated a notion af elture which mterested Caster from the epistemlogial angle; (3) furthermore, Cassirr discor- fred herein all ts breadth and variety the literature of the Renaissance, 4 literature om whose philosophical currents he had worked; (4) and finally, it was not hard for Casirer to dicern vital motif of hi own thinking in the nature fof Warburgs interest in the survival of antiquity in moder (1)_ As Raymond Klibansky reports, the philosophical material in the Library i fr from being structured 50 a8 10 feflect the status of 2 Fist Science; rather, philosophy is treated as a discipline amongst others, or i assigned 20 ‘other disciplines in 4 Foundational role? So, for example, ‘esthetics i assgned tothe history of at, this to jarspe. ‘dence, and the philosophy of nature to scientific cosmology,4 The Liberating Power of Symbols CCassirer could not help but recognize his oven conception of philosophy and his own way of working here. The lat twentieth century individual possessed ofa universal cultare, the author of books on Kant, Goethe and Einstein, Casier had acquited expertise in logic and mathematics, the natural and human sciences, and the histor of hteature, art and. ‘eligon. He knew that philosophy could oalyeetin ts inl ‘eace through participation in the specialized knowledge of the individual disciplines and through co-operation with them on an equal footing Cassirer wanted. to learn from the sciences His style sas fr from that of the trans cendental philosopher in search of sltimate foundations, who imapines himself to. be always one step ahead of ill empirial knowledge, Cassirer mistrusted the imperious ‘tude of prea philosophy, which imagines thas a univer Sal key, despises mundane knowledge, and obstinatly burrows into the depths from as narrow patch of round. Far more than with Heidegger, he agreed with Hegel, who believed that the depths of sist are only as deep as ite willingness to expand and ammerse itself in tmepretation’? (2). The Warburg Library also encouraged Cassie's Interests inthe sense that it represented the object domains ‘which are especilly challenging for an epistemology in the Kantian tradition, The Cringe of Pure Reason was of course Intended o explain how natural scientific owledge is poss ible, The historical sciences of culture only developed later, inthe cours ofthe nineteenth century. Caste realized that transcendental philosophy could not react to this act ofthe human sciences’ im the same way that Kant, in his time reacted to the fact of Newtonian physics. From a transcend! ‘tal standpoint, nature i constituted for us atthe same time ts the object domain of the natural sciences. But the human Sciences are concerned with cultural structures, which they find already to hand as pre-cientielly constituted objects ‘The concept of culture itself can no longer be adequately explained in tems of the constitution ofa coreesponding ‘domain of scientific objects Rather, the human sciences are ‘hemeelves cultural constructs, which they are able to turn The Liberaing Power of Symbols back and reflect on selfeeferentally, for example, in the form of the history of science. For this reason Cassirer's aim isnot that of Dilthey, namely to expand the critique of ‘pure’ reason int a eitigue of ‘historical reason. A philoso phy of culture is to take the place ofa mere expansion ofthe cope of the theory of knowledge Passing via the interpretive Schieverents of the cultural sciences, sch a philosophy will ‘Teach out to grasp the practical understanding of the sor the ‘conception of the world: and ‘forming of the world impli n cultural practice itself thereby throwing light on the symbolic generation of culture: Logic nds lf cnfronted with eatizely new problems, as san a0 tre to lok beyond the pure forms of knowledge {owords the totaly of spss form in which a conception ‘ofthe worlds articulated. Each of them ~ suchas language fia mth, rigion and art = now reves lf to be 8 dlsunctve organ for the undertanding of the word, sed tls forthe cretion of el word am organ which retains it peculiar eights songsde and over agana theoretically ‘norte sent kaowlege (3). Right from the beginnings of his scholaly carer, CCassirerhad embeded epistemological questions in histone ally specific cultural contexts Above all, starting with Nico- las of Casa, he had followed the emergence of the modern conception of nature in the Renassance. In. 1906, in the preface to the first volime of The Problem of Knowledge in the Philosophy and Seince of the Moder Age, he had declared that the new conception of natucal-scieniic knowledge had emerged from the confluence ofa variety of intlletual and cultural forces’; individual philosophical systems should always be related to the currents and forces of general intellectual culture’ fe was only twenty years later that this programme came to full fruition, when Cassier approached more or lee the same period and the same futhors fiom a. somewhat aiferent angle, in order to dlevelop the thesis thats was a new ethical selfconception tnd a new dynamic feeling forthe word which were the6 ‘The Liberating Power of Symbols decisive driving forces behind the new conception of natuce embodied in moder physics: “Anyone unable to Sense_within hime’ the heroic feeling of sell-asertion tna of limitless seléexpansion wil remain blind to the cos- ‘os and its infinity. This enquiry into The Individual land the Cosmos in the Renaiseace ss dedicated to Aby War bhurg on his sinticth birthday. Here it becomes clear what Cassirer owed to his ew envizoament: aot so much the content of his theses asthe nature and range of the Iistorical material which supports them. For now the con- steations hegin to speak, Caster derives philosophical ‘thought fom allegories ~ changes im the plulosophical co cept of freedom, for example, from the transformations of ‘the symbol of Fortuna: Fortuna withthe wheel which seizes Fold of man and spins him around, sometimes raising him high, sometimes plunging him into the depths, becomes Fortuna withthe sal ~ and is n0 longer she alone who steers the ship, but rather man himself who (now) sits atthe rade." (A). But sbove all, in the reflecting mirror of the assembled books, Casier encountered the hflong concerns ‘ofthe learned collector himsell Like many of his contem- Potarcs, who had also been influenced by Nietsche, War- ‘burg was interested in the retura of the archaic in modernity He tao was concerned with that constellation which proved sucha stimulus forthe avant-garde in painting and literature, pevchology and philosophy ~ Picasso and Braque, Bataille and Uesris,Frevd and Jung, Benjamin and Adorno. Like Benja- min’ "Arcades Project, Warburg's plan for an atlas which ‘would trace the lines of collective memory tenained unful- filled Under the keyword ‘Mnemosyne’ Warburg wanted to ‘use an ingenious montage of pictorial material to illustrate ‘the continuing hertage of expressive gestures passed down from antiguity. In these passionate gestures, tinged with something phobic and yet aesthetically resteuned, he de Ciphered archaic impulses, The Renaissance interested bin "sv the stage on which the drama of the re-awakening of pagan nti am antiquity now purged of ts demons, was played The Liberating Power of Syl 7 ‘The term ‘pagan world’ was Warburg's shorthand for that exciting ambivalence of enthralment and emancipation, of ‘otic anvety and orgiastic abandon, which lived on ia a ‘ublimated form in the gestires of European eathusasm “More than ever therefore, the Renaissance appeats in the Mnemosyne as 4 precious moment of precarious religious ‘equilibrium in which the sources of heathen passions were tapped but sil under contol" The forceat artistic creation, purged ts demons, clearly had an existential signsicance or Warburg, The ala project was o be introduced with the swords ‘The conscious creation of distance between oneself Gnd the extemal world may be ealled the fundamental act of lization, Where this gap condition artiste ceatity, ths Swareness of distance can achieve a lasting social Function." "This idea has striking resemblance to the fsndamental insight on which Cassirer « Philosphy of Symbalic Forms also draws, The idea also expresses a practical intention shih Cassie shares, and which he formolates in conceptual terme: the fact that sensory contact with the world 35 reworked into something mesningfal through the wse of symbols is the defining feature of human existence, and tlso constitutes, froma normative standpoint, the basic trait of properly human mode of being, In other words, the abjecttying force of symbolic mediation breaks the an imal immediacy of 4 nature which impacts on the argansea from within and without. it thereby creates that distance from the world shich makes possible a thoghthul, elect ively controlled reaction to the work! on the part of subjects ‘who are able to say no ‘Against a Lehensphiosophie bent on celebrating the spon- tanety of wonalensted Ife, which at that te had taken 09 politically virulent forms, Cassirer emphasizes the broken Character of our symbolic relation to the world, @ relation ‘which fe mediated by words and tools, He slso stresses the Inditectnes of 2 sllrlation which Forces human beings to sake a detour ia symbolically generated bjectfications in border to return t0 themselves: "The world of spit frst fmerges when the flow of life no longer simply” streams ‘onward. csshen life, instead...of consuming itself im the8 The Liberating Power of Symbols act of ving birth, gathers itself together into lasting forms nd sets these up outide self and before self? This Taking of distance i not, of course, the ascetic activity of spirit hostile lie (Scheer), which, a antagonist of the ‘Soul’ (Klages), irupts from without into a ‘fe blind to ‘leas Rather that intermedite domain of symbolic forms, ‘which the human mind weaves around itself, and through which it interpret itself, arises from process of “inner transformation and ceversal which hie experiences in isl? “This is the fundamental process of symbolization Language and at nth and theoretical knowlege all con- tiuteto,. the proce of mental dstancoion they ae the ‘majo stags on the path which leads fom the space of what ‘Si be grspd and fected, in which the animal lives and tsithin which remains conned, to the space of sensory ‘perence and thought othe horiaon of mand" {would now ike to show how Cassirer analyses this process of symbolization, which fist makes human beings into Fhuman Being, as occuring in the field of tension between ‘myth and enlightenment, and how he demonstrates ss rele vance for a semiotic reformulation of transcendental phil Sophy (I. We wll find that the problems snteral to this Construction suggest ceading of The Philosophy’ of Symbalic Fos from the standpoint of a theory of civilization ~ 2 reading which fist sete Cassrer's humanist inheritance in the correct light. [ain not referring here to that obvious inheritance from the Renaisance and. the Enlightenment ‘which Cassiver made hi own in many learned studies, but the humanistic legacy which his philosophy has bequeathed “The most obvious sesult of the intellectual stisulus which Gasser eecesved during the twenties, if not from Warburg hill, then from the scholarly discussions of zeligin in the The Liberating Power of Symbols 9 circle gathered around him nis ibrary, can be found in his important reflections on mythical images and Linguistic symbols. The orginal function of such images and symbols fs said to be both the control of affects and the creation ‘of meanings (I). These reflections throw a clearer light on the foundations of = philosophy of symbolic forms, ‘which emerged out ofan innovative reception of Humbold’s ‘Philosophy of language (2). Even prior to his Hamburg, ering, Cassirer had employed che philosophy’ of language tthe key to a semiotic reformulation of twanscenden tal philosophy” This allowed him to give the theory of con ‘cepts and the problematic of thething-in-iteel? 3 convincing formlation (3). (I), In 1925 there appeared a treatise on “Language and DMsth’ inthe series of sties published by Warburg Library, in which ‘Cossier (drawing primarily on H. Useners classic work onthe formation of religous concepts) dealt with the problem ofthe names of the gods. Here he analyses the basic proces of symbol formation more penetatingly than in the second volume of his masterwork, which had aby appeared Cassre’ am i to explain how, atthe Ihepinning of the process of anthroposeness, language and myth apparently emerge simultaneously from ‘the same basic act of mental processing, of the concentration and intensification of simple sensory intuition’. Language and myth are ‘two diverse shoots from the same pafent stem, the same impulse of symbolic formulation’ but, tm the ‘course of ther diflerentiation into a world of images and a linguistic world, they go in opposite dicections. Mythical images are a condensation of individual, meaning-laden impressions, which remain bound. to\ their original context, whereas in the medium of language individual cases are generalized into exemplary cases or into an atic Iated whole ‘Acts of symboization are distinguished by the fact that they break open environments shaped by the pects of ‘particular species Tis they do by tansforming acting fence impresions into semantic meaning and fixing them in such sway that the human mind can reproduce the10 ‘The Liberating Power of Symbols ‘The Liberating Power of Svmbuls u impressions in memory and preserve them. Thereby the temporal dimensions of past and future ae also opened up forthe human mind. Animal awareness of time stands under the dominance of the present: the pst is preserved only in darkness, the future not ase tothe level af a image, a something which can be antip- Sell Its the symbol expression scich ft erates the Frosty of lokingbahoard and looking forward What (ccured inthe past ow separated out fom the totality of fepresentatons, no longer pases away, once the sounds of langage hve plac he Sea pon and gen ein stamp In creating meanings which remain seidentical,symboliza- tion creates 1 medium for thoughts which can transcend the temporal steam of consciousness ‘Spmbolic form is thus originally generated by «stylzing force. which condenses the dramatic impact of experiences. Here Cassier makes use of Usener's theory of momentary ago’ fo account for symbolic condensation asa response t0 the exciting. ambivalence of meming-aden experiences, ‘Think ofa hl protecting someone from pursuit the water which saves a person dying of thirst, a sudden noise or wild “nimal which pounces‘on the solitary individual ~ of any Situation or abject which both repels and allures, which both arouses horsor and releases tension, which teas the soul back and forth between terror and attraction. Such Compressed, highly significant experiences, which are the focus ofan lating attention, can congeal nto a exythical image, cam be semanticized and thereby spellbound, sven fixity by a divine name which makes t possible wo recall and ‘ate them. Through the symbolic transformation of sense ‘experience into meaning, affective tension is both discharged ‘nd stabilized. Caster speaks of an almost violent separation fd isolation ofthe trang impression: ‘only when this spit ting of suceeds, when intuition i compressed into a single point and apparently recoced toi does a mytbical oe = fuistic structure result, only then can the word or the ‘momentary god emerge." OF course, not just any objective ‘Content af intuition can be condensed into the meaning of Symbal, but only those contents of experience which are slfectively relevant for a being which can hope and sue, ‘which has interests and concerns. This explains the ‘pasion Se character which Warburg discovered in primordial ‘expres pestures. ‘Yet if the process of symbolization amounted 10 no more than the speltbinding and condensing power to abjectify individual, meaning-laden experiences in mythical form, then the subject would remain caught in a world of images ‘The dialectal character ofsymbolization consists inthe fact, that it alo points in the opposite direction, towards an texemplary generalization and comprehensive ordering of the fixed expressions within an articulated whole As som a the spark has eat across, a oon asthe tension {nud the lfc of the moment have been discharged io» word ‘rina mythical imag, then a eversal can slat to occu with the mind.-Now proces of objectiiation can beain ‘which advances ever ther Ar the acy of human ergs ‘xtends aver an ever wider af, 9 a progresive subdivision deve more presse articulation of oth te mythical and the lingua world achieved" “The spel-binding tendency thet congealsitense experiences in specific forms it counteracted by the conceptualizing tenidency, which points towards generalization and specifics ‘Although language and myth have a common root inthe stratum of metaphorical expression, they are differentiated from each other slong the axes of the production of a ple ‘uae of mesning conveyed by images, on the one hand, and the logical disclonure of a categorlly articulated work, on the other. Language, which becomes the vehicle of thought, Conceal. logieal power and fee ideality” which are alien to ‘ayth. The mythical image stands infor the ‘obscure plenit- fode of being’ which only propositional discourse can eleas, by giving it linguistically accessible articulation’ Myth and.2 The Liberating ower of Symbls language ae a central theme of the philosophy of symbolic Forms because the basic concept of symbolizaton entwines ‘oso meuning-creating functions: expression and concept [Expression transforms forceful sense impressions into mean- ingful clement, individual mythical images, which are able to stabilize affective responses; concepts articulate view of the world asa whole In his analysis ofthe expressive func ‘on, which i unmistakeably inspired by myth, Cassie was simulated by the discusions sn Warburg's cece. But, as rena the linguistic function of world-dslesure, Casier ha already learned much fom Humbolit poe to his arival in Hamburg, The insights drawn from the study of religion helped to deepen conception which ultimately deaved from Cassirer's genuine insights inthe domain ofthe philo sophy of language. {2} _Casirer’ original achievement consists in a semiotic transformation of Kantian transcendental philosophy. ‘This achievement deserves to stand side by side with the transcendental turn which Wittgenstein ~ in is Tractarus Loge Philosophicus ~intoduced into Pregean semantics at around the same tine, Casier was the fist to perceive the paradigmatic significance of Humbolde’s philosophy of lan- ‘uae, and he thus prepared the way for ny generation, the post-war generation, to take up the Tinguitic turn in analy ‘ical philosophy and integrates with the nave tradition of hermeneutic philosophy. "The three decisive steps are recorded in 2 beiliant esay on “The Kantian Element in Wilhelm von Humbolde’s Philosophy of Language’ (3) 4 turning away from the traditional nomination. theory ‘of language; (B) a structuralist overcoming of the Kantian slualism of freedom and necesity; and [e) 3 new interpret ‘son of synthesis and objectification in terms ofthe theory of symbols. [@). In the philosophical tration language was always analysed in accordance with a model of naming or designs tion: we give names t0 represented objects, and thereby Contracts ajstem of markers which facilitates thinking nd rakes possible communication about thoughts and ides. But language, reared as a mem which ss only sub The Libra Power of Symbols B sequently introduced between the representing subject and. the world of represented objets, also falls under suspicion 38 ‘source of confusion. In order € grasp realty asi truly ‘we must pull aside the curtain of words which conceals being" By contrast, Humboldt conceives of language in a way which endows it with a disclosing function. Language nov becomes a productive force, through which the world initially revealed to the knowing subject: ‘Languages are hot in fact means of representing a qth which is tlready known, but rather, means of discovering what twas previously unknown"? Naturally, the reference to existing of represented abject: is an important function ‘oF language; but i distinctive productive achievement con= Sists in the conceptual articulation of 3 world of possible States of affairs. The analysis of language should not, there fore, take its bearings fom the role of names or iividual sword, but from the structure of propositions. In ths context Propasitions appear not asthe ‘copy of a meaning which is tlready ixed and given inthe consciousness ofthe speaker’ ‘but as vehicles for the conferring of meaning’, In other words itis only grammatical form which gives structure to ates of affairs Whats objective i] nthe pve, but that hich as to be ‘rom thr effort what deermnate ntl, ut that Ivhich i to be determined. inc thi ase process of deter Truman, seen from Linguistic standpoint, occurs tn Propositions, Humboldt’ philosophy of language empha Sires the primacy ofthe proposition ower the word ast 35 Kats tramcendental loge ezphusized the primacy of the judgement over the concept Guided by the model of transcendental logic, Humboldt describes the productity of language as a world-projec- ting spontanety~ He takes from Kant the notion ‘of the transcendental production of 4 categorlly structured ‘world of ‘objects of posible experience, in order 10 xplain the "meaningconferring function of language ‘The spontaneous process of world constitution 1 thus4 The Liberating Power of Symbols he Labsraing Power of Symbols 15 ‘wansfered fom the transcendental subject to a natural lan ‘guage emplayed by empirical subjects; the constitution of & slomain of objects is similarly transformed into the grarima- ‘eal pre-structuring of linguistically articulated world. The “ance form of language is the intial shaper ofa view’ ofthe world as a vshole. Whatever the members of « linguistic community may encounter in the world is accesible only i the linguistic forms of a possible shared understanding concerning such experiences. {h) OF course, Cassirer is not interested simply inthis nese conception of language. Above all, he is concerned to investigate how transcendental philosophy itself alters in the course of ite linguistic transtormation, with the aim fof making the ansformed transcendental approach also fruitful for the analysis of nen-linguistic phenomena Language is no longer limited to an instrumental roe, Dut acquires a constitutive status, so that its produc ‘uve energies appear to unfold a life of the own. Hence sign and meaning can no longer be assigned — as on the mentalisic model ~ to two different spheres, asi the representing subject connected 8. pre-existing immaterial iden with a matenal substrate, Rather the speaking subject herself nove becomes link in the process whereby symbol- ically structured forms of life and thought are maintained and renewed. The symbolic. medium has a structure Tshich embraces both the intemal and the extemal: "The world of the subject and that of the abject are no longer opposed to each other as two halves of absolute being rather it one and the same cycle of intel lectual factions which enables us, to-achiewe both the separa and reco conection (of subject and object}. The intersubjectvely shared domain of language, which i Doth energia andl ern, creative rule and eestion, possesses a dstinctive lind of objects: language pats is stamp on the awareness of speaking subjects and also provides them ‘with a medium forthe expression of their own experiences ‘Language is effective and autonomous from the objective point of view precisely to the extent that exploited and dependent from the subjective standpoint The contraven tion of grammatical rules reveals the stubborn reality of language, over which no one can claim contol as iF i \were private property; on the other hand, language does ‘ot imprison subjects, hut endows them with powers Of free productivity, which even include the possiblity of revising and creatively renewing the vocabulary of world isclosuce, “This notion of language implies more than just a new linguistic theory. By commandecring Kant’s notion of the transcendental, 30 to speak, and transforming the world-constituting activity ofthe knowing subject into the trorld-disclosing function of the transsubjective foe of language, it explodes the architectonic of the philosophy of consciouanese as 4 whole, Symbolic form overcomes the ‘opposition of subject and object. Linguistic productivity is tmnnmane to dualism both from a practical and a theoretical Sandpoint. On the one hand it is a ‘true creation of the mind’, and yet~ since iis not atthe disposition of the individual ~t sppearsto bea ‘product of nature. Cassie ‘onchudes: ‘Thus the basic opposition which dominates the fentie systematics of Kant’= thought seems inadequate ‘when i comes to defining the specificity. of the domain of Tanguage as a product of the mind'®" In short, the ‘new conception of language provides the bass for new paradigm, {At the same time, Cassicer seems to have undeees- timated the scope of these innovations, He retains a9 cpistemological standpoint in the sense that he interprets Tingustic world-dselosure on the model of the tanscenden- tal constitution of objects of posible experience. He asi ilstes Humboldt’s linguistic articulation of the world to ants constitution of a domain of objects of possible exper tence, He reduces both to the common denominator of the Categoria articulation of symbolically generated world Relying on an analogy with categoria synthesis, which fist endows the manifold of sense impressions with the unity of the objective experience of things, he also understands the Function of linguistic form in tems of “objectification. Ia6 The Liberating Power of Symbols The Liberating Power of Symbols av so doing. he exploits the ambivalence of the expression ‘objectification’; for we also use this term to describe the proces of externalization which characterizes the sensu fous, symbolic embodiment of an intellectual content: "What Kant describes a the activity of judgement is only rade possible in the concrete ie ofthe mind bythe media ing intervention of language, as Humboldt makes cleat Objectfcation in thought mest pass vie objectification in the sounds of language.” This interpretation isthe direct Ascendant of the theory of concepts which Cassie had already developed by 1910. In addition, it allows for an ‘logant reading of Cohen’s conjuring away of the ‘thing-in- inelt {3) Ever since Plato, conceptual systems have been fereatited logically n terms of genus and species, How- fever, the suggestive image ofthe te diagram encouraged the false assumption that concepts were the capes of struc tures, or of systems of essential connections, BY contrast, with this copying. function, Casirer stresses the is ‘losive faction of conceptual elaboration: concepts ae con- Structvely generated viewpoints, which allow us to being {disorderly mas of perceptual or intellectual elements {nto connection. Along with such points of reference for frdering, concepts create new possiblities of comparison, ‘which allow ever new relations between ike and unlike to emerge. After his semiotic tur, Cassirer explains this Pesspective-generating character of concept elaboration ‘with the help of the symbolic function (and comments tn it with the help = for example = of Frege's and Russel’ ‘nays of propositional functions"), fn this way’ he intes- fates Kants functionalstic theory of concepts withthe ides borrowed from the theory of language, that conceptval synthess is dependent on the unifying force of sins. The externalizing, objectconstituting force of symbolic systems finds expresion in the creative spontaneity of conceptval articulation Viewed fom this perspective, the awkward Ding sich bo csoppears — 4 aotion sshich suggests that the under- Standing, ini categorizing function, stamps is forms oa material which i given “in itself. The sense impressions ‘which call forth the act of symbolization are not ontically five, but rather 3 limit quantity which we are obliged 10 postulate, As soon as form-aving power is transferred fom the knowing subject to symbolic representation itself, it becomes clear thatthe dilference between symbolic form tnd that which can only be presented in the medium of symbolic form should nat be hypostatized into an ontic dis tinction, Represented objects can only come into existence ‘within the horizon opened by the primordial creative power ‘of symbolic representation. Outside of the symbolically {rounded relation between a linguistic expresion and what ie affirms, such an attbation of existence i strictly mean- ingles. Mw ‘Thus mythology and the theory of language are the two sources on which Casier draws in clanfying the nature of symbolization, and thereby the basis of a. philosophy Iunication’~ implies not only the relleive tempering of ‘dogmatic trth-claims, in other words a cogutive sltlimita- tion, but alo the transition to a diferent stage of moral con Sciousness, The boundles ‘wil to communication’ invoked by Iaepers is driven by a mora insight which precedes every thing which can be disclosed withiv existent communica tion. I-mean the insight that intercultural understanding“4 ‘The Confit of Beles an only succeed under conditions of symmetrically conceded freedoms, a reciprocal willingness to view things from the perspective of the other. Only then can 2 poitial culture tbevelop which is also sensitive tothe need for the institution- alization of appropriate preconditions of communication, ia ‘the form of human and constitutional rights. (Of course, Jspers was alert tothe fact chat hermeneutical insights have political consequences. He. perceives that reason, which tames fundamentalism, i but ato the com- rumnicative constitution of our socio-cultural forms of life Out of the logic of question and answer he uafolds a concep- ‘ion of truth and knowiedge which has pased through the filter of the philosophy of language. ‘The objectivity of knowledge is structurally dependeat on the intersubjective ‘conditions of its communicablty: “The answers which the world gives to ue questions take the form of facts,..the questions which the world pases to us take the form of situations, of the unexpected: Only human beings can tans form mute events into an interplay, by responding as though ‘communication were taking place"! Yet, a philosopher of existence, Jaspers was so obsessed with ethical selrunder Sanding, with ‘communication sn the domain of uncondi tional truths"? that he failed to exploit the normative resources of communicative reason in the domains of mor ality, law and politics Notes 1K laspers, Der philphcke Glebe anges der Ofer sg (Mimic Pipe, 1884), 9.7 Ie p37 KC spes, The Great Phisphers, Ralph Manhein (Lon- don: Rupert Hare Davis, 1962), 4K Jspers Schaling (Munich Piper, 1955. Der phosophsche Claube,p. 428, Ip 8 Jaspers, Vor der Wabi (1947) (Munich: Piper, 1991), Pte 8. Der phosophiscke Glaube,p. 208, 0 ut 2 a The Cont of Bie 6 Ibid, p. 110. Td 9 8 Von der Wala, p63. Tid 9.975, 1H. Eahrenbach, ‘Kommunikatve Veenunft~ en zentealer Besugspunkt zwischen Karl Ispers nd Jorgen Haber fn K.Salumun, eh, Kar! laser (Mrich: Pipe, 1991), 18-216,3 Between Traditions A Laudatio for Georg Henrik von Wright 1am delighted to have received this insitation from the University of Leiprig For ie honouss me with the opportun= ity to offer any personal thanks to Georg Henrik von Wright for ovat | ave learned from him over many decades. But how is one to praise someone who has already received so much praise, Honour someone who has so often received honours, appreciate a hody af work which has been appre ated so many times? On the occasion ofthis academic cle bration itis certainly appropriate to recall the outstanding achievements of Georg Hensk von Wright, which have ‘ecisively influenced the direction of both Continental and Angle-Stvan philosophy in the second half of this century But {would also like to investigate the ‘motivational back- round? without which, according to von Wright's ow the- fry, actions cannot be propeely understood. For after al pPhilosophizing ~ too - i oem of practice, Inovativeimpubes were already at work inthe young sco. lars dissertation, and n the weatises on induction and prob ability which emerged from st. Decades later, wellknown philosophers of scence were to engage with this fst text, in the vokume ofthe celebrated Library of Living Philosophers Sevated tothe mature work of the Finish philosopher, who Benosen Traditions a was nove work-famous. Aseutly as 1951 aponceringessay on tdcontic logic appeared Min, anessy which tracted inter national atention to this 35-year-old disciple of Wittgenstein, Inasplendid example of what Peirce called inductive imagina- tion, von Wright describes the sudden insight which he had as Ihe was walkingy the sveria Cambeidge, and which inspired his influential investigation. He suddenly realized that the